I am are sitting in the garden of my favourite pub. The beautiful autumn light is shining on the old wooden bench, and the air feels fresh and frisky. The combination of beer and chips makes me happy and gives me an odd feeling of home. 

Anna, my friend, struggles to balance her beer and food at the same time, and finally manages to join me on this sunny bench. We haven’t seen us for a while and there is so much to catch up, but we start to talk again, about our favourite topic; the time when everything changed. We love to talk about it, we have soo much to say! All these feelings, all that massive change! But we are so happy now, where we are. “I wouldn’t want to go back to the time before,” Anna says while taking another sip and trying to ignore the autumn wind. “No, me neither” I add. We cheer again, we are so proud, we know what we went through and we are soo much better off than anytime before. 

My phone rings. It’s my friend from home, her little business, built in the time of chaos out of need and despair has now become a flourishing business. She is the best example of how creativity outplayed adversity! And she is not the only one, many more are now working somewhere new, somewhere they never have thought it would be possible, new businesses have sprung up like mushrooms, money was available through new sources nobody ever has thought of. It was messy, sad, intense and chaotic, but one phoenix after the other, has risen from the ashes and people found astonishing ways to give expression to their creative passion. 

We love to talk about that time of change! A sort of routine has come back, but we know everything has a special new meaning to it. Parties, gatherings, friends, and families, we are cherishing it more, we we value it more. Everything matters, the smallest human connection, the hugs, the silly jokes, the potential of good ideas, time, details and stillness. We know we are social beings, and we saw how compassion prevailed production. And we love it!

Still carried and uplifted by the spirit of this new world, a softer and calmer tone of human connections can be found everywhere. 

A family is just sitting down next to us in the garden, they too, they talk about what they are up to now in this new area. A new sense of confidence and proudness can be found in the way they talk. Everyone experienced themselves how they were able to bounce back, to adapt, to find new creative solutions and that results in a new confidence, in themselves and how they perceive others. 

I tell Anna how it felt the times of loneliness. The time of self-reflection, where I learnt to meet my self and to see what truly matters. It wasn’t that bad at the end, I was forced to stay home, guided to see myself.  It was intense and honest, and I started to remember things about my self. How much I love to have time, to cook, to write and how much I love my friends and family. It was a big lesson towards more authenticity and a crucial step toward the life I am living now! 

Hallelujah, what unexpected outcomes! Ohh no way, I wouldn’t want to go back to an old normal. 

Still, it’s unbelievable, how something so small, something we not even can see with our bare eyes, made a whole world stay home! A whole world, a big global family. It outplayed all sorts of identifications; it ignores religion, nationality, country, financial status, and doesn’t care about political views. This little thing would go after anybody. Despite the cruelty, there is something beautiful in it, we are all just humans when it comes to the virus. 

We can laugh now, and yes we do! But the pain was there, in that eventful spring. Loved ones died leaving families grieving. We have to give it time, to heal and integrate this pain before it becomes the biggest transformative tool to give rise to a new global humanity.

We cheer on that and are enjoying the simple fact to sit in the pub’s garden.

And finally – Stillness.  I am sitting at my window in the still most beautiful street of Norwich as I observe the calm sense of stillness floating over the street like a cloud of icing sugar dust.

Finally – Stillness – I am listening to my fridge’s murmuring; its own endless story. I hear the scratching sound of my pen and contently sighing I realise: finally! So much needed to happen, flights needed to be cancelled, my workplace needed to be shut down, people had to be locked away – so much! until I finally sit down in absolute stillness. Almost guilty, I am thinking too myself, “you could have had that earlier!”.

I didn’t. I waited until the world collapsed to have my big breather. But even then, in midst watching the world fall apart, even then I found so much to do; essays had to be written, things needed to be cleaned and washed before I finally retreat to my window and let myself be embraced by a deep silence.

My fridge all of a sudden decided to change a sound-gear, before falling into a periodic silence, I decided to change my thoughts, before falling into old patterns. Silence has to be felt and is hard to describe. But it feels like home, like childhood memories of old wooden floors. It remains me of the short felt freedom I had, whilst my mother was napping and only the clock was watching. It still feels like freedom, like a majestic power beyond time, it feels like me without a character, it feels like sitting in the eye of a storm and waiting to see a new world emerging. It feels like seeing us battling through the birth pain and loving the newborn baby already.

This is the best moment of my life: the moment I finally sit down on my couch and take time for the art of musing; just thinking and feeling and sitting. Time to be, to write and proudly I proclaim: “Virgina Woolf, I made it!” I finally have it, the room of my own. My room to sit, muse and write. I have all I need. It’s taken me a while and it wasn’t easy.

But now, while I have it, I am realizing the power of it. A girl in her room, happy, fulfilled and creating. Not for money, not for admiration and not for followers. No, just for the pure joy of creation. It could be crap, worthless but it doesn’t matter. As the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder – the joy of creation lies in my hand. I have my power back. It’s taken me a while and it wasn’t easy.

But now, while I have it I am realizing the revolution in that fact. A girl in her room; happy, fulfilled, creating and powerful. Not to gain anything, not to win a battle, not to be a heroine. No, just for the pure feeling of being in one’s own power. ”Mary Beard” – I want to shout ”I found a way” I finally have it. I included myself in the club of the powerful. I walked through my fear of shame and here I am taking myself seriously. It’s taken me a while, and it was certainly not easy.

After these words, I blow off the last grain of guilt from my shoulders. Take another sip of my tea, gaze out of the window into the most beautiful street in Norwich, and promise myself to stay strong.

If I didn’t have the pressure to make money; I would keep on laying on my couch, reading ”Wuthering Heights”; You cannot really call it reading; it’s more a sort of being impressed by each word and then considering whether I should look them up or not.

You guessed it!

English is not my mother tongue. But’s a language I start to love more than I thought. I try not to be overly intimidated by the extent of vocabulary this language holds and the sheer endless combination of word correlations!

But if a language describes your mental absence as ”away with the fairies” it must be for sure a good one!