Christmas 2020

I’ve been thinking for days about how to start this year’s Christmas newsletter, because Tanja and I feel that the usual Christmas wishes, although well-meaning, are somehow not appropriate. But getting involved in the general suffering doesn’t fit in with the Christmas season either. We get enough of this from all forms of media. The flood of negative information is so strong that even the psyche of a hardened person can be shaken. So what to write to do justice to the current situation and the coming festival of love? After pondering for a long time, my thoughts fly a few weeks into the past, to another place that supposedly has nothing to do with the here and now, and yet there seem to be similarities.

Wuuuuuiii! A violent gale sweeps around our Terra Love, causing it to sway alarmingly and the chassis to groan alarmingly. “Will she hold out?” asks Tanja in a tone I’ve only heard from her when she’s very worried. Wuuuuuiii! It hammers again against the cabin of our mobile dwelling. The weather forecast warns of a force 11 hurricane. “The Terra weighs over 6 tons. As long as we don’t hit any objects lying around, we’re safe here. However, we should postpone the game with Ajaci until the madness out there calms down a bit,” I reply in an emphatically calm voice. However, the storm does not let up. On the contrary, Mother Nature seems to have decided to shift up a gear. The sand on the beach is now blown into the North Sea by constantly changing wind directions. Looking out of the window, we see how downdraughts from the mountains behind us hit the approaching waves and literally tear them apart. Then the wind turns like lightning, drives into the collapsing wave crests again, seems to lift them as if by magic into the shaken air, where they dissolve into fountains of water dust in the void. Wuuuuuiii! It thunders again against the Terra. This time we are hit by a gust of sand that came over the sea. The noise is so loud that we are worried that the paintwork and the beautiful foiling of our expedition vehicle could be damaged. The situation is unchanged the next morning. Tanja is outside with Ajaci to empty him. They come back safe and sound. Some days the storm subsides, only to gather strength for its next attack. We start to get used to the weather situation and come to terms with it. After two weeks, the wild Nordic climate is part of our everyday life. During our trip to Norway, we spent three weeks with the Terra on the island of Senja, 350 km north of the Arctic Circle on the lonely Steinfjord, to write down the experiences of the past weeks. We experienced numerous winter storms far away from home.

Even though the forces of nature sometimes frightened us, we were able to deal with them and were able to assess them to a certain extent. The news from Germany was different and far more frightening. An incomprehensible and incomprehensible hurricane swept through there and over the whole world, not snapping trees and sending cars flying through the air, but rather shaking the foundations of human civilization. It was a storm that was not visible, but worked very subtly from underground. “Stay there as long as you can. – Corona is making our lives harder every day. – Our freedom is being restricted again. – A curfew is looming. – Christmas will be sad this year,” we read alongside a few conspiracy theories that made us feel even more insecure.

Despite the well-intentioned advice and warnings, we didn’t want to leave our closest family circle alone during the festivities and returned home. Hopefully a good decision, because we were in the most virus-proof place in the world. As soon as we arrive, we get caught in the corona storm. Also a whim of nature? At least comparable to a hurricane, from which you can protect yourself to a certain extent and which, like everything in life, comes to an end at some point. Human life consists of ups and downs. From highs and lows, only this time it doesn’t affect the individual, but all of us. Each of us is affected to a greater or lesser extent. Whether rich or poor, the virus does not stop at anyone, especially because it knows no emotion. On the contrary, it seems that human emotionality is our most vulnerable point, which the virus attacks mercilessly. Our defense system, on the other hand, is our ability to think logically. We can decide who and whether we hug someone, when and why we leave the house. Tanja and I are confident that we can meet this challenge. That we can also enjoy Christmas in a small way. Perhaps even more so than in previous years, as we can fully engage with our mother and father, as long as they are still alive. That we can thank them for all the love they have shown us throughout our lives. In other words, a really contemplative celebration without a big party, without getting drunk, without family quarrels. A celebration of peace, of closeness to our loved ones. Perhaps this Christmas in particular is the deepest, most intimate Christmas we have been given.

With this in mind, we wish you a happy, reflective celebration of love. We wish you confidence, strength, lots of energy, even more health and the realization that everything, no matter what it is, comes to an end.

Denis & Tanja

With our bikes under the Aurora at the Steinfjord on
the island of Senja. Senja is the second largest island
in Norway and lies around 350 km north of the Arctic
Circle in northern Norway.

Ajaci on a lonely beach. Close to the world’s strongest
tidal stream not far from the town of Bodo. North of
the Arctic Circle in northern Norway.

Stormy surf on the north side of the island of Senja.
Senja is the second largest island in Norway and lies
around 350 km north of the Arctic Circle in northern
Norway.