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It feels quiet, Paris. London is sunny from my bedroom on the barge and it feels quiet. I haven’t tested how it feels outside but I’m imagining it feels fresh and pleasant, and possibly not so quiet.

Tenderness fills my heart as my daughter is comfortably sleeping on my bed, after a day assez chargée yesterday, seeing Phil Porter’s ‘Blink’ performed brilliantly at King’s Head Theatre in Islington in the afternoon, after helping me move my stuff from my neighbour’s boat back onto my boat, clothes thrifting and book shopping, shawarma on the bus, and a hot drink with cake  before witnessing a tiring version of Bram Stroker’s ‘Dracula’ starring only Cynthia Erivo at Noel Coward Theatre in the evening.

The heating is working on both barges and I am appreciating my restful time being in one city, namely London, for a solid four-night, after my typical inspiring chaotic schedules, even if there seems to be so much to do each day still. I am being good and patient with my knee recovery following a hard fall right on the kneecap on the wet pier six weeks ago, meaning I’m trying so hard not to run, only doing gentle exercises at home and poetic walks in between errands.

It feels quiet, Paris, even with the aeroplane and ambulance noises and the banging sounds of the sides of the barge hitting the pier. It feels quiet even with the drums of the world being beaten so violently and so predictably, yet I guess it is not a quiet before the storm for ones who brave the wind constantly, who live every day and die once only. It feels like a gap between ideas and manifestations and I am trying to stay grounded and trust the process – what does that even mean? I am trying not to question if I am on the right path still.

Can one be on the wrong path when wishing only good things? Can one be on the wrong path wishing no harms on others? Is it enough – wishing and wanting? And which ‘others’ – is there only one? I feel that my questions about the world are no longer fake. Not because it costs thirty percent more to keep warm and cook compared to last month while salaries haven’t gone up for years. I feel that my questions about the world are no longer fake because my daughter is currently peacefully sleeping on my bed.

I’ve moved to the kitchen upstairs, made Sumatran coffee in the French press, having had to rewrite all the paragraphs above, which got lost due to a computer glitch on my travel through the red winding metal stairs, and watched two pink-footed Egyptian geese walk on the pier before flying and disappearing above my boat.

Smiling, and even chuckling, I wasn’t complaining about the loss of the written words, for as long as the essence is within me, and as long as I am free, I can still recreate them. What else is within me, that I can create and recreate? Could poetry be enough to liberate? Myself and others? And which others?

My daughter is now awake and an ‘I love you’ text from my son has just landed, and suddenly it feels like you’re just the icing on the cake, Paris. Are you? Are you just a representation of everything that I have become or are you my training ground because I am always becoming?

It feels quiet, Paris. Only little foams on the choppy surface of the deep river answered my impractical questions. My heart is walking its poetic walks while my mind is running its errands. My body is almost still, except for the movements my hands make – writing these few quiet words, wishing the storm never arrives.

londres, le 15 mars 2026

je t’embrasse !

d.o.