Midway point in the strength quarter

Quick update, 3 weeks into the 3x10 sets and I am LOVING it.

It must have been the extra calories, or the fact that it is really about breaking a number this time, and that I have time (1 to 6 sets) to work my way up to it, but the feelings are fantastic.

Fear, right before the target set. fear of injury, mostly, but also fear of failure. Then the cues, slowly wiring themselves into the brain, finding ways to activate patters. Then when the bar starts moving and I know "I have this!" it is really pure elation.

Quick cues summary (there are many that pop in and out of existence like unpredictable quantum particles)

Dead-lift - GENERATE TENSION.

This cue neutralizes the curve of my spine, puts my chest out and well open, and starts pulling slack off the bar.

Chest press - SQUEEZE BAR + DRIVE BACK INTO BENCH

This is a slow one. I am not nearly explosive enough at the bottom part of the movement, but it is getting better. Slightly more angled elbows also helped.

Squat - DRIVE LEGS INTO GROUND

Mostly low-bar squats, I am trying to stay at least close to parallel. Also a slow grower, but I am getting more confident.

Overhead press - various DRAGONBALL images and mental shouts

This is my black sheep. Stuck at the 33-36 kg plateau since forever, and that is not even a good number to begin with. Technique sucks, strength is lacking. Too much fear. This will be my Mt. Everest! I am, however, getting much better at straight pull ups, all grips. Under hand grip with 28 kg kettle bell for 3 reps x 5 sets!


Now a quick break until Tuesday, so 5 days, with maybe a jog and some body weight in between, because I feel BEAT tendon-muscle-joints-ligaments wise. 

The heavy 10 x 3 period begins!!!!

After a short break for Easter, I started the 10x3, the final stretch of the 12 weeks programme.
In weeks 9-12 the volume is in fact higher (32 reps per set in the 4x8 period, down to 25 in the 5x5 period, now up to 30 in the 10 x 3).

I was hesitant and I have to say also a bit afraid that I would get hurt here, especially because of the short break, which was rather sedentary too. It might have been just what I needed, in fact, or maybe it played no part at all.

I just know that over 3 reps and 10 sets I am able to ramp my way up to a couple of heavy triples, usually sets 6-8, and the final sets 9 and 10 feel good for the burn even if I take off 10 or 20% of the weight.

It is a bit time consuming, and not easy in a commercial gym with queues that go on forever for the bench press and power rack, but it is definitely worth it.

The poundage is going up in very small and prudent increments. I am making 2.2 kg / 5 lbs jumps every week top allow for proper form and avoid injuries, as I know my other "pillars" are not so stable. I mean recovery (sleep and de-stress) and nutrition. I also do not do enough stretching and prehab (all the preventive massaging etc...) and have no spotter, so I reckon that I need to take it a bit easier.

So far week 9 (which is really already week 13 at least, with all the delays, breaks etc...) is going well, with a good 86kg x 3 deadlift and a good 76 kg x 3 bench press, with some gas still left in the tank.

Squats tomorrow, which should be manageable, and Overhead press Saturday, which will be a serious "moment of truth" as the OHP is my slowest progressing lift, since I am basically stuck at 30 kg since I can remember....(I am talking years of plateauing there)

Wish me luck!

M. 

Phase 1 done, from 4*8 to 5*5. Pain ahead!

The first phase is supposed to last just 4 weeks, out of 12 total. It is the phase when all your 4 prime movers get a 4x8 volume. You are supposed to build some muscle mass here, and some muscular endurance before the actual strength work begins. I made it in 7 weeks, with a few interruptions, a few "just conditioning" workouts, and definitely one extra week of "let me try again that overhead press top set....one last time" to see with what numbers I would have to enter phase 2.

Too much, and I set myself up for failure and injury. Too little, and I am wasting time and not growing. A fine balance!

Anyway, phase 1 was tough but rewarding, although there is nothing like strongman training for a beginner to make you feel worthless, from time to time. You just cannot help but think, on the tough days when the barbell does not want to move, about all the years spent doing body-building type of work, without a real target or goal in mind, just "stay in shape". Sure you do look better, and you get a bit stronger, but the day of reckoning is only postponed, until you pick up some real barbell training. Then all your weaknesses are brutally exposed, and your brain spontaneously withdraws to the crocodile area and fires up thought like

"if this was a beam trapping a family member, could I lift it just ONCE?"

"if I was pinned down by a tiger, could I press her away?"

"if I was to carry a mate to safety, could I bear that weight on my shoulders?"

"if I had to throw something heavy as far as I can, how good would I be?"

and then you realize that you are just a weak city slicker, who runs out of gas way sooner than your body was designed for.

and then you power through, crappy workout after crappy workout, until things do get better.

Now I am a bit worried, because the 4x8 volume was intense, and now it is time to go 5x5. The progression is that if I hit "100" in my last and best top set for week 4 (week 7 for me) x 8, then I SHOULD be able to hit 115 x 5 in the second phase. That, for me, is scary. The last top sets were at the very cusp of what I could reasonably move without a spotter or a coach or ...anything really. We will see how it goes, I am looking forward to epic pain and hopefully some gains.

What I am sure I will take home is a ton of humility (never hurts) and a ton of mental fortitude (also not too bad) for which I have to thank both Brian Alsrhue and Alan Thrall! 

Poundage up, pain is floating, progress welcome

Not a Haiku, but a reflection. i went through a week of basically core hell and then 2 weeks of just dull and repetitive conditioning, in the shape of classic linear progression sets (4x10, 3x 8 , 3x12 etc).

It gave me a bit of a base to re-build on, as the back pain was ebbing away. No dead-lifts, light squats, it sucked but I stuck with it.

The I managed to move to the antagonistic training. On squat, bench, dead-lift, overhead press and upper back days, working up to a heavy set of 3s, immediately followed by a comparable weight in the antagonizing muscle group, to get rid of the imbalances. It allows for SO much more variation, effort, and satisfaction, and it mitigates imbalances. So, for example, bench-press followed by bent-over rows, or strict overhead press followed by weighted pull ups, right away, 3 of one, 30-60 seconds of core (planks, for example) and then 3 of the other. Strict technique, no cheating. Do this 3 times (so 3x3). Then a heavy set of five in a neighboring group (say, dumbbell incline x5 , 30-60 core, then one arm rows x5). Do this 5 times (so, 5x5), and then 3-5 minutes of assistance for shits and giggles. Curls, extensions, lat raises etc....

