Posts from @kesityu.fashion

Turning dirt into Gold.

kesityu.fashion — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:46:24 GMT

My life has changed, wow, a lot indeed.

This time last year I was somewhere in the mountains, trying to figure out what I was most excited about in life. Caught in an endless, emotionally exhausting to and fro. Trying to find a path in a storm.

And now I am sitting in my monk-room with no windows. Someone else’s baby is sleeping strapped to my chest, outside it’s raining and I am calmly excited about autumn arriving. A pomegranate and a beeswax candle on my desk. The wall is starting to fill up with pictures.

“How did I get here?” I wonder with amazement. Not just about the place around me, no what mesmerizes me most is my mental state.

For the past two hours I have been cleaning the house of my Aikido teacher and I am nowhere near finished. I hoover, clean the bathrooms, the basement, the kitchen… My taste in music hasn’t changed, it is still as random as ever. And so I listen to Swiss-German gangster rap while I am mopping the floor. I haven’t even touched the upper levels of the house yet. Amused I am watching myself, actually wiping down this floor all the way into the corners. Cleaning even the parts that we can’t see. My mind is calm, sometimes I am quietly singing along, sometimes lost in my thoughts.

“Why is all of this cleaning not bothering me anymore?” Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I suddenly miraculously started to like cleaning. I don’t and surely know many other things I would rather be doing in any given moment of my life. But something switched. I didn’t fight it. I just accepted where I was. I am here cleaning, the whole house, that’s the deal and so I am going to follow through with it.

A story my grandmother used to read to me comes up in my mind. Unfortunately I can not recall the detailed version, and indeed I might mix it up with other stories she told me, of which there are lots. The essence goes something like this: At some stage in his early life, a rather lost main character, not seldom after losing both his parents comes across a strange old magician who takes him into his care. Since he has nothing to lose the youth accepts the offer to serve the old master and in exchange learn his mysterious skills. His initial excitement gets humbled as soon as he discovers that he just has to do all the shitty work for his master. Cleaning never-ending piles of dirt, separating the corn from the dust or building sandcastles in the rain. At the end of his apprentice he expects some payment for his work. But to his surprise his master gives him nothing but a bag of dirt. Frustrated he leaves, throws away the dirt and keeps the bag. Just to notice a few days later, that the remaining crumbs have turned into gold overnight.

That’s exactly what I am here for.

Turning dirt into gold.

Four hours later we are sitting around the living room table, a cut-down tree trunk. The balcony window wide open, a view on the surrounding mountains. We all hold cups of golden coffee in our hands a mix of sheep’s milk, curcuma and coffee. Patrick starts talking, wasting no time on the surface of things. He just talks to rearrange his thoughts and bring clarity into them. I am not sure why the other two are listening or what they are hearing. As for me I am sitting there cross-legged in the chair admiring the beauty of my life. I could keep on listening forever.

It’s like listening to the fairy tales of my grandmother. But this time I have proof that they are real.

And before my own eyes the dust I have been wiping up in piles transforms into gold.

Letting go of the story, what stays is the fundamental intent.

I collect the crumbs. Let them seep through my mind into my body. And write some of them down in my journal: “…they start to clear out, the clouds in my mind, I can think clearly, as the autumn fog covers the land and turns Lac Léman into an ocean.”

PS: All words and photos are as usual made and written by myself.

Where the pomegranates grow.

kesityu.fashion — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 16:42:48 GMT

Yesterday autumn stepped through the door, unexpected and anticipated.

The lake covered itself in choppy waves, blurring the horizon into an illusion of infinity.

Seagulls are flying, the wind is coming from far, bringing with him long forgotten stories and desires of the past.

The red of these walls matches the color of the chestnut trees marking my view from this balcony. Since, what feels like a lifetime ago, that I am here, since the end of May. The palm trees are still green, will they ever change their color or loose their leaves?

I found a pomegranate the other day, as big as my fist, growing on the tree in the park. Who’s voice is it I hear whispering through the branches?

Earlier this year, torn between “should I stay” or “should I go” as I have been so many times in my life. “Where should I go next?” because something in me always needs to go “somewhere next”. A thought came to my mind, one that I thought would liberate me from the scary decision to actually, for once, stay.

