When you don’t know what home is. — Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. Charles Dickens Home. Is it something physical or something mental? Is it a place? A person? A feeling? A culture? Or a collection of moments? …

When the digital nomad decides to hang up her backpack. — I am part of the remote working crowd. I got in there before COVID and before the whole Marie Kondo minimalism ‘get rid of anything that doesn’t give you joy’ mantra came along. And while I see people still starting their remote working journeys, excited and hopeful, asking questions on…

How Brazilians treat time differently, from London to Rio de Janeiro. — You know, the person that people make jokes about always being late and friends use fake earlier times to arrange to meet them. I am THAT notoriously late person. I like to call myself a time optimist. …

Can a letter be your Horcrux? — I had forgotten about the letter, but I definitely had not forgotten how dark I felt during that time. I had swum in my misery. …

How single people’s time gets treated as a lower value commodity. — Time. It affects us all. It is something that we can all relate to. I’m not going to get all existential with asking: what is time? But, I think everyone can agree we do not like our time to be wasted. Right? …

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A military tank was making its way up the hill to the favela… — The classroom The two teenage girls knew what was going on before I did. I’d sent them to pick something up. I forget what it is now, probably some stationary, and they ran back into the classroom excited and nervous. I couldn’t make out through their breathless yet excited chatter what they…

How Brazil changed how I treat my body. — I’ve always cared about my appearance. Not in an altogether vain way but perhaps teetering on the edge. In the UK, I cared a lot about fashion. I lived in London, and what was currently in trend was thrown in your face daily. …

Many situationships are really meant to be friendships. — At some point in our lives, we have all probably been in a situationship. You know, that nearly relationship. It’s more than friends with benefits that tend to veer on the more fun with the sex side. A situationship is a relationship in the sense that there are genuine feelings…

We don’t need to prove our independence. — I am so tired of being given the advice: You need to feel comfortable on your own. When did this become the defacto advice for any issue, especially during the pandemic? You lose your job: You need to feel comfortable on your own. You become single: You need to feel…