From city dweller to nature lover
How Sardinia changed my life and a love story began.
I used to think I could never live in the country, I always needed the city around me. But that suddenly changed and now I'm looking for a plot of land in the country with even more land around me. Kinda funny how life can change in a direction you never imagined. Let me take you a little bit on this journey. 4 years ago I decided that I would like to work on a farm. The complete contrast to my everyday life back then, the hectic city life with five days a week sitting in front of the computer in the office. Out of my comfort zone! It should be a month of unpaid leave. Since I lived in Florence for four months in 2012, Italy has been my soul home and so I chose Sardinia as my destination for my project. Over the organization WWOOF (World Wide Organisation of Organic Farming) I found the farmer Piero with his orange and olive farm. I was really looking forward to the time! I got a lot of questions from the outside. Exactly how I would imagine it there. What kind of work would I do? What my working hours are like. Where exactly am I going to live? I replied that I don't know all that exactly. I'm going there first! My gut feeling told me everything will be fine. And it turned out more than good! The time in Sardinia was one of the best times of my life so far! I remember the first morning (I had arrived in the dark) stepping onto the terrace and having an amazing view. All around me is land with vines, wild plants, cork oaks and the sea on the horizon! There was something soothing about the vastness and the quiet. All you could hear was the crickets, the buzzing of the flies and somewhere a dog was barking.
The farm was a few kilometers away from the house. Since I was there at the end of the summer, it wasn't yet harvest time, but there was always something to do. Karsten, a friend of Piero's from Berlin, also joined us and we formed a good trio – „i felici – the lucky ones“.
The physical work was great. She was so fulfilling. I saw what I had done at the end of the day and felt my body. We worked together as a team and together with nature. It had something meditative and creative at the same time. A beer after work took on a whole new meaning!
In general, I was fascinated by nature. Because of the climate, the most amazing types of fruit and vegetables grew: olives, avocados, pomegranates, goji berries, almonds, lemons, oranges, chard, physalis, persimmons, ... to name just a few. Partly it was cultivated, partly it just grew out of the ground because a seed had probably settled there one time. I was fascinated by that, but also by the feeling of being in nature, a "feeling good". I felt like I didn't really need any more. It made me happy.
I didn't want to go back to Hamburg at all. To the city. After my first day at work on the computer, I had a headache and the feeling after work was completely different. And so I planned that I wanted to be there for the orange harvest in February. No sooner said than done. Splendid! In the following autumn I went to the olive harvest. It was Corona high season and my trip was being judged, condemned and I was overwhelmed when I arrived. Somehow my feet got me out of the airport. When I saw the first palm tree I knew I was in the right place. During the time there I was surrounded by a maximum of 5 people, plus the sea, the nature and the fulfilling work of the olive harvest. That was balm for the soul. I was so happy and grateful that I went on this journey despite all my concerns. During my time there, Amano wrote to me frequently. We had only seen each other once before and texted off and on for the two years that followed. But over that time he wrote more frequently. He considered visiting me in Sardinia and offered to pick me up as an alternative. I was skeptical. And curious. And then my return flight was cancelled. That couldn't be a coincidence! So we finally met in Florence. I had taken the ferry to Civitavecchia and then continued by train. I was so happy that he had actually come. Karsten said to me beforehand: "A Sardinian proverb says: If someone drives 1800 km just to pick you up, you should take a closer look at that person." That's what I did. We briefly enjoyed Florence and then headed home. 3 days drive. I was excited. But overall it was so nice and somehow light. We just got along well. Life in such a small space also worked from the start. This is how our beautiful story began.
It quickly turned out that Amano had long dreamed of buying a piece of land in Spain and supporting himself there. I dreamed more and more of a small house in the Sardinian countryside. We put our dreams on top of each other and went on a road trip on the Atlantic coast from France to Spain to Portugal. Here we fell in love with the country and the people and are determined to find a home for us. It might be Italy for the next project, after all you can't surf that well there. Also this way we have a country that we explored together and learned to love. Luckily I wanted to work on a farm one day!
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