Her eyes the stars - LUCHS

I spent the entire weekend in the quiet solitude of our summer cottage. Chiffchaffs and cuckoos were singing, the sun was shining from behind the trees, shy, and the lake was glittering and mellow. It was lovely to be surrounded by nothing but nature and nature only, enwrapped in the silence of my own thoughts and completely focused on the work at hands.

During these experimentations, when I go here and there and do this and that, I'm shaping what kind of a future I want, what kind of things give me joy and pleasure and calmness, and what works for me and what doesn't. I've been trying out different things - hobbies, travel, pastime. I've tried group hobbies, alone hobbies, sweating in the gym or in spinning lessons, hiking, running, riding, biking, yoga, swimming, bouldering, karate, self-defense, I've tried different arts, I've even tried acting. I've gone traveling alone, traveling with friends, traveling with family. I've gone to beaches, cities, the countryside. I've lived alone for a while, I've stayed with friends, I've lived with my family. I've done this and that and gone here and there and I've started to form some kind of a sense of the future I wish to get, although it's evolving constantly. And you know, there, in the solitude of our little cottage in the middle of no-where, I thought to myself, this is something I'd want in the future... Something I want from life.

Let me delve into this further. The cottage is a primitive place, it barely has any electrical devices, there's no running water, the only source of heat is the massive fireplace in the middle of the entire place. There's no TV, no computers, not even a toilet - let alone showers! (It does have a dry toilet, luckily.) I'm not saying that I don't want any of that - showers, toilets, computers - but that there's something in there that no place here in the city has. Calmness. Peace. Silence.

The place is surrounded by nature. The lush, fertile land grows all kinds of plants and trees, the lake is filled with fish and the forests are of deep green. The chiffchaffs, cuckoos, pied flycatchers and pigeons wake me up every morning, the cabbage butterflies and bumblebees fly from one flower to another, the sun rays gently caress my face. The sun mirrors from the lake which looks gentle and calm. If I had to name an instrument to describe what it all feels like, I'd say it feels like an acoustic guitar... A nice, quiet melody played slowly by a gentle guitar. There's no hurry. There's no rush, no pressure, no stress. Every little action takes an endless amount of effort - you have to carry all water from the well or from the lake, if you want warm water, you have to heat it up with fire, even going to the toilet requires some walking. The best light source is candles and fire, and don't get me started on the fireplace... There's something primitively satisfying and calming in getting a fire started - when you can finally see how the fire starts to eat the wood, when it finally gets stronger and taller and more powerful, and the heat warms you from head to toe. If you want to stay warm, you have to keep it going. And the garden - there's always something to do! From chopping firewood to raking, from reaping to plucking weeds, there's always an activity you can take if you just so happen to feel bored. There's no boredom there, but there's also no pressure. Everything you do, you do for your own, immediate comfort. Survival, even. The work you put into carrying water, you do it for yourself. So that you can get water to keep yourself clean, to cook, to drink. There's no excess profit, the one and only one to profit from any action you do is yourself... No more, no less.

It's what I love... that quiet, that solitude. I can stay in the quiet of my mind, I can sit by the fire and listen to its crackles and pops, deep inside my own head, or I can keep my body active and going, listening to everything around me, thinking about nothing. No-one's there to judge, no-one's there to demand anything. It's incredibly soothing, and it doesn't make me feel lonely. I feel more in touch with myself, with nature, with the world around me. I literally have time to look at ants, to look at the birds taking care of their little chicks, to watch the trees sway in the gentle wind. I can believe that to some city-mongers and urbanity-lovers, our little cottage would be hell. It would be misery. But to me, every little action, such as washing dishes, just becomes so much more meaningful when I have to put more effort into it... and do it with my own two little weak hands. And, you can wash those dishes outside, while listening to the trees softly swaying and their leaves getting blown by the gentle summer wind. What's not to love? 

