Totally back to the roots

Formentera, October 2020

It’s been three weeks now, since Deborah and I have arrived to Formentera on a one way ticket to stay as long as necessary, avoiding autumn and winter in Berlin and the expected restrictions of covid’s second wave in the city.

We are living in a bungalow very close by a stretch of Mitjorn beach which has not changed at all since we first came here in the mid 80ties. And it is so good and necessary to see things still the way they were as so many people or places we knew have disappeared. As we had not come back that often, it means for us to get used to the changes more abrupt than in an organic way such as the rhythm of the sigh of the times. Therefore, that beach stretch with its piles of posidonia algae on the shore and the same old fisher boats kept under the Sabina trees, even the same kind of isolated typical german tourist laying naked and dispersed in the sand with a book between their hands seems so familiar. One day, I met an old classmate from primary school on my walk back from yoga class. He is driving on this old automatic little motorbike he found in the rubbish called Mobylette Campera, repaired it roughly and thought about me, as I always used to drive around on that bike we had a long time ago. In fact, it was our only vehicle working for certain amount of time and I drove to school with, Deborah and Guggi on the back. The Méhari car would very often not start due to the morning dew. Without a functioning vehicle and living in the countryside in an old house with no running water nor electricity, trying to follow a normal daily life, can be tough sometimes. We always arrived far too late at school. Nice memories.

Meeting many of our old friends we grew up with, getting to know new ones who have come to live here within the past years, makes us feel so much more at home again. Besides the joyful days, we sometimes end up in tears when confronted with the recent death of our friend‘s parents who we have been close to.

The organic rhythm of sigh of the times.