Vague and poetic, and because we share a long romantic history, I told myself: “I’ll spend winter somewhere where the pomegranates grow.”

I think it was life whispering through the branches of the pomegranate bushes. Gently letting me know, that it is okay to stay. That maybe I can trust that feeling of love and expansion, the excitement to be here I feel everyday. That it won’t just leave. And that even if it does, I’ll still be whole, still be me. Whispering that it is not only safe to commit, but even the building of new grounds for love and inspiration.

The fountain.

Since May I walk there at least once a day to fill up my bottles with mountain water. A whole love story in itself.

I have seen the flowers bloom and caught their scent in my bottle. The pigeon that looked at me and reminded me, that love lays in the spaces between. The bottom covered in glitter, telling me I’ll manage this one too, just as I caught a hint of dread. The full moons I have admired on my way there and back. The mountain in the distance. That one time you carried all the bottles because you said I need my hands free to smell all the flowers. The warm evening air embracing my body.

Yesterday, the first yellow leaves were swimming in the water and I am still here. Meeting the moment I was most terrified of, only two months earlier. To still be here and see this place changing through another season.

I stop for an instant. Trying to grasp this whole moment, breathe it in. Like a wild animal waiting for an ambush sure to come from somewhere in the dark around. I hold my breath, my muscles tighten and I wait. But nothing happens. The night keeps rustling around me with quiet movements. Those leaves are actually beautiful. And a wave of gratitude floods me, way too intense for a few little leaves in an ordinary city fountain, my rational brain would say. But the poet in me had taken control of this moment and in deep admiration, held herself close to tears.

PS: As usual all words and photos are mine.

Am I allowed to say that’s me?

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:59:30 GMT

Reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins made me realize how differently I perceive my feminine and my masculine traits in terms of safety and acceptability, shaped by the world around me. Where does a healthy balance between the two lie?

The right place...

I have been wanting to read that book for a while now. Last time I desperately tried to download it on to my kindle, my amazon account failed me and kept on blocking myself out, until I gave up. “Fuck that kindle shit.” And I have never touched it since.

I had a few days in Zurich, between Arosa with G. and going back to Montreux. On one of my usual strolls by bike through town I stopped by at an open bookshelf and who looked at me straight in the face? David Goggins. “Hmm so I guess it’s time to read it now.” I am thinking, and start about the next day.

...at the right time.

My mood is strange in that moment. I am in Zurich and “being back there” hit me a lot harder than usual this time. I am still way too close to that life I am so eager to leave behind. And this time that hits me hard. I feel trapped. A bit useless. A few doubts are creeping up. What plays into account might also be the countless conversations with G. over the past month about contributing to other peoples life. And the question whether or not just being and enjoying things like slow breakfast and mountain hikes could be justified as leading a life worth while.

I feel torn between two worlds and a lot of different voices are getting loud in my head. Some telling me I was fighting hard, some doubting my whole existence, some pushing me to achieve more, some showing me how far I have come.

(I am starting to tell the story here, instead of feeling it. That’s what blocks me.)

Feeling it.

That book speaks to a part of me that I appreciate and fear at the same time. Something in me I am unsure I am allowed to say “That’s me.” Because “Do I really have enough proof of it? Or am I just trying to be though because it sounds cool?”

It’s a part of me that loves to fight and go for the impossible just to see how far I would get. A part of me very attracted to discipline and tight frames. In myself and in others.

That part is strongly connected to something much deeper. Something that has always been there. A feeling like it is unsafe to be soft, unsafe to be feminine. Sometimes that feeling surfaced as the wish to be born as a guy. Just focus on one task and fight it through no matter what, build the body, the business, the life with sheer discipline. Sometimes it manifested as me refusing any traditional relationship models. At least if I couldn’t be a guy I could fuck like one. As if that could just be a conscious choice made at any given day. But I was more comfortable suppressing my emotions, than sitting and feeling unsafe with them.

It’s a part of me that gets triggered when people, especially guys, share their emotions vulnerably. “Stop crying and just figure your shit out, like everyone else!” A voice shouts loud in my head. I get annoyed. And I indeed walked away from people many times after that voice showed up.

