Ups and downs

 

It's Monday evening, I'm sitting in the front room of the Payne's apartment in Moraira, looking at that view.  On the right is the silhouette of the Sierra de Bernia, around which we hiked on Saturday (more of that later). I've just been for a swim doing laps across the bay at the El Portet beach, before coming back for the end of the kids' online classes and my daily session reading Harry Potter (Goblet of Fire in case you were wondering) before bed. It can be hard to capture these moments.  There are many of them, new experiences everyday.

Last Wednesday we got up early and waved the Payne's off for their trip back to England.  We spent the rest of the morning moving from the bottom of one apartment block to the sixth floor of another, from where we have spectacular views of the Mediterranean (and did I mention free accommodation?).  We managed a quick dip before getting back to school. Virtual school starts at 9am in Ottawa, 3pm in continental Europe.  

There are highs and lows to any trip, and perhaps if you are prone to highs and lows in normal life, these can be worse when away from home and familiar comforts.  I don't know if it was the end of a very social seven weeks, and/or a little withdrawal from the overindulgence, but whatever the reason, this was a week of sleep disruption, anxiety, and I guess if I'm to call a spade a spade, depression.  It seems a cruel trick to be in a beautiful place, surrounded by your family, free of work stress and yet all at sea.  Even if you know intellectually that your brain is filtering everything through a dark cloth, and that it will likely change in a few days, in the moment, it can be horrible.  I've spent a lot of time mulling the difference between unhapiness and depression.  Happiness is not something I can achieve easily; more often I seek and find deep satisfaction.  But it's separate from depression, which to me is a chemical state, that dark filter.

So there's a sidebar, a reminder that for all the wonder, freedom, extraordinary experiences of this fantastic year off work, travelling the world, we are always with ourselves, and whatever we were then and there, we still are here and now.

On the unhapiness side of things, there was also a bit of that this week, mostly centering around that most modern of unhapiness-inducing phenomena, technology that's not working.  Ok, indulge me for another moment.  We arrived in England, got a new SIM, had a bunch of data etc., came to Spain, used wifi for online school in our first apartment, moved to an apartment without wifi, hotspotted virtual school, all good so far.  Then, my phone updated to ios15, my data needed renewing, my phone worked, the hotspot didn't, the phone company couldn't figure it out, it resolved itself, then we hit the "fair usage" limit, which I guess there was something written about in the fine print, somewhere.  No problem, we'll just buy a Spanish SIM at the grocery store, like you can all over England.  Not so simple. Spain has a rule about registering SIMs and seeing ID but it was ok as we had planned to go to Valencia and could visit the phone shop there.  But no, they wanted a passport, not just a driver's license, and these world weary travellers didn't think to take a passport.  A Monday morning trip to the next town, passport in hand, has resolved the problem and I am happy to say that throughout all this, the kids did not miss a minute of class.  Can't wait for in person, in France school next week. 

I have skipped over the weekend, which was amazing, so much so that I think I will dedicate a whole post to it, rather than have it all muddled in here with melancholy musings and maddening minutiae.  There is also the big news that we have booked a night in a mountain hut in Chamonix next weekend, exactly one night after we take over our new apartment.  It's the last night that the hut is open before the end of the season.  There really is no other reason to sandwich such a weekend exploit in between a full day of international travel and the start of a brand new school in a brand new country. But caution and sensibility didn't get us onto a round the world famly trip in the middle of a pandemic.