It felt great but it was starting to be a bit taxing so I lightened up a bit. Last 2 - 3 weeks have been much much better. It is Alan Thrall's mix of intensity Vs volume. You start explosive (say, clapping push-ups 3x3), then you go to your main movement (bench day, squat day or dead-lift day) and go 5x5. Then you super-set for assistance and do all other parts. Say, on bench day, barbell overhead press S/S with weighed pull-ups 4x10. Then you are done, but if you have still gas in the tank you can throw in some more assistance for "aesthetic" reasons (lat  raises, dips, curls, extensions).

At the end of the session, if you did every set to failure, you are beat and it is time to go home!

Yesterday I upped the dead-lift a bit, the last 5 reps were with 40 kg per side, so 80 kg total. The barbell must have been lighter than the usual ones, but it still felt heavy overall. The very last rep of the last set I felt something tighten at the very bottom of my lower back, but other than being stiff as hell this morning, which makes me thing I exaggerated a bit, I seem to be fine. I worked through all the cues in my head, and that helped.

1- Grip it tight
2- Squeeze it and "bend it" against your shins
3- Brace with a big belly breath
4- Hips down
5- Pull the slack out of the bar
6- Open knee and hip angles at the same time
7- When the slack is out, accelerate!
8- Drive through and lock out.
9- BOOOOM!

Bottom line, classic bodybuilding for muscle mass in itself is now so boring that I cannot go back to it!

M. 

First set-back, back to bro-splits before I could even begin strongman work

Today begins with a set-back. The come back to the gym was a few days too soon, that is, I could not wait until the end of this heat wave that will last until next Friday. It is late September, and to work-out in 30-32 degrees in a BERLIN gym is just not acceptable. I should have stuck with running for a few more days, conditioning, pull-ups/pushups.

The intention was to follow Brian Alsrhue EXCELLENT and free (wow, just wow) strength program. It is featured here, as a guest-vlog on Alan Thrall's untamed strength channel

Incorporating strongman work

Do watch it, and then subscribe to Brian's channel. he is both very strong and very knowledgeable, athletic, and practices what he preaches. A rare combo.

Well, in that insane heat, even with the warm up, and a gradual increase in weight, I simply could not do more than 1-2 dead-lifts with 60kg (total. a laughable load). To top it off my lower back is now contracted into a tight knot. Hopefully it will go away soon, but bending forward is painful.

I also pin it on a long hiatus, poor rest, and lack of concentration and focus (which led to improper form), but the heat in the gym still takes the biscuit for the main factor. My bad for still trying it out of guilt, rather than out of single-minded determination.

With a bit of luck I can still do exercise until I am healed. Sadly, I have to wait for the proper strength work, and be content with the bro-splits that should really be assistance work at this point (like curls of all kind, isolation work etc...)

Then some movement, gentle, very gentle, in the hurt area. Like Brian says: blood heals. Gotta get the blood to go to the damaged area, and fix it quick.

More on that later.

M.

Brian Alsruhe's channel

This is Brian

New blog series

It's been tough to find a focus for this blog. It started as a place for rants, witty rants, livid with rage rants etc...

Then it became a general repository for impressions, some book reviews, thoughts without a place-holder of any kind.

It is still the blog of a moody bastard, but I realized that I cannot just rant about whatever ticks me off. It is a digital foot-print that might be counter-productive later, or it simply changes my brain chemistry, leading to negative spirals. Cannot have that.

Politics, religion, but also management, personal development, fatigue at this and that, are all things I need to figure out by myself.

BUT

There is fitness. I can write about exercises, fitness, and the personal development challenges. Matching life, work, friends, with social pressure, peer pressure, judgement spoken and unspoken, expectations, confidence (physical, mental) and the staples of this endeavor, as rare as they are simple

• REST
• NUTRITION
• EXERCISE
• FOCUS

They are not quite in order of importance, but mostly yeah, they are. Broad categories, of course, but you get the idea. They might eventually stand for other, bigger things. Convenient screens for other things I might want to say.

It will be a journey, and there will be rants, but I will also try to share lessons. Rants will be 99% about the idealized, totally disconnected from reality messages coming off the damned internet. The true petri-dish of all things good and evil. The image crafting, idea spewing volcano which mostly only manages to frustrate us all with unattainable standards of clock-work precision in scheduling one's life, with the touch of "sprezzatura". The art of being naturally and effortlessly being good st doing stuff without so much as breaking a sweat, all delivered by polished characters who are essentially there for the money, and live and thrive in social context so unique that their "recipes" "tips & tricks" and whatever else they foist on the poor internet surfer is pretty damn far from useful.

Universal truths that require so much customization as to be basically rubbish "for girls" or "for dudes" crap. I might want to set some ground rules for myself and for you if you visit and comment.

Let's start with one: here we do not talk about "girls" or "dudes" or any of that horse-shit. Here we talk about humans. Get this straight, or leave.

But I digress, because ranting is addictive. Let's start with some-one who pretty much got it right instead. Meet my 2 of my favorite fitness people. There are more (Scooby, Jeff Cavaliere etc...) but they'll pop up in the next weeks. So, follow the links and take notes!

• Molly Galbraith at Girls Gone Strong  
• Alan Thrall, at Untamed Strength and his video channel on Youtube: Train Untamed!)

Read their stuff, listen to some of what they say, we reconvene next week. Fresh(er) than today (I slept like ass, and also not that much) and ready to get better. 

A quick pit-stop, on an Indian summer day

This is not my best blog post. It is just a little blurb to keep the blog alive. It is a page where I would love to write more, but lack the confidence (and often the time) to do so.

I am writing from a room where the temperature is well above 25 Celsius (77 F), while outside Berlin is blessed by a gorgeous day of sun, a cool breeze, and the flaming colours of the fall.

It is the end of a long week, with meetings and work pretty much back to back from 8 am to 10 pm. Wednesday to Sunday, spent between coffee in unhealthy amounts, sweets and other treats, stress, and very little movement, mostly because I am sharing a room with 350 people, and some 50 laptops and mixers (they give off heat too). It's like I am asking to get sick, but so far so good.

