I am in Gale, sat upright and cross-legged on a wicker sunlounge. Beside me, water moves gently in a pool, shaped with the round asymmetry of a paint splatter, and though the Sun is too low to be visible, his light spills over the metal fencing, even this deep into the evening. There is so much life all around here. The sidelines of my vision are fizzing with fat ants and mosquitoes that come and go like the black specs in TV static and though animals throw chirps and calls from every corner, the spaciousness of the garden softens them before they reach me. This is not like the living things that a city busies itself with. This environment embraces an organic purposelessness. It is patient. The sunsets are slow, and the atmosphere is thick as syrup. Nothing in a city is without purpose because they were purpose-built and the space there is unendingly limited. Their song is an acapella of working, adult voices, with only machine whirs as accompaniment and I am so happy to be away from it.
Going away like this signifies a huge shift in my life and is a milestone for me. Only a few years ago, I was housebound and barely functional. I wouldn't drink from the kitchen tap because I convinced myself the water would poison me, I wouldn't open my windows because I thought men would come to kill me, I wouldn't even touch the TV remote because I wanted to be so far from other people that the idea of all those fingers on the buttons would disgust me. Leaving my house for 15 minutes just to go to the shop and back left me feeling shattered and the few days I did go to my college classes would exhaust me to the point of meltdowns. Every day I would cry and beg into the air and scream until I coughed flakes of blood into the sink. For basically no reason at all. I was literally a mental case, I am shocked I didn't end up getting sectioned. But now I am more than functional; I am able to get on a flight and come all the way out my comfort zone and feel calm in an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar country.