It’s a part of me that can run head first through concrete walls for the better and the worst. Where I can hold on and fight until the bitter end, for things that are long gone and broken. And also for myself in the darkest hours, reluctant to ever give up even if that means a constant uphill battle with no end in sight.

Being with F. made me cycle to Istanbul, the moment where I felt how much more I was capable of than I would have ever thought. Breaking up with F. made me fight for myself, for my life on never ending uphill slopes and push to my limits burning out every inch of discipline I could have ever imagined.

I feel like I switched between obsessing over that strong and dedicated part of me, to the point where I put discipline above all other feelings. And on the other side completely giving in to comfort, giving up any resistance neglecting my masculine side as much as the feminine, at least in that state they were equal.

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“But how can you live like this?”

kesityu.fashion — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 17:34:33 GMT

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“How do you survive?”

“I don’t know, but it seems to work. And if you don’t believe me, the last thirty years are proof it does.”

I officially made it through thirty years of life. Wow I am a bit impressed by myself actually. And proud. It feels like I have some sort of proof now, that I am able to survive.

I survived ten years in the hands of my parents, rather well.

I survived ten years in between, getting out of the nest and experimenting with different life-phases.

I survived ten years of taking my own decisions, going against a lot of good advice and what one is supposed to do.

Most times I eat the food I cooked I have to pause one moment to give myself credit. “Wow, I would marry myself on the sport, tasting what I just did…”

What does that mean? Maybe that I cooked for the wrong guys so far. Or maybe I can just feel super lucky because I don’t need to marry myself in order to attempt staying around forever. I’ll stay around forever anyways, no matter how long that will be and whether I choose to or not.

Amazing.

I am generally very amazed by this existence. How random and absurdly beautiful to be alive in this world with everything in it.

How amazing to be able to play this game of being human, with all it’s facets. The pain, the joy, the struggles and the surprises. To be able to uncover the essence of life, one decade at the time. And getting surprised over and over again. Just to be able to experience all of this, it’s like a gift I can endlessly unwrap. With each layer I pull away, my guesses of what the present will be change. And yet I have a feeling that I am not supposed to know. I just keep on immersing myself in the unwrapping process.

There is also parts of me that hurry and worry.

I thought at thirty I would have it all figured out. Stable, solid and easy to define. Luckily I haven’t. How boring would that be. Yet I fantasize about it sometimes.

Something like a house and a loving marriage, kids, the job I love and makes money. Nice friends, stable life, awesome hobbies, a few cats.

How did I even imagine my life at thirty when I was let’s say fifteen?

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There is no reason, not to grow.

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 08:00:09 GMT

Kafka said something in the lines of: “When you live you don’t write.” I picked up that sentence in my last year of high school. Somewhere in between a lot of books I didn’t feel like reading. I certainly didn’t feel like reading Kafka, but since I heard that phrase I sympathized with him, nonetheless. Ever since I find it has never lost it’s accuracy, that phrase.

A lot happens, my life lately in my surroundings in my head, in just one day. So many impressions and conversations and thoughts and ideas pass me by. And I do not have the time nor energy to write all of them down. I live, so I don’t write. Kafka is right, still.

And then I realised I can be everything at once. I don’t have to choose this side of me or the other. I do not have to choose between expeditions or long silk dresses. All I have to do is replace “or” with “and”. I can cycle over the mountain pass in pouring rain and wear a silk dress in the evening. I can be masculine in one moment and feminine in the other. I can eat only meet and carrots for days and drink champagne on the top of the mountain. I can sleep wild in the bushes with dirty hands and spend the night in a hotel. Maybe not at the same time, and yet these different sides can all exist in me, next to each other. And not agains one another.

I guess that’s me. Roughing it one day to play the princess the next. And it feels very liberating finally getting to accept all of it. All of me.

And maybe that’s also how I’ll write from now on. Sure I’d like to write down a coherent story about this hike or that mountain, that encounter or this other day. But maybe I’ll do that later. When I am somewhere in one place. For now there are too many revelations to stick to one, through the 813 words of one article.

