Day 32. Endless space

When you live in a tent that is twice the size of your body you have to become an acrobat. Imagine waking up at three in the night, it is dark, the tent is wet because it rained since seven. You are still in your suit, you managed to take the jacket of quickly before you jumped inside because it started to pour without any notice whatsoever. When it got colder you wriggled yourself into your sleepingbag, still wearing your socks, trousers, shirt, vest, fleece coat and shawl. You eat, read, write lying down. There is no space to sit. There is barely space to lift up your head. It works though. When you are not in a hurry.
You wake up at three and you need to pee and you want to get out of your cloths and outside everything is wet, the moment you open your tent water starts dripping inside but when you're fast and handy not too much of your sleepingbag will get wet. You find the small lightweight flat square thingy that functions as a chair and doormat, you find toilet paper because you always put everything in the same place, you manage to get out of the tent without getting wet, you pee, you undress yourself in the cold dark night, you put on the fleece sweater that functioned as a pillow earlier, untangle the sleeping bag and the thermo liner, get inside the wet tent again, close it without getting your dry sweater too wet, wriggle yourself into the inner sleepingbag without touching the tent and then into the proper sleepingbag. You are wide awake by now. You find your Ipad and write lying on your side, holding it with your left hand, typing with the other. It is too close to your eyes but there is no space to stretch your arm. You don't mind. Things are the way they are. And there will be warm nights when you will sit outside until late, slowly sipping your wine, dreamily looking at the stars, wondering about the endless space. And one of those nights you will remember how you were lying in your tiny wet tent in the dark, hardly able to move, having just enough space to hold an ipad and type, typing any word you want to, thinking anything you want to think, creating new worlds by just moving your fingers.

(today I walked with Omi Pharncote)