A gift called „An Hour“.
For someone like me who’s not regularly travelling by train, it is still a little bit of an adventure. I remember my first conscious train trips as a kid, the wonder and excitement, being able to walk around while You’re travelling, the constant comforting and sullying noise that a train makes, the regular little bumps, the slight cracking of the chassis, the people murmuring around You.
#slowtravel #trainthoughts #stoicism #mindfulness #poetry #poeticprose
I can recall these feelings and some of them are still present somewhere in the back of my brain today, when I’m returning here.
Meanwhile the German trains are notorious for being late. I’m on a business trip and already built in a reserve of 30 minutes until my first meeting. Proves to not be sufficient: There was an announcement that we will be 60 minutes late. A whole hour of productivity lost.
I will miss my first meeting and am writing mails to re-organize my day. Inefficiency, that’s one way to see it.
But there’s another way. We’re gliding through little towns far off the main-route, as the train has to take a detour. There is the mist of early March on the fields. Some people around me are quietly making phone calls to re-organize their days. No-one is angry or agitated. Why should I be?
I didn“t lose an hour. I got one back. Cut out of the densely packed layers of timelines and plans. Probably this is what freedom looks like. An unexpected gift called “An Hour”.
Sometimes it is harder to accept presents and be thankful for them than to find and give a present to somebody else.
For this gift I have nobody to thank for. Still, I am grateful for this little piece of freedom. It’s a craft You have to learn, and if You’re good at it, life becomes a little more like spring.
7Sven