Water in my bones
*** Last week I was on holiday for a few days, visiting Hamburg, Lüneburg and Lauenburg, and when driving home, looking at the landscape, admiring birds on the fields, I suddenly felt so connect to what I was seeing that I reflected a bit on my connection to landscapes like wetlands (btw I love the German word “Aue”). It feels like the most poetic text I’ve ever written so far and also a bit vulnerable to share it. Hope you enjoy it.***
The village mingles between hills, they shape our grounds, our walks, our hikes. They are always present and seem to be the main protagonist, they are what shaped my experience at home. They are what call me again and again, to explore and immerge, to flee from this fast-paced world; to find myself in there. My roots grow deep in this village between hills and yet I long for water, waves and winds, streaming and bubbling. But why? When it’s hills that gave shape to my surroundings so far.
Then, after a recent holiday trip to the Elbe – a river shaping many parts of northern Germany – it struck me: I have water in my bones. I always had. Through the village I call home, runs a stream, small and easy to miss, but yet so important. It’s the hills that overarch everything; they are the shapes of our natural home, but the stream running through our village is always present as well. In summer it’s a place to cool down, yourself or your dogs. It’s a space for kids to play; I’ve played there many years as well. It seems small, but it can easily flood the whole village, become mighty and powerful. Fog hides in it, appearing in the most marvellous seasons, blurring the world, magic appears. It’s subject of many a conversation, it’s the undertone that’s running beneath our feet.
I’m not living on the hills, with far and wide views. I didn’t grow up in a mountain village atop of the hills or along their edges, I’m a woman of the water meadows, the wetlands that still partly surround our village. There’s water in my bones, constantly bubbling, it makes me feel at home.
Last week, on our holiday, we drove through big wetlands, following the river Elbe being touched by late winter’s snow. Birds of various kinds flying by or paddling along, an otter swimming through reed, the river ever moving forward. It was peaceful and yet felt like a place I know; deep down in my bones, I know water meadows and streams, meandering through earth, shaping villages and hills.
Usually, when I start planning our big holiday, I long to visit the sea. Rolling waves, sandy beaches, wind, water being present and visible. In the air, on your salty face and lips, in your ears. They had been part of my holidays throughout all my childhood and teenage years, had been part of my twenties. Though the past two years, I wasn’t visiting rolling waves, but somehow ended up in archipelagos, fjords or at bigger streams. Watery, still, but different. I’m not into lakes as much though, they are too silent and I’m missing the movement – except when they are bigger. I want to see moving water, flowing water.
There’s water in my bones and it needs to keep moving. It moves through me, as it’s been moving for ages in my home. There are hills and I enjoy the top view, the challenge, the forest, the soil that makes great roots. The ground is important, our soil is heavy clay, dry in summer, perfect to keep water and rich with humus in the water meadows. But when you walk up the hill and enter the forest, the soil changes. It’s crumbly, with easy to break stones, turning into pigment, becoming soft. Water trickles through, moves and is stored.
I grew deep roots in this soil, but the water keeps me moving, flowing to different spaces that are equally watery. Where nature seems most powerful and changing constantly. To cliffs and beaches, to wide meadows and deep soil, to rolling waves and bubbling streams. No silence, just movement. I have water in my bones.
About me: Hello, I’m Mareike, the writer of this newsletter hills to heart. Besides being a writer I’m also a painter, creating landscape and floral works with (mainly) oil paints. I share about my paintings on my website and also have a dedicated blog, which you are welcome to explore. Feel free to leave a heart, comment or share my writings.