Spätburgunder Writing

A late Sunday night flight from the Women’s Chess Bundesliga and I have suddenly felt like reviving this blog again.

Have taken my shoes off, something I don’t do often and I really hope it’s not only me who’s had a long day and stopped paying attention to things other than the music in the headphones and the newly created database with a new opening idea I plan to dwell on after I finish with this writing.

(Photo by Thomas Marschner)

Right, so the weekend has been a successful one- 2 team wins and 2 individual ones. I am quite content with my play, but that’s not the highlight of this weekend.

I had a dream last night. Mostly, I dream family and chess related stuff. This one was a very realistic one. I won the World Cup among women and it felt so real that I can still almost believe it. The joy was huge, but not lasting. I felt I won, but nothing really changed. Funnily, I was kind of trying to convince myself about the importance of the achieved- “You’ve got the GM title”, “You’ve qualified for the Candidates”, they all sounded cool, but I still felt empty. I saw people around congratulating me, even saw Magnus- the winner of the overall World Cup celebrating it. It felt very real but not fulfilling. I was surprised, not by winning- by the way I felt after it. Was it not what I wanted the most?

7:30 am. Time to wake up and get ready to play some real chess. The game was tough and the match- not easy either, but I pulled off some good moves and won, as the team also did. I could still not shake off the emptiness feeling I got after my dream.

A 2h30m drive to the airport and there I was, sharing dinner and chatting with my best friend, who is luckily also my teammate in more than just Bundesliga. The emptiness had slowly started to go away, but I am now left even more clueless than ever.

What is it that really makes me happy? It appears it’s not chess results only, as I had always believed. It is good people, straight-forward people, who are not considering twice before speaking their minds. I have realised that I’ve come to a point in my life when I can do really well the polite talking about nothing thing, but I really don’t want to invest time and energy into it. Being 1st in anything in your country comes with certain responsibilities and it might sound like something one really can’t complain about. I don’t. I won’t.

What do I want? I want to speak my soul out, play chess and be surrounded by true people, at least sometimes.

Have booked a mountain house in the middle of nowhere as a vacation after the tournaments season will be over and that is something I really look forward to. I’ve been longing for it for far too long and I actually secretly hope I won’t like it, though my dreams keep reminding me of how blessed I’d be to wake up with the view of the ocean, surrounded by forest, no phone signal, no need of polite talks and just the real me. Something to enjoy or to fear?

Taking a sip of very dry wine, laying back on my economy seat and diving into the blues in my headphones, I just remind myself that there’s one life and it would be a pity to spend even a split second of it away from that forest house if that’s what I don’t even dare to dream of.

Sweet dreams and a successful week!