I am entering a new way of being. I feel softened and content. I look up at the stars aware that, although minute, I am one of the few living beings in the huge universe.

I take a rare bus ride and watch weary and impoverished people feel relieved as the bus carries them and their bags a couple of stops.

I tell a woman I have lost my travel cards; she gives me HOTEL Chocolat santas as she struggles to her feet. I feel unworthy to receive them. Another woman with blue hair talks about her immobility and I have to remind her that she has reached her destination. That makes me feel better about the chocolates.

I make soup and read kind Christmas messages as I eat alone. I listen to the Reith lecture which tells me about the need to transform suffering.

On the train to Quaker Meeting I read Philipa Perry’s guidance to a man approaching 80 – ‘turn inward to find a new deeper engagement with life. Contribute quietly to those around you’, she says. Yes that fits with how I am becoming.

At the end of Meeting a man with a beaming face gives me fossils between 33 and 46 million years old. Gifts to connect me with eternity, to touch my heart, that I gladly accept, that fix my place in life. He reminds me that his name is Tim.

I sit alone in my house, part of space, connected to time, overflowing with gratitude.