Recently, I found myself in a room full of people on a dark, storm-heavy evening. It would have been easy for everyone — myself included — to stay home. And yet they came. We talked, we listened, we shared stories.

 

Nothing dramatic. Nothing performative.

 

But something meaningful happened.

 

There were a few quiet moments of genuine connection — the kind that don’t ask for anything, and don’t announce themselves loudly, but leave you subtly changed. I went home with the sense that a small bridge had been crossed.

 

Being human is both a solitary journey and one we share.

 

Right now, I’m in a wintering phase — choosing to keep socialising to a minimum. I’ve learned to recognise these seasons in myself and to respect what my mind and body are asking for. Wintering isn’t withdrawal. It’s discernment. It’s understanding that attention is precious, and that not every invitation deserves your energy.

 

Still, there’s an important distinction worth naming.

 

The wrong kind of socialising depletes.

The right kind of connection restores.

 

Being with the right people, at the right time, doesn’t drain you — it lifts you. Moments like these remind me that we don’t need more interaction, just truer interaction.

 

So this season, I’m holding to a simple balance:

 

Don’t say yes to everything.

 

But also, don’t say no to everything.

 

The next day, on my way back to the Highlands, I took a quiet walk through a small churchyard in Midmar, near Inverurie. Tucked among the trees was a recumbent stone circle — one stone lying down, with two flanking stones that felt almost like gentle guardians, holding space rather than asserting it. These were shaped like canine teeth, which seemed to spark Spock’s curiosity.

 

The sun filtered through the branches without urgency or effort. Spock wandered into the circle and sat right in the middle, as if that were the most obvious place in the world. There was nothing to interpret, nothing to extract. Just a quiet sense of being held — by place, by time, by something older and steadier than words.

 

Nothing was required of me there.

 

And somehow, that was everything.

 

These moments — a room that feels quietly connected, or a dog sitting in a stone circle under winter light — remind me that life doesn’t always ask us to expand outward. Sometimes it asks us to contract gently. To choose presence over performance. To listen rather than reach.

 

 

This weekend, I’m recharging.

 

With gratitude — for the people and places that still warm us, if we let them.

 

With care,

Louisa