It’s late afternoon, and the light settles over everything like a soft-spoken promise. You’re barefoot in the doorway of the cottage, wrapped loosely in a piece of linen that still carries the scent of lemon peel, cedarwood, and the herbs you tied to dry above the stove. The air holds more than the present. It holds the past as well. Quietly, without asking to be noticed. The walls have absorbed years of slow-simmered meals, rosemary crushed beneath fingers, sun-warmed apricots halved and laid out to dry. There’s a trace of woodsmoke in the beams, English lavender from long-gone wash days, cardamom folded into sweet bread baked for innumerable gatherings. You stir a pot of chickpeas with the back of a wooden spoon. The broth is fragrant, alive with a fresh bouquet garni: bay, thyme, parsley, and a little rosemary, echoing what’s come before. The scent rises gently, mixing with the older perfumes the cottage never quite let go of. It feels like a conversation across time. Beside you, on the table, a piece of warm bread rests, soft, golden, dappled with olive oil and cumin. It’s not hurried. It’s not waiting. It simply is, and it will be there when you’re ready. Outside, the fire burns low beneath cedar and bay, and the smoke curls upward, tracing the same path it’s traced for years, maybe generations. The breeze moves through the trees with a sound you’ve heard since childhood, even if you only just remembered it. Your hair slips loose again, and you pin it back with a spoon. It’s a little ridiculous, but you’ve always done it this way. A small ritual in a home full of them. You’re not performing anything. You’re not preserving anything. You’re part of it now, the smell of the stew, the softness of the light, the dust that never gets fully swept from the floorboards, and the memory of all the times someone stood just like this, humming, stirring, listening. You’re not alone in this moment. You’re with everyone who’s ever called this place home.
And it feels right.
Maybe even eternal.

notes by miranda thompson, vp of quality control