simple life

She woke up at 9 am, on a grey morning, and as soon as she opened her eyes, she grabbed
her iPhone to listen to some tunes on YouTube. She decided to choose a relaxing video and typed: meditation with sea waves. The sound of the sea always calmed her like no other sound. 

She breathed deeply and immediately thought about the seven chakras from the Hindu and Tibetan cultures, and almost without intention, her subconscious started to turn the wheels along her body. Imaginary seagulls flew over a far off shore, clapped and said: Bravo, you are finally awaken, both literally and spiritually. Time to get up!

A quick bite, and a macrobiotic yoghurt for breakfast tricked the stomach into thinking of healthy eating. She dressed up, taking her time, splashed some water on her face and took her old, Dutch, rusted bike to run some errands. Outside it was raining, it was autumn, it did not matter.

Puddles of water were forming on the pavement, there were mirrors reflecting the different shades of grey of that sky that was falling piece by piece. Each drop hit the ground and in a happy movement was expanded in ephemeral circles. 

The bicycle's wheels were wet, as was her old Burberry coat from the old and better times, but she felt contented with the simple life she had now, full of errands, rain, puddles, mirrors, music, and imaginary seagulls.

Maria lived in a very small town of barely 2000 people. In a world of more than 7 billion humans, and many more millions of animals and bacteria, she fell she had found a pocket, like a modern day Thumbelina. There was a bakery to the left of the main road, with the delicious smell of warm bread and croissants, a post-office with a very grumpy old man that barely spoke, a corner store with sodas, ketchup and chips, the local library with a huge notice board with second-hand items written in capital helvetica that could be seen even from the comfortable seat of her bike, riding in the middle of the street, a few meters away. There was a small pharmacy that seemed to be almost always with the sign CLOSE on, and there were a few houses with their verandas, mostly empty, or with old looking rocking chairs and swings. Every morning there was the same routine: She woke up, took her bike, rode along the main street, and went to the river to jog.

The river’s current was extremely fast, she had never seen any ducks around, which was a pity, because all her stale bread had to go to waste. She had her iphone with her, the only luxury she allowed herself, now that she was unemployed, because it was also a matter of necessity. She saw it as a sort of orchestra, where all the instruments were integrated to play beautiful music. 
There was, for instance the saxo, which she saw as the phone; there was the clarinet, the Safari icon, to access the highway of information that is the world wide web; there was also the cello, with all the strings of emails; the percussion, with photos, notes, and calendars; the piano with the black and white keys of all the passwords she had to memorize; the harp with several apps for fun and pleasure that resonated with her . It was a technological symphony that allowed her to exist as both a lonely individual and an ultra connected one. But the most important thing was, that she could jog or bike, while listening to her favorite tracks.

She thought that life without music was just silence, sweat, and pain. Music made jogging a more tolerable mini-marathon. A song that lasted 4.31 mins, was exactly the distance between warming-up and reaching the most beautiful old oak tree on the river shore, and the notes of a cello playing Sarabande from the Bach Cello Suite no 6, was just a taste of haven at the end of the -oh, so tiring- jog, when walking and breathing was the only thing relevant in her world, a world made of little pieces of a puzzle destined only for her, for Maria, the one that liked to bike and jog, and listen to music, and enjoy the very simple things that a postmodern life had to offer at this particular moment, this year, this century. The life of a single human, living among 1999 others on that sleepy town, and 7 billion more on a not so sleepy planet* called Earth.

* planet: from the Greek word WANDERER