Last month, on the 8th day of the 8th month, I became 80. What a hilariously ridiculous number. I have always loved the number 8, seeing it as upright infinity. But to see infinity follow by zero strikes me as oxymoronic, extremist and basically impossible. How does one choose? Does one believe in the optimism of infinity or the abyss of nothing?

A blue-ink ballpoint and an upside-down, back-to-front notebook is a great reminder as to how much energy I spend getting things “right.”  As if anything falling outside my obsessive aesthetic vision just won’t cut it.

It was the day after our arrived in Mousehole that I gasped at the realisation that my linen-covered – by me, of course – journal and my tiny black Montblanc fountain pen with its wide nib and black ink was sitting back home in my garden shed.  Sakes-a-lordy.

Today is the day my brother was scheduled to have 10 teeth extracted, gums sewn up and temporary dentures put in.  Can you imagine? Who, in their right mind, at any age, would go for that?  Yet for nearly 2 months I was recommending my 88 year-old brother do just that in my desperate attempt to keep him alive forever.

I have a vague first memory of my brother, who I would discover – some 25 years later – actually wasn’t my brother.  I am in my high chair, looking up at him.  I am probably gleefully kicking my feet.  Certainly, I am smiling, wanting him to be as enchanted by me as I am with him.  I am one year old.

Christmas.  It’s come a long way, hasn’t it?  When I was a child, it was weeks of tradition and carol singing and anticipation:  Would Santa get my note?  Would he remember where I lived?  Had I been a good girl?  There was mystery and magic and waking up far too early to find presents at the foot of my bed and stockings hanging from the mantle and the house magically decorated with paper chains and pleated bells…and the tree, humbly adorned. No lights back then.  And for my brother and me, it was two days of happy family; an island of love and harmony and fun that the other 363 days of the year were completely devoid of. But the fact that it existed for two days was proof that it was possible.

A few days after I posted the previous essay, Home, we returned to Tuscany for the first time since we left nearly 3 years ago.  I’m not sure what I expected to feel upon arrival, probably a fanfare of feelings and emotions. What I wasn’t expecting was the matter-of-fact sense of deep connection and familiarity. Dormant for these 3 years, yet so easily awakened upon return. 

Yesterday evening we sat in the garden listening to the birds, and I thought, how interesting it is that I have landed in London, here in the winter of my life.  I looked at the walls of my garden and the surrounding houses and wondered how many London bricks inhabit just this one road, never mind the rest of the city.  I thought about all the brick walls of my childhood and felt myself running my hand over their mossy tops as I scooted home from school, and again, returned to my amazement that London is now my home.

I’ve come downstairs to the conservatory which houses the long table that serves as my writing and painting studio.  I came down with the intention of writing an essay about letting go, a phrase that I find both grammatically and psychologically fascinating.   

I’m sitting in the garden of our new studio, downstairs from where we live.  What a privilege it is to have a garden in the middle of London; to plant and weed, water and deadhead.  As always, this intimate connection with the planet gives me serenity and a sense of belonging, not to mention patience – a virtue I possess nowhere else in my life.