Muscle fever or DOMS (Delayed onset muscle soreness) is probably the only painful experience that makes me smile and triggers cheerful memories because all that sweet discomfort means I spent the previous days using more of my body than usual, living more of me.

All of that is especially precious if my feet walked more and my arms lifted more weight due to doing something useful, something that made other soul’s life smoother, more relaxed and we all got richer on various levels.

Such was this weekend. Our friends needed help in their huge garden in the countryside and we needed more fresh, sun bathed air and direct contact with springing soil.

Waking up into a green horizon glittering under the mighty Sun turns concrete cityborn cape of redundant mind loops into a dust that soon disperses with the gentle morning breeze.

Everything suddenly makes more sense especially when ingredients for lunch are picked directly from the nearby meadow where wild edibles grow undisturbed from any man’s directives.

We also visited their friends who live almost completely secluded from the nearest village, on a hill, surrounded with woods and fields.

All their food comes from only few meters away from their house, fresh and organic. One of their daughters is an excellent student who doesn’t mind commuting every day to the city because the energy she gets in these surroundings contributes to the clarity of her mind, the food she eats at this home makes her body strong and energized for all she undertakes.

Her mind is probably rarely „foggy“ and I imagine that anxiety and depression is something she reads about in the books and… muscle fever? Yes, it’s the same old story about the grass being greener somewhere else yet… Well, I doubt her arms are ever this achy like mine today when lifting only a cup of coffee. Even though I exercise every day, no body position and muscle training can replace working in a garden, using muscles while breathing fresh, scented air, walking on a soil abundant with life while gazing at the springing trees buzzing with bees.

Cooperation, harmony, enoughness.

Reality, meaningfulness, contentfulness.

So now, upon return to the city, how can I consider this muscle fever anything but joyful? Every time I lift my arm, so many resourceful anchors fire up and make me smile, bringing me into a state that disables the creation of a new concrete cape and helps to find the best way of dealing with what’s in front of me, right here and right now.