Besides, it's incredibly inspiring. I can't explain to you how inspired I started to feel, how my imagination just started growing and going places and creating all these incredible stories and images and ideas in my head. Just, immediately, when everything around me quieted and became simpler, easier. It feels like this complex, loud life with millions of little on-going things all the time, the pressure of staying reachable constantly, 24/7, is like a plug to my brain. It suffocates and tires my mind, this stress of staying in touch with every friend, ahead of my school schedule, improving in my hobbies, constantly, constantly. My imagination has no time to create new ideas, to create anything vaguely interesting, because I'm struggling to stay afloat in the depth of responsibilities. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being busy and having many things to do (boredom is one of the things I dislike the most), but it's the loudness, the noise, the irritating, unnecessary things we have to take care of, like social media, that tire me. There are times I wish I could throw my smart phone out of the window, get an old Nokia brick, give people a particular time they can reach me, and enjoy the silence and simpleness of being. I'm not saying that the internet is the source of all evil, but to me, I feel like it's an easy way out... Easy way to silence and suffocate my brain, easy-to-digest, simple entertainment to keep the boredom away. No productivity, no thinking, no imagination required. And to stay in touch with everyone and everything, you do need internet... Besides, my friends have called me out for being too hard to reach, lol. Even though I do try to answer at least in a couple of hours. It's just... I find so many things more interesting than phones, than the internet. I've wondered, if I'd put all this time and effort I waste on the internet into things that I actually like, such as writing, reading, painting,  jogging, say, adventuring, what would I be like? Or if, instead of sending messages and snaps, we'd always spend time together, face-to-face? What would we, my friends and I, or the entire world, be like? 

Although, I do understand that the internet has so many good things as well... Such as, it's easy to find information, it's easy to make friends all over the world. And memes. Let's not forget the memes. But I digress, I'm rambling again.

Back to the cottage we go. I don't mean that I want to live in complete solitude, like a hermit at the back of his gloomy cave, but that I wish to create that walden. A safe space from the stressful tempo of the city. I love cities, I love the pulsating, pumping beats, the neon lights, the loud and fast and dangerous motorcycles, the dark, sinful clubs, but only for a while... Then I get tired and need to retreat into my own little haven. My friends and new acquaintances have never guessed that I'm actually an introvert, since I come across as friendly and outgoing, but I do need time to load my batteries. 

At the cottage, I noticed how much pleasure I find in not being lazy. In having to put some work and effort into tiny things. At the cottage, I also noticed how my imagination just bloomed, just freaking bloomed. I noticed how my body started to de-stress, how tired I felt every night, how much I loved the fireplace (I just love fireplaces, alright...) and how much the nature around me affected me and the cycle of my body - when the sun started to come up and the first sun rays hit my face, I started to wake up, and when it started to get a little darker and the dusk started to set in, my eyelids got heavy. Even now, when the clock is barely half past eight, I'm feeling tired. 

I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I've been right this whole time lol. I'm not a city-person. I have a couple of friends who are always confused of my wish to hopefully move to the countryside when I grow up, and they jokingly mock me and call me a hermit, lol. It's just that I'm getting more and more certain that I do need that space, and that I do need that nature. I do need a garden, so that I can watch the cycle of the seasons, that I can take care of my plants and vegetables and berries, and I do need to work, so that I can tire my body and stay active for no reason other than the fact that I have to. I do need the simple peace of the countryside, to keep my brain aired out and my imagination fresh and bubbling. I hope that in the future I can get a nice house (with some more comforts, such as a shower and some heaters, please) with a nice garden and with a nice man and some nice dogs and cats and that it can be nice. Maybe we'll go traveling and clubbing and driving around and to gigs and festivals and do all these fun things, and maybe we'll organize home-parties at our place too, but at the end of the day, it's quiet and calm, and we can both read books and I can cook and tend the garden and do all kinds of housework, and during winter, we can snuggle by the fireplace and drink tea or hot cocoa, and watch the stars and throw snowballs, and we can both be in our own heads too, working on our own projects, amidst all the conversations and fun and kissing and sex, and during summer, we can lie in the garden and sleep there, under the sky, drowsy and comfortable, in the cooling shadow of a giant tree... And maybe, if we have kids, we can plant trees for them. Maybe I can create the cottage-effect, wherever I may be in the future, whatever it'll be like for me.

I'm such a romantic idealist ahaha, bare with me... But lying on the porch, under the sun, listening to the grass and the leaves humming and whispering and singing, almost, gave me such happiness that I felt like my heart was going to burst, and maybe I came up with some kind of a lovely lie of a good world, and now my eyes are covered with pink and I see the world through these pink eyes, and so everything looks rosy. I... the cottage is my rosy place. It's like a haven.

But now I do need to get back from the clouds and turn my starry eyes back into regular eyes, and do schoolwork and all that kind of stuff. Tomorrow is the start of another busy week, this time I've gotten prepared with a weekend of rest. Next Friday I'll go to an amusement park with friends, and I have all kinds of other fun stuff prepared, I can't wait...