By Alexander, Germany. When two people move in together, they do not arrive alone. They bring cupboards, habits, childhood rules, standards of cleanliness — and completely different ideas about where the keys belong. Julia and I never sat down and discussed the rules of our household. There was no constitution, no negotiation and no list…
It started with a drawer full of random things. It ended with the quiet rules I learned from my mother, and the question of which of those rules still matter now. By Alexander, Germany. The famous drawers. We do not have one of those famous drawers where everything goes when nobody knows where else to…
By Alexander, Germany. Some inventions make life easier. Others simply take up space. And then there are the ones we use every day without really understanding them. Before our conversation even started, I had already used several inventions without thinking about them. My phone. My laptop. My coffee machine. The coffee machine is a good…
By Alexander, Germany. After a 4–1 win, an offside thought experiment and a difficult team discussion, one question became harder than it first looked: when is a rule useful, and when are we simply used to it? On Monday morning, I was not really ready for difficult questions. Everything hurt. My head was still somewhere…
By Alexander, Germany. Sometimes the easiest way into another world is to arrive without much of a plan and see what happens. For once, I did not really prepare. We were going to Croatia for a week with about fifteen people. Somebody else had organised the house. I knew some of the group well, some…
For me, rest does not always mean doing nothing. Sometimes it begins when the daily routine disappears and I can simply enjoy the people around me. Our family holiday begins in a way that does not sound very relaxing. At 6:30 in the evening, I have a football match. After the match, I will go…
A cancelled football match, a crumbly piece of cake, and the difference between being busy, rushed, and really stressed. On Sunday evening, I watched an old television series instead of football. I love this series because I watched it when I was 13 or 14 years old. It brings me back to my childhood. My…
Alexander began tired, somewhere between a football weekend, a sleeping couch, a small son, a working Monday, and The Mayor’s French advice to take life more slowly. The conversation was about sleep. But really it became about rhythm, responsibility, recovery, and the strange problem of being a reliable person with a tired body. A Little…
The strange thing is that I did not even have time to use my phone very much when I was away. That was my first answer to The Mayor, and it was true. I had been travelling for work, sitting in meetings, moving from one place to another, and the phone was there, of course,…
The first picture in my head was not the training room. It was the flight. That sounds simple, maybe a little strange, but it is true. When The Mayor asked me what I saw first when I thought about the training in Belgium, I did not see the trainer, the schedule, the people, or the…
