Cosima Underwater

The weather has been unusual this year. I follow a few spots around the world, just a consequence of being an expatriate and having friends and loved ones at strategic points around the globe.

My parents in Berlin just lived through an unusual cold winter, despite global warming. Dubai was unusually wet. Hong Kong has been hot-wet- cold, hot-wet-cold, hot-wet-cold one time too many. What’s going on?

My veggie garden has not been a success. Butterfly worms have feasted on the arugula and gai-lan. The rest has not even sprouted from seeds. Volcanoes break out and stop airline traffic.

Nature rules, and she is telling us. We can’t eat money.

The toads are croaking so loud that I can’t sleep, snails are everywhere, a thunderstorm has just drenched the laundry I painstakingly hanged outside, a colony of ants has discovered little man’s too sweet cocoa pops.

It comes every decade or so, doesn’t it? Too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry. To remind us that we are an important but fairly small part of the picture, and that finding the middle ground in our life is an objective worth keeping.