Fiction – Planning – Realization

I lie in the alcove of our Terra Love, open my eyes and look through the snow-covered window at a few leafless branches stretching into a gray winter sky. The quiet humming of the fridge is combined with the whirring of the heating. From time to time, the muffled sound of car tires making their way through the thawing snow penetrates the thick walls of the cabin. Yesterday evening, in the last light of day, we found a rest area on a little-used country road in France, where I steered our Terra Love 2 to spend the night. I look to the side and see Tanja still sleeping peacefully. “I wonder what awaits us on this trip,” I think to myself. We are finally on the road again, a feeling that can hardly be described in words, especially after working endlessly for the last 9 months to make the jump away from home again. Somehow I have the feeling that it’s getting harder and harder to break away from Germany, as if the country wants to keep us with all the means at its disposal. “What a stupid thought. Don’t forget that a global pandemic has suddenly come around the corner and that an unthinkably criminal war is raging in Europe,” replies another part of my brain.

Dong! A small snowball claps from a branch onto the roof of our Terra Love. The unexpected noise makes my thoughts jump back home. I see myself sitting in my office, answering one of the many emails, writing invoices, replying to YouTube and Facebook comments, googling for the best camera equipment and a thousand other things that at times absolutely overwhelmed me. It looked like a horde of vandals had passed through my office. There was equipment everywhere, mostly technology such as cameras, laptops, countless different cables, lenses, folders, to-do lists, outstanding invoices, letters from the local authority, the tax office, the accountant and so much more that at this point my memory is severely overloaded trying to recall the full extent of the detail. In addition to all the madness, I also had difficulties with the technology because we had decided to switch from Windows to Apple. A changeover that had been planned for years, but the timing had never been right. Not this time either, of course. It was now or never, we thought, and went through with it. How could we have imagined that? The consequences were a sudden blind flight in the digital world and the complete loss of our workflow.

“How are we ever going to cope with this?” we soon pondered in despair every day. In addition to all the day-to-day challenges, we were surprised by two deaths in the family. In addition to the sadness we felt, we were forced to empty a house. A mammoth task that was second to none.
Dong! Another pile of snow falls on the roof of the Terra, causing my thoughts to jump to another chapter of my travel preparations. Our Terra Love had to be modified for the tour. Although, to be honest, a lot of what I had in mind in this regard was not absolutely necessary. But when perfectionism takes over? However, today I am glad that I made this effort. So I had a snorkel, a bull bar, a blind spot camera, a new transfer case, better shock absorbers, much better LED headlights, a Todmann switch and so much more installed. Iveco Bavaria carried out a comprehensive customer service, overall check and track measurement. One week before our planned departure, I traveled to Hamburg to have a Pandora alarm system installed. We worked from dawn to dusk until we were exhausted and spurred each other on again and again. “We can do it!” was and is Tanja’s mantra.

A few days before our final departure, we handed over our house to our friend Achim, as he will be moving in during our planned absence of several years. At the end, we said goodbye to our friends, discussed with our dear neighbor Tom whether he would take over the snow clearing service and put the rest of the equipment away in our mobile home.

Dong! Snow falls on the roof of the Terra again. As if it had all been a not exactly pleasant dream, the haunting is over. We have managed to overcome the hurdle that keeps coming up and are back on the road. It will take a few more days or perhaps weeks to achieve freedom of thought. That moment when we step through the door to the other world. It is precisely the other side of being, of life, that is the elixir for us, the balm for the soul, the fountain of youth and the world of knowledge. It is the world in which thoughts can flow, in which creativity grows without limits, in which our vocation as ambassadors of Mother Earth is to document in text, image and film the different cultures that still exist on earth, the different customs, conventions, rituals, the dreamlike landscapes, climate zones and animals that are at home there.