By-effects of the lockdown

photo: Britta 

I read Rachel's post and answered this way (added here a bit):

"Many friends, including me, feel odd these days, Rachel (as you write: only sometimes).
One word, should I describe my feeling, is "UNREAL".

The many pretty trees (I love them!) in Berlin help to get that impression: you walk in a street and the light is green - as in a fishtank.. :-)

Unreal, because everything fades a bit, loses colour (only a bit), the sounds become muffled (or are not there).
I never had one, but to me it seems like a global depression: we are waking up in the middle of the night, worrying about the world of thousand things, monkey mind active like hell...

A feeling, that the world around us is still THERE  but covered in a ball of cotton.

There, but in some distance (might I make an educated guess? 1,5m distance?)  

The world is THERE (of course, and will be there long after us), but my feeling signals: it is not really HERE, the world.
Query: maybe I am not really here?


I love fairy tales more and more. I feel like Snow White in her glass coffin - I am alive, but sort of sleeping.  Want to disgorge that poisoned apple.
Feel thin-skinned. Vulnerable. Prone to tears. Unreal. Locked in <- That word describes it nicely, I think. 

Or even better: locked down.

Well - I'll drink a tea now. Might start to read Wilkie Collins again: "The Woman in White".
Or "Wild Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys - or Jane Eyre - all locked up women...

Song in the background: "Wake me up, when it's all over..."

Summer Solstice and Midsummer Madness

You might wonder about this photo - I took it in Noordwijk where I saw that the evening sun in my back was mirrored in the window of a holiday apartment.

As to solstice: the Flying Dutchman mentioned it quite often last month - and I always reacted a bit annoyed: Why mention it NOW? Why not wait? What do you want to express with it?
(I learned that the Dutch fear darkness - darkness in "full" daylight, I mean - and right they are, too many grey clouds can get you down. BUT: why think about that when the sun is shining brightly?)

I am not a paragon of patience.
My friend Christine tries to teach me for years (she is a paragon of patience!): "Don't cross the bridge before you reach it!" 

And though I am a great midnight rambler (to be exact: I ramble at three o'clock in the morning, heavily trying to puff up many balloons of worry - and I have a lot of breath!) I can abstain from worrying about the rhythms of the year.

I love spring, I love summer, I love autumn, and yes: I love winter too.
I see qualities in each of the seasons and do not want to miss one.

Tom is polishing his silver candlesticks. He is prepared. The Flying Dutchman is that too.
I - honestly - lit the 5 candles on my candlestick every day when I eat dinner.
Paradox: I make that moment special by something I do every day.

Though I confess: I break out in spots if I hear another mentioning of "Achtsamkeit" = "mindfulness" (a whole industry is thriving on this) - of course I enjoy when people really enjoy things -- but spontaneous please, not "holy" (if you get what I mean).

PS: Where is the Druid, the blogger Heron, by the way?