Time Out Day: Enjoying Silence & Reflection

We had to take a break. After so many walkabouts day after day. Not only because of the rest. I have this need to evaluate. To give things their places. As I woke up my thoughts went back to yesterday. This trying & erring. Had we, had I made mistakes in the course of reorientation? In searching our way through and out? Could we have done better? What can I learn? Did I overlook what age old mountain fields and meadows, farmers trials and forest roads teach the walker on the nature of landscape and geography? Farming practice on the basis of horse traction. Why would a walker try on to search his way through a steep and dark forest while the horse span would go a longer, heavier way round? How wise and patient should a walker behave, orienting himself, guiding companions?


In the past Willemien and I made many long distance walking and climbing tours in the Alpes. From the Dolomites, the Maritimes, Wallis, Engadin, Gran Paradiso, Pyrenees. To many tours in Austria, Bavaria and the Scottish Highlands. We loved it. And we had our inconveniences: the weather, the gletschers, the abyssal passages, losing the way, you name it. We passed and survived it all. And now we are content with our mid-German Weser mountain land. Around our Carlsheaven base camp. Low altitude. Definitely content, both of us. It seems that we have learned what it means to go for a walk, just for pleasure. Nothing to achieve or prove anymore.

So, taking a break now would not interrupt any performance pressure. We enjoyed sitting on the balcony after installing the parasol. Willemien dozing off after her garden work. Me, after my evalution, summarizing some reading results. For a long time I could not get the right focus. And, today, suddenly, yep, this break through. Feeling this gratefull calmness now.