I went down a rabbit hole trying to decide what to write about today. The main things that have been on my mind of late are 1) the Suez Canal drama and 2) the collection of sci-fi short stories entitled Exhalation by Ted Chiang. They both took me into the depths of interesting and relevant content from the web, but probably not urgently necessary. 

Part of living abroad is that I am forced to confront my implicit bias every day. I approach my life with a mindset to me that seems natural, normal, and reasonable, yet I am confronted daily by people, practices, and reactions that are often very far outside my expectations. It’s good for me. It challenges me to be more patient, to worry less, to accept and relax. It also makes me extremely frustrated, sometimes in tears, and often ready to throw a tantrum like this panda and book the next flight outta here. 

This weekend I traded in the blue sea for green fields. I headed back to my second home at Anna Tasca Lanza where I've been working for the past four years running food education programs. It's a magical place, rural Sicily. Especially there on a family estate among vineyards, orchards, and the most luscious ornamental garden I've ever seen. I spent the weekend repotting plants, weeding the garden, and picking greens from the veggie plot. My nails are ruined, my lips chapped from the sun, and my hands raw from the dirt. 

When I was a child I was vaguely unsettled by the concept of colors. I understood that we were all looking at something and calling it red, but how was I to be sure that my red showed up like your red. What if what I was seeing as red, was the same as what you were calling yellow? Now that I’ve grown up a bit, and better explored the color spectrum, I know there’s no possible way we’re all seeing the same red.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on my roof recently. In Sicily homes are built with the summer in mind. Thick walls, small windows, and shutters keep the heat out. This means the warmest place in my home at the moment is outdoors. Sadly, my actual balcony with chairs and a table doesn’t get sun in the winter, so I’m forced out the side window to soak in the sun.

Last week I watched a Ted-Ed video that may or may not be geared towards children. Titled 3 Bizarre and Delightful Ancient Theories About Bird Migration, it is animated and narrated in a jovial tone. Don’t ask me how I stumbled across it, but the fact that I did goes to show that we have so much information at our fingertips it can be difficult to understand what to do with it all. (In full transparency, I do know how I found it. I was searching for sloth content and the birds were up next.) 

I arrived back in Sicily on Sunday night. It was cold, dark, and super windy. I left my apartment three months ago thinking I would be gone for two weeks, max. Luckily I’m fairly predictable and whenever I leave the house, even just for a weekend, I make sure it looks the way I’d like it to when I come home: clean house, clean sheets, clean(ish) fridge.

Yesterday we moved into a more permanent apartment after a month of hotel-apartment living. My experience in Berlin is coming after four years of living in Sicily and six in total in Italy. I've lived in eight different apartments over those years. (In my life, maybe twenty-ish different homes.) Showing up at the apartment yesterday, it was our first visit. We had seen the building and done a live online viewing, but we'd never stepped foot inside.

Yesterday we moved into a more permanent apartment after a month of hotel-apartment living. My experience in Berlin is coming after four years of living in Sicily and six in total in Italy. I've lived in eight different apartments over those years. (In my life, maybe twenty-ish different homes.) Showing up at the apartment yesterday, it was our first visit. We had seen the building and done a live online viewing, but we'd never stepped foot inside.

If you don't know, I was born and raised on an island. Most people find it quite curious that my whole family lives on islands: my sister in Hawaii, my mom still on Nantucket (where I was born and raised), my dad in Bali, and I am still primarily based in Sicily. Each of these islands has a very distinct feel and they are all very far apart. Yet, there are some similarities.

I snapped this photo right before it gets dark here in Berlin, which is around 4:15 pm these days. I was attracted to that skinny, light blue house in the middle. It warmed me up to see such a quaint house near those barren trees in the last of the winter daylight. I had noticed the red light earlier, but when it appeared in the photo so prominently, I had to take a second look.

That picture right there up top, that's a photo of where I live in Sicily. I don't happen to be there at the moment and I'm really missing that calm sea and those year-round blue skies. Outside my current window is a very grey, very quiet, and very cold city: Berlin.

Now that the pressure of the first Monday of a new year is off, I decided to reach out and say hi! Welcome to 2021 and hello from me, Henna!