I am writing mostly to commit this to memory. The annual membership meeting 2014 is almost over. It was interesting, but as usual fraught with lengthy conversation taking place inside my head, amongst the various facets of my personality. On the one hand, the huge motivator which was to watch and listen to the former Commissioner of the New York DOI (Department of Investigations). A true anti-corruption champion. Efficient, effective, prepared, competent, experienced, to the point. On the other hand there is the wish to do more of my own, to manage, to direct, to craft, to shape. I am witnessing a lot, but it is hard to convince myself that I am influencing anything. I could influence myself, but by training and education, my preferred venues are a bit far from what is within reach now. A gym, perhaps. A book. But other key items are missing. Time, mostly, but also the mental discipline to set my day in a way that protect the space I need to devote to personal growth.

There will be a closing dinner tonight, and the next two weekends are pretty much taken already, so that will be my time frame to set the plan in motion, to go at it again, and try to become, every day, the better version of myself, and not just a bystander observing life zooming past.

M.

The Dragon in the Sea

I think I am reviewing books with the subconscious urge to compare them to G.R.R. Martin´s "A song of Ice and Fire". There is just so much that an author could to to make the story come to life without writing 9000 pages, but I suppose everyone has to make a buck. Anyway, here goes.

The Dragon in the Sea (Under Pressure) is a damn good book. It is a new Frank Herbert, away from his familiar landscape, the Arrakis/Dune which is now a quite well known setting (starting with David Lynch's adaptation, and on with videogames, spinoffs and telefilms). 

Herbert shows remarkable competence at narrating an adventure entirely set inside a small sub marine, a Hell Diver. The author shows the tricks of a good narrator, by giving us a high dosage of technical language, which even if you have never been in the navy, definitely gives to the "feel" to be there. He is accurate in his description of the sub-tug, and by the time we are through with the book, it feels like we have lived ourselves in those claustrophobic quarters. Its bulkheads, control panels, dials and gauges, levers, rudders. It sets a stage, with quick brush strokes, without killing it with too much detail. 

<< Oil. The war demanded the pure substance born in the sediment of rising continent. Vegetable oil wouldn't do. War was no vegetarian. War was a carnivore. >>

The plot is simple: in the near future (VERY near, for us, about the late 2030s) the USA is quite oil-starved. The crews of the hell-divers, 4 men units, risk their lives to, literally, steal oil from underwater continental shelves of the EP (Eastern Powers), dragging a "slug", a 1 mile long tank. The waters are infested with wolf-packs, submarines patrolling the enemy seas, but there is more. "Sleepers" in the US Navy have consistently sabotaged the last 20 missions, resulting in the loss of 20 crews. The journey is nerve-racking, and the submarine has to endure the strain of ordinary warfare, coupled with acts of sabotage. The task of the protagonist: to find out what is it that drives men insane during those missions, but also find a way to stop the sleepers. 

What is truly remarkable, is Herbert's ability to characterize. Thoughts in italics provide a commentary to the author's suggestions on where the truth might lie, and on where a man's sanity might be hiding, on the backdrop of the function of religious belief in a high-tech future. The titular Dragon in the Sea, is in fact the Leviathan: "In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea". It haunts the crew, and especially the deeply religious captain Sparrow. Instead of droning on for 7 volumes, Herbert gives us access to the security files of the characters, with the voice of the protagonist. Of Sparrow we know that he is <<"forty-one. Picture of a tall, thin man with balding sandy hair, a face of sharp planes, stooped shoulders. He looks like a small-town college professor, thought Ramsey. How much of that is conditioned on his early desire to teach mathematics? Does he resent the fact that his hardcrust Navy family forced him to follow in the old man's footsteps?" >>

The same man will pull the most insane feats of leadership and seamanship. Better still, the profile of Leslie Bonnet: <<"Held from advancement to his own command by imperfect adjustment to deep-seated insecurity feelings." The Unwanted, he thought. Bonnett probably doesn't want advancement. This way, his commander supplies the father authority lacking in his youth.>>

There is more than psychology. Some Anthropology which is right up my alley. Ramsey is called by second name until he faces combat, after which they all switch to a friendlier first name:

<< Johnny! thought Ramsey. He called me Johnny! And then he remembered: We've met the enemy. The old magic is dead. Enter the new magic. >>

There is a sense of completion, at the end of the journey: 

<<"Take her in, Les," said Sparrow. "You've earned the right."

Bonnett reached up, adjusted the range-response dial. His shoulders seemed to take on a new, more positive set. Ramsey realized abruptly that Bonnett had come of age on this voyage, that he was ready to cut his own cord. The thought gave Ramsey a tug of possessive fondness for Bonnett, an emotion touched by nostalgia at the thought of separation.

Truly like brothers, he thought.>> 

I am a navy person at heart, so I melted a little when I read that. The final note, to come full circle, is on miracles (and many happen during the mission). <<"There's such a thing as being on God's side. Being right with the world. That's really the thing behind miracles. It's quite simple. You get in . . . well, phase. That's the mechanical way of saying it. You ride the wave instead of bucking it." >>

So, read this book if you like navy stories (especially submarine stories). Read this book if you like war stories (especially cold war). Read this book if you want to see some real character analysis elegantly laid out in less than 200 pages.

Syria

This is a silly blog. I rant, and sometimes I try to say something deep, but all in all I try to be witty and smart. We all do that on the internet, it is our window, and a good deal of us (I suppose "us bloggers") are too narcissistic to take a step back and try not to sound so damn smart every time we post.

This is, mostly, why I have been so silent on this blog. It is a fun thing to do, its purpose to let the words amuse (me, you, whoever) or just come out and relax me in the process. I cannot find the energy to do that right now, not with what I read in the news.

I have always felt a connection to what happens in Palestine, for example. The Gaza siege put a dampener in my enthusiasm and my will to blog, but did not kill it entirely. I was going to post something, at some point, what with all the travelling I have done, but lack of time and other priorities prevented me form doing it.

Now there is a deeper reason. Much deeper. It is Syria. It is a hot hot hot debate, but to me the core of the matter is as simple as its outer layers are complex. Those are meat and mead of analysts, fuel for (interesting) geopolitical debates. They have a merit, I suppose, as they illustrate the conflict to us, crassly clueless European, framing in context what happens just next door.

What matters to me is that for the last 2 years people have been suffering, fearing and dying over there. Normal people, ordinary people. People I could relate to. The death of an illiterate shepherd on the Tora Bora hills is not less dramatic, his life just as valuable, but I have to acknowledge to myself that there are other levels to relate to people, beyond that of just "being a human like me". I go through the gory, unsettling, disgusting images that the internet is flooded with. Before-and-after pictures of places that used to be beautiful, peaceful, or just "normal". Places where people of all ages had their trade, their everyday dramas, their jobs, their exams, their hopeless crushes on that girl/guy. When destruction hits people I can relate to, with similar dreams and aspirations, it all gets a lot scarier. To know that those people are no more, wiped away but the tug of war between their government and a bunch of thugs, to know that their existence has been shredded to pieces by the war-game of far way nations, is simply too disgusting to ignore.

