Questions

New questions arise. What is a village? Are we really nomads? And does it matter? Are we in need of new words to describe what we are doing? What is it that we are doing? And who are we?

On the road, walking 1364 kilometers in 96 days to get here, people kept asking me the same questions. Where do you come from. Where are you going? Aren't you lonely? Aren't you afraid?

There are many answers. And we try to live the questions to find some answers. That is why we are here. That is why we are doing what we are doing. That is why we fold boats out of newspaper, sew tails, bake bread, film each other, do yoga, go on walks to collect mushrooms, sing in a choir, do dishes in a muddy field, build a library, exchange information, knowledge, jokes, laughter. That is why we cook together, prepare a performance together, build instruments, dance in the rain, stand in line for the coffee.

We don't go anywhere. We are here. We come from the same place. And we aren't afraid.

Nomadic Village. Back to the foot of the mountain

I started a snail farm, I planned a library, I began preparations for a tea house (house = van), I made a museum for the things I found on the road, I started a fashion collection with cloth items that had been brought for me by all the nomads, I baked bread in the mornings, went to the yoga classes, talked to everybody, explored the woods, my rooftop terrass, signed in for paragliding lessons, thought about becoming responsible for the waste collecting so the good stuff could go to the piglets. I ordered a tail, started decorating my new red house on wheels, tried to continue embroidering my suit, tried to remember all the people I had met on the road, tried to write new stories, ignored my e-mails, started to become worried about the future. I heard myself say to people "there are only 1,5 week left". Three days had passed.

I crossed the mountains only to create myself a mountain. Sometimes I'm a fool.

While walking, leaving and staying was the same thing. It was easy to stay and easy to leave. But then I arrived. I reached my goal. And the staying became more important than the leaving.
The planning started, looking ahead, thinking about all the things you should do, could do, want to do. All the things I had postponed during the walking.

Although I had practised staying while walking, and sometimes even stayed somewhere for 3 or 4 days, I fell in some old trap straight away here. I wanted to do everything. The leaving became a threat.

That is when I put my suit back on again. My soft armour. The trousers, vest and jacket that I had been wearing for 96 days. The suit I had taken off shortly after I arrived and exchanged for a new wardrobe of cloth items brought to me by people from around the world who travelled here to find kindred souls. Another project to add to my list, but a nice and easy one. I had sent an e-mail around to ask everybody to bring me something to wear, anything, so I could become a collection of the nomads' tastes, wrap myself in the stories connected to their cloths, be safe and inspired in a new way.

I received a cardigan that had belonged to a mad woman, trousers that had been part of a military uniform and were worn by somebodies father, a favorite dress in which you could either consider yourself the most beautiful woman in the world or not care about anything and wear while jogging, brightly striped socks, a necklace given to somebody by a friend on her 16th birtday, a hawaian style
party shirt, a top to wear while dancing under a disco ball, an african dress, sweaters I could hide
myself in, the latest London fashion item and much more.

The first day, Tuesday, when soldiers camped next to our field, I wore the officer's trousers with the red stripe on the side. I combined it with the London armless shirt, black with white letters, shouting LOL. Yesterday I used the white trousers that seemed to be perfect for the yoga class and afterwards changed into a green summer dress with a striped tie in case anything official might happen. During the day I tried to bring some order into my own chaos, climb my own mountain of things, but a sad feeling had crept in and I found myself staring at my suit from time to time.

Apparently it was time to get back in the suit again. So I did. And it was good. And when I woke up this morning I was still wearing it. But it was a new day. A different feeling. Five thirty. Time to bake bread. I got up from my red couch, in my red van, from under the blanket with the red roses and I found the warm, red, knee long dress from New York that had been bought there by an Austrian woman on a trip celebrating her 50st birthday. A red woolen dress, white flower, a hot oven. A weird combination. I waited outside the kitchen for the dough to rise and watched the sky turn red just before the sun became visible. Shortly after a little girl jumped out off a caravan and ran across the field carrying an umbrella in all colours of the rainbow. She stopped in front of a tiny dog and asked him if he knew what colour it was.

green tea bread, rosemary and pumpkin seed bread, muesli bread, hungry nomads after yoga, running,   short night with small kid or long night with deep talk

Day 96. Home

I arrived early in the morning. I sat down in the middle of the field. I heard somebody cough, birds flew by, a door opened and a cat jumped out of a bus, a kid mumbling in a caravan. Slowly the village was waking up.

Home.

