Moving out and moving on...

The past months I've been absent. Not absentminded, but rather unavailable in cyberspace, occupied with major changes in my life. 2011 has been like a ressurgence: things, seemingly impossible, unobtainable or rather utopic, suddenly were visualized, materialized and established:  a new life was unfolding! But, in order to start "anew", I needed to leave "the old", sell and clean my home, say farewell to my neighbours, colleagues, storekeepers and all those other comfortably wellknown people who made my life liveable. Yes, we hugged and tears were shed, despite the fact that we all realized I'm not dying, I'm simply moving on....

(Wild strawberries in the backyard. Photographer: Jeanine Bruun)

I simply moved to another county to live with my beloved and start working in a new company with new colleagues, got some fancy new gadgets who will enable me to improve my performances, met some new shopkeepers and neighbours and will have to find a new physician, dentist and other people who provide all I need. Kinda scary to leave all the "safe and wellknown territories" behind... but at the same time, I'm excited and eager to start my "scoutingtrip", a treasurehunt so to speak: discovering who I am, where I should go and how I can be the change I want to see in the world.

You can never hold back spring!

Sometimes life can be tough… trust me, I’ve had my fair share. And just when I couldn’t imagine life getting any worse, my dad died, in the midst of a snowy winter. It seemed as if the whole world reflected how I felt inside: abandoned, wrapped in a cold, greyish, heavy blanket of snow and ice.

Tom Waits sings “Winter dreams the same dream every year… Baby you can never hold back spring. Remember everything that spring can bring!” Yes, I longed for and dreamt about a warm, colourful, new spring. The strange thing about winter is, we don’t know how long it will last: 6 or 4 months, who knows? But one thing we know for sure: winter won’t last and spring will come! That’s what keeps us going on, despite the long, dark winter nights, heaps of snow and slippery roads.

Tom Waits’ song “Spring” enhances the message of the movie “The Tiger and the snow”. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I suggest you do. It’s an enchanting movie with impressive performances, a moving story and beautiful music which can move you to tears. "The blushing rose that will climb, spring ahead or fall behind…”  Both Tom Waits’ song and the movie convey a message of hope and faith in things unseen, in the midst of hardship, suffering and despair. 

(Trailer for the movie “The Tiger and the snow” by Robert Benigni)

In the midst of my “winter” I had given up on “spring”, but I did know about the turn of seasons. I refused to hibernate and decided to believe a breakthrough would come. Spring came when I least expected it: suddenly a man turned up and his love managed to melt away my snow, thus creating brooks which nourished the hardened soil and brought new life. No, my life isn’t perfect, but this experience has filled my life with joy and hope for the future. New winters will come, but I can handle them as long as I keep my focus. It's about being willing to believe things unseen, despite the circumstances. It’s about rising up, stretching towards the light, moving on, looking forward, believing the best is yet to come!  "You can be sure, I will never stop believing!" (Tom Waits)