Getting up early doesn't work. I keep changing my alarm clock when I've been lying awake for a long time and a thousand meaningless thoughts are running around in my head. The stress from last weekend has broken my rhythm and now it's getting hard to get it back. It even seems impossible.

It doesn't help. I thought it would do me good to be outside. But it has no effect at all. The time outside is limited, ok. But that's not the reason. There are two other reasons. The first, I'm tired. The second, I'm under stress. Work causes this stress.

It must be the television. No one talks as much and continuously for as long as the voice I hear when I'm in the bathroom in the morning. Luckily, I only hear it in the bathroom and it's quiet. J has asked me not to wake her and as I know that the floor creaks in some places, I try to avoid those spots. A careful dance every morning. Only no one dances in this house but me.

I've probably long since passed the point of saturation and anything beyond that plunges me into a deep, dark hole. I can't explain why I don't enjoy almost anything anymore. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao was supposed to be a highlight. But it turned out to be another disappointment. And that's not just down to my inner state. 

One day spills over into the next, leaving me looking back into a hole of nothingness. Is it the nothingness P was talking about? To avoid adding another day to this hole, we drive to Santander. I give the city a second chance, vaguely a second look. It's different that day. Completely different. Because I am different. More alert. Clearer. Calmer. I like it. Not as much as Bilbao, but more than any other place we've seen. 

We stop at a red light. An elderly man sits on the sidewalk, a woman crouches next to him. Three young people are standing in front of him. She is talking to him, the young people are standing there and listening. I am touched by this image. When we come out of the underground parking garage a few minutes later, I give another old man a few euros. He thanks me profusely and then walks off in the direction of the old town.