A long train ride started early morning from Heidelberg to Venice with just one change in Innsbruck. After an exciting and very productive trip to Nepal, I returned to a Europe wounded by a war that does not seem to end; a pandemic that is still not over and other workplace issues. “To the Lighthouse” is a book I never get tired of re-reading, and that offers hope and beauty in times of uncertainty, ways of looking at the world and writing about it. It will keep me company until home, along with the usual soundtrack. In the background, the mighty Alps, instead of the sea:

“The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and scatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul. The hand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost it would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.”