There is always room for one more by the fire.
I am on my own
Being alone does not always mean being lonely.
Lonely beside someone
When someone is beside you, but the connection feels lost.
I long for connection
When you long to be seen, heard and truly met.
I need hope
When you cannot see the way forward yet, but want to believe there is one.
Thoughts shared by the fire
Come and sit by the fire for a moment. You do not have to say a word. You can listen to the quiet language of the flames and let a thought find you. Perhaps someone else has sat here with the same longing, hope or question.
Every light in a window reminds you that you do not have to be alone. There is a place for you here, just as you are.
Did that thought stay beside you?
Someone in the villagers’ stories may have felt the same.
A village in the city
Villages do not only grow along quiet country roads.
Sometimes a village is an apartment building whose windows light up one by one. A familiar face at the bus stop, a greeting in the lift, a neighbour whose smile arrives before their words.
You can live among thousands of people in a city and still long for one person who truly sees you. That is why Oma belongs here too — on pavements and balconies, in cafés and in the little homes where someone drinks their evening tea alone, looking at the windows across the street.
Perhaps a village is more than a place. Perhaps it begins when we stop passing one another by.
Sometimes connection is a glance, a smile, or the space someone makes beside them.
Each click opens another thought about life in the city.