La Castellana, Caracas, Venezuela, July 2025

It started with a plan: to do nothing.

A noble, deeply necessary plan. A Saturday to be gently idle, unbothered, and gloriously unscheduled. I had visions of reading, staring out the window, maybe making a heroic decision like not checking emails until at least lunchtime.

Naturally, it all fell apart.

First, I opened the manuscript — just for a minute. And, well… five hours later, I was still there, knee-deep in memories, scribbles, edits, footnotes, and one or two “what was I even trying to say here?” moments. The book — Memoir of a Wandering Spirit — clearly didn’t get the memo about Saturdays off. But it felt good. Tangled and demanding, yes, but good. It’s moving forward. Slowly. Honestly.

Then came a moment of travel admin: I booked a rental car for my upcoming trip to Lisbon — which, yes, is finally happening! Tickets are secured, and the thought of wandering through Óbidos with a bica in hand is keeping me more grounded than any meditation app could.

But those small acts of productivity set a tone. Suddenly I was responding to messages I’d planned to ignore, and — the real twist of fate — I agreed to accompany Giovanni on the weekly food shopping mission.

Let me be clear: this was not part of any restful plan. But somehow, I found myself in a busy Caracas supermarket, negotiating over plantains and trying to convince a young woman in overly cool sunglasses that it really wasn’t a good idea to keep her dog — however cute — inside the shopping trolley. “People put human food in there,” I ventured gently. She did not appreciate my argument. Giovanni, of course, was in his element — charming, chatty, completely unbothered. I, on the other hand, was clinging to my shopping basket like it was a lifebuoy.

And yet… it wasn’t terrible. The chaos had its rhythm. The shelves offered stories. And the mangoes were cheaper than last week. There’s a kind of intimacy in the ordinary when you let yourself notice it.

So no — I didn’t rest. I didn’t read. I didn’t sip tea on a quiet balcony like some aspirational Instagram account.

But I worked on the book. I booked my wheels for Portugal. I survived the shopping trip. And I laughed more than once.

Not bad for a Saturday that was supposed to be nothing at all.