Ephemeral

In July, I said goodbye to Refugio for a while to enjoy the summer far away from screens. And suddenly, we find ourselves on the threshold of a new year.

A few days ago, I received a list of 26 rules of stoicism, oh yes, the kind that make some of us raise an eyebrow and activate ourcoach bs alarms; the aim of the list was to help us face 2026 in the best possible way, and one of the tips it included was a reference to memento mori, to live with the awareness that one day we will no longer be here. This is something that, before you couldn’t escape Stoics even in your breakfast cereal, I humbly tried to put into practice, because nothing in this life would make me sadder than losing something and not having been aware of how lucky I was to have had it.

And this brings me to a steppe in Central Asia in August, on the second day of a several-week trip through an alpine country populated by nomads, yurts and horses. There are so many horses in this country, and they are so beautiful, that for us foreigners arriving here, it seems like a fantastic idea to go on horseback tours to feel like intrepid adventurers. After three hours of peaceful riding, contemplating valleys, rivers and fairytale landscapes, and when we were barely a kilometre away from our camp in the middle of nowhere, my beloved steed decided to gallop downhill in the middle of the mountains, after which, given my obvious lack of skill as a fearless horsewoman, I flew off, hit the ground headfirst and lost consciousness for the first time in my life. The next thing I remember is being pretty confused and asking (and I don’t remember this, my poor boyfriend told me that for a few minutes he thought I was coming back to San Sebastián in a coffin) several times, at intervals of 60-90 seconds, 1 / What had happened and 2 / If the camera was okay (it’s not that I was frivolous. The camera was new).

In case anyone who knows me and doesn’t know this story is now nervous, I’ll spoil it for you: thanks to luck and my guardian angel, I’m fine and it was just a fright, followed by several days with a pumpkin-like face and some pretty unflattering scabs that healed quickly by the grace of the Cicalfate I put in my first aid kit at the last minute (do yourselves a favour and include this potion in your “keys-wallet-phone” trinity) .

That afternoon on our second day in Kyrgyzstan, trying to ignore the slight pain in my ribs as I lay on a 70 cm bed next to a fireplace burning dry manure (another spoiler: it provides a nice cozy heat above 4000 meters and doesn´t smell the way you´d imagine), which was the closest thing we had to the idea of a home at the time, and still shaken by having seen the game over so close up, I told myself that if on 25 August, my first day back at work after the holidays, I was walking through the office door, I was going to do so very happily, because that would mean that I was well, that I was healthy, and that I could only be grateful for that.

So, from that moment on, which could have turned out so complicated, I moved on to the next level of the game, and I don’t think I’ve missed a single day of reminding myself, even if only for a few seconds, how evanescent everything we take for granted is, how fascinating and special something as simple as smelling coffee being ground or saying good morning to a colleague you see every day can be, feeling stressed for a deadline, watching the sun rise, having a sofa to collapse on at the end of the day, a refuge where you can have privacy, a hot meal on the table, someone to hug, a friend to call, in short, that since that moment I haven´t let a single day go by without being aware of the fleeting nature of life and how ephemeral everything is, because there are few tools as simple, accessible and within almost everyone´s reach that can elevate our quality of life to the highest degree.

Happy end of the year and happy life.

Thanks for reading,