Oh yes, it started all in kinder garden..
I had to walk home and this was all a new world for me. There was a farm with animals on the way home, so I was mostly late....... much later in my last years in school.



After many struggles I run away from school , home , from my self. I don't know what I was looking for.... but it was this big urge in me... I just hade to do it.

The first time I came to the Swiss/Italian border before I got stopped by the border guys. There was a country wide search out for me. The second time I made it to Hamburg...

After school I should learn a profession, so I start working in a restaurant to become a cook. But the master there was a proud expert in moping.... and I was so restless I could hardly stay in a job longer then 3 months..

So I was doing odd jobs, I was a *hilfsarbeiter*, an unskilled worker. I worked until I had some money then I hit the road restless legs....

Always with this urge in me to move on. I was sleeping in parks and on the riverbanks. My dear parents let the police search for me and because I was a minor they could do so.... Finally I got to make my first but not my last experience with a prison cell.

After 2 weeks I got delivered to a nice psychiatric clinic, because my dear parents thought there must be something wrong with me. My un-normal behaviour... so I made my first acquaintance with a straitjacket and a padded room because I screamed.... with all the lung power of my young age... let me out ,let me go.....!!

After a while all these nice Gods in white got to the understanding I was just very different but there was nothing they could do. Hell, I was just a freaked up kid/youngster.......

Then came the time to go to the army... Hell, I was trying, even cut my hear... but I could not stand the stupidity of the army. In my first days off I took..... the train to Paris and later with a busload of German girls, as a free passenger to the south of France where I spend some time, as a beggar and beach bum.

One day I meet a American couple in Cassis with a nice car, so I invited myself for a long joyride to Italy, but the crazy kids changed there plans... when I was sleeping in the back of the van. When I was waking up we where already over the alps and near Zürich.......

So what could I expect, I was a deserter. Back in the slammer again and welcome to the shrink... How I could wake up in Amsterdam on day, that is a long and completely other story I could tell you on day.... you never know. Life is full of surprises.

I was somewhat transforming my self from my suburban middleclass upbringing. From the ultra bashful kid to the young man walking the streets of Amsterdam, penniless,always hungry, but I made it, found friends, job, freedom.. in summer I hitched down to Spain Barcelona,Plaza Real.. then Ibiza,Formentera.

Haunted down from the famous guardia civil because I was sleeping outdoors, lost all my id papers but made my way back to Amsterdam just in time to get a call from the past. A letter , my mother in hospital...... so I went back into the trap to spend the next 8 months in prison.

Needless to say I was never ever a criminal in any way, but they take god care of people like me in the land of milk and honey, because they don't like you to be different.

After many roads and u turns I became the person I am today. Always looking for freedom and help others to get free. Feeling mostly in peace with my self. Still love to walk..... like to change places, paths, trails, don't like to walk the same street to often.

I found my home in this Nordic country where I live now with my partner. Lots of space to go, endless forests, 1000 lakes and islands. The sea and the archipelago near by.

When ever I can I hit the road and travel to the mediterranean countrie's, where I spent all counted together earlier years of my life.

It is the lightness of being... the colours, the tastes of all... the sea and the sun, the endless olive groves of Messenia, the last wild spots in the east of Crete, the wild green mountains of Thasos, which make my heart sing. Elefteria is not only a word for me, believe me, I like to live it each day.

Henry Beutler

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