Break

Our city has been turned upside down over the last week, the way a bird's nest was ransacked by black vultures. A city with nothing, with everything.

Calloused by grief, I had a break today. A day off.

I thought it was time to call a truce. Time for taking a short break.

In no time, I did few things I seldom got chance to do on a Friday.  After visiting the new office of my wife, I made a beeline for the country park. As I walked along the nature trail, I forgot the newspaper headline and simply followed the butterflies. Which brings me to a large cross-sectional study published yesterday in Science Reports, concluding an association between spending 120 minutes a week in nature with better health and higher life satisfaction.

On my way back to my daughter's school, I thought of what David Attenborough had said: I hope the beauty that I saw and everything in the nature are not owned by me, but they can last long, and can be seen by the next generation.

This is something I can't be so sure. Not any more.