Late mornings I am making my way up the mountain. Late because I had another coffee with a few lovely cyclists I met, just when I thought there where only retired people around. They showed up, as usual just at the right time. That’s why now the sun is already burning hot, even though the wind blows icy and only gets colder the higher I get. I decided to leave my phone in the valley with my bike. Around me there is just peace and quiet, except from this one song on replay in my head. Over and over the same few phrases pass through my brain and I wonder when it will finally stop. My admiration for the wildflowers is as endless as the mountain peaks around me. First there are purple pink bushes growing next to my path. Wild thyme between the grass. Blue dots, yellow ones, a million shades of green. And the rivers rush down over the rocks. Sometime I hear their roaring loud and violently sometimes it’s just a gentle dripping melody through the moss.

A lot of snow still covers the slopes. And some patches of the floor are still brown and muddy. It must have been only a few days since they got exposed to the sunlight again, after the long winter. And even though that soil is frozen for so long and even though the weather is still harsh up here even in June, I can already see the first little living-beings fighting their way through the mud. Those plants, they grow through all that frost and rocks and snow. Through burning sun and violent storms. Do they ever complain? Do you ever hear them whisper: “No I can’t grow this season, if I where down in the valley, yes, but up here where I am it is impossible…” Do you hear them complaining about the harsh conditions around them?

No you don’t. They grow, regardless. Maybe it’s easier to grow where the conditions are favourable. And yet these plants up here are as strong as any plant can be. Because they grow exactly where it is the most difficult to do so.

There is no excuse not to grow.

I remember that when I run back down from the peak, crossing a snowfield. I am scared of avalanches and scared to sink in, as I did before up to my knees. A bath in the lake, that is still completely frozen allows me to recenter into myself. And suddenly I notice, the song in my head is gone. At it’s place is now a lot of free space, some peaceful quiet and a lot of loving inspiration.

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Another face of freedom - Sitting with myself in silence.

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 08:11:00 GMT

So much happens, I barely have the time to digest it. Think about it or write about it. Thousands of photos are piling up in my phone. And in my note book I place phrases and words, hoping they’ll make me remember all these thoughts later on.

But now that I sit in someone else home at the kitchen table I am not sure where to start or what to even tell. How come?

Maybe it’s because this is not really an expedition in the physical sense. No wild dogs, no unknown languages, and shitty dirt roads full of rubbish. No fearing for my life on the rescue-lane of the motorway. No destination baring a mysterious name, far in the distance. It is more an internal expedition. I grow so much every day from morning till evening. So many things I learn about myself and life. So many constructive thoughts and ideas go through my head. But then they are difficult to put into written words. They are harder to tell.

Sure I could describe the landscapes I pass, they are mesmerizing. I can write about the slopes I ride down endlessly, singing. The break I take and jump into the freezing cold mountain river. When I come out the water I feel like new. Everything I ever worried about has been washed away. I could write about all the detours into deadended-valleys, just to see another waterfall or another version of a late-high-altitude-spring. Fields covered in yellow flowers. Putting the bike into the car just to eat some Italian Pizza and Ice cream, another kind of road trip. Our ideas bubble like the mountain streams and bloom like all these wild flowers. I could write about the random encounters and deep conversations to strangers.

But what this is really about, is more an internal thing. Growth we can all it. So maybe that’s what I’ll write about. Because it is the thing that excites me the most about every of these days.

Expansion. I feel myself expanding. My life expanding. There is so much that is possible.

I observe myself, how I am getting better at holding my fears, embracing them instead of giving in on them. A few pine bushes stand around me. And it feels like they are hugging me and my tent. The mountain river flows over stone benches in it’s river bed. Night after night I confront the fear of not knowing where to sleep. Until I catch myself anticipating the evening with excitement. Looking forward to see how I’ll pass another night by myself in the woods. Instead of dreading the evening arriving irrevocably.

There are all these wonderful conversations I have with myself. How I just accept if a place doesn’t feel right to spend the night in. Even though it has all the right requirements. I don’t insist, I go back to where I feel safer. Even if it means carrying my bike up another steep hill.