But I can go deeper than that. I will. Syria, in a way, is family to me. It makes bleed the hearts of the people I love most, the ones who mean the most to me. I am not Buddha, I am not an enlightened soul. Certain wars will mean more to me than others. Certain events will tip the scale in favor of at least trying to say something, to articulate a thought.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013115135151522535.html

This is just the last in a long line of brutalities. This one robbed us of 87 (as of now) people and shattered the lives of those who knew them. It hit them where it hurts, where they thought it could not, would not happen. Because the parties are their own government, or a militia that allegedly, supposedly, theoretically took arms to overturn a corrupt police-state.

All I can do now is pose myself, and those around me, a simple question. Is it worth it? No. It is not. It cannot be. Do not come to me ever saying that this is a "necessary price", that "transitions are always bloody", that there are "lesser" or "necessary evils". There are not. We screwed up, big time, all of us. The dictator refuses to budge, refuses to bend, refuses to reform, cracks down on his own people, and what do we do? Do we help the citizens find a voice? Do we pressure said government to pull its head out of its ass? No, we do not. We flood the country with weapons, we arm militia groups. Ignorant, bloodthirsty thugs who love their sects more than they love their country. People who are prepared to die, yes, but also people who will do so no matter how many more they drag down with them. We bless these groups, and even anoint them with legitimacy, while what happens (legally speaking), is a Head of State who is refusing to go simply because "well...because Ben Ali and Ali Abdallah Saleh did". Is the government power hungry? Sure. Is it corrupt? I don't think anyone can object to that. Were there no alternatives to all of this? Of course there were.

But pitting Shi'ites against Sunni, crippling an enemy for good, forcing new markets to (eventually) open up to western goods, pulling all sorts of strings and stacking up all sorts of credit (to be exacted, no doubt,  at usury rates) seemed and seems more important than asking Syrians if they did not prefer to go through a political battle, rather than being engulfed in a full-on war, fought by a bunch of barbarians, in their streets and in their houses, with a dreadfully cold winter upon them, with no international help, and very little recognition, no information, surrounded by states that are at best paying lip-service to their plight, when they are not downright hostile to them or trying to exploit them as a negotiation tool (see the case of refugees).

But most importantly, and I don't give a flying shit if it sounds egoistic, it robs my loved ones of sleep, it makes them dread the future, it makes them worry sick, and I cannot just look the other way and keep to myself. If it is only to say that I am infuriated and disgusted, I will use this web space to do so.

The beauty of an interrogation

Yesterday, roughly at 16:30 GMT+1, the Earth completed its 34th full revolution around the Sol star since I was born. Yeah, it was my birthday all right. And it was a good  day too, filled with the predictable comings and goings at work, but also loads of beautiful messages from friends, wishing me all the Best. I really really liked it. Also, I cake at the office, bonus points. So what now? Now you are my friends, and you get to listen to me being really deep, and since my birthday is still fresh, you get to nod in approval; nod lots,  please.

Now with the questions! What is so good about being alive? If one is lucky enough (and I am more than enough) plenty of things make life worth it. I cannot imagine for a second to identify myself with the words from the dark, tormented TV character, usually someone with the  Gothic and vampiresque looks of a damned soul about them: I did not ask God to be alive! Woe! Oh, the burden of being alive! Lo! The futility of toiling for all those years, for nothing! All Dust! 


...Sure...

I see it differently though, and since today it is my birthday, I feel authorized to drop some deep deep thinking upon you innocent bystanders. It is a thought that crosses my mind rather frequently, which might make me edge towards hedonism, I fear. It is a trite thought, perhaps, but one to  which I relate easily: it is the journey that counts, not the destination. It is not the probability of all of this happening, or not happening, of life existing only on Earth or on a million distant suns, just blossoming, next to waning forever, at the pinnacle of progress or in the barbarous Dark Ages. It is just our ability to sense that, and to appreciate the wonderful miracle of conscience. The ultimate purpose of all this, if there is one, escapes me, yet I am also not chasing it all.

Is it hedonism then? The belief that the pursuit of what one derives pleasure from is intrinsically good? I think not. I think it is our ability to sense our own and one another's feelings, to relate and too want to react to them, with kindness, with awareness, with initiative, that should make us proud to be alive. I think it is this beautiful Indian summer that drives me to speak my mind in these terms. It might be the carrot cake that  I tasted today at Sowohalsauch, the walk in Boxhagener Platz I took yesterday, or just the rush of adrenaline that still courses though my veins after the run, but I feel very much alive.

There is this book I just finished: The End of Eternity, by Isaac Asimov. It is a great book, that touches many interesting themes. Social engineering, time travel and the paradoxes that time itself inevitably fixes, making one wonder what is the connection, the fil-rouge that seams all of us and everything else into this huge fabric, this tapestry of Bayeux made of many, infinite, possible realities. It is mind boggling, and could drive one mad, like it  happens to one character in the book. Another character, the protagonist as a matter of fact, Andrew Harlan, has a moment that describes wonderfully that feeling of epiphany that, from time to time, we have all felt, as if in the presence of something great and momentous, yet just beyond our reach.

He had only to move his hand to feel the warmth and softness of her flesh, and he dared not do that, lest he wake her out of whatever dreaming she might have. It was as though she were dreaming for the two of them, dreaming herself and himself and all that had happened, and as though her waking would drive it all from existence. It was a thought that seemed a piece of those other queer, unusual thoughts he had experienced just before. Those had been strange thoughts, coming to him at a moment between sense and nonsense. He tried to recapture them and could not. Yet suddenly it was very important that he recapture them. For although he could not remember the details, he could remember that, for just an instant, he had understood something. He was not certain what that something was, but there had been the unearthly clarity of the half-asleep, when more than mortal eye and mind seems suddenly to come to life.

I think that Andrew Harlan, in feeling that question hovering above his head, the answer just brushing lightly against his forehead, feels finally alive and starts his liberation from the huge machinery that had constrained him until then. It is the miracle of conscience, that unanswered question that enters my mind between sense and nonsense. I hope it remains so, for another 36500 nights!!!

Volkspark thoughts

This should really be the title of the blog, seeing how often I write stuff about this park. A quick update, to share a passing thought. I was jogging there today (again) and I noticed two things.

