ebb and the flow

After much scrimping, saving and begging everyone, I was able to go with 9 other friends on a nine-day trip to Spain. Fine, I did none of those but splurged way too much. (Peanutty Gang, where are you? I need some sane souls to stop me from spending.) It seemed easy enough: hopped on a plane, bussed from Madrid-Barcelona-Valencia and remembered hola and gracias.

To say the very least, those were nine days in pretend-heaven: chocolate-filled croissants, tapas, paealla Valencia, Parc Guell and the Museo Nacional Del Prado. Metro rides and cobblestone streets were a novelty, and intricately decorated cathedrals sat on every block.

Exhausting, a little too stressful; fun, nevertheless - fluctuating moods I had in Spain: exasperation and calm, exasperation and calm. And I have sat in front of my laptop long enough...wondering - how things would have been if sentimientos could be translated into palabras. I am word-impaired now. Pictures shall be on FB soon.

The English winter has now reared its mild, rain-drenched head again. For me, winter is less about an exact day on the calendar and more about the state of mind that accompanies it. Each season, somehow, invokes in me a new attitude. Spring, I have yet to experience it. Summer, a time of musical enrichment and self-searching; Fall, a season of death, as the days get shorter and trees turn to naked frames of their former selves. My inner reaction to winter is still based on seclusion for a few reasons: the reduced daylight and the inclement weather that keeps me indoors; the forced gaiety and commercialisation of Christmas now leaves me feeling morose.

Whatever it is - I no longer despair in the quickening dark, nor the forced jolliness of the holiday season. When I find myself feeling glum with the colder days and all they represent, I drown myself in one warm cup of water at a time, steeping a bag of Camomile and Spiced Apple tea for five minutes, or more flavour.

And so, I am more than a coffee addict; a tea snob, too. Perhaps, lifestyle isn't meant to be rigid like that. You just follow your heartstrings wherever they go, and you have got to accept the ebb and the flow.

Before I head off for Christmas at St. Alban, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, peeps!