For This Day.

image created by MS Copilot

In our hotel room, the curtains hang, like two orange sentries guarding us from the world that lies beyond the glass. The air in the room is still and they stand steady and resolute.

As Claire sits on the bed reading her book, I am still. Gazing at the stark white ceiling, my thoughts are a mix of the week that has passed and of the day we have spent here in the ancient city of Valletta. I hold my coffee cup as it warms my hand, though my thoughts are such that I’ve forgotten to drink the brown liquid it contains. I take a sip and the bitterness as I swallow, brings me back to the present.

Music hums from my phone. It is not so loud as to distract Claire from her book, but just enough to seep through into my thoughts as Lady Gaga invites me to consider if I'm "happy in this modern world? ....or is there something else I'm searchin' for?"

Beyond the door, the small enclosed balcony feels like a threshold; a no man's land, an inbetween space, not quite inside nor fully outside either and, as my bare feet touch the tiled floor, the space feels 'still' - as though life itself is waiting for the next thing whilst also reflecting on the last.

I open the window and turn my head to the left. My gaze follows Strait Street down towards the sea and I lean forward, just enough to catch a glimpse of a narrow shimmer of blue at the foot of shadow and stone and I can't help but smile at the contrast.

The sky is cloudless. Endless. Untroubled and unfamiliar, as it contrasts to the grey February skies of home. Somewhere, unseen by me, the sun is setting and I think about how many beautiful endings I never witness and how much closure happens quietly, just beyond my field of vision.

Below, life continues effortlessly. The sound of conversation drifts upwards towards my window and I hear cutlery scrape and chime against plates as friends lean close, chatting across small metal tables, glasses clink and laughter rises and falls as the day grows old.

To the right, the stone streets twist and climb, worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. How many people have walked this way? How many have felt happy and hopeful? How many adrift or uncertain, thinking that their concerns and questions belonged to them alone? I get the sense these stones have held them too - just as they hold me now.

The evening settles gently, and from somewhere in the labyrinth of narrow streets, I hear the expressive vibralto of a violin. It's long legato bow is teasing out Frank Sinatra's "My Way" on its strings. The familiar melody pulls at my heart and feels like a comforting hand on my shoulder. As the light loosens its grip and melts into darkness, I stand in a kind of twilight. A place between movement and stillness, between the person I have been and the one that I am still becoming and, I find, that I am grateful for this day.