Finally after a long time I wrote something again. This time not as spiritual, but more an experience I would like to share. But it has spiritual aspects to it too: the middle way, conscious choices and finding the right effort for oneself.
I made a commitment to fly as little as possible. Yes, me. A traveling freelance musician who tries to live in two countries at the same time.
I admire people who decided that they will just not fly at all anymore. But for now I choose the middle way – anytime it is at least a little possible, I will choose to go another way. My work as a musician includes a lot of traveling, so I’m aware that sometimes due to time pressure or due to the long distance there will be no other way but to fly. But I’m going to try to be aware of the thin line from where it becomes too much and I have to rather make changes in my life than finding excuses for why I had to fly this time again. And I’m going to make the effort to plan things in a way so that I have time for the longer journey and recovery from that and so that I stay for a longer time on one place once I’m there (avoid flying somewhere for one gig and back. Which actually maybe never happened to me, but it’s quite a common practice in the music industry). It’s the same with for example being vegan. I know that it would be a too hard task for me and every time I would break the rules I would just feel bad about myself. So I rather think I’m a vegetarian and every vegan meal I have is a plus. And maybe in the long run I will slowly change the habit, just by having it in mind, but not forcing it.
If you make a strict rule about something, it easily becomes this “all or nothing” thing. Once you break the rule it seems like you lost everything and you have to start from scratch, but that’s not the case! Every time you choose to take a train and not a flight, every time you choose to have a vegan/vegetarian meal and not meat, you saved some of the emissions and made a difference.
That’s the middle way. Finding what’s the right effort for you in a way that it’s motivating and you feel good about it rather than feeling pressed and struggling with guilt feelings. Or the other extreme – giving up completely.
I actually looked up how much emissions I saved by taking a train from Prague to Gothenburg yesterday, instead of flying. It depends on several factors, but most probably I saved more than 100 kg of CO2 emissions (around 30 kg by train and around 150 kg if I flew). 150 kilos! Per one passenger per one hour flight! This thing with emissions has always been hard to imagine for me. Well, it’s some kind of gas, invisible. But imagine hundred fifty kilos! Hundred fifty kilos of anything feels really a lot to be just thrown into the atmosphere. It’s more than I could lift or carry. And 150 kilos per each passenger on the flight. Imagine that amount!
Waking up at 4:30 and then 19 hours of traveling, where the last couple of hours I was really tired and at the end carrying the suitcase three floors up at 1 am, that was quite tough. I really needed a good rest after that. But I think it’s really worth it. This planet is our home and each choice we make matters.
Appart from that it takes time and is a bit tiring, it was actually quite fun and I did quite a bit office work and phone calls. If you’re curious how it all went, here is a little journal from the trip.
The alarm clock rang at 4:30. I’m walking to the train station in Říčany before sunrise to take a train to Prague at 5:25 and from there at 6:26 off to Germany. My journey starts. It feels oddly similar as in March: there is chaos in the Czech republic, covid is spreading, people are panicking (although in another way than in March. That time everyone was doing big food shopping and supermarkets were empty, do you remember?), social media are full of fear and hate and there is a slight atmosphere of a lockdown to come soon. And as in March, I’m leaving off to Sweden in a moment which feels like last minute. And to be honest, I feel relieved and just hope that they let me cross all the borders.
Everything is going well. I successfully cross the German border (they didn’t check anything) and change train in Berlin. The first train was a little late, but I have an hour for the switch so that was no problem. I feel full of energy and do some yoga on the platform while waiting for the next train to Hamburg. Even that one gets a little late, and again it’s ok because there is enough time to switch.
Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is full of staircases. It somehow doesn’t take into account people with heavy suitcases as one might expect from a train station 😀 The escalators to the platforms move all only in one direction. The best are the toilets. They are two floors downstairs. 😀 So if you travel alone like me, you have to carry all your luggage two floors down and then up again. 😀 I wish I hadn’t packed so much stuff. But what to do, if you go for six weeks and you need music pedals and other equipment which weights some kilos…
The next change is in a Danish town called Fredericia. Here it’s getting exciting, because there is only 8 minutes to switch and if I miss that, I’m spending a night in Denmark. There is control on the Danish border. If there are problems, the train might get late. Fortunately, everything goes quite smoothly and soon we start going. The officer looks at my ID so briefly, that she can probably only tell that it is an ID. Again, nobody is even asking if I’m coming from a risk zone. In Fredericia there is a crowd of people running to catch the train to Copenhagen. We are lucky.
Because I had time before this trip, I decided I will prepare a lot of food to take with me, including a lunch and dinner box and two liters of water so that I don’t have to buy stupid expensive food packed in plastic. I ran out of water and still had 4 hours trip to Gothenburg in front of me. In Copenhagen I went into the Joy & Juice cafe and asked if they could fill my bottle. The girl smiled and told me they are not allowed to do that. I said that that’s very sad. She smiled even more. I tried to beat her smile with even more smile and left quickly. Believe it or not, they helped me in 7/11. So I actually didn’t buy anything during this whole trip. Feeling pretty proud of myself.
At 20:27 I’m finally getting on the last train, Öresundståg from Copenhagen to Gothenburg. We’re having a skype call with my friends from Prague. Some of them are in quarantine because they have covid or they met someone who has covid. Even this skype call feels like a reminiscence to the spring. I was in Sweden, they were in Prague in quarantine and we used to have a beer online instead. Weird times. But the connection is not very good on the train and I don’t hear them very well. I’m also getting really tired after all the hours traveling and I’m looking forward to crossing the Swedish borded so that I can finally take off the face mask. It’s Saturday evening and there is a group of drunk middle aged men having a party. The train seems to stop in every little place and I’m really starting to long for a bed.
After 19 hours of travel I finally reach Gothenburg and I take my good old bus number 16 “home”. The bus is full of drunk youngsters wearing expensive clothes and someone vomited on the floor. #weekendinsweden.
It’s always an odd feeling to come to Sweden after some time in Czechia. And to come to Czechia after some time in Sweden. I guess that’s a usual expat syndrom. I absorbed the culture and every time I come, I feel like my personality changes literally within a couple of hours. The place, the language shapes me. I am someone else in Sweden and someone else in Czechia. There is a nostalgic feeling to it, when I arrive and observe the change happening in real time, asking “who am I?”. I start to recognise the things that annoy me in that place and the things that I love and apparently I identify with that. Which will be a good topic to reflect on another time in some next post.
For now I get off the bus and enjoy the clean air which here in Gothenburg already smells autumn. Carrying my heavy suitcase three floors up feels like torture. But I manage and fall straight into bed. I’m in Gothenburg again. It’s 2 am. By the morning my Swedish mind will be back.
Žofie Kašparová 