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Precisely at noon, Provence stops.
Not winds down. Not slows. Stops. Shutters click shut mid-sentence. Stores pull their doors closed with quiet authority. Schools release their children into the streets, backpacks bouncing, and then — stillness. A whole town pivoting, simultaneously and without apology, toward what actually matters.
There is a particular kind of grief that arrives before the loss itself — quiet, patient, standing just outside the door. It comes when someone we love begins to disappear not all at once, but slowly, the way a star dims before you notice it's gone.
I know this grief. I lived inside it for a long time. And now, the star has gone out…
I have a strange travel ritual. Before I research restaurants or museums, I search for races.
A 5K through medieval streets. A half-marathon along a harbor. A charity walk past monuments I can't pronounce. Doesn't matter. If there's one, I'm going. Not to run—God no—but to stand on some random corner in the final quarter of the route and scream my head off for strangers.
Specifically, I scream for Megan…
I know I'm staring, but I can't look away. This Frenchman is falling in love with a tomato, and it's the most romantic thing I've seen in years.
I came to Provence the week after my birthday—another one—with the unsettling realization that I'd forgotten how to taste my own life. My marriage had ended amicably (we uncoupled, stayed friends, all very evolved), but it still stung in ways I wasn't ready to name. Mostly, it opened up a question I didn't have an answer for: What now?…
I pick up a stone. It's cold and heavy in my palm, worn smooth by water and time.And suddenly I'm aware of a tightness in my chest, a familiar knot in my jaw. Fifty-odd years of intentions and resolutions are sitting on this stone with me. All those abandoned diets, failed promises to be a better daughter, the goals to release my creative side set with such hope and somehow... forgot…
Some mornings, I wake up and the weight of the world settles on my chest before my feet even touch the floor. The news. The rhetoric. The way scarcity and fear seem to be winning, inspiring people toward selfishness and harm rather than toward each other.
I know you feel it too—this heaviness we're all carrying. The exhaustion of trying to stay open-hearted when the world seems intent on closing us down.
My alarm went off this morning, and I am sitting here, waiting for the sun to rise.
I'm sitting in the cold, the wind blows my hair around, and I wonder how, despite sitting this way yesterday, I forgot to tie my hair back again. No matter. I try and nestle into the experience, but my head is already trying to make meaning of the day, of the questions, of the expectations that are formed without me even giving them any thought. And then the first ray of light gently puts her hand on me. I can feel it as warm as a grandmother's hand. And in that moment, as the sky suddenly turns golden and a great big red orb rises I not only feel that the moment is sacred. But that I am sacred too…
I am soaking in the sun in the garden where the flowers tumble from their trellis, one over the other, with little effort and great glory. They flirt with me, confident in their radiance and their right of place.
There is one bloom that seems to be reaching for me, and I am struck by how bold it is. Not just in its colour and form but in conviction; to bloom and to be…
Picture this: I'm sitting across from a pair of eyes that stare at me with the intensity of a coach in Bisbee, Arizona - this wild little town that refuses to apologize for anything about itself. The street art doesn't just decorate walls; it tells raw, honest stories that make you stop and stare. Cafes spill their aromatic promises onto sidewalks where the scent of freshly ground coffee mingles with the desert air…
There are lists for everything — books to read, places to travel, quotes that moved me, retreats to imagine, and questions to ask. Even joy has been organized. My weekly walk with Sue and her dogs. A night at the theatre. Gardening. Journaling. Slow yoga flows.
Each beautiful thing, slotted into place. I thought it was peace.
Then the lights went out.
Literally…
The other night, I attended a fascinating AI discussion and was introduced to some incredible tools—things that spark creativity, streamline work, and expand possibilities in ways we’re just beginning to understand. But as much as I was excited by what I saw, I kept coming back to a single, pressing question: What responsibility do we hold in how we use these tools?
The other night, I attended a fascinating AI discussion and was introduced to some incredible tools—things that spark creativity, streamline work, and expand possibilities in ways we’re just beginning to understand. But as much as I was excited by what I saw, I kept coming back to a single, pressing question: What responsibility do we hold in how we use these tools?
…As the session continued, I felt an unexpected discomfort creeping in. Strangely, it wasn’t the AI itself that unsettled me—it was the way the facilitator was using it.
The Queen Anne is swallowed by a heavy Scottish fog. Thick and gray, it blurs the horizon and grounds the tenders that were supposed to take us ashore. Plans to celebrate Ann’s birthday over cobblestone streets and cafe terraces have been swept away, replaced by an endless stretch of “waiting for the weather to clear.”…
The Rose Bushes are Speaking - Are You Listening?
I expected the vintner to be watching the vines.
After all, they were the prize, weren’t they? The gnarled branches twisting in perfect rows, holding the weight of the future in clusters of green. I thought he’d be checking the leaves, the soil, maybe plucking a grape and rolling it between his fingers like some kind of ancient wisdom keeper.
Instead, he was looking at the roses…
We were comparing lifestyles—he is a homebody, and I am a nomad.
“Why do you travel so much?” he asked.
I paused.
I hadn’t reflected on that in a while. Travel has become my norm—months lived out of one bag, bouncing between cities, always packing, unpacking, leaving just as the familiar starts to take root.
But why do I do it?
Because I know of no better way to do what I love most: fall in love…
