Paris – The Sitting Duck

by Soren Dreier

On a beautiful sunlit Andalusian morning deep in the middle of November, eyes can rest on the calm blue sea. The view of the ocean came their earlier this week, so again the favorite hours of the day are the dawn. The city, the mountains are quiet and the dogs stopped barking.

When I got up, I noticed my sweetheart Katarina sleeping with a smile on her face. No sight in this world is sweater. She will get up in a few hours and she knows I treasure these early mornings without too much conversation. It is meditation and it is in a way – welcoming the new day. Somehow the routine has gotten sacred to me all armed with a good cup of coffee and a Chesterfield.

We have to find such moments and if we are into making a routine out of it, we can make it very self-empowering.

The silence is where we are.

In Spain however, they have it like the Flintstones. They have pets out in the gardens or courtyards for the night. Might be a clever thing – might not be a clever thing, since the most dominant sound in the night often is 50 dogs barking their heads off. I know people who gave up sleeping and moved into new neighborhoods, which seems like just taking a chance.

Get used to it?

We should not get used to sounds that really are annoying, since they still creep up on you.

People say, yes there’s a lot of road noise here. There a lot of railway noise here, but we’ve gotten used to it. We might keep the conscious annoyance at bay, but our nervous systems do not. There is a good reason that sound is a preferable tool if your main job is torturing people.

The sun finally conquered the mountains and the town is now, in this early time of morning, baking hot. The month says November – the Sun says 28 dg.

In the anomaly of things, Andalusia had in the 1.5 years I have lived here, the coldest winter in 50 years, which is bearable since the winter goes from the middle of January and roughly to the middle of March and it doesn’t go below 16dg in the daytime. Then came the hottest summer recorded, so we decided to stay in for roughly all of July to late August.

Avoiding the sun in the daytime, observing tourists, bravely or by stubbornness, taking it on in shorts and bikinis and after a few hours they more or less look like walking weird pink things. Most being English they resolve to binge drinking while being baked by the Sun and tempting the disco life of the city center. Well, we all have our pleasures?

Lighting Chesterfield no. 2, my thoughts went to the drama in Paris.

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Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat http://philosophers-stone.co.uk