Before I left I washed my feet. They became a little less dirty. Clean enough for the pair of socks I washed the other day. Too dirty still to sit in the train with bare feet. It will take a while before they are really clean again.
I wanted to leave my working trousers behind. After all
those weeks, washing them wouldn’t be of much use. But they remembered me of somebody
telling me they are as blue as the lakes are in the north, in Lapland. Where
they only have summer for 1 month and 11 months of winter the rest of the year.
Too short a summer to have time to fear the winter.
Some things can be enjoyed best when they last so much
shorter than you want to.
The other day Emil told us this story. When he was working
on a paper in the library of Sunne, an old woman came up to him. She looked at
him solemnly and asked:”Young man, do you live in the woods?” When Emil said
yes she just nodded and went on with her business.
In this world we have rules for everything. For three weeks
I managed to evade some of them. I lived with people who live in the woods and
are building their homes there. Some of the rules in the forest aren’t any
different than they are in the other world. You can’t build a house without an
official permit for instance. But what does it matter if the landowner agrees?
If it isn’t in anybody’s view?
Some of the rules don’t exist. A lot of the unwritten ones
don’t. You can walk around naked. You can abstain from a shower for three weeks
or longer. You can eat food that is inedible according to the supermarket. You
can have hairy legs and still be a desirable woman. You can wear the same
cloths for weeks on end.
I was happy there. No worries other than having too little
sun to charge the computer with the solar panel. Which meant having more time to
spend with my colleagues. Good times. People like me who try to figure out how
they want to lead their lives. People who want to be outside the system. People
who try to live without money, according to their own rules. People who care for nature, for self sufficiency, for
the beauty in the small things. People who are willing to experiment, to fail,
to try again. People who smile a lot. People who care.
I wanted to stay. But I had to leave. I had made promises in the other world.
In the train from Copenhagen to Amsterdam I sat next to a
young man. He didn’t speak any English or German or any of the Scandinavian
languages. At some point I heard him talk to a woman in an Arabic sounding language. At
every station he stood up and walked to the
window slowly, opened it and stared outside.
After we had crossed the German border the police wanted to
see our passports. They spent a long time staring at the young man’s pass and
then told him he was illegal and they were going to arrest him. He seemed not
to understand their English or German but he understood what they meant. They
searched him, made him sit down again and didn’t allow him to make a phone call
when he tried to. At the next station they handcuffed his right hand to his
bag. The only thing I could do was wish him all the best and put my hand on my
heart. He smiled a sad smile.
I returned. To a world where a human being can be illegal. To a world with crazy rules. To a world where most individuals are afraid to do what they think is right. To follow their heart. To care for each other.
I returned. A scar in the shape of a heart on my left
underarm. Dirty footsoles. Fingers too swollen to wear a wedding ring. Greener
fingers. A greener brain. Filled with new thoughts. New ideas I want to share
with old friends. New memories. A happy sadness.
Because from now on I’ll be slowly starting to get used to
missing my new friends. Missing picking blueberries for breakfast. Missing
swimming in the lake. Missing the solitary early morning hours, the first
coffee at Andrea and Jeppe’s, Maddy’s weed salads, improvised dumpster dinners,
the joy of a tasty lunch after hard manual labour. Listening to people making
music around a fire. Learning about plants, about soil, about building.
I returned. I took a shower. I made coffee without having to
fetch water first, without having to make a wood fire. I went to the Turkish
baker who runs a small shop across the street to buy a croissant. His usual
smile was missing, his eyes were red. He told me that in a month he would close
his shop. He simply didn’t earn enough and all his attempts to turn things
around, to invest in a few tables so he could have a small cafe, serving some
of his delicious food and snacks, in getting the proper licenses, were
sabotaged or ignored by the local authorities.
I bought 6 croissants instead of 2, sat in my noisy garden
remembering Rasmus the rooster breaking the silence in the mornings. I built a
small snailhouse for 4 Swedish Burgundy snails. I made more coffee. Ate another
croissant. Looked at the snails. I realised leaving means you can go anywhere.
Leaving means you can return if you want to. I left. But I mainly left my
fears.
I could be sad. I should be. But I am not.
Something is only just beginning.
