Translated with DeepL
I don’t know yet what I want from my journey. Maybe that’s what’s bothering me a little today.
After a restless night, I don’t set off until midday. I’m still a bit weak. Because I am making such slow progress, I had slightly overestimated the distance to the next town. I eat my very last oats, then for the first time on this trip my supplies run out (except for half a tube of honey, salt and cinnamon). Thanks to raspberries, blueberries and wild strawberries, I manage to hold out until the next supermarket.
Shopping stresses me out a little, probably because of the many decisions and the high food prices. Hanging out in the car park in the concrete jungle afterwards doesn’t exactly lift my spirits. There’s nothing for it, I have to eat some of the food before I can pack the rest. The weather report further depresses my mood: it’s supposed to rain tonight and all day tomorrow. It annoys and surprises me a little that I can still be thrown off balance so easily. I know this feeling only too well. When something doesn’t work out or I feel I’ve made a mistake, I carry a heaviness around with me. Is it worry? Guilt? Fear? Am I just tired of being completely alone in taking responsibility for so many decisions?
It’s still hard for me to be alone with my thoughts again. I’m looking for distractions, and I find them in various podcasts. I’m particularly pleased that I can catch up on three weeks of “Lael rides around the world” ([Apple Podcasts]( https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/lael-rides-around-the-world/id1743983335?l= en-GB), Spotify). In it, Lael Wilcox documents her journey around the world on a bicycle every day, in which she wants to break the women’s world record. She rides about 260-300 kilometres every day, which is a completely different category. She radiates so much optimism, gratitude, resilience and joy in her stories – and I always get a little of that too.
Why am I still cycling? I have found a home here – or it has found me. I could get on a bus to Gothenburg, then take the train to Bollebygd and cycle the 5 km from there. I could spend time with Tobias and his cat Rasmus, go on bike rides, stop by Sara, Fredrik and their sauna, take trips to Gothenburg and Uppsala to see the other people I have met. Theoretically. The idea feels a little lost. As long as I don’t have a task, I don’t know where my place is. It’s probably good to get a little distance after my quick decision to move my life there. But I can still miss it.
I’m also looking for something else on this journey. I want to see more of the landscape in Norway, I want to eat pierogi in Poland and beetroot soup in Lithuania. I want to get to know the Finns and Finland and understand the Scandinavian fascination with their incomprehensible sister nation (plus Finnish saunas!). I want to have chance encounters, find beautiful campsites and see elk. I want to eat questionable meals from my pot that still taste good when you’re hungry. I want to get wet and dry again. I want to lie on my camping mat in the evening, breathe in the fresh air and try to categorise all the strange sounds of the forest. And then, at some point, I want to arrive back home.
Jumping into the lake brings me back from brooding to the moment. To feel how warm the water is at the surface, how cold it is when I dive down. That my swimming in one direction has swirled the water, and it is colder when I swim back the same distance. Silence, refreshment. Leaving behind the dirt and sweat of the day.
I filter some fresh water from one of the inlets to the lake. It was overdue, and slight dehydration certainly does not help my mood. Shortly afterwards I find a place to sleep at another lake, there is just enough space between the cow pats. It is not beautiful, but it is flat and not right next to the road.
Once the tent is up, my equipment is put away for the coming rain and I can crawl into the tent with my dinner, I come back to myself. I breathe deeply, stretch, eat slowly. I write a little more in my diary, trying to understand my restlessness. But it is slowly subsiding.