I love how I can sit with myself in silence. And not because it just comes easy to me. But because I can sit with my sadness and hold it for myself and I can embrace the peace that follows. I make the fire even if all I have to cook on it is one chocolate banana. I turn off my phone even if I have nothing else to do, because I know my mind needs this emptiness. And then I sleep through the whole night and wake up so much stronger the next day. As if sleep and rain washed away yesterday and I am left with nothing else than the present.

That’s where the shadows of the pine trees around me, dancing on the surface of my tent delight me with urgent excitement to go out and play around in the grass. A little bird sits right next to me in the tree, cleaning his feathers as I am about to do the same. I sit into the river and dry off in the sun. While I watch the gras blow in the wind and the snowy peaks around me. Just that is enough, it is all I need. And I feel like I am doing the right thing at the right time in the right place. How come I am that lucky?

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What is it all about?

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 29 May 2025 08:00:12 GMT

The patterns always repeat themselves. I can see it almost literally. The beginning is always difficult, it takes time to arrive into anything new.

I start to remember why I do this, cycling around by myself, for those fragile moments.

Sandra welcomes me into her home. The few times we saw each other so far have already been a fusion of inspiration. But we seem to take it even further. The days pass by with walks through flower fields and fairylands. Coffee and muffins in the sun. We play mermaids in the mountain lakes. We eat chocolate bananas and strawberries at the river.

Wearing only her clothes, because mine are all drying on the washing line. Until I suddenly remark that none of us wears not even a pinch of black. Or when we look at each other suddenly perfectly matched in colours, accidentally. When we start laughing we can barely stop. And when we walk in silence there is no lac of words.

The little wonders and coherences.

When we agree enthusiastically that this fountain has the best water in the world. Behind the fountain, an immense rock reaches up into the sky like a wall. It is the beginning of the 2800Meter Mountain piling up. Somewhere in there must be the spring of that endless water flow.

The unexpected discoveries.

When I arrive in the Center of the village. The wooden bares one dry patch, for me to drink my morning coffee. The same guy who comes back a few times, with lovely words, chocolate and an encouraging goodbye at last.

The conversations and encounters.

When I revisit and nothing changed. Reassuring in a way. And I love to see and hear all these different people talking about their lives. There are so many ways to life by. And no matter how far away my reality might be from theirs. Nearly each conversation leaves me with one remark, that inspires me with new ideas.

Goodbyes and Hellos.

Sometimes I barely get to spend five minutes on my own. And each goodbye tears me apart with emotions, it doesn’t get easier. And yet with each time I am excited to go back to myself, my life, my bike and the mountains.

These rivers, melted snow splashing over the bare rocks.

Just dipping my hands into the water hurts, that’s how cold it is. An endless flow of melting snow. I take of my clothes and suddenly the icy wind doesn’t bother me any longer. I am sitting in the little pool over 2000meters high. Clouds and snow and bare earth around me. And it feels like this huge mountain is hugging me, gently and raw.

I am still scared and excited, but slowly there is a flow that is taking over. It washes away all the strong feelings and leaves behind a deep and solid sense of trust. More often than not I find myself accepting whatever circumstances I am in.

Each night when I fall asleep, I fall in love a little deeper with everyone and everything I passed that day. Without projecting that love on anything else than just life itself.

That’s what this is all about.

Thank you for passing by, enjoy your week!

How do you arrive back in the present moment?

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 22 May 2025 08:00:09 GMT

8:29 in the morning I am sitting in an armchair, my laptop on my knees. When I peak through the windows I see immense mountains in every direction. With their majestic energy they reach high up into the sky. And make me feel appropriately small in their presence. My body still remembers the last three nights of broken sleep on hard floors. My face still feels stiff from the overdose of sunshine I collected. My mind is calm, a bit excited and a bit tired. I feel like I am slowly arriving in my new rhythm, arriving back in the present moment.

In November 2024 I decided I would go on a cycling trip, by myself. I set my departure for early May and left my return date open-ended. Since then I had months to idealize and glorify this adventure.

I was anticipating with impatience. I was preparing with excitement. I was telling people about my plan with confidence.
This trip became the answer to all my questions. “I will leave anyways…” became an excuse to walk over my own boundaries. “I’ll see what I find…” became my condolence when I wasn’t sure what I am doing with my life. “Soon I’ll be by myself…” when I couldn’t stand as situation I was trapped in.

