journal 02: mallorca
Sunday, May 21st, 2023
August 28th, 2022
It rained for the first time since May. An unforgiving storm with fat drops and the boom of thunder that echoed between the peaks. Afterwards, an ultimate quiet as mist rose up around the houses on the hill. The relentless deluge and then the calm. Mallorca lives in extremes. Rugged yet peaceful. Mountains and coves. Palm trees and pines. It is impossible not to feel inspired here. The fearless embodiment of all that one is and the unapologetic ferocity in showing it.
I feel at home here. Something else with so many contradictions.
August 29th, 2022
I will remember the way Mallorca smells.
The pine. The newness of smelling pine in the heat, but there it is. Unmistakable. Commanding. This is how the trees looked dotting the sides of the surrounding mountains. There is strength to be found here.
The sun drenches the herbs and the warm breeze carries their scent through the valley. It is fragrant. Even the heat has a smell.
I think about my life. It is hard not to do at the foot of a dozen mountains. A quiet challenge floats on the hot breeze, through the olive trees and across the turquoise waters. Down the mountainside and on the back of the horse Galette who walks slowly across the field every night for dinner. It finds me and asks me to be bold. To be strong like the houses of stone that stand cooly on the mountainside. To be passionate, like the first rain in months, enough to raise steam from the earth. To be kind, like the herbs that accept the hot sun in return for their sweet fragrance.
I will remember the way Mallorca smells because it is an invitation.
August 30th, 2022
The owner walks out to us at sunset, right as the day’s final rays are about to disappear behind the distant peak in the field of dry hay. He tells us that this place is healing and I believe him. He explains that every two weeks our cells die and are replaced, so we must forget what happened a year ago, we must keep moving, keep healing, keep honouring these new cells. Something deep inside me stirs, or maybe it is a lot of little somethings, old somethings, ready to be let go and left in this bed of hay and rock.
Are we growing new cells between us? Or are we what will be replaced.
September 2nd, 2022
It is September now. Ringing in the month, literally, to the sound of the sheep bells in the mountain beside our villa.
I wake to the day’s slow start and walk down to the kitchen for tea. Kitty is there, ready and mewing for her bowl of milk. We don’t have anything else to offer her but she seems thrilled. I do some dishes in the sink that overlooks the olive tree. Ants are crawling in through the open window and I notice other larger critters that have found their way in overnight. I have a few bites on my ankles. A small price to pay for visiting their most special home.
I take my tea upstairs to the terrace where I write. There is still a light mist across the mountain, evidence of how slowly the morning lingers here. Wasps buzz around my cup and I hear the whirr as I watch a bird, wings pinned back, diving down into the valley. It is teeming with life. Life that carries on around you, without you and all you can offer is the gift of observation. Except Kitty maybe. She has learned to mew for her milk.
September 3rd, 2022
He likes to shape things into his own experience. Comparisons. The roads here are like the roads in Greece. The trees like in his hometown. Maybe this is how he makes sense of new experiences, how he feels comfortable with what is unknown. How does he make sense of me? That which does not want to be like anything else.
September 4th, 2022
The mountains measure time differently. Measured in slow mornings, the sun rising at last over the steady peaks. Measured by the life that fills the valley below- only the most courageous birds dive down and the most skilful sheep climb up. Measured by the gradual wearing away, the creation of a new landscape entirely. By trees that grow sideways, roots clinging to the soil, trusting to be held in place. And they are, even in high mountain winds. Silent forces slowly at work, an earthy magnetism.
I think the mountains would understand us.
