Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

135Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open, and show riches

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,

I cried to dream again.

The above passage from Shakespeare’s The Tempest beautifully described the Mediterranean island that, for Prospero and Gonzalo, was meant to be their Utopia. Yes, it is a description of our meadow too, bathed in greenery, the sounds, smells of herbs and the buzz of cicadas.

We also became aware of the fact that the island we had chosen as our home was also a certain construct in our heads.

The place is separated from the land with its complicated affairs; its boundaries are easily grasped by the mind: standing on land, on a boat or sitting on a plane, we can determine: this is my place, here are my affairs, there is the boundary of the human and marine worlds. And, more often than not, it is a boundary that is very, very beautiful.

This is very freeing.