This trip has been a thing of the future for so long, that I am overwhelmed now, by making it a thing of the present.

“What’s the thing that does or would excite you the most right now?”

For me the answer is and was: Cycling through the Alps. But then why couldn’t I feel any of that accumulated excitement anymore, the second I left to do just that?

On Wednesday, late morning, I leave, the sun is already high and burning warm. I was supposed to leave on Monday. I feel a bit guilty, for not keeping my own promise but try to accept this. “It doesn’t really matter when I leave, as long as I do leave!” I tell myself.
When I pack all the gear on to my bike I have my first crisis. Too heavy and too much. I thought I was prepared for that. I thought I knew how this works. I barely manage to attach everything on to my two wheeled companion. I am close to tears and already hungry.
My mood doesn’t brighten when I start cycling. “Where is all my excitement for this trip?” I don’t feel like laughing and singing. The beautiful sunny warm day, the endless blue sky above me only makes it worst. I am free, healthy, the weather is great. I have no reason to be sad at all. Then why do I feel like crying, giving up and curling into a cave?

“Next day will be better.” I tell myself.

Even though the swim in ice blue fresh water that evening and the next morning helps. I am still not feeling the way I’d wanted to. Which is why I decide to take the detour up to a hidden mountain lake. Pushing upwards, going through endless slow slopes in order to reach the top of the mountain has, until now, always helped me to sort out my thoughts and emotions.

It helps. But there are more tears and more sadness to go through. I still don’t understand. Nonetheless I foreshadow that I might be doing the right thing here.

I swim, I eat, I make another fire the second night I spend up here. I write again, and notice that is has been almost seven days since I touched a pen or a book. I read. And all this starts to evoke some calmness in me. “Did I forget to be present?”

I sleep terribly. But wake up full of excitement to spend another morning at this lake all to myself. Clouds cover the sky and the water is fresh. Fishermen and a helicopter appear. They don’t fit into my scene of playing “woman in the wild by herself”. But I accept and keep my swimming costume on. After the swim I make a coffee and the sun shows up just in time for the first sip. I am starting to arrive in the moment, here on that bench. By myself with the morning sun on my face.

Was it just that? Was I just being out of sink with the present? Maybe.

Since this trip has only been a plan in the future for so long. I had to bring it into the now. All the preparing was over. Just for me to notice that it’s not about preparing but actually using the things. Anticipating might be exciting and living it is always something unexpected. And it seems to be a dangerous thing to look forward to something for that long.

It seems that once you get to that thing, loosing the excitement of anticipation hurts much more, than the feeling of achievement you get from finally arriving.

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Moving out of my room and into my sleeping bag

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 08 May 2025 08:00:09 GMT

Moving out of my room and into my sleeping bag.

How do you even say that? I am moving out, literally, out into the wild. I am moving into my sleeping bag and onto my bike. I am also moving into my tent from time to time.

This project has been luring somewhere in the near future for months now. Far enough to idealize yet not close enough to take it seriously yet.

This week everything changed. I have less than seven days left before I leave. This is my reality now. And as usual, with my departure in sight, the last thing I want to do is leave.

This time feels different though.

I told everyone about it. And I am doing this for real. There is no turning back.

I don’t like the fact I told everyone, which is good. I am getting out of my comfort zone. Telling people makes me feel accountable. Now that I told everyone I’ll cycle to the North Cap, I feel obliged to do so. Which I had my crisis about. Until I figured out, that I might indeed reach North Cap, yet this whole game is played by my own rules. If it takes me three years to reach, because I take a detour through Mongolia that is fine. If after two weeks I am over it and want to stay somewhere, I can do that too. I can trow in the towel and I can go on forever. It doesn’t matter, Yet what ever I do, I decide.

Is this the first time I take full accountability for my life?

So far I always left with a backup plan: The key to my parents flat in my pocket. “See you in six-weeks” pretending this was just a there and back again trip. The reassurance of being two in this. Having someone else driving the van.

This time there is no backup plan. Everything can only go forward.

