island diary: to be still in the midst of activity, or: 8 days to the shore

when does a journey start?

there is the official departure time, sure. but there also is the time of moving towards the journey. the figuring out where to go to, and when to go. and this phase of being in between the usual rhythm of the everyday, and the leaving.

transition time.

in a week, this time, i will be packing my days
(hello Freud.) i meant:
in a week, this time, i will be packing my bags for some island time. today is overcast, windy and rainy. which is okay. there's still so much to be done until leaving. so i prepare, work forward.

but there also is this impulse, to start an island diary, today. while i am still here. to not postpone life-time to the island, and focus on getting-done-lists only until then.

and so i am here, with a cup of yogi tea. looking through the photos of previous stays. seeing blue sky. water horizon. remembering the days there. hoping that all will work out this time. that the sky will be kind.

from the photos, i move to an old mail. written in those days before leaving. in a same kind of transition mode:

*

Friday, 11th April 
still in the midst of activity

Friday ~

outside, it's misty. in some days this time, we will be in the plane. yet before lift off, there are still a dozen things to be done. that's what these days before the journey are about. on my table: a long to-do list that looks like a question mark. but today, after some good hours of working, some of the things finally started to fall in place. 

so i took some time outside in the garden, more to relax than really work. but again, i found a good rhythm, removed weeds, then tended to some bare lawn spots with seeds and fresh earth. and then removed some more weeds which grew in the lawn. and so on. all this, just step by step. but now it's almost done.

later, i came across this quote:

“You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 

and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”
- Indira Gandhi

today, i want to go through the to-do-list again. and i will start to pack my bags.. i am already in holiday mood. can't we be there yet already? smile.

but it's good to have this feeling, of having reached a point of closure. like a milestone. the interesting thing is that without the holiday, i probably would have kept delaying some of the things that i now finished this week. 

which lead me to the thought that i want to try and approach those things that i don't really like to do quicker, so that they aren't lingering on the to-do-list and keep reminding me, while i keep postponing them and feel a bit bad about it continually. it's nice to have this feeling of “done!”, and with it, open space.

or like someone once put it in the Lonely Planet forum:

“Eat the frog first”

*

here and there

the photo above is a 2-layer-collage of here (Germany) and there (Mallorca)

below is the part that is just Mallorca. the part that is just Germany is online in this blog, just a couple of posts down - it's from last week, taken while the mechanics at the car place changed the tires of my car from winter to summer: skywards