maggisfarm

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I hitch hiked to Spain last month for the sake of feeling warmth on my pale skin again after a never ending sequence of grey late winter weeks. I also went down to see two friends of mine, who live in the Alpujarra mountains gardening for a small community.

We had met in Gloucestershire (Britain) more than three years ago to serve a biodynamic land training in a community working with more or less handicapped people.

I had moved there right after passing my Abitur in need for a place where I could do some volunteering and thinking about what to do after. I had planned to stay for one year which resulted in three years altogether. I was sure I had found my destination, I was sure I would never have to sit in seating rows again writing exams. I was all wrong but I never knew then.

I returned to Germany after receiving my certificate. And even though I felt new and wise, spiritualized and sure about the fact that science was a curse keeping me from seeing, feeling and last but not least doing the essential things in life, I straight away applied for uni, moved my principal residence to Witzenhausen and started studying organic agriculture.

Studying agriculture is studying a lot of things at once. It is all subjects mixes up: botany, biology, anatomy, physiology, history, sociology, politics, economy, marketing, development, agronomy, plant science, crop farming, maths, statistics, machinery, and so on.

And if additionally you’re into uni-politics it’s to do with a lot of people, opinions, strategies, intrigues, decisions, paperwork, letters, meetings, concepts, victories and defeats and a big amount of thrill. Wherever I am I’ve got to dive into the system, ask questions, need to understand and participate - take part and speak out loud what I think. I don’t believe in things changing, things don’t change. I believe in people changing things. People like me.

Only down in Spain I felt I could escape. It felt like Oaklands. The world kept on turning, the clock kept on ticking and I wasn’t there. No one knew my location. I wasn’t part of that macrocosm sort of thing but enveloped in my own microcosm. Like an embryo in my private womb. No duties. No commitments. No internet access and no phone. Not even 220 volts most of the time let alone hot water.

But just when I thought I had found my spot again - the well in my sand pit - my time was up and I had to leave. And I was back in this vortex of things-that-need-doing before I could even spell the word “homecoming”.

I phoned England today. Because I felt homesick. And because I needed to know my next halt point, the day my train will call at for me to step off for a while. I know now it’ll be the 10^th of July, what is great. I’ll never fully escape. I know that.

And I will probably continue wondering which is my destination, the place far away or the one just here. Maybe my goal in life is that the two of them slowly move towards each other and eventually settle down in one location where I will then get old, sow my seeds and die. Who knows …