Wolf reminds me of this every day and I am very grateful for another year with him. He doesn't care if I have extra pounds, messy hair, muddy shoes and torn clothes. He doesn't care whether we are in a caravan, a bus, a house with a garden or visiting an aunt in a small kitchen. He is happy for the moment, he is happy to be with us, and this realization often teaches me a lot. Because life is transitory, unstable, full of problems and pitfalls that each of us experiences daily and we are forced to accept these changes, adapt to them and look for our new daily normality in the hardship, chaos and often in the fear of what still waiting.

I myself, not completely voluntarily and consciously, but under the influence of people and circumstances, also fell into similar feelings last year. Because even if life goes on, even after two years, it still drags in the shadow of the loss of my father and the changes that have occurred in the family and in life as a result. Every day the little things remind me how much I miss him in my life. I often realize that I cannot influence the life and perception of other people in any other way, no matter how much it bothers me what they are going through, because change occurs only within us. The only thing I can change is myself. I can change my thinking, my way of looking at things, my behavior, my attitudes, my reactions and hope it works as a chain reaction. To hope that the chain reaction does not have to be full of only negative experiences, moods, anger, hatred and fear, which we often witness. I try to remind myself that hatred breeds only more hatred and it is up to me to decide what I will send to the world and what I will receive from it, because even in the last days we have seen chain reactions full of hatred in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

For example, in the last few days I was angered by the senseless spreading of hatred towards dogs in the territory of the national park, when a gentleman on his page with 16 thousand followers spread photos of a killed fox with the claim that a dog let loose without any evidence was probably responsible for its death. It is public knowledge that this gentleman himself does not follow the order of the national park, but many people praise him as a legend and his words hold a lot of weight for them. I have many questions that I don't have an answer to. Why would someone feed a wild animal that loses its shyness? Why doesn't someone follow the rules of the national park to protect nature, and by that I mean the feeding of the animals as well as the owners who let the dogs loose (if this situation happened at all)? Why does someone spread unverified and unsubstantiated information just to support their belief and hypothesis? Why is someone shooting at people on campus? Why does someone shoot missiles at another country? Why does someone climb onto the roof of an apartment building to watch fireworks and set it on fire?

Do we want to keep feeding it? Well, I don't. I can feel it weighing me down, it doesn't do me any good, and I'm terribly sad about it. How thanks to social problems and people who have influence and spread hatred, I myself fall into a state of hopelessness and helplessness and then have trouble facing minor family or life problems.

I don't want to carry it inside me anymore, so I need to focus and concentrate on the millions of beautiful little things that surround us. I create my life. With exhalation I release everything that weighs me down and with inhalation I accept a new beginning, the light of fire, the smell of earth, the softness of air, the sweetness of water, new life. I feel it filling me, passing through my veins, every cell and shooting out of me like energy, shining far into space.

The Legend of the Two Wolves

There is one story that comes from the Cherokee Indians. An old man was teaching his grandson about life. "There's a battle going on inside me," he told the boy. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is bad—it is anger, envy, sadness, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."

He continued, "The other is good—it is joy, peace, love, hope, equanimity, humility, kindness, forbearance, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same struggle is going on inside you—and inside every single person, too."

The grandson thought about this for a moment and then asked his grandfather: “And which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Farewell to the old year

Since the frosts and snow of the first half of December were replaced by warming and rain, we wanted to enjoy the one single day that Loro and I were alone together, at least for a while on a walk in nature. I wanted to go to Štrbské pleso to see if we would come across an ice surface like we experienced a few years ago, until it was covered by a thick layer of snow. But we should have left an hour and a half earlier, because the morning was clear and the sunrise lit up the Tatras, which were dressed in bright pink colors, which we could only see from the car, and then a cloud began to come from the west and gradually covered the peaks in dense darkness.

We did find the glaciation pond, but it was as white as milk and nowhere near what I would have liked. Stronger frosts without snow are needed for that, and there are fewer such frosty days every year. While we could, we enjoyed the view of the snowy Tatra peaks in silence and solitude, because we arrived before the crowds of tourists, but late for the sunrise. The three Polish photographers who were packing their tripods into the car when we arrived probably caught it.

I was thinking how beautiful it would be to go back a hundred years. Of course, the interwar period between the two world wars was extremely difficult, but can you imagine life in the Tatras during Maša Haľamová's time? Live in a villa on the edge of Štrbské pleso and experience sunrises and sunsets here with the love of your life?

This sensitive Slovak poet lived and created in Vila Marína for almost 30 years, until the death of her husband, Dr. Ján Pullman, who worked at the State Baths at Štrbské Pleso. Her fragile lyrics are full of love and melancholy, since she started writing poetry as a child after the death of her mother, and later in her life she was faced with other losses, as well as the loss of her beloved husband, which is why her poetry collection I live your death was created. Her life in the heart of the Tatras was deeply embedded in her beautiful work, where she describes nature, the Tatra peaks, animals and the weather. The following poem has accompanied me since my own steps in life brought me to the Tatras and tells about the feelings that I myself know so intimately here.

The ice moved

Spring is hard to come by

in the mountains.

Pink May is already coming

in the south.

The apple trees blossomed,

the earth smelled sweet

and the young sun saturates

the birthing earth,

while the ice still holds

the green tarn

in a cold shackle.

The stones are bare,

under them are damp needles,

only here and there

miraculously purple crocuses

sprout from under the snow.

They put their fragile heads

to the wind,

their quick destruction.

Then the ice will move with the wind.

They slowly bloom.

And it's spring.

However, a person in the mountains

is grateful for every smallest gift.

For a blooming fir

and a stone warmed by the sun.

Hey, in the poor mountains

people are rich in love.

Máša Haľamová