Читать книгу Wanderlust: A Tiny Isle in the Northern Sea - Katja Just - Страница 3

What is so exciting about my life story that I could write an entire book about it? I was born in Munich and spent my child and youth years in a modern terraced house estate in an idyllic Munich suburb. Today I live on Hallig Hooge in a listed thatched cottage that is over three hundred years old.

So what? Others were born in Berlin-Mitte and now live in Prien am Chiemsee and do not write a book about it. Okay, it was a big step when I turned my back on Munich at the age of 25 and moved to the almost six square kilometers large Hallig. Some said: "Still so young and then alone on an island with just a hundred inhabitants?" Or behind closed doors: "At the age of 25, away from Munich? I guess she's not ticking right." Either way, most people thought I was crazy.

I got to know Hallig Hooge with my family during my summer holidays. On my first visit, I was six or seven. Like all the little girls, I loved farm holidays. Stroking and feeding calves, riding out, watching countless birds fly and breed, being there while fishing. Roller-skating across the streets, using the wind in the jacket held over your head as the drive, and sinking into the dung heap in the most beautiful Sunday pants on the neighbouring farm - even if the latter is unplanned.

Although I wasn't on Hooge for several years after this fun time in my childhood, this Hallig took her firm place in my heart and in my dreams. Even as a child, I knew you'd move there someday. The thoughts of Hooge always brought with them the feeling of freedom, lightness and longing for infinite vastness.

Many years later I came back to Hooge because my mother and her second husband had bought a house there in the meantime. Whenever my time allowed, I visited her and got to know the Hallig from another side. Munich was the centre of my life, the Hallig remained my place of longing. But live there? On an island at the top of the north, in the middle of the North Sea? How this decision came about and how I live my life here, I would like to tell you about it. A life that is not determined by the rigid schedule of a clocked everyday life, but by the rhythm of ebb and flow. A life with its own heartbeat.

I am often asked: "What do you actually do on a Hallig?" - "What's the difference between living on a Hallig and living on the mainland?" - "When did you start to count yourself a Hooger?" I will try to answer these and similar questions.

However, anyone who hopes that I will divulge the secrets of Hallig life in this book or penetrate the privacy of others should not even begin to read it. This is all about my personal history, the path I began as a 25 year old and now look back on as a 42 year old. Whoever reads this book will get an insight into my life on Hooge and accompany me for a while on my way.

Feel invited to Hallig Hooge, in my house at the end of the country.