Number one, the barbecues. You can actually smell them from far away. As you run, your lungs become somewhat more sensitive to smells. Many minutes before I would enter the BBQ area, the smell of "magic cubes" (you know those little white dice used to start a fire) would begin stinging my nose, followed promptly enough by the scent of charcoal and lastly by that a bit more pleasant of roasted meat. The fun part was the smoke though. It was billowing up from dozens of fires; as I passed the dreaded climbing boulder, one shaft of sunlight shone lonely through the treetops. Thanks to that light you could actually see the smoke and get a sense of how thick it was. I thought it was hilarious.

Number two, the slack lines. What is with Berliners and walking the ropes? I am talking about THIS STUFF. There is a whole sector of the park where any two random trees will be connected by one of those lines, some walked by beginners, some by impressively nimble acrobats.

The fun thing is that as you jog you would want to lose yourself in the run, and do all the cheesy stuff that Nike commercials sell you. You know the gist: listen to your heartbeat, breathe in-breathe out, enjoy the adrenaline rush, let go, forget your excel spreadsheets and the office life, tune in with your reptile brain, feel the pump etc... etc... Well, do that in the Volkspark, and chances are you will either end up tripping or being decapitated (some people love their ropes a little higher than others). I thought that would be a little less hilarious.

Twilight Zone

I think this qualifies as "a tad surreal". No introduction this time, let us just go straight at the heart of the matter. I was jogging in the park, a Sunday not long ago. It is a pretty big park, and it is full of winding roads, some paved, some made of dirt, some just paths trodden more often by people who go out for  a barbeque, to walk their dogs, to do outdoors stuff or Berlin stuff (a combination of the above which no language known to man can fully describe).

I never really bothered measuring how big the park really is, but it turns out it is the third biggest park in Berlin: 52 acres. You can fit a lot of stuff in that much space. So, I jog my 40 minutes, following what I thought would be more or less an arc, starting at the Am Friedrichsain bus stop, arching through the park until the north end, and ending roughly behind my house. Wrong.

I get sidetracked some ten times by this or that turn of the road, a corner that looks mysterious, a mossy step behind a fern, a silhouette of a statue at the far end of a pond, and I go on, and on, and on, all the time deluding myself with the notion that, by and large, I was keeping to my "arc". It was more like two letters "Y" joined by the stem, I later found out by drawing my path on a map. And here comes the fun: policrosalus. Yeah, it is just a fancy word for THIS. Boy, I am sucker for that stuff! So here we go, on to the parallel pullup bars, after all in my mind I though I was just stretching a bit the second part of my arc, so let's jump, climb, pull, push, crawl, skip, hop, duck and roll. At this point I am 50 minutes into this fun galore and I am starting to feel sort of winded, but then again, home cannot be far, I run leaving the last obstacle behind me. I run for five more minutes (time +55') and bam! the pull-ups bar appears again. "Ah, Berlin, here you go again, collecting tax revenues from all over the rich and productive rest of Germany so you could instal TWO identical policrosalus(es?)" in the park. Oh, what the heck, let us do this one too..." jump, climb, pull, push, crawl, skip, hop, duck and roll.... "weird, the sequence of games is EXACTLY the same...oh, I must be simply tired" , I thought, as I headed for home. Wrong! (again). We are now close to 75' (I am slowing down) when I see the pullup bars appear again. "Boy that sure feels a bit weird, what are the odds?" I ask myself as I try to pull my weight up. I get to touch the bar once, maybe twice, then my hands go f-off! and spontaneously open. Ok, enough of this, now I am REALLY going home. And then I notice them, the clues....

The climbing boulder, it has been there the whole time. Like those weird renaissance paintings, portraits of autere Saints and church scholars, one hand on a massive tome, one meter to the side, goat-skin and iron bound, the other pointing at you, yes, you! sinner that you are!. They look at you no matter where you are in the church, as you pass by them, by some trick of light, position or paiting technique, they always follow you with their gaze. Like the climbing boulder. I did the lap three or four times, I was tired by then, but I thought: that boulder, it is always there, no matter where I go, whether I emerge from the bushes, or I pass a bend of the road,  it always shows me the same face;  I almost believe I am seeing the same people climbing it, like a tape stuck in a loop. Weirder and weirder. The light is failing at this point, it's dimmer, and also there is not much blood left to oxygenate my brain and power my eyes. It's all in the liver, completely trashed with fatigue toxins. Coming up to 90', boys. Then the kid. Oh, the kid was too much. I could take the boulder, and the copy paste pull-up bar, but the kid playing football by himself was too much. The fact that he looked just about the most innocent creature on Earth only made it weirder. Say, "Steven Spielberg" weird, sort of "children of the corn" weird too. I had a recollection of running by him once, or twice, always in the same spot, always kicking the ball up in the air and talking to himself. Now all I need is to run into some peasant with a pitchfork who will be benevolent and kind and will offer me to drive me to his farm, where I can use his  phone and call the sherriff...TIME TO GO HOME! Ok, I tried them all, but I was clearly stuck in a loop myself. A warped zone. A twilight zone of some kind, no way out. I tried to move away from the path at a 90° angle. No luck, either the kid, or the boulder, or the pull-up bar. It makes no difference whether I try to cleave through the park in a straight line (hoping to hit ONE side, but hey, it is 52 acres, so if I plot this one wrong, it might be hours before I am out) or if I look for landmarks. They are all far and away, and well beneath the tree-line. Trees are massive. The fountain? Disappeared. The bell dedicate to Hiroshima's victims? Like it never existed. The statue of "One mother holding her child?". Three meters of granite, must have imagined it! The sky has a definite indigo hue by now, only streaked with light near the horizon. Berlin's mono-cloud sky males it impossible to say where the West is. It is "sort of that way" on an arc which is easily 60°. That is, pretty useless over a distance of more than one Km. I ask a passer by (they are fewer and fewer, these bots put there by "The Matrix" know their way out, of course) and she utters directions in Ze Tchermanik Lankuaj, YA!? Useless, no, worse, counterproductive. I take no heed, but she says a word "Kniprodestrasse". Man I have heard this one before, I swear. All right, point me the direction. Left. Cool. I go.

