In about 40 years, when I turn 75 or 80, here are the things I will regret not having done. Meaning, if I do not do them now, in the next few years. Just from the top of my head:

-not having lived in Paris for a while (may be even a few months a year)

-not having spent a week or two in summer in Southern France; in some small village, just laying in a hammock and reading a book and feeling the fresh breeze from the street. And being in love and making love, a lot

-not having lived some months in some northern village in a house buried under snow in winter and with all the silence around (when the nights last 23h and days have almost no light, and the skies are green at nights)

-not having fought hard enough; having spent my time “just doing things”, half way, without putting all my effort into it

-not having spent vacations with the kids, even if those are just week-ends skiing, sailing or exploring new cities

-not having put this “seed” into the kids of being dreamers and fighters; and making them be real, feel the life with every breeze, with every word, with every breath

-not having created something useful; a business I would be proud of; that would support lives of hundreds of employees and change lives of many people for the better

-not having loved somebody again; strong enough and “pure” enough as to really feel light and careless and feel the infinity of it

-not having baked more cakes and pies and cookies and cupcakes; I used to love baking desserts for kids and guests; I put my heart into it and it felt rewarding… however now I rarely have time

…………….

I was sitting on the kids’ school playground this afternoon looking at the sky. I saw the tree moving and the clouds going fast with the wind. And I thought about these things that I would regret in the future not having done now. And so I said I am doing them.

I always get insomnia at the hotels. First I can’t fall asleep, then I wake up every half an hour till the sun is up and we can go and have breakfast. It was no different this time. Even though I had woke up that day at 6am to drive to the lake and we spent the whole day skiing I still could not fall sleep.

I was laying in the big and comfortable bed, in a ski resort hotel suite that was almost as big as my apartment. And I could see the stars through the large window. And I was thinking about this perfect slope that we skied today. It was white and vast and shiny. You could feel the sun on your lips when you stood on the top of the slope  before heading downhill. And then I thought that a kiss would have made that moment even more perfect. Like if you could kiss somebody, silently and passionately, and then ski down the slope. When you start going down you feel the cold air and your face and lips get frozen for a moment and all you can think of is maintaining your posture and your balance. And then you do not feel the cold any longer.

I was awake in between of the white sheets of the king size hotel bed. I looked at the stars and remembered how this summer somebody sung behind my back a little song with the words, “if you wish upon a star, it does not matter where you are”. And I turned my head and looked at the man who was singing. It was close to midnight, we were standing next to a fire in an outdoor restaurant in these same mountains, I had a glass of wine in my hand and he had a beer. And I asked him if this was true, if it really did not matter where you were when you wished upon a star. And he sung more and we chatted and towards the end of the night he jokingly asked me if I would marry him, because he liked my eyes. And I smiled and told him that I will not marry him, but I loved his comment about the eyes. I told him that nobody said that to me. And this was true. And he looked past me and carefully pacing his words said into the night air, “Are they all blind that they do not see the beauty of the blue?”. And I smiled again and left the place. It was way past midnight, it was July and I could not sleep anyway.

And right now I was laying in the bed looking at the stars. I’ve always believed that the best thing about the stars was that two people could see them from different parts of the globe. The stars and the moon are the only things that can unite two people on different continents. I used to think so when I lived in Barcelona. I would look at the stars at night and think that somebody half way across the globe can see the same stars too. And the distances shrank and became inexistent. And everything was bearable then. Because two people can see the same stars, as if they were sitting next to each other.

It was around 4am when I saw the moon. It was huge. It was also deep yellow. You only see the moon like this when you are high in the mountains. I got out of bed and went to the balcony. The air was cold. The silence was like a blanket. You could not hear anything. You just stood there with the stars and the moon. The moon was setting behind the mountains. I watched it disappear and then it looked as if the mountains were on fire. Mountains were still covered with snow in late April. And the snow became bright orange. I stood there for a while, till I could not stand the cold any longer. I went inside and crawled into my bed.

I felt asleep towards the morning, when the sun was up and the kids were ready for another day on the slopes. I pushed myself out of bed and we went down for breakfast. The coffee tasted good and the mountains shined with some fresh snow. And I was happy skiing in late April.

There are all these different silences in my life now…

The silence between me and my ex-husband who is getting married again tomorrow. The silence of dull pain of not caring. Like a slow motion picture. That hurts slowly and over time without visibly hurting. And you can’t say anything about it, because at any given moment it all looks perfectly fine.

The silence between me and a friend who stopped being a friend because his words were neither true nor kind. The silence of not sharing, the silence of shutting up. No words are necessary where human touch has vanished… there will be unavoidable emptiness for a long while.

The silence between me and a man from Palo Alto I dated for the past months. It was good but it became motionless. We both were into the pursuit of our companies. Slowly and naturally, liking each other, we felt into delicate silence… we both liked flowers.

The silence between me and another man… A pure fantasy. Still truer than anything else that is tangible and real. The silence that wakes me up at nights. The silence that comes from within. Like a secret. Like a smile. Across the ocean. Into unknown continent.

As I am driving on a highway by myself I fall into silence. It is late at night. And I have been drinking wine with my friends. And now all I can feel is silence. The beauty of the night and silence.