this article is about taking a rest
so
read
it
slowly
- on the very first station after leaving -
I was sitting in a hammock hanging between two trees, my kindle in my lap, and I was grumpy. It was early August 2020, summer in its full abundance, the air was hot, and heavy of the smell of the fruits and flowers. The garden had at least five plum trees, different sorts, and all the plums, apricots, peaches, and pears were ripening at the same time. We could not keep up the rhythm with the fruits falling from one day to another, each morning we collected them, but still, the ground was juicy, smelled sweet and vinegar and you could hear the hum of the vespas already from a distance. Collecting the fruits out of the hands of vespas was like walking carefully on a minefield, touching each rotten plum so carefully like porcelain.
The hammock was placed between two trees, in an open air museum in Slovenia where we had our first volunteer experience with Agnese. The work itself was easy and likeable: we were helping the owners to build mosaics and a clay floor, clay columns in this abundant garden, that was packed full of mosaics anyway. Ceramics, glasses, stones, shells were ordered into patterns everywhere. We were walking on mosaic paths like labyrinths between the trees and the small clay houses, covered and shadowed by the trees. The first week I had to follow Agnese to find my way to the kitchen, she has a much better orientation sense than me.
The working hours ended at 1 pm. After lunch – hammock time.
So – I was sitting in a hammock, my kindle in my lap, and I was grumpy. It didn’t help that the endless mantra placed in the garden sound system was just to keep repeating itself, same tone, same voice, same message, day and night (there was a point when we took out the battery). I was trying to read a book about body anatomy and I didn’t like it. And I didn’t understand why. I always wanted to learn about the body and how it works. I thought finally I have the time for it. So what is wrong about it?
That was the time when I experienced that taking a rest is actually an action that needs determination, space freed for it, and commitment.
I knew that I was exhausted but I deeply underestimated the power of it. Of course, there was 10 years or overwork behind me, but not only that : the leaving itself was super stressful, all the planning and replanning in time of closing borders, all the shopping and packing, moving out, organizing the work I leave behind, and all the goodbyes, takecares, goodlucks, and seeyousoons, all the love waving around me, how they were setting me off to leave, was beautiful, and at the end, exhausting. This is how I ended up glued into my hammock. I had to experience that even if I wanted to, I was not able to do anything in my free time. I was physically not able to move, I got angry if I was forced to think about something.
I had to learn how to rest.
It helps if you are in a place where there is not so much to do. What I remember from this period: we went for long, slow walks that ended up in ice cream. We took a clay cure in the nearby lake, the water was green and very soft and had water lilies on the top. We were talking a lot – sitting in the garden, watching the sunset, we were trying to understand that we really left and that we really don’t know what will come. When one of us got worried about the unknown the other reminded her, we decided to allow ourselves the space. And when the mosquitos turned out to be stronger than us, we went to the tent and started watching home décor series on Netflix. That is it.
All I could do was to accept that this is where I am now,
I am in a garden,
I am building up mosaics from small ceramic pieces each morning,
I am hanging in the air each afternoon,
I am eating fresh fruits right from the trees the whole day,
and something will come.
There will be a time when something will arise from the space I create.
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