An ode to Brandenburg (and McPomm)

Before I fly into the wild and unknown Far-away (to a country that most people respond to :„where the duck is that ?“) I thought it´s quite appropriate to make a post about the unknown Very-close.

BRANDENBURG !

I´d consider that most people could react to this region just the same: where the duck is that and why should anybody go there ?
A black spot in most minds (just like mine a few years ago). But I want to give a drop of colour into that gap.

On one wonderful, slightly-melancholic, free afternoon in mid-february. Me and my bike. Emptyness, sky, silence that can be broken with songs to the rhythm of pedaling, fueling the first rays of sun, space for thoughts, reflextions and memories…

Last year when I did not have the chance to travel far but the need to make a trip alone into nature was immense I decided to make a small trip north of berlin. Randomly stroling around on my bike for a few days from lake to lake (whose countless number btw. is so big that you´d need years even visiting one per day). I didnt take my camera with me and rarely turned on my phone so the only way I captured the beauty of the moments was my memory. Pictures and feelings... especially that situation when I felt lost in a small slightly touristy village and it already started to dawn. I thought my bike is broken, I didnt know where to put my tent (too many people + a nature reserve= no wild camping) and rejected the option of an official camp, I ate a poorly cooked cauliflower – plain, because that was the only thing i had and there was no shop and restaurants didnt attract me (blablabla)… you get the stress level.

So after sitting around like this for some time- occupied by the spirals in my head and sulking on my own I got fed up with myself. And something that always helps in those mind-rat-race situations is ...water (did you ever regret taking a shower ?). Lukily I was on a peninsula and so I made my way to the water a few hundert meters away.

Most of the people already left the sandy beach for dinner and just a few couples sat around on the slopy meadow enjoying the last bits of the sun. The water glasclear – cuban shore blue. The temperature so perfekt that you enjoy every step you take into the liquid to finally let your body be surrounded by it fully. The orange sun finally touching the trees, colouring the surface of the lake and the sky into a reddish pink-amber. No thoughts- only full surrender to the holiness of that moment. Minutes that become years. Something between the fall of the day – the rise of the night. For me like something between death and rebirth. Surrender to gain energy and trust into anything that might come.

…
Clearly I survived the night. And also the next days were full of magic. Not far from home. But far enough to find home with-in myself again. „Oh I was never lost, I only chose to never go home“

An ode to Brandenburg (and McPomm)

P.S.: The following photos are from the day-trip in february. I decided not to edit them at all.

 To confront yourself
You don´t need to travel far
Sometimes it´s enough to visit grandma

Two best friends, meeting up for a chat every day at that spot to watch the cyclists coming by on a sunny day.