Who knows?
Who knows?
I have not turned 60 yet, but I decided to rehearse.
So I gathered my lovies and went to Provence for a small pre-celebration of time, beauty, food and laughter.
Why Provence?
For one very simple reason: I love it.
And I wanted to share a glass of champagne at the Gorges du Verdon, my favourite place on earth, and jump into impossibly blue water together with those I love most.
That is how I want the next chapter of life to feel.
Not necessarily with champagne every day. Not necessarily in Provence. Although I would not complain.
But with beauty. With people I love. With movement. With laughter. With small childish adventures. With enough freedom to say yes to things that make me feel alive.
This trip was not meant to be a life lesson.
But something happened.
We stayed at La Clorinde in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, an artist’s house surrounded by olive trees.
One early morning, while everyone was still asleep, I sat alone in the olive garden. Clorinde came with coffee.
I asked her:
“Clorinde, are you an artist?”
She looked at me with a mysterious smile and said:
“Who knows?”
And then she left.
So there I was.
Morning light. Olive trees. A cup of coffee. A house full of people I love.
“Who knows?”
And suddenly it felt like an answer.
Who am I, when I no longer have to be the career coach, the employee, the responsible adult, the project manager of absolutely everything?
Who knows?
There was something so freeing in that.
No label. No CV. No title. Nothing to prove.
Just a human being, alive this very morning.
Later I noticed a sentence on the wall:
Heureux qui comme un artiste...
Happy is the one who, like an artist...
It seemed to echo the famous line by Joachim du Bellay:
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage...
Happy is the one who, like Ulysses, has made a beautiful journey.
But here Ulysses had become an artist.
Happy is the one who lives like an artist.
Happy is the one who sees the world through an artist’s eyes.
Happy is the one who shapes a life as if it were a work of art.
The good life is not about having more.
It is about seeing more.
Then another sign appeared:
I do not know exactly what comes next.
Maybe the next chapter does not need to begin with a grand decision.
Maybe it can begin with a feeling.
Blue water. People I love. A glass of champagne. Olive trees in the morning.
And the thought:
Yes. More of this, please.
Pura Vida. Puro Verso.
I knew that in Costa Rica, Pura Vida means much more than “pure life.”
It is a way of saying: life is good. Enjoy the moment. Take it easy. Be grateful. For this moment, life is enough.
And here it was paired with Puro Verso.
Pure life. Pure poetry.
It felt as if the universe had made a small installation of messages just for me:
“Maybe you do not need to decide what you are going to become.”
“Maybe you just need to live a little more like an artist.”
And perhaps that is why it hit so deeply.
Not because it was philosophically profound. But because it arrived at exactly the right moment of my life.
Then I walked further into the garden and found another chair, another small table, another message.
Heureux, libres et imparfaits.
Happy, free and imperfect.
Michel de Montaigne.
Of course.
He did not spend his life searching for answers. He spent it becoming curious about himself.
He did not write books about how to become perfect. He wrote about how to live with contradictions, flaws, doubts and peculiarities.
A few months ago, I wrote about Montaigne myself.
And now I was suddenly sitting in his landscape.
With his words in front of me.
On my pre-60th birthday journey.
After cancer. After stress. After operations. After career questions. After years of trying to do everything properly.
It was almost comic.
I had travelled all the way from Russia to Denmark and from Denmark to Provence to find out what to do with the rest of my life.
And Provence answered:
“Maybe nothing.”
“Maybe you can just be happy, free and imperfect.”
It was not a goal. It was a permission.
And perhaps that is why the tears came.
I am very good at development. Optimisation. Improvement.
I know how to become better.
But I am still learning how to be enough.
There is a difference.
I wish I had known this earlier.
And then there was another gift.
I noticed how much I love being with my children as adults.
Because they are interesting people now.
Funny, kind, strong, opinionated, sometimes tired, sometimes impatient, sometimes tender.
I can just sit at the table with them and think:
How strange and wonderful that these people came through me, but do not belong to me.
Maybe that is one of the gifts of this age.
You begin to understand that love is not ownership. It is presence.
It is laughing together. Waiting for each other. Sharing the dinner.
It is watching someone you once carried as a baby jump into blue water as a grown human being with their own life, their own body, their own thoughts.
It is seeing them share their lives with fabulous, intelligent women.
And realising that time has not only taken things away.
It has also given you all this.
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