Crossroads.

Crossroads.

Or taking stock. Or treading water. What next? What makes one decide on something? Some people are methodical and sit down and do lists of pros and cons, add them up and go for the option with the overwhelming pros. Some do the list, then look at it, tear it up and do the cons. 

Some never decide anything at all but ‘go with the flow’. Mother used to call that ‘choosing the path of least resistance’. She said that with a lot of disdain, although that is what she mostly did herself. Some listen to the advice of friends even if they then discard the advice.  

My new park bench friend David says that I must be careful that the Fez idea is not some sort of symptom of post lock down cabin fever. My old friend Clare says that he clearly doesn’t know me. My other old friend Sanjay says I should scrap Fez and go for Italy, as previously dreamed about and planned for.

Some pray for guidance. But therein lay further obstacles- how to know if the ‘feeling’ of being guided in one direction is not just a temptation to go down some garden path to some looming catastrophe?

How did I decide to go to live in Djenne? It now feels as if that decision was so crystal clear that it was hardly a decision at all. My two month trip there in April/May 2006 ‘to get the feel of the place’ did not present any soul searching decision making - even before I arrived there it was a clinched deal somehow. So what to do with this new one? Of course there is only one way: I will have to go and at the end of September. But tonight the nice man from the finance brokers will call (Sanjay says don't trust him, theyr'e all crooks) - will they lend me the money? My flat lies above commercial properties which is a problem, apparently…

But like all things, it will eventually all be clear. And first I go to Sweden on Thursday!