My bike, my sleeping bag and myself. A lot of excitement and almost the same amount of fear.

I never got rid of so much of my stuff ever before. Which I devoted myself to for about a year now. I cleaned up the past, radically. I am almost at the stage where every item I belong, is useful, beautiful and an addition of value to my life. And if I had to, it would all fit in one middle size car.

Everything I keep with me is for sure useful, beautiful and adding value to my life. And I do have to, fit it all on one bike and into a few bags.

As usual I don’t even have a real plan about where to go. South east, roughly. I am making sure there are a lot of elevation Meters in my way together with a few ice cold lakes and breathtaking views, that’s it.

The only plan I have is: to do the thing that excites me the most, do it to the best of my abilities with no attachment on the outcome.

Moving out of my room and into my sleeping bag.

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely Thursday!

Discomfort is where the magic happens.

kesityu.fashion — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 09:00:15 GMT

“How much discomfort do we have to overcome on the way to growth?” I wonder sometimes.

Recently I cycled up a steep hill in the dark. It wasn’t that long, yet those 15minutes where enough to get me in sweat and my legs to hurt. It became a little ritual to me, to cycle and then climb up this mountain for sunrise. Looking back at my hometown below I start wondering: “Do I really want to embark on another cycling mission?” Was it really that great to cycle myself across all these mountains? Or am I just idealising now. When these mountain peaks are no longer insurmountable in front of me, but a sweet memory of my glorious achievements in the past?

I am not sure. Yet I will find out by climbing that mountain right in front of me. In that moment, I look up the steep path leading through the dark forest. And myself doesn’t think it was a good idea to come here. Do I really have to go all the way up?

It takes me little longer than 45minutes of uphill walking, to change my mind. And find the answers to my questions. A few times I gasp for air. When I pull myself up on a steep path, holding on to the roots that stick out of the barn soil. “That’s exhausting.” I think. Just before I remind myself that all I have to do is to set one foot after the other. This might be exhausting. Yet it is a very simple task, that I am well able to execute, if needs be for hours. I can vision the top of this mountain in my head. But at the same time I have to stay here in the present. Somewhere in these slopes, advancing only one pace at the time. A lesson I could apply to most things in my life. Any growth happens at the top of the mountain, after a long way up, whether that mountain is a job, a life, a relationship...

I sweat and walk and breathe and think.

Just before the sun I arrive at the top. As the days are getting longer and the sunrises are earlier, I have to share the space with fewer people. A sense of calm effuses in my mind and body. The same jogger who’s quick “Hello” before he rushes back down has become less surprised with each time he sees me there too. Two guys who pass, not even looking at the view, running. One of them is chatting away, each time, while the other says little. “Between running and chatting when does he breathe?”, I wonder. A cheeky ginger cat, that rarely grants me a stroke around my ankles passes from time to time. Little round balls of fluffy birds are hoping around in the bushes. A pray bird stands still in the air, just beside me. Watching, waiting, while his wings elegantly move to adjust the course. The world around me seems so peaceful. As if all my troubles stayed down in the valley, unable to follow me up here. What seemed to be an unsolvable question down there, isn’t relevant enough to worry about anymore up here. As if the worries are just like the clouds. Heavy when they are above my head, yet inspiring strange creatures when I look at them from above.

Sinking down on a bench, I hold the hot cup of my thermos in my hands, filled with coffee. My eyes are fixed on the horizon and all these snow covered peaks. My enthusiasm grows by the minute. I overflow with love and inspiration for this life. And suddenly feel like the only thing I ever wanted to do is to get into these mountains. By foot or by bike and cross them all. Get lost between all these peaks and be part of the raw, vast earth over there. A Guy jogs past me and interrupts my thoughts with a quick “Good Morning”. Suddenly I am back with myself on that bench. Me who just did climb that mountain, but not me who just got lost in these Alps, never wanting to return. “How come there is such a dissonance between the two?”, I wonder, “The Me at the top and the Me at the foot of the mountain.” As if I'm torn between my desire for comfort at the bottom and my need for challenge and growth at the top.

I know that crossing a mountain has always been the right idea. And yet each time I have the mountain in front of me, I wonder if I shouldn’t just give up.

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