Last week I finally figured out that I've developed textbook symptoms of burnout. At first, understanding what was going on made me feel better. But by Friday that relief had worn off, and I'm honestly a little bit scared.
In the meantime, I woke up early today and went shopping.
First, to a zero-waste shop for bulk pasta and red kidney beans refilled into jars, a bottle of olive oil, potatoes, a lemon, and a red pepper.
Then to a market hall. My uncle's stepdaughter wasn't at her stall outdoors, so I went indoors into a French import stall and bought a few Christmas presents. Ice had frozen in a puddle on top of a wooden barrel at a restaurant terrace outside the building, and here and there in Berlin small drifts of rime or snow lay in the grass or at the windshield of a car. Having told the cashier 'Merci beaucoup' and been rewarded by a delighted response wishing me a 'Bon weekend,' back out I went, cycling randomly through the nearby streets.
There was a long line of people waiting at the entrance to a Finnish Christmas bazaar, beside a massive 19th century brick church.
On the church's announcement board, which I'd read a few seconds before, a poster had mentioned the steep rise in demand for the donated food that is distributed to refugees and others from the building. Which made me think I should organize more food donations soon.
More cheerfully, a sports field nearby was alive with the shouts of young soccer players and the vibrating ring of metal wires as the ball hit a fence.
After that, I cycled more over the cobbles and through the drifts of yellow gingko leaves, multi-colored maple leaves, and green-yellow leaves from trees whose species I've forgotten, to the allotment gardens.
It's been lovely lately to go to the gardens. There's hairy brown kiwi fruit growing over a gateway lattice that I didn't notice until the greenery had mostly died off. White tufty beards of clematis seed pods like St. Nicholas's mingled with the bright red of rose hips, are still climbing into the lowest branches of what I think is a larch tree. And the wine-red and dark blue colour scheme of the Virginia creeper vines is as beautiful as ever.
I like listening for sounds that break the silence. It's gradually, as you draw closer to a garden plot, when you begin to hear the rustle of a bird, the hard scrape of a gardener's rake, the murmur of conversation, or (to give an example from today) someone playing a jazz-pop recording.
These peaceful, hidden workings amid the apparent winter paralysis reminded me of my favourite Thoreau essay, "Winter Walk". But it also reminded me of scenes in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
“Overhead there was a pale blue sky, the sort of sky one sees on a fine winter day in the morning. […] Everything was perfectly still, as if he were the only living creature in that country. There was not even a robin or a squirrel among the trees
A gardener had left pruned cedar branches outside their fence, and I gladly took a few of them home, clamped into the back of my bicycle.
Snow began to fall near noon: speck-like flakes, not thickly gathered, swooping through the sky, and thankfully dry so they didn't melt and make anything soggy.
I did, explored, and enjoyed more things today — not least a tea with an uncle and an aunt, my sister, my mother, and two of my brothers, over candlelight, almonds, and cake. But I think I will stop here.
***
In the winter, I stop short in the path to admire how the trees grow up without forethought, regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not wait as man does, but now is the golden age of the sapling. Earth, air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough; they were no better in primeval centuries. The “winter of their discontent” never comes. Witness the buds of the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost on the sides of its bare switches. They express a naked confidence. With cheerful heart one could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he were sure to find there the catkins of the willow or the alder.
— Henry David Thoreau, "Natural History of Massachusetts" (Project Gutenberg)
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