I set off for my dark retreat more or less straight from a friends’ wedding (the him-and-her kind, I mean :), well, the day after, I mean 🙂
The journey to the dark retreat
Bus, train, the odd beer along the way, at times I felt like an alcoholic on his way to check into rehab 🙂 Last can at the station in Kutná Hora and then the final stretch on foot from the station … to the place, where I turned up around seven in the evening. Tomáš welcomed me with a smile and showed me the cabin. Will you be eating? One of the first questions. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind something now and then 🙂 We’ll bring you food once a day, here’s a thermos with tea, here’s the switch, turn the lights off whenever you like. You can switch them back on any time, leave, it’s voluntary, enjoy it 🙂 One last text saying I’d arrived, and I switched off my phone. I had a look round the cabin to see where everything was and a moment later turned the lights off. Darkness fell. I had a shower, put on shorts and a T-shirt.
And then it hit me.. so what now? So here you are alone in the dark, you’ve waited so long for this, you’ve been looking forward to it.. and now here I was sitting on the bed like a lost soul who’d fallen into a dark burrow and couldn’t climb out. Being all in a travelling mood from the journey and the beer, from mulling things over outdoors across familiar and unfamiliar landscapes, I felt more like wandering on somewhere, enjoying the Sunshine and tramping about, alone with my thoughts. But now I was here, and it took me a while to get myself together. It crossed my mind whether it wouldn’t be better to get straight out of that cabin again and enjoy a week of tramping. But hang on, I’ve been waiting half a year and looking forward to this moment, and now that it’s here, I don’t know what to do with it? One of the first things I realised was that the feeling of loneliness is nothing new. On the contrary, I know that feeling very well, and even when I’m among people, I’m used to being alone.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…. and who cares? 🙂
Now I’ve only got one unanswered question left. Do I want to be president or king?
Either I’ll be a future candidate for president of the Czech Republic in the direct presidential election in 2023, or King! I’d rather go for King 🙂
But just to be sure, I’ll do one more dark RETREAT sometime, in case I got it wrong!:-)
Richard 🙂
PS: Lenka and Tomáš, it was great at your place, maybe again some time. Greetings to both Tomášes too, my fellow dark-dwellers 🙂
PS2: Don’t worry, I’ve already booked an appointment with a psychologist, but they’re not free for another three months, there are lots of us crazies around 🙂
