About feeling alive in difficult times

Lately, I have found an almost forgotten joy in being alive again.

For me that meant sitting in my favourite coffee place again, after a long time without daring to do so. Carefully stepping inside, ordering a drink to go and drinking it alone in a corner outside was the only I sometimes granted myself this. I know that the pandemic is not over, but as a three times vaccinated plus recovered from Covid only recently, I now and then return to my coffee places, and it cures me mentally.
It really does.
The sweet scent, the jazz music (which I don‘t have to choose myself), and the chattering of voices all around, without interacting with them can lift up my mind. I come there to read, to write, to take a deep breath.
And apparently that is enough to not make me want to be dead for a little while.
Although I‘m still stuck in this body, and still have all my thoughts with me. It‘s a miracle, really.

Keeping this new joy in being alive during times like this has still not proven easy.
Constantly, these things I so desperately need in life are under threat, as it appears. In this post, I want to take a closer look at that.
Why do these things feel to be so threatened?
Is it just in my mind?
Is it just a generalized fear of the future that has no rational reasons to be?
Let me tell you that I am sure that this is not the case.

We live in difficult times.
Democracy is in decline, world wide. The percentage of the human population living in a democracy is on its lowest level since 2004.
In the last decade before the pandemic, we have seen the terrifying wars in the Arabic world, following the waves of protests, and, although not anymore in international focus, they are far from over. We also see climate change manifesting itself. Parts of Africa becoming more and more inhabitable, harvest and businesses in South America are facing challenges, and heat deaths all over the planet are on a rise.
I fear where this leads to. Will we be able to watch millions die from causes like this? Can we live after watching those countless deaths?
And lately, of course, Russia‘s war in Ukraine.
Then there is the thing with China and the Urguys. The procecution of civil society in Hong Kong. And how Tibet is just not allowed to be an own state. And, how the hell is Sri Lanka doing?!
Of course, as an unmarried and childless woman, I also observe the attack on women’s rights in the United States in horror. Just as in Poland, and even in the UK.

So, anymore question why a moment of relief in my favourite coffee place feels so much under threat?

… Do you see a pattern here?

Back to my new joy in life provided by coffee places.

Is this just luxury?

Is it just luxury to

… sit in the sun, or in the shadow …
… outside or inside …
… alone or together …
… on a date or just with a friend ….
… with a book or a laptop …
… wearing a dress or pants …
… having rainbow hair or the hair covered up…
… happy or sad …
… tall or short …

Feel free to add anything to this list. I stop my brain now, not to get caught in this forever.

´But I want to add that this it not a luxury and not something we must ever view as something to easily live without.

Having the choice to do something or to not do it, to attend something or to not attend something, and to be something or to not be something is not a luxury. Is something we should live for. And right now, I fear whatever choices the world in crisis will ask of us.

Thinking of my witching novel, I of course have to wonder how the disasters in the world back then affect my characters.
Did they seem far away, as long as you were happy enough not to be overrun and besieged yourself?
Or were there news traveling the country that were reaching people with a drumming heart and a punch into the stomach and leave them fearing the next sunset in unrest?
It is hard to tell. It also a very individual question about how resilient people are or even want to be.
My witch lived in the first half of the 17th century in the holy roman empire. She faced crop failures, famines and of course, the 30-years-war. Plus the occasional plague outbreaks, her time killed millions.
And how did these news reach her with her cauldron on a rainy Sunday morning?
How much is a heart allowed to feel for a world so fragile?

When I was preparing to join the protests against Russia‘s war in Ukraine, I was thinking about what signs to bring. And my (Polish) friend suggested that I could bring a pride flag with a message directed to Putin. „The pride flag is one flag he probably hates as much as the Ukrainian flag“, that friend explained, and it made sense. I did write a message for Putin himself, on a rainbow, and I shivered to the very core of my heart while doing so.

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If you want to know where I got my description of the time we are in living in from, here are some reads that are wortth it.

https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/topics/latest-news/2022/february/democracy-under-pressure-worldwide

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116152