4 months reflection
I skipped 3 months, not because I forgot – I actually thought hard about it and tried, but the inside process was not done yet, like bread in an oven. Another month has passed and I made a discovery - my drum is empty. I left Germany with an inner drum overflowing with emotions, anxieties, fears, uncertainties, expectations and more. Somehow, sometime, maybe over time, it all leaked out…
Thinking over the past 8 months, thus going back to October 2010, severe pruning took place in our and my life – actually, it really started in 2007: when our lifeboat began to rock in the stormy waters of office politics and strained relationships. France and several close friendships were pruned away when we moved to Germany in 2008. We replanted in Germany, but in shallow soil – we knew it was a temporary shift. More losses followed: a‘secure’ job position, an organization and intimate friendships.
These losses had a profound effect on me personally pruning away confidence, emotional stability, health – leaving someone behind that I did not know: a shell that existed from one day to the next – a day, most of the times, devoid of meaning.
As Hugo was getting ready to graduate our next season plans started to fall into place: the time has come for us to return to Africa. A 17 year chapter of our life was coming to an end and that brought mixed emotions: excitement to return to our family, friends and heimat with a new future focus on opportunities to help develop Member Care in Africa and establish our
professional careers. But also sadness for what we are leaving behind: 8 amazing years in Europe, saying goodbye to friends and our home in Germany – a home that was truly a haven for us and so many that passed through. As our ‘stuff’ started to disappear in boxes and emptiness echoed in our home, I realized that another layer of familiarity and comfort were pruned away and uncertainty of the unknown loomed before us.
Moving, transition, saying goodbye, exchanging the familiar for uncertainty create high stress and all these things filled my emotional drum to the brim and it was with this drum that I left Kandern on the 19thof January. Our transitory lifestyle pinched like new shoes: learn to travel through Europe in the middle of winter; develop a routine of pack up, travel, find food and a
place to stay and start afresh the next day. The seemingly insignificant became significant and pierced through self-centeredness and a fixation on the emotions and feelings of ‘I’.
I started to wake up with the gift of a brand new day in my hands – a day filled with the unknown and uncertainties, but a day that gave me a choice to live life, with all its challenges, to the fullest or choose for it to slip away, devoid of meaning, stripped of joy.
The daily demands of our journey gradually, almost gently, forced itself into my drum, expelling an unhealthy occupation with myself, my emotions and feelings. I am a processor and will always be, but with a balance, a definite tongue-in-the cheek and a good measure of humor - ‘chillax ma, it’s just another day in paradise…’
Andrej and I talked about all the changes that we discover and observe in ourselves:
we’ve developed a travel routine and rhythm, we know where goes what, to pack and strap up the vehicle takes maybe 20 minutes, compared to almost 2 hours in the beginning. We’ve learned to work together as a team; we are getting more streamlined by the day. We do not mind cold showers or sometimes even no showers; we are happy when we find a somewhat decent place to sleep; and accept if it is not the case. Food needs are reduced to basics and staples, but it satisfies and leaves us content.
Our appreciation for the small comforts and the things you’ve never thought of before has soared. It takes very little to make us very happy and we look at what we had, what we accepted and took for granted, with renewed and fresh appreciation.
A scene from the movie, “The Mission” comes to me every time I think through this journey of pruning: one of the main characters played by Robert De Niro, was a slave trader and when he became a Jesuit he felt that he had to do something to redeem himself, so he decided to climb up the waterfall dragging with him a heavy ball of scrap metal– symbolizing his guilt and sin. He wanted to pull it to the top and through this act receive forgiveness. The dramatic scene near the top of the waterfall is, after another unsuccessful effort to pull it to the top, the priest that accompanied him walked over and with one quick flick of a knife severed the rope tied to the weight and freed the guilt ridden man.
The journey this far has freed me from emotional baggage that I carried and dragged
with me when we started. When exactly did it happen? I’m not sure – it was a gradual every-day severing of a few cords until somewhere it was cut free.
After the pain of pruning subsides, new growth starts to flow until it erupts into magnificent beauty…
‘I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.’