Then I see it. I have a tear of joy in my eye as I pull a Theseus, and see the perimeter! It could be on any of the 82 sides of this freaky polygon (you thought Jordan's shape on the map was funny? Think again). The perimeter! Lo! Behold! I can barely make it out, as it is night and the street lights are far, and it is the time of the day when the shadows are the most confusing. I literally cling to it, hug it, never let go, and follow it in a pretty random direction. It is coasted by a path (good for goats, and beagles perhaps) but I make do. Then I see the monument: to the Polish soldiers and German anti-fascists. YES! YES! I HAVE seen you before! You are...10 blocks away from home? Er...ok, whatever, not the time to be picky, I know where I am. Far, but in the right direction after all. It is night by now. Coming up to 2h into the park, and my legs feel like dead marble, if marble could die and be any colder and heavier than living marble. The shambling takes a solid extra 20', but hey, I am home. Time to take a bath. A very long bath. That was surreal...

A bit of Rohan in our daily lives...

Hi all. Must be some six months since I decided to bother writing here. There is a lot of stuff I would like to rant about, it is pretty much my second nature. I am a grump-ball, most of the time. At least, I have been for most of the last 10 years.

I could, for example, describe my sense of Bradburian weird-outness in the growing presence of mp3 players, I-pods, shuffles, nanos, and in general all the portable playing devices that buzz into my ears on public transport or at the gym here in Berlin, from the ears of the 5-10 people, on average, around me. I am sure there are more, but 5-10 are the ones I can actually SEE. Very Fahrenheit 451, trust me.

However, I want to try a different approach this time. I have been particularly grumpy all day, to the point of serious withdrawal. The list is too long to inflict it upon you here, you do not deserve to be so ill treated. So let us do as Hank Green, of the VLOG brothers, suggests. There are two ways to make the world a better place. Decrease the SUCK and increase the AWESOME. They are, obviously, not mutually exclusive.

Hank gives us a very good example of this with the James Webb Space Telescope. I personally find it way up there in the league of awesome, and I am looking forward to 2014, when the Ariadne will gracefully deploy this little jewel in space. You should also totally subscribe to their channel, incidentally.

Hank Green's entry did have a side-effect, and a much beneficial one. It reminded me of the need for that thrill that you learn to feel when you are in your teens. It is when your myths define and settle, and it's hard to change them or shake them off afterwards. But then again, why get rid of them? They are a good part of us, it is the stuff that gives us the goosebumps, that spurs us into action, that brings us tears, that we remember ever so fondly in the years to come. If you think about it, every time you feel that thrill again it is because something is reminding you of one of those long gone moments.

For me, it is pretty straightforward to figure out what works and what does not. I get goose-bumps when I hear "Pirate of the Caribbean". The view of a galleon's prow yawing in the waves, sails and flag flapping, the camera gliding from port to starboard, makes me shiver. Yes, I always liked sea stories, and pirate stories.

When I see the camera pan-in on a disc section of a galaxy-class ship, and hear the arches of the orchestra accompanying, everything seems possible. It is just another ship, really. Did I mention I like ships?

The best one, however, was today's re-discovery. Back in '89 I was reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time. I was so into it, and still am. I was 12, and Minas Tirith was about to fall. The Witch King and the orcs of Mordor were swarming the streets. It was over, it was so over. Gandalf was there, and the Guard of the Citadel. They had done what they could, and failed.

That is when Tolkien picked up that plot-line he had left some 5 chapters before.

In rode the Lord of the Nazgul, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face. All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax. Gandalf did not move.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.

The duo Howard Shore and Peter Jackson got this one all right, you cannot deny it. The horns, and then the fiddles. And the scared faces of Eowyn/Dernhelm and Pippin, facing almost certain death, and Théoden king, hitting the spears of his front liners with his blade Herugrim, and the lines before the charge...

Arise, arise Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!

Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

A sword-day,

A red day,

Ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now!

Ride for ruin.. and the world’s ending!

Death! Death!

Forth Eorlingas!

It did me some good, as it reminded me of those afternoons of an age past when the clock was not constantly ticking. When a weekend would last a weekend, and not a blink, and one could dedicate to one's passions, without wondering about the reason why. Just for the sake of doing it. If I stop and think about what I miss now of those years, I realize it is exactly what I was then trying to get rid of. In those years, as a student, I spent most of my time preparing, learning, getting in shape before the bout. It is also what most of those heroes would do for me in those books and movies. They would prepare, train and train unceasingly, research, travel the world looking for obscure clues to impossible riddles. The riders of Rohan, the pirates of the Caribbean, the Fianna of Ireland, the great masters of martial arts, and that lanky guy in Sardinia, too. Going through the books, though chemistry, through philosophy, through Latin, and then through the kata, and the kihon, in endless repetition. I sure could have used a bit of application, back then, but I wonder if I have not moved too much in the opposite direction. All I have now is acting acting acting. No, not even that. Re-acting is all there is to it. Things keep happening, at their own pace, which is much faster than mine, and the time for personal growth gets eaten away by nitty-gritty and eventually pretty silly occupations. There is no longer the study, the preparation, the planning. There is bout after bout, and a lot of weariness after it. There is almost a weird sense of guilt when time is taken away from the dozens of tasks that are crammed in my list, to do something rather unproductive line take a walk, or simply read of the last foray of Conan into the rich and corrupt streets of Shadizar the Corrupt.

I have a lot. I am a rich rich person, in the way of personal and meaningful relationships, if not in the way of bank statements, but I would still like to have something back from the 90s. I

think I know what it is. I would want the chance to grow as an individual, to take a break from time to time and take a long, deep, critical look at myself from the outside, to set my own goals and then work towards achieving them, with careful a meticulous preparations. To go there well prepared, confident, and not haphazardly improvising my way through problems (which, in the NGO world, are referred to as "challenges", just FYI).

I would want to explore and learn about new subjects, and watch a one hour long youtube video on why gravity goes down, if I feel like. To practice archery. To learn how to ride. To learn how to sail. To read and write more. To look up all the facts that happen in the day, and go back to my old interests. To look for something that could give me that healing jolt of awe.

Life is what happens instead, most of the time. But at least now I know what it is that I have been missing, and can try to bring it back.

One last of everything

This is a note I wrote a while back on Facebook, to keep my friends in Sardegna updated. It was partially a rant, and this is why it belongs to this blog. Every moment being unique though, I have slightly re written the not to fit my present mood. I should add that this note was started an indefinite number of months ago, and my mood has shifted many times since then, yet that fits it nicely, because I might have gone through even more "last ones" than I realized, every moment being filled, potentially, with one of them.

