Skavsta Airport, 8 PM

Viruses has a way of turning us into earthbound creatures, more engrossed in our state of health and the frustration of our impaired capabilities than in thinking, observations, analysis and learning.

Nevertheless: it has begun. And like always before a journey to a place that seems foreign to me, I turn to Gunnar Ekelöf to channel my feelings:

Som vore det sista kvällen före en lång, lång resa:

Man har biljetten i fickan och äntligen allting packat.

Och man kan sitta och känna de fjärran ländernas närhet,

känna hur allt är i allt, på en gång sitt slut och sin början,

känna att här och nu är både ens avfärd och hemkomst,

känna hur död och liv är starka som vin inom en!

Like it was the last night before a long, long journey:

You have the ticket in your pocket and at last everything packed.

And you can sit and feel the distant countries’ proximity,

Knowing how everything is in everything, at once an end and its beginning,

to feel that here and now is both your departure and homecoming,

Knowing how death and life are strong like wine in you!

But the final word before takeoff is given to T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets):

We shall not cease from exploration
and at the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.