The silence sounds different here
Svea, 2025
It feels as though we’ve had to learn how to look, observe and breathe all over again. As described in the previous post, we’ve gone from running a marathon to finding breathfull calm. No more constant “musts,” but instead: everything may.
And I must admit, that’s incredibly difficult. Over the past period - honestly, just call it the past year - we had so many things we had to do, and I completely burned out from it. My candle is burned out at the moment. There were no fuses left, and yet we still kept doing everything because it felt like we had to. That’s what you call expectations - and in Dutch society, they can be quite harsh.
We’ve now been here for about a month, and I can honestly say that this past month I’ve been detoxing from the “musts,” from negative thoughts, and from the mental pressure I put on myself. We both had to detox from this, but Igor - luckily - can shake it off much more easily. I, on the other hand, find that incredibly difficult. Keeping all the balls in the air, showing everyone that everything is going well. Yes, I’m not making things easier for myself there. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned this past month, it’s that nature truly is the best medicine for a human being.
Standing still and truly learning to see what is happening around you, noticing the sounds you hear, and what you feel when you pause. Allowing everything that drifts through your mind to simply be there. But the silence here is different. It is truly silent. Not a car, scooter or cyclist to be heard (or those incredibly annoying fatbike horns - honestly, they should ban them). Only the silence of nature. You hear the wind moving through the trees and bushes. The stars twinkling in the sky. The ducks happily quacking on the lake. Nature here forces you to slow down - not because you must, but because everything in your body says, “stop and breathe.”
Standing still. It’s allowed.
