What to do

Every time I book a cabin getaway it feels as if I am switching out the playlist that helps colour my big city life. Instead of cars, trains, chatter and shouting, I hit play on this new selection, where I find the silence of the first few seconds before a song begins. With reverence I soak in the sounds of humming bugs, the odd crackle of a branch – but mostly, and most deliciously – silence.  Work and life has been hectic recently. Describing how I feel in this period I often refer to a cup that is always filled to the brim with water. Small things allow you to tip some water out from time to time – a funny series, a good glass of wine with friends, a small cry – but the volume of water emptied out through these things is minuscule; and by the morning, or two days tops – you find yourself bubbling near the surface once more. That’s why – when I saw an email from a company that specializes in cabin retreats just outside of Berlin to say that they had just launched a new location – I barely contemplated before booking two […]

Checking in, pandemic blues and escaping to nature to get away from the drudge of the city

Mostly it is runways of possibilities. But also it is refuge. Erected containers. Hobbled together by mean knuckles and oppressive fingers and sometimes where the blood has dried there is something man made, an awkward sterile white that is a bathroom but can also be home of which we are not the deciders. I know that in crowded homes sometimes refuge is the bathroom stall. It also has four walls, but the roof is open, and perhaps that’s what allows people to breathe. The sun has fallen asleep in this 35 degree afternoon, and Tempelhofer Feld is underneath its sticky body. It’s persistent though and people go round and round in the current of daily life. Sometimes the airport building is completely ignored. Circles skimming the edges skipping the contents of the field. From above we look stupid, and the motion makes us dizzy but, people enjoy disorientation.  The air is full of molasses. Which tips into the space. Onto the bikes and people—the disappearing flys on the canvas of this self contained world. They are baking. I can see the heat make waves atop the still blocks. But people persist in their movement because they demand freedom, even if […]

A reflection on the human desire to create stories and how that’s important to remember this holiday season, this 2021, and beyond.

Beekeeper, badass entrepreneur, and Barcelona bound. I talk to Amy, 29, from Los Gatos, CA about her unfortunately-timed move to a new city and how it led her to switch careers and embrace starting a business. We talk about submitting, making friends, strategy and more.