Ways to be alone without being lonely

The first winter here I ate dinner standing up. It took me two years to set the table for one, and another to light the candle.

Nobody teaches you how to spend an evening with yourself. You pick it up slowly, like a language, and mostly by getting it wrong in front of the mirror. These are the small rituals that finally worked for me.

How to Drink Coffee Outside in November

Wear the wrong coat, walk to the bench anyway, and hold the cup with both hands.

November is the best month for this and nobody will tell you so. In summer, coffee outside is just coffee. In November it is a small, stubborn act of defiance against the idea that the year is over.

The Road I Took Instead of Therapy

Eleven hundred kilometres, one bad saddle and no conclusions worth repeating.

The plan, such as it was, came together in about ten minutes. I had a free month, a second-hand bicycle and a problem I did not want to talk about. So I pointed the bicycle south.