This time, I will open with someone else´s words:

Narrator: Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

The line, courtesy of the IMDB, is from the movie "The Sheltering Sky", which I actually have not even seen. I saw the line on a friend's profile on Facebook, and found later that Brandon Lee (R.I.P.) had quoted it from the book by Paul Bowles. I checked the trailer and it was so cheesy that it made my kidneys, liver and brain shut down in protest, but what can you expect from a tagline (delivered by the deep actorial voice that does ALL trailers in the U.S.) like "A woman´s dangerous erotic journey beneath...(highly dramatic pause, pans out to breathtaking African landscape)...The Sheltering Sky".

Still, the worth of the line stands...

...As I was saying, sometimes I like to take stock of a situation, upgrade the plotted course with fresher coordinates, new readings of the sun and the stars. I am in Berlin, right now, and there is a lot to think about, all the time. For example, the thought that some things hardly ever go as desired or planned (which is why I almost stopped planning), and that some times, when they do go as planned, it is probably because of luck, chance, fortune, and not intelligence or skill (I care not if Obi Wan disagrees, seriously).

I actually wonder if intellect and instinct are just two tools designed to minimize damages. Before anyone worries, I am 99% referring about my job in this obscure line.

Anyways, things look bright these days. Work is causing a lot of pressure, but it's not like I am friggin' deployed in Falluja, so I will do my time and try to do a good job. While I keep myself busy with that, I wonder from time to time what some people that I know are doing. While I am filling a spreadsheet (BTW I have become bloody Raffaello at that, they almost look like art!), during a set at the gym , during a bike ride, I do ask myself whether they are having fun, bumming around on the internet (chances are), travelling, reading, or if they are seeing each other.

I did and do wonder whether there are cycles in life, and for how long will they keep repeating themselves. Perhaps they will get longer and longer as one grows older. I wonder if there are stages in life which, like a good telefilm, like me staying in this town, reach a natural end, and fill us with the desire to move on.

The lesson is, I suppose, that this time will come again, and soon, and like it has happened before, a lot will be lost in the transition, and precious little will be taken to the next stage. Which is what I said before. A certain thing will only happen a certain number of times, and they are not that many. And you will get to the point when you will be able to count down, in your head, how many times you will see that sequence of shops on that tram line on your way home; how many times you will have a latte macchiato at that place, or how many times you will see that bridge or that tower or that ice cream vendor. The last time, for some months, that I will see my cat spread-eagled on the windowsill, roasting her tummy in the sun. The last time that two people, well into their senior years, will see each other. They will part ways, after a life of seeing each other occasionally, with meetings fewer, shorter and further between, and they will speak not a word of what they think about seeing each other again, just hoping that it will happen.

With all these change, I like to remind myself that my peace of mind and health of body are not a God given right, that the ones I love and love me back are not always going to be there, and that at some point someone will leave my stage, and I theirs. Sometimes, out of nowhere, four countries, six languages and three thousand miles will just jump in the way between you and those who were, until then, adventuring through life with you. We will see each other again, at the next intersection, perhaps a bit wearier, and perhaps will will have grown a bit distant from each other. Where once we needed not words to speak, but just a pause in the breathing, a gesture, a hint of a look, there will be words and complicated explanations, but it will still be all good.

I leave you with another quote, from a great movie I saw sometime ago in Sardinia. It was perhaps meant to be used in a different context, but I believe it somehow fits what I have rambled about so far.

Morgan Freeman, as Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris : He stayed with me through my last fight in San Berdoo. My manager was off getting drunk somewhere and it was just Frankie and me. I was taking a hellacious beating. Everybody's got a particular number of fights in 'em. Nobody tells you what that number is. Mine was 109. I just didn't want to admit it.

Fourth round, this... this cut opens up. Blood starts pouring into my eye. They should've stopped the fight, but, hell, I was a black man in San Berdoo - Blood was what I was there for. Round after round, I kept getting Frankie to patch me up. He's talking about throwing in the towel, but he ain't my manager, he can't throw in nothing. Round after round, he's arguing with me. And I’m almost laughing, cos, hell, it's getting more to him than to me. I go 15 rounds, lose by decision. Next morning, I lose the eye. In 23 years, he's never said a thing about it. Doesn't have to. I can see it in his face every time he looks at me. Somehow... Frankie thinks he should've stopped that fight. Should've saved my eye. Spends his life wishing he could take back that 109th fight. See, I wanted to go to 110. Thing is... if you want to get to the title... maybe he's not the one to take you there.

Million Dollar Baby

Aftermath and wrap-up

The battle smoke clears, revealing a field littered with wreckage, billowing black curtains rise from the smoldering craters. It is hardly a pleasant sight, if you have just arrived.

But if you have been there while bullets where whizzing by, your shouts covered by the boom of shells, the crack of flak and the drone of engines, and if you have had your nose filled with the thick smell of burning diesel and gunpowder, and your skin soaked in oil and baked in dust and sand, and your eyes filled with flashes, sudden and white, and the taste of bile has filled your mouth and throat for days, if all of that and more is what you will remember looking back at those days, then that silence, that clear blue sky, the plain and neutral smell of clean air will fill your soul until you cannot hear the buzz of your own thoughts anymore; then that too will vanish , memories will fade, mix and merge, become vague and confused, the sounds that once were loud and sharp will become muffled and distant, until all is left is a feeling of accomplishment and the sound of your own heartbeats in your ears.

Fear will occasionally flare up again, in sudden bursts, a quick-paced montage of images of those days that will sneak up on you when you least expect it, at daybreak, in the deepest of the R.E.M. phases, just before waking up; but even those moments will become less and less frequent, until you will not remember that they ever happened.

It is all behind us now, and we can enjoy again the sun on our skins, the freshness of water down our throats and the sound of our own laughter without a feeling of guilt. It is back to routine, and more manageable challenges, little problems to deal with, and simple decisions to make.

We will not win this war alone, and the outcome of the last battle could still be negative, but I do not care right now. We fought it, and we fought it well, and we never turned our back to them, or to one another. We are tired, perhaps defeated, but happy and a stronger team right now.

Thanks to all of you, brothers (and sisters) in arms.

Ossian

Deadline

It is baking hot in the office. A bloody heat-wave which makes thinking straight almost impossible. Still and stale air, nowhere to hide from it.

We have been running against the clock for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Two (important) hands left the deck and workload is increasing, not always with maximum efficiency in mind. Something like "while you save the Future of Mankind, could you pick all the green smarties from the tube and stack them neatly to the side? Then you can move to the red smarties...". And it is not like we had a good idea in the first place of how to complete our task. Plus, the "target" is so into paper pushing and filling forms that I do not know where to start describing it!

