15. Finding calm in the chaos

With the chaos of the Covid pandemic, the loss and devastation that it has caused, and the uncertainty of it all, it's hard to imagine where we will be in a years time from now.

It is equally as difficult to imagine this far-away place that I am trying to get to amongst all this chaos. Cold, isolated and unknown to me, Antarctica seems to be this great mountain, looming in the distance.

At the same time, this great mountain feels like a beacon of hope. Antarctica is this incredibly peaceful, Covid-free, truly magical untouched wilderness that gives us a sense of the calm that will return when the chaos has ended.

At the beginning of the pandemic, everyone across the world took a long, hard look at what was happening around them in their absence from everyday life. Swans returned to Venice, penguins roamed the streets of Simon's Town, and whale calls were heard without the constant noise of oil rigs, ships and fishing boats. There were no cars, no traffic, no planes - it was all calm and quiet. There is a stillness in nature that we all seem to have forgotten about, especially in our rush to "get back to normal".

With all the uncertainty that we face going forward, I hope that we remember what we have learnt, and remember to keep a little bit of that stillness with us.

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear,

but around in awareness." - James Thurber

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