What if life could be a whole lot simpler?

I had lofty notions of self-improvement, of reading extensively, absorbing new ideas and expanding my horizons.

Instead, I have spent the past few days doing nothing more strenuous than simply contemplating the constantly changing shades of blue on the sparkling horizon right in front of me, where an azure ocean meets a cloudless sky.

And truth be told, it has been nothing short of glorious.

The place is the Algarve.

The time is the spillover from June into July, characterised by both an increase in the air temperature and the daily price of the rental sunbeds on the beach.

The pace is slow. Deliberately and delectably slow.

The air is full of the heady aroma of cooking garlic, fresh fish grilling, piri-piri chicken, tropical-smelling sun lotion and tobacco.

Oh, and the lemons. My word, the gustative, botanical miracle that are the local lemons.

I love all these smells that hang in the air. I love how they coat the inside of my nose and mouth, I can almost run my tongue over them. They feel comforting like hot soup on a cold day, restorative to the soul, replenishing some of what a damp, grey, and seemingly interminable winter of urban living has taken away.

All around me are adults on bikes, children on trikes. There are parents with prams and old-timers with zimmer frames. I see friends chatting, families strolling, couples holding hands.

In their own way, the people I see here are disconnecting and reconnecting, from something and with something. Including themselves.

I watch the people sitting alone and the people sitting together. I wonder what they’re thinking, what they’re talking about. Not because it matters. Simply because for once, I have nothing more pressing on my mind.

In this place beside the ocean, there’s a place for everyone. And space for everyone to do their own thing.

We can all just be.

Nobody pays you any heed unless you want them to. If you want a chat, you’ll find one. If you want to be left alone to your thoughts, you’ll find that too. People smile easily, generously.

Beer, water, and espresso cost a mere euro a pop. Chuck in a slab of sticky, moist carob cake and the bill barely hits 3 euros. And if you feel like a feed of grilled sardines and salad with some local wine, you’ll be out of pocket no more than 10 quid. Where I live, you’ll be doing well to get a bad sandwich and a plastic bottle of water for that.

It’s not so much about the comparative cheapness of things per se. It’s more that things feel honest here, wholesome, totally lacking in frivolity - and I find it profoundly refreshing.

Give me understated simplicity over pseudo sophistication any day. I appreciate it all the more because it is becoming so rare.

I travelled here with a low-cost airline and their prohibitively expensive luggage charges have meant I am travelling light. The rigid restrictions on baggage have turned out to be a blessing in disguise because life with minimal wardrobe options is delightfully simple. The same is true about having to make do with only the bare minimum in toiletries, cosmetics, and jewellery.

All these things back home seem important – and consume a sizeable chunk of my income – but here, they’re pretty much irrelevant.

Two pairs of quick-drying shorts, a bikini, flip-flops, a few t-shirts, loose linen trousers, a denim jacket and I’m set.

If I had more stuff with me, I’d use it. But the point is, I’m not surrounded by stuff and I’m not missing it.

The fact of not having too wide an array of options for anything – from food to clothes to places to go - has made a significant dent in my habitual decision fatigue. And it feels so good to live for a few days with the weight of choice lifted from my shoulders.

I love this place because its innate simplicity has taught me that life can be played on easy mode. Or rather, on easier mode. We don’t need lots of things. We can do better with less, living well on fresh food, and clean air, connected to ourselves, our environment, and the people in it. Even if they’re strangers.

We can find communion and oneness in shared simplicity.

When the world around me seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket, the constancy of nature and the goodness of good people is what grounds me.

Every morning the sun comes up. The waves on the beach keep breaking on the shore, steady, rhythmic, and reassuring.

Elections, economic crises, conflicts, and disasters of every kind… they come and go.

But every morning the sun comes up. The waves on the beach keep breaking on the shore, steady, rhythmic, and reassuring.

Every day is new.

Life can be simpler.

It helps me to remember that.

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???AJ