So far we have experienced: drop outs, a diplomatic struggle, a VISA nightmare, meetings after meetings, a financial revision, the preparations for an audit, too many / too few contributions from partners, one team member M.I.A. due to the living hell which is organizing a conference in a certain country south of Turkey (just go due south along the meridian...).

To make things easier (sarcasm here) the World Cup is going strong and we hear the cheers coming from all around the office. Neat. This hell is supposed to give us a break in less than eight days.

More updates after the final of the Cup.

Over and out.

The Sol star makes one wonder...

Hail to You, o people of the internet.

It´s been a while since the last post. I started the blog with the best intentions, then life happened and here we are, a solid month and a half from our first acquaintance. Now that you are all rant-starved it is time for a new dose, although a mild one.

I am not that moody today, for some reason. It could be the massive viral infection that got me back to bed on Friday, just after I thought I had recovered from a cold. Bad season for health, I guess, which fits nicely in what you will read below, come to think of it.

Thoughts on the Sun and paganism

This place got me thinking. I know this might come as a surprise to those of you that have known me for a while, but it is exactly what happened. I have been recovering from a damn virus all week, and I am still feeling weak and mushy. This, and the weather outside, have turned into a sick joke which is not funny anymore. Not a hint of the sun, if not for the occasional flash that darts through the low clouds ceiling. Wait, why the plural? It is not clouds we are talking here. It "A" cloud. It is one, and it seamlessly stretches over the whole town. A huge blanket, several kilometers wide, low and heavy. It must be quite a sight from the upper atmosphere, this one cloud over Berlin, a tiny blotch of grey water hovering just a few inches off the surface (more like a thousand meters, but if you look at it from afar, it really is just a skin tight film of moisture, snowflakes and thunders....).

However, occasionally the sun showed us his face again (or her face, if you are a hard-core Tolkien fan) over the last week and a half. Now, when you live in a place kissed by the sun most of the year, you almost welcome a bit of shade. Winters become but a short intermission, when you can reflect, kick back a little bit, stay at home if you wish, enjoy the comfort of a warm house and the presence of the loved ones, snug up in blankets and all the cozy stuff that an average CocaCola commercial will throw at you between November and February (also, I believe I am going to gag just by re-reading the line above).

If it snows a bit, like it happened in Porto Torres last week after 24 years of no snow, it becomes in fact the stuff of wonders, with people rushing out to take shots of the snow capped shore and the crisp blue sky just before the snow melts without annoying anyone. A quick visit, to pay her respects to a long lost friend, and she is gone. So, all in all, you never really lose hope, that spring may come and bring the sun again, and eventually summer. In a place like the Mediterranean, eventually, you give some thought to what the sun can actually be.

Well, after 2500 years of calculations, philosophy and the occasional nose dives into barbarity (ironically coinciding with when the Roman Catholic church held sway over Europe) we have all come to the agreement that the following is the truth, at least until disproved, and only on the material side of things.

Big Numbers?

Awesome though the figures might sound, the sun is a ball (well, sort of, kinda flat at the top, a bit like a clay vase on a lathe) made of Hydrogen and a splash of Helium, with smidgens of a bunch of other elements (though in the sun's 0,0030 % Iron there is probably enough ore to coat the whole Earth in full plates, ten meters thick). Yes, it is big, but only relatively. It takes about 1.3 million Earths to fill it. Puny, compared to other stars. Hot? 15 million Kelvin... I am sure there is hotter stuff out there. You put the sun into proportion, and it becomes just a star, one of the billions of stars that shed light, give off heat and radiation, projects a gravity well and stuff. It was born, when the a cloud of gas and dust collapsed under its own gravity some 4,5 billion years ago, sparking a fusion reaction that still kicks it, and it will eventually die, in just about the same time, becoming a cold shapeless rock in the immensity of vacuum.

However...

...if you happen to be so lucky as to spend the winter in Berlin, you might see things under a different light. All your science, and all your numbers are always there, one wiki away, to comfort you, but they can go only so far against what your senses tell you when you look out of the window or when you leave your flat. It is not just a matter of cold. It is a matter of light. In other places it gets just as cold as here, but you do get the crisp blue skies. It is in fact even colder, because the lack of clouds makes what little heat there is happily leave the ground, so it is all right in direct sunlight but deadly freezing in the shade. But the sun is there, up in the sky, yellow and bright, bringing up the happiness chemicals through your very skin.

So it is no wonder that so many people imagined the end of the world to happen at the end of a long, enchanted, bewitched winter. Fimbulwiter, they called it, and it would last the length of three years, at the end of which Ragnarok, the Gotterdamerung, the Twilight of the Gods would happen, and everything would have to be trashed and incinerated before starting over with a new cycle.

I am trying to stretch my imagination back in time, and as I am feeling increasingly happy about the return of the sun, I remember distinctly how its lack was gradually turning my soul into a dull shade of gray. Now, what must have been before all the numbers and all the science, before the compasses and the telescopes and the algebra and the understanding that came with time, for those who faced winter here? Who would assure them that sun would eventually return? Would you feel lucky and take chances, or would you go out of your way, doing everything you could think of, to increase the chances of seeing spring again? Back then, with no safety net whatsoever, when everything depended on a timely cycle of winter and spring, a week´s delay could mark the difference between life and death by starvation. There would be no sick leave, or HR department to tell you that according to law XYZ you can excuse yourself from ploughing the land, fever or not. No heating in the apartment, no surplus food.

Now, in the secularized XXI century, I found myself asking "when will it end?". I found myself craving for the light, for the radiation, for the feeling of warmed skin, for the blue of the sky, for a glimpse of waters that flow unhindered by ice. Well past the stage of "nature is resting before it can blossom again", I just wanted it all to end, and end soon.

I wonder what it must have been to see the light again, to wait for hope and relief from beyond that vast cloud, come March, after endless weeks of uncertainty. I wonder how could one not greet the returning Sun as a full blown Deity, mercifully bathing the lands of men with its healing light, the heat fending off for a few months the demons of Winter.

Now, as I am recovering from the flu and other nasty ailments, I peek out of the window and see that on February 20, 2010, the sky is blue again. Just a few arc-seconds off the skyline, I cannot help but asking myself "should I offer a sacrifice to that"?

Well, never mind that, I am just glad it´s finally over...