Dawn Punter

I have lived in Spain for more than ten years now and, more recently, in the countryside, where the days stretch differently and time softens its edges. My life has slowed in ways I didn’t know I was craving back when everything was measured in urgency and motion. Here, the pace is shaped not by clocks or calendars, but by light, weather, seasons, and a deep love of simplicity.
Some of my happiest moments are the quietest. Standing in the orchard, breathing in the faint sweetness of orange blossom and warm earth, listening to the birds arguing in the trees while my hands work the soil. The texture of dirt under my fingernails feels grounding, honest, real. It reminds me where food comes from, where life comes from, and how little we truly need to feel rich.
I love sitting in small cafés in village squares, watching the old boys nursing their coffees and brandy as if there is all the time in the world. Their conversations drift lazily through the air, punctuated by laughter, hand gestures, and the scrape of chairs on cobbles. Nearby, mothers chat while children weave in and out of the square inventing simple games, their voices bouncing off whitewashed walls. Nothing is rushed. Nothing needs to be documented. Life simply unfolds.
A good day for me might be tending the vegetable plot, noticing which leaves have unfurled overnight, which fruits are coming into season, which plants need a gentle trim. Or walking along the shore on a bright winter’s day, the sea pale and glittering, the air sharp and clean, that beautiful turquoise clarity of light. My breath just visible in small clouds that vanish as quickly as thoughts. These are not days that would make a glossy brochure, yet they fill me deeply.
Slowing down has changed not only how I live, but how I see. I find myself more aware of the hunger many people carry, a constant reaching for more. More speed. More stimulation. More excitement. More experiences to collect and display. The craving rarely settles. The next fix is always waiting, always slightly out of reach.
When people come to visit us, I notice how easily the small magic of Spanish life can slip past them. They rush through landscapes and moments, scanning for the next headline attraction, the next cocktail, the next photograph to prove they were there. Recently a visitor joked that they felt like a Japanese tourist, flying in, snapping a few photos, then zooming off to the next exciting fixture on the agenda. It was said lightly, but it lingered deeply with me. I feel a quiet sadness that they have not yet found stillness.
So much beauty lives in the in-between spaces. In the way the light hits a tiled roof at dusk. In the smell of bread drifting from a bakery early in the morning. In the ritual of greeting neighbours, in the unspoken permission to pause. These things cannot be rushed, captured, or consumed quickly. They ask for attention, patience, and presence.
I realise how alien I have become to the life I once knew, and often to the people still living inside it.
True luxury, I have learned, is not found in expensive hotels, elaborate meals, busy itineraries, or beautifully staged cocktails. It lives in the quiet satisfaction of a simple day well lived. It lives in presence.
Slowing down has not shrunk my world. It has widened and deepened it.

I sometimes carry a gentle sadness that the life that sustains me so completely, can look ordinary or limited to those passing through it.