Easter snow

It snowed on Easter Sunday, and it snowed today. In fact, I think outside it is still drizzling with snow. No white Christmas, as it should be, but a white Easter, as it unexpectedly is.

Over the long Easter weekend I finally had the time to rest and catch up on my sleep. Ever since I got back to the Netherlands, I have been working almost non-stop every single day. I did not even have the time to unpack my suitcase, and I was off to work again. So what a relief that I could have a few days to sleep in and slowly get accustomed to the time difference.

People ask me how I am feeling, and to be honest I am not sure. I am... content. I am just moving from moment to moment and still carrying on with life doing the best that I can with what I have. Nothing less. Nothing more. Work really is taking a lot of my time. Today, for example, I went in at around nine in the morning, sat down, and worked and worked till eight in the evening. No time to eat, no time to go out for a breath of fresh air... just work, work, work... answering emails, making phone calls, writing letters, stuffing envelops, planning events... Thank goodness my colleagues and assistants were there, or else I would have lost it.

So I come home every day, feeling already very tired that the only thing I want to do is lie down and sleep. And the next day again, work, work, work, as surely as the sun rises at dawn, and falls at dusk. Though, in the weekend, when I was unpacking my suitcase and cleaning my room, there were a few moments I felt sadness creep up...

Perhaps it was the snow drifting outside... The beauty of it, the serenity that made me think to myself what a shame it is that my dad can no longer enjoy it... A slight, fleeting moment of sadness and remorse... until I blink away the thought and go back to whatever I was doing then.

The other day I went for a walk in the slight snow, and eventually my footsteps took me to the forest nearby. As I approached the pond, there was a whole crowd of daffodils "tossing their heads in sprightly dance" as the light snowflakes, drifted, danced and fell so softly on the grass and vanished as suddenly as it appeared... Nobody would have known the snowflake was there, or ever existed. A father took his young son by the hand, son who was perhaps just learning to walk. He wobbled, and the father looked on smilingly, tugging at his arm in those moments just as the son looked like he was about to fall. The son giggled, and splashed in the puddles. The daffodils danced a bit more. I looked away, but the effects of that scene lingered, just as the memories of my dad still lingers on within.

Work is good. It keeps people occupied, it keeps people full and fills them with a purpose. But when does work become merely a distraction... or even an escape?

So when people ask me how I am feeling, to be honest I am still not sure.