Maya Angelou
I skipped 3 months, not because I forgot – I actually thought hard about it and tried, but the inside process was not done yet, like bread in an oven. Another month has passed and I made a discovery - my drum is empty. I left Germany with an inner drum overflowing with emotions, anxieties, fears, uncertainties, expectations and more. Somehow, sometime, maybe over time, it all leaked out…
Thinking over the past 8 months, thus going back to October 2010, severe pruning took place in our and my life – actually, it really started in 2007: when our lifeboat began to rock in the stormy waters of office politics and strained relationships. France and several close friendships were pruned away when we moved to Germany in 2008. We replanted in Germany, but in shallow soil – we knew it was a temporary shift. More losses followed: a‘secure’ job position, an organization and intimate friendships.
These losses had a profound effect on me personally pruning away confidence, emotional stability, health – leaving someone behind that I did not know: a shell that existed from one day to the next – a day, most of the times, devoid of meaning.
As Hugo was getting ready to graduate our next season plans started to fall into place: the time has come for us to return to Africa. A 17 year chapter of our life was coming to an end and that brought mixed emotions: excitement to return to our family, friends and heimat with a new future focus on opportunities to help develop Member Care in Africa and establish our
professional careers. But also sadness for what we are leaving behind: 8 amazing years in Europe, saying goodbye to friends and our home in Germany – a home that was truly a haven for us and so many that passed through. As our ‘stuff’ started to disappear in boxes and emptiness echoed in our home, I realized that another layer of familiarity and comfort were pruned away and uncertainty of the unknown loomed before us.
Moving, transition, saying goodbye, exchanging the familiar for uncertainty create high stress and all these things filled my emotional drum to the brim and it was with this drum that I left Kandern on the 19thof January. Our transitory lifestyle pinched like new shoes: learn to travel through Europe in the middle of winter; develop a routine of pack up, travel, find food and a
place to stay and start afresh the next day. The seemingly insignificant became significant and pierced through self-centeredness and a fixation on the emotions and feelings of ‘I’.
I started to wake up with the gift of a brand new day in my hands – a day filled with the unknown and uncertainties, but a day that gave me a choice to live life, with all its challenges, to the fullest or choose for it to slip away, devoid of meaning, stripped of joy.
The daily demands of our journey gradually, almost gently, forced itself into my drum, expelling an unhealthy occupation with myself, my emotions and feelings. I am a processor and will always be, but with a balance, a definite tongue-in-the cheek and a good measure of humor - ‘chillax ma, it’s just another day in paradise…’
Andrej and I talked about all the changes that we discover and observe in ourselves:
we’ve developed a travel routine and rhythm, we know where goes what, to pack and strap up the vehicle takes maybe 20 minutes, compared to almost 2 hours in the beginning. We’ve learned to work together as a team; we are getting more streamlined by the day. We do not mind cold showers or sometimes even no showers; we are happy when we find a somewhat decent place to sleep; and accept if it is not the case. Food needs are reduced to basics and staples, but it satisfies and leaves us content.
Our appreciation for the small comforts and the things you’ve never thought of before has soared. It takes very little to make us very happy and we look at what we had, what we accepted and took for granted, with renewed and fresh appreciation.
A scene from the movie, “The Mission” comes to me every time I think through this journey of pruning: one of the main characters played by Robert De Niro, was a slave trader and when he became a Jesuit he felt that he had to do something to redeem himself, so he decided to climb up the waterfall dragging with him a heavy ball of scrap metal– symbolizing his guilt and sin. He wanted to pull it to the top and through this act receive forgiveness. The dramatic scene near the top of the waterfall is, after another unsuccessful effort to pull it to the top, the priest that accompanied him walked over and with one quick flick of a knife severed the rope tied to the weight and freed the guilt ridden man.
The journey this far has freed me from emotional baggage that I carried and dragged
with me when we started. When exactly did it happen? I’m not sure – it was a gradual every-day severing of a few cords until somewhere it was cut free.
After the pain of pruning subsides, new growth starts to flow until it erupts into magnificent beauty…
‘I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.’
Maya Angelou
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