“Everyone needs a Greenland,” Mikael says as he shoves a messy baggy of homemade energy chocolate into his mouth.
I’m swatting enormous mosquitos away from my arms. It’s the height of Spring here in Southern Sweden, the dainty meadow wildflowers and beech trees rustle with a returned color. We are taking a rest from a 25km hike within the outstanding forest and countryside of Häckeberga Naturvårdsområde, one of the more lovely nature reserves of Skane county.
Mikael is pulling a tire, it’s what he does these days, among many other regimes as he trains to cross the prodigiously challenging Greenland Icecap in only a couple of months. We love training together, it is one of our things.
I am walking at a quick pace ahead of him, just out of earshot of his clamorous tire jangling and bumping along the ground. My mind is exceedingly good at tuning that out. I’m a meditator, an affirmation whisperer, a visualizer, and otherwise devotee of whatever it takes to cultivate a positive mindset. Mikael has gathered momentum with me on this consciousness quest too, and it’s just one more thing we love sharing between us. I’m in bliss here on my long walk through a foreign countryside, visiting him for a week and getting a boost of love, quality time, and incredible dinner dates with this man I love, but only get to see for 1-2 weeks at a time. We are both in places in our lives where our love-at-a-distance allows us to move bigger pieces into place.
“My Greenland” is the current circumstance that I’m working through: I am in the midst of a crucial job hunt, looking for work that suits my children’s schooling, suits my unique and varied skill set and passions, pays the bills, and allows their father and I to “at last” finalize our divorce and move out of the same family home. It is no small feat, re-structuring 15+ years of marriage, finances, career, and family.
One foot in front of the other doing the labor of life is one-half of the work.
Enjoying the journey of it as it unfolds right now beneath our soles, is the other.
Love this Hannah, such a great piece and a perfect reminder that the ‘messiness’ of life is in fact not messy, its beautiful. It brings joy in so many other ways.
So great to see you training together, my husband too embraces the tyre pulking, the endless bumping and scraping of the tyres, becoming stuck on the sand or rocks. He patiently waits for me to free myself and is under strict instructions not to help, despite him wanting to assist when he sees me fall up the large sand dunes. He watches and waits patiently knowing the struggle is what we need to callous the mind and the body for these expeditions.
The struggle is part of the journey, the fun and without knowing suffering how can we ever truely know what happiness and joy are.
Thanks for sharing the journey and wishing you success in the next exciting chapter for you and your family.
Belinda
Beautiful writing, belinda!