Day 95. Slowness

Day 94 (2). Letting go

It feels like an anti-climax. Having almost reached the end of my walk and being stuck at a campsite because it is raining, sitting unadventurously inside the campsite restaurant drinking coffee and Grüner Veltliner. Yesterday evening, in the toilet building where it was warm and where there was electricity, I tried to replan my route in a satisfying way after I saw pictures of the route I had planned to walk. It showed people hanging from almost vertical mountainwalls and ladders. Looking more closely at my map I also discovered that the markings for "mountain bike trail" are similar to the ones for "only for walkers with mountaineering experience". I had already wondered why there was a mountain biking trail in the middle of the mountains.
In fact I started a mountaineering course when I studied in Weimar but I don't think I can depend on C. when it comes to climbing. And another important factor for changing my plans: the mountain hut where I had planned to stay was open until yesterday but is now closed until the end of July.

I stared at my map for hours, tried to work out every possible route that isn't the quite easy one along some villages and wouldn't take more than a day but it seemed to be impossible. I like impossible, but after my last mountain hike I became a bit more cautious. Especially since the weather isn't too good these days. What to do? Yesterday evening I decided to wait for the next day and see from there.

Today is the next day and the rain keeps me here. It feels as if I reached my goal already. At first this thought made me sad, but sadness is a good emotion, one I learned to appreciate during the walk. Maybe I shouldn't worry about making my last days spectacular. Maybe I did indeed arrive already. Maybe I did every day.

I had planned to arrive at the Nomadic Village on Sunday evening. This Sunday, July 13. It might be an even bigger anti-climax. The big football finale. The most important thing on earth .....
When I read a Nomad's message saying that she wanted to be on time at Hohe Wand to watch the football match I wondered if I should change my plans. Arrive Monday morning instead. Or Sunday afternoon. It makes me question myself. Do I want an audience when I arrive? Is it important? Last year, when I arrived at the Nomadic Village in the south of France, I hadn't planned anything, I walked all day through the mountains, a difficult walk, a beautiful walk and when the evening fell I could see the village of Cuges les Pins already but it still took a long time to walk there. Before I arrived at the field where the nomads had gathered I sat at a bench in the center of Cuges for a while to land. Then I walked into the Nomadic Village where everybody had just finished their diner and was still sitting at the flying kitchen tables. I think they applauded but maybe it is a false memory, I am not sure. What I remember clearly is an enormous big bear, leaning against a tree inbetween the tables. I am sure about that. And how I seated myself and ate and everybody went back to their conversations and suddenly I was part of a group and how easy and normal it felt.

For a while, thinking about my arrival this time, I told myself I would like a welcome like last year, an audience, not necessarily an applause, I don't care about applauses but apparently I do care about being seen. And maybe I should, as a performer, but I also want to be a performer who shouldn't.

When I started to think about arriving, I thought diner time would be the best time for a proper welcome, last year it was a coincidence, this year I could plan it. And since it would be a pity to wait until Monday evening, even though more people would be there, reading that a lot of people would be there on Sunday evening already, I planned my arrival for Sunday evening, not too early. Ninish maybe. I never thought about football of course.

As always, circumstances force me to look at my own motivations and question them. Yes, I should care about an audience, calling myself a performer but my audience is there all the time already. All I need to do is be there. Somewhere. And the arrival has happened already. It did every day.

So let's just leave tomorrow if the weather permits it and see what the road brings me on my last walking day, days, one, two or three. Listen to my gut feeling, not to my ego. Follow my feet, talk to people, arrive when it is time to arrive. It can't be planned. Not when I am serious about what I am doing.


"So I lift from my shoulders the burden of time and, at the same time, that of the performances that are required from me. My life is not something that we have to measure. Neither the jump of the deer nor the sunrise are performances. Neither is a human life a performance, but something which grows and tries to reach perfection. And whatever is perfect does not accomplish out performances: what is perfect works its way quietly."

(Stig Dagerman, from "Our need of consolation is impossible to satisfy.")


(today's thoughts are for Anne and Geert, I promised them I would walk with them through the mountains and I can't keep my promise but the intention was there and the mountains are there, they are all around the campsite, it is situated beautifully in the middle and my longing to be there, to walk there  might be more important than the real walk would have been)

Day 94. A phone call

Lying in my coffin shaped tent, impossible to leave because of the rain. Thinking about On Kawara who died yesterday, reading Stig Dagerman's beautiful and haunting text "Our need of consolation is impossible to satisfy". Staying or leaving. Staying as long as he was writing, leaving finally because he considered taking your own life is the only freedom you have as a human being. Listening to Björk again who sings about throwing small things from a mountain top every morning to feel safe living up there.

For the first time in 94 days my phone rings. I answer it. It is Sissi, the pilgrim I met yesterday on the top of the Kieneck mountain. She is on her way to Mariazell through the mountains, a famous pilgrim trail. She talks about some things she read on my blog just now. She is waiting for the rain to stop too.

We talk for a while and wish each other a good day. When I put down the phone the rain has suddenly stopped. But only for 10 minutes.

Day 93. On Kawara forever