2023-07-30, 04:53 PM - Word count:
I sit in a small forest. A small forest within a bigger forest. The big forest is the Schwarzwald, the little one is a forest park in a small town I have stopped in to gather my thoughts before flying to Ulanbataar.
I sip on a warm tea or soup in a large thermos, made from lovely aromatic herbs, green tea and mushrooms of questionable provenance. Mushrooms for thinking without a filter, tea for remembering the best of the thoughts some hours later. Herbs for flavour and pretentiousness. I permit myself small luxuries.
I think of Accra, where I arrived last season and was a merely acceptable goalkeeper. Goals found the net behind me as easily as Tse-Tse flies find prey. I think of Schwarzwald, proud we improved and were never worse than the second tier of the second division, mostly ready to fight for the first tier if the leaders slipped.
(They did not slip.)
I think of Mongolia, of the arid steppe my family calls home. I think of what a quarter of my generous salary will do for the education of children in my part of the country. How many goal posts can I pay to have placed in random spots on the steppe, just along migration routes, that nomads might pause to play at? Would migration patterns change over time with the appearance of soccer goals where only seasonal pasture lands were before? I wonder. It is a benevolent prank, I will be happy to play it on my people.
I think of the Great Wall, further south across the Chinese border, all the way across what they call "Inner Mongolia" and call their own province. That barrier meant to hold Mongolians back. It more or less did - when Mongolians conquered China, we went around the wall rather than over or through it.
Schwarzwald has a wall holding it in the second division. Two teams came down from the first division last season, this season those same two teams return to the first division. We see the fortification holding teams third-place and lower in the second division. We watched the same teams stay above us.
But we proved ourselves the best of those left behind this season. Trees grow faster than long stone walls. The Black Forest is ready to simply outflank whoever the first division drops in our path next season.
I will return to the steppes, walk the grazing grounds with my family's animals, experience home by motorcycle, horse and foot. My teammates will find their families and comforts as well, in other parts of the world. They will find their own fuel, their images and motivations. All this is interim. A dream between campaigns, rest to strengthen minds and wills.
(I hope they find their own mildly hallucinogenic mushroom tea. Maybe we can gather all the mushroom specimens together in a team garden, deep in the Black Forest?)
We will return to Schwarzwald with a well-tuned hunger, hooves dreams hands and talons ready to savage our enemies' hopes.
I sip on a warm tea or soup in a large thermos, made from lovely aromatic herbs, green tea and mushrooms of questionable provenance. Mushrooms for thinking without a filter, tea for remembering the best of the thoughts some hours later. Herbs for flavour and pretentiousness. I permit myself small luxuries.
I think of Accra, where I arrived last season and was a merely acceptable goalkeeper. Goals found the net behind me as easily as Tse-Tse flies find prey. I think of Schwarzwald, proud we improved and were never worse than the second tier of the second division, mostly ready to fight for the first tier if the leaders slipped.
(They did not slip.)
I think of Mongolia, of the arid steppe my family calls home. I think of what a quarter of my generous salary will do for the education of children in my part of the country. How many goal posts can I pay to have placed in random spots on the steppe, just along migration routes, that nomads might pause to play at? Would migration patterns change over time with the appearance of soccer goals where only seasonal pasture lands were before? I wonder. It is a benevolent prank, I will be happy to play it on my people.
I think of the Great Wall, further south across the Chinese border, all the way across what they call "Inner Mongolia" and call their own province. That barrier meant to hold Mongolians back. It more or less did - when Mongolians conquered China, we went around the wall rather than over or through it.
Schwarzwald has a wall holding it in the second division. Two teams came down from the first division last season, this season those same two teams return to the first division. We see the fortification holding teams third-place and lower in the second division. We watched the same teams stay above us.
But we proved ourselves the best of those left behind this season. Trees grow faster than long stone walls. The Black Forest is ready to simply outflank whoever the first division drops in our path next season.
I will return to the steppes, walk the grazing grounds with my family's animals, experience home by motorcycle, horse and foot. My teammates will find their families and comforts as well, in other parts of the world. They will find their own fuel, their images and motivations. All this is interim. A dream between campaigns, rest to strengthen minds and wills.
(I hope they find their own mildly hallucinogenic mushroom tea. Maybe we can gather all the mushroom specimens together in a team garden, deep in the Black Forest?)
We will return to Schwarzwald with a well-tuned hunger, hooves dreams hands and talons ready to savage our enemies' hopes.
