And we are kicking off part 3 of the chronicles - fresh content coming your way!
As fresh as me because I had a bath in a naturally formed pool by a roaring river, fed by an even roar-er-er waterfall, you get my meaning. It was cold. It was pure bliss… afterwards.
During I asked myself again and again why I don’t just go and live somewhere with access to hot water showers. Anyway, growth comes from daring to get out of the comfort zone. And as I said, the second kind of gratification, a term meaning that the pay-off is not instant but delayed as you have to put in the work first, came when I felt as fresh as a peeled egg. That is paraphrasing a German saying.
It doesn’t matter. That is not the content I was talking about.
What I wanted to talk about though is going along the same lines. Not the egg, the deprivation of some of the comforts a steady home has to offer. I found myself today as though I had emptied all storages of all the happy hormones. All the endorphins, serotonins and other-inins gone. Just like that. Puff.
Because yesterday just needed that storage and used up all resources for that day of pure flow and bliss.
Today I wasn’t unhappy, or even depressed, not sad or angry or anything from the other part of the spectrum of emotions. I just was. Or at least after the bliss from the icy bath and my joy from being so shiny and clean ebbed off. There was no high, nor was there a low. And because I am mostly big emotions, regardless which of the whole and glorious spectrum given to us by some entity, energy, All, Universe, God or hormones, whatever you want to call it and feels most adequate for your worldview, I questioned my choices. If I am neither on the one end, nor on the other end, and nothing in between, am I deceiving myself?
You get the gist of it. And from there it is but a short spiral down to questioning the whole of my life’s choices up until this point. Shouldn’t I be exactly like yesterday, basically flying through my day? Shouldn’t I be laughing all the time, smile and let sparks of pure delight emanate from my mere existence?
Shouldn’t I…?
And while I was working on a lovely wooden bench, by the side of the harbour, under the shade of some tall trees giving Marjorie and me some shade from the sun, waiting to board a ferry that would leave in three hours time, I did actually start to laugh.
Quietly. I did not want any Norwegian to call an ambulance and put the Austrian laughing to herself about nothing obvious in particular to the psychiatric wing of a hospital. Think about what could happen to Marjorie, me simply gone. And all because of laughing out loud!
The reason why I laughed is the following: I am so deeply connected with my emotions that I sometimes forget that it is absolutely fine to have a day that consists of getting up, feeling a short injection of adrenaline and joy, and then proceed with the day as uneventful as it happens to be, emotionally speaking. Here I am, in the middle of my dream, about to slay it because I think I need to be different, experience something different, act in a different way, than what and how I actually am and do.
All we did focus on was getting to a destination.
On the way we witnessed the most gorgeous landscape pass us by, either while driving in GlenBenVan or being carried over water by a ferry to the island of Vannøy. Majestic mountains, dark green at their bottom right up to the blue or turquoise waters of the ocean, light green further up where only grass, moss and some hardy bushes are able to withstand the conditions this climate high up north brings, barren and white at the very top where only thousands of rocks inhabit their surface. We saw typical red houses, outhouses, and an unfathomable collection of some more outhouses - I gather that they have their rooms in different outhouses or some simply aim to confuse thieves to make them unsure and uncertain about whether treasure is in little house number one or two or seventeen. I kid you not, some have four or five little houses around a main house, some barns are bigger than the main house or vice versa. Most of them had the lovely Scandinavian turf roofs upon which grasses, moss and even little trees thrive. We saw white sand beaches, small and huge seagulls, and some reindeer casually nipping over a fence into a garden to eat some apparently delicious leaves off of a bush in there. And again, as is the case with ferries that transport human beings, we saw humans. Couples, families, friends, relations. Some utterly amazed by what they witnessed, some bored on their phones, some bitter and withdrawn, others delighted and with wide eyes and a smile greeting everyone in their vicinity. Some neutral.
Observing people and feeling so withdrawn from any normal life, and yet at the same time contemplating if the next reasonable step to take is finish off this year unconventionally and return come next year to convention, the state of just being feels unearned and unproductive to me. Or felt. Because I think I learned something today.
We arrived at our destination.
My thoughts subsided as it was time for the tasks at hand: a walk with Marjorie to get to know the area, cooking dinner for me, feeding Marjorie, setting up camp, checking the things I wanted to do today, answering some mails and messages, and finally writing this blogpost.
What I wanted to pass on is what I think I slowly was able to beign to grasp today:
What if a day that consists of nothing else but experiencing it without any major emotions, what if the state of existing, being, taking it in without passing an emotional judgement on what is experienced, what if that is a lesson to take away from today?
This quaint, neat, white sand beach here - I have it all to myself. I have the stillness to myself. I have the space to myself, I have had a spectacular dinner (rice noodles with cauliflower, paprika/ red pepper/ pepperoni/ pepperbell - in whatever country you live and however you call it there
- and carrots, if you must know), I have electricity to be able to further my creative endeavours, I am in a foreign country and have no other responsibility than to look after Marjorie to the best of my abilities, be smart about my financial choices so I am able to make my way back through a lot more countries (possibly Finland, Lettland, Lithuania and Estonia; obviously not in that precise order), and no one to answer to.
There is nothing more or less than what is.
So what is the experienced ‘challenge’ in being?
Why is it so hard to relax into a state of relaxation?
Why is standing still and being in the now with no immediate catastrophe or task to manage so hard for me?
No idea. But while I write this, with the waves of the ocean lapping onto land, the seagulls calling out to one another, the sheep with their tiny bells walking by and Marjorie snoring, while all of this happens, I cannot but laugh again. Alright, truth be told, it was a simple smile playing around the corners of my mouth this time.
I have so much gratitude for my life’s choices. So much gratitude for what I have, even if society tells me according to the numbers in my bank account I am poor or according to the time of perceived productivity towards the economy I am worthless. So much gratitude for my journey and all the people I found along the way that now cheer me on, support me and help me in every way they can and want.
Who am I, or better, who is that voice in my head telling me to not be allowed to live a day in peace and quiet, with the pure intention of just being?
That voice, now that I wrote all of this, is silent by the way. I know she’s still there inside, she’ll come out again, she has kept me alive and safe and contributed to quite a lot of successes too.
She’s there for a reason.
That voice.
Do you have such a voice too?
A voice telling you that you cannot just be, exist, linger, meander, wander?
Do you know why it is there?
I will close this chronicle with these questions that I pondered myself and let you come to your own conclusions. After all, it seems to me, as everything in life, something like this food for thought is quite personal and individual.
From my little corner of the world all the way to you, wherever you are, I sent you love and light and bliss…
… and all that you need with a pinch of all that you want too.
Love and light, beloved souls
Nadine
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