I’m on the plane.
The plane is flying high above the Bay of Biscay. By now it is my 7th flight in a year and the 6th flight to Faro, Portugal, where my love is waiting for me. I have found my ideal seat. Right at the back, on the left by the window. The only disadvantage of it are the smells that occasionally come from somewhere near the toilets.
I like to sit somewhere at the back, with no one behind me and with a good view of the people in front of me. My own safe corner from which I can observe the rest of the world without it affecting me too much, taking me along in the waves, washing me over. It is also nice to have the jet engines in front of me, not behind me pushing me along. I prefer to be pulled like on a horse and carriage. It is really almost like on a horse and carriage.
After all those flights, I seem to be getting used to it and the inhuman speed with which I and my fellow passengers move has changed perspective into the slow shifting of the world beneath me. Now not predominantly blue or bright green as just before, but mainly light brown and darker green. We have ended up in Spain. Just a little while…
We have not seen each other for more than six weeks now.
It is exciting, six weeks is a long time, perhaps too long. A year ago I left around this time with my little car towards the south of France. I took a small caravan with me that I would eventually deliver in Pera, to a woman I had met at a retreat in the Netherlands and whom I had stalked as much as possible in the three days that were left.
She had not been insensitive to it and in the months that followed a real love affair developed. On-line, that is. After all, she lived in Portugal. After the retreat her plane was waiting to take her back to her beloved village in the Algarve and not to her THREE beloved dogs. I had been warned.
But I was already sold, during the check-in round of the team meeting I could not say anything else but: I’m in trouble…
We had agreed to meet in the Dordogne at an eco-campsite to create a relaxed base for this first live-in-love meeting. She came with her VW camper, I with my caravan and we had rented a small chalet for the first days together. So we essentially had three places to sleep, nothing had to, everything was allowed. One of the dogs would come along. I had no idea what it would be like…
I had started an adventure of which I could not estimate the course, could not foresee the goal and did not know how I would feel about it.
It had been great, even with the necessary awkwardness, the old expectations, the easy faltering of understanding each other. But my heart had always been clear, I would not let this woman go.
So after six days together, I had actually set off on my own for the first time in my life. She drove home and I would slowly follow. First some wandering in the Pyrenees and then to the South that was still unknown to me.
Below me forms are starting to take shapes that I recognize.
It will not be far now. What will it be like to see her again. All in all we have not been together for much more than two months. In the meantime I have learned to be open to the unexpected, to everything I cannot imagine. Especially after my solo trip after the warm meeting in the Dordogne.
This journey turned out to be an absolute step into the unexpected. I never knew what would present itself around the next bend, what would reveal itself at the next stop, how it would feel at the next campsite.
At first I felt a fearful uncertainty, but after a while that made way for a happy curiosity. Confidence grew and in the end it became a joy not to know what would follow. I couldn’t think of it anyway, so why should I worry. I even remained in good spirits when I lost the left wheel of the caravan on the highway in Portugal. Consciously I asked myself what it would be like if I didn’t allow any negative thoughts and it worked! Opening up to the unexpected.
The plane has landed, everything has almost become routine, I know what to expect, how to walk to the exit, which information that forces itself on me is useful, important or ignorable. In the beginning it was too much, a chaos of impressions that I have to close myself off from. I have something similar with landscapes, it takes a while before I can/want to open up completely. In the French Ardennes where I have a nice place and visit regularly, the landscape felt like a lady who slowly showed me her beauty. Not only the landscape, at first I only saw closed faces, poverty, fatigue and very poorly maintained houses. Now after 23 years I can enjoy it to the fullest, again and again. The people are also more open, and I can let myself be touched and amazed. The houses remain poorly maintained, that’s true. And there is poverty, that too.
The new adventure is getting closer.
In a few days we will pick up the camper with which we will travel around the North of Portugal for about three weeks. Fortunately, I have already gone through the various layers of panic, defense and worry. Meine Güte, with a wife and three dogs three weeks in a space of 12 m2, aiaiaiaiai…
I see my love driving up in her VW transporter and my heart jumps open, no doubt about it, she is still the woman I want to share my life with, aiaiaiaiai 🙂 Look at me, here I am in Portugal with a beautiful woman who wants me too; I could not have imagined this at all a year ago. And it was an intense year from a certain perspective.
I have had to open myself up to the unexpected time and again, I wanted that too, I felt that it was necessary. Following my Foolish Heart demanded that of me. I still have a panic attack every now and then and it becomes clear that the only one who can offer me safety is myself. And strangely enough, that feeling of safety, of holding, comes at the moment that I am prepared to let go, to be open to the unexpected. Meditation helps me like never before, I can hardly do without it. Affirmation too, stress is nothing more than holding on to negative thoughts. Becoming silent makes me recognize the negative thoughts and can say thank you to them politely. And then it becomes even clearer: There is nothing other than the unexpected, it is the source from which everything comes.
My love is also happy to see me.
But I can see that she is stressed, worried about something. A dormant infection is bothering her and yes, she is just getting a little sick…
The unexpected became the theme of our trip. One hurdle after another had to be overcome. Sometimes it seemed like a real nightmare. After 12 days we decided to rent a chalet in a mountain village. Laughing, we wondered what else could happen now. How much are you still open to the unexpected, I asked my love and myself. For me, that had dropped to 5%, but that was enough for the biggest unexpected.
After a relaxing day in the beautiful Sierra Estrella in northern Portugal, I was surprised by a heart attack at 4 a.m. My life was saved by the people from the mountain village and the skilled staff of the hospital in Viseu. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, there was a moment when the people around me were busy and looked worriedly at the monitor from which an alarming sound came. I wondered if I was dying now, without fear. I could imagine a nicer way to die and thought mainly of my love, family and friends for whom it would not be so nice. Slowly I felt myself opening up to the unknown. It was beyond doubt, I had zero control here, not over what happened in my body and not over what would happen to my body. I surrendered completely and an open curious joy came over me, in a soft but clear and very pleasant light.
Three months later…
The following days in that hospital in that unknown country, with those people I could not understand, the openness remained close to me. Yes, I was shocked, frightened, overwhelmed and my body was confused.
My love was also very shocked and we felt the connection even more after this intense shared experience. Even though we each had our own story in it.
But the hassle was not over yet. The insurance, the camper that had to be picked up, so emptied and cleaned, the unfamiliarity with the new reality, relational problems that suddenly came up, uncertainty about the operation that still had to follow, the journey home to Pera, the flight to the Netherlands.
In the Netherlands after five weeks in Portugal, after an immense adventure, back in my old habitat, the search is for a new form, a new pattern. A healthier pattern. I asked my heart: Dear heart, what do you need?
My heart responded immediately and answered: If you want to continue following me (and I am really not that foolish) you have to take better care of me. Very simple.
Not so simple, for me. It requires alertness, steadfastness, clarity, positivity, a certain maturity. Things that I do not always have at my disposal. Sometimes I just want to vegetate, daydream, stuff myself with junk food and distract myself with wasted screen time.
Is that a reason to stop following my Foolish Heart? No, certainly not! How open am I now to the unexpected? More than ever! I dare say 100%.
The unexpected teaches me life lessons that I cannot find in any school. My best teacher is my own heart, connected to a greater wisdom. I cannot do anything but follow You.
