How I left the comfort of my Berlin artist home to become a Dog sitter in the forests of Serbia

Before the global “pandemic” hit, I was a digital nomad, a successful illustration artist and traveler with a home base in Berlin, Germany.

Once lock downs and general global home working started in early 2020, for me everything changed. I know, not only for me, but this is my personal story.

I have been working for a long term big client since 2013, a client that was also my mentor. I got dumped by him out of nowhere upon the pandemic`s start, only to be replaced by an untalented, cheap non-artist dilettante from his office, who was for years placing montages of my art on various objects and who knew every detail of my work by heart. It took me 2 years to recover from this betrayal/shock personally. In the following time I attempted so much and more to get back into the professional saddle again. I learned many new skills, I worked harder than ever, created and edited books, made and cut videos and I expanded every limitation and comfort zone. Sadly nothing worked out ever again.

It seams like the world became a totally different place in 2 years time. I´m not talking about health aspects, I mean professionally and financially. Through the “stay home” work situation literally everyone pushed into every field, even utterly untalented people and strangers to the subject and skill, were starting to sell services, while lacking depth and knowledge, and still running an online business, increasing the overall competition immensely. People who are masters in manipulating the algorithm came out on top. It´s not that I´m not making any more money now, but I´m not making enough to live.

Very soon I was not able to pay my rent and other bills. I just could get by, to pay for my food and daily utilities. With this came existential fear and an existential crisis. I lost a parent in this time too. The unsettling feeling of having lost and failed in life was crawling in. It was painful, uncomfortable and depressing. The situation was disheartening and seemingly hopeless, and I lived in a gloomy fog for almost a year. I thought that if I triple my efforts, things would change. In the end I found, that I`m incapable to figure out how to make a living. A skill I had already mastered before.

After a long dark night of the soul, including the dreary phobia to open the letter box (in this 2022 year I did it only twice ) in this summer, I decided to take action. I avoided to open this dreading letter box as good as I could, passing by quickly every day. The postman must have wondered, why there was no space to drop the letters, so he stuffed them in. What else could I do than leave the country with this growing pile of my inadequacy?

There were no signs of progress or betterment for me. I could have received social services, but for some reason, I still don´t understand why, it felt entirely wrong to go for it. I tried to force myself, as the pile of bills grew in my letter box of horrors, but the resistance in me was much stronger. I have had lived in my Berlin apartment for nearly 15 years, but in this early summer 2022, by June, I started to dismantle my golden cage of security. I was giving away my possessions and putting out things on the street (everything disappeared magically within 2–3 hours). Seemingly tons of beautiful and expensive books found a new unknown owner, art supplies, my modern antiques collection, clothes, shoes, boxes with tools, kitchen equipment. In the last couple of weeks I managed to sell some furniture though.

I spent hours and hours in the public barbecue area of the park, to burn boxes full of old letters and even more boxes of my old diaries. I was always a dedicated journal writer. But what to do with my personal history? Everything went up in flames in this summer, and while doing this, watching the greedy red fire tongues eat away words, sentences and faces on pictures, I felt that the flames were eradicating my whole past and my old life. It was a strange but also liberating process. A mix of loss and gain. Later, towards the end, I burnt all my papers too, and I mean my bank accounts, bills, heaps of admonition letters, the living pile of guilt and evidences of my “complete and utter failure” as a citizen. At least I felt that way often. A total failure. Mostly actually.

I know that this “failure” is not real, but we live in societies impending guilt on us non stop. Guilt of not paying this and that, the guilt of not making money, which seams to be the “general virtue”. Guilt and shame are a soul eating pair of companions, the most toxic ones. The failure was never mine personally, I know this now. I really worked my butt off to fix things. But our post pandemic societies are imploding and nothing that ever worked before is a solution now. We don`t recognize the rules of this new world any more. Had we figured out the rules before pandemic maybe, this now is “terra incognita”.

But back to my story: meanwhile it got to October and things needed to speed up. Still I was sitting on huge piles of evidence of my “failed life” and the day of my departure was coming closer. My burning sessions in the park took on a new dimension. I burnt pile after pile, file after file. The African drug dealers, whose business spot in the park this barbecue area was, surrounded me in disbelief, asking if I needed help. I replied grimly “Do I look as if I need help!?” and they backed off, given my determined expression, watching the burning spectacle for many hours with fascination from a distant bench. I had gained and earned calm and respect for my “dark mission” of annihilating the evidence of my defeat. After all a human is much more than a collection of unpaid bills. Quite especially because it was not me who has destroyed the economy. My big burning has given me back my dignity.

I had booked the ticket out of country for October 21st. Exactly one month ago today.

Why Serbia? Perhaps it just so happened and it looked like a good idea. I had created a workaway account in May 2022 (6 months ago), because my thought was, that if I cant afford my home, I would have to live in other people`s places and work for it. Workaway is an international platform, that offers a stay (and food) for people who would work 4–5h a day 5 days a week, this is the general arrangement. But it doesn't always work like this. Some think it`s freedom to travel and stay in countries for spending little , to even make some money and have interesting experiences. Well that`s accurate. Others would say it` s modern slavery and migration of the disowned. I would say that this definition is accurate too. It`s also in the mix. Depending on the host of course.

I have been always independent and free, avoiding dependency the best I could, working for myself, not hanging out with petty and mean people, which working situations often require. Let me just say, those days are over now. Coming from a big city, I am living in a remote forest house in the hills now. I have been always afraid to be alone in the dark, especially at night time. I had to face my fears here. My main company are dogs and cats and a moody and sulky hypochondriac of a young Russian, who was difficult to deal with in the beginning. But now we sort of get along as “partners” in this exceptional situation. My jobs so far: keep a wood fired oven going all day and night, cleaning the ashes out, getting wood, taking care of 3 St Bernardian dogs, who live in a separate dog house, feeding them, and all day scooping their shit-you won`t believe how much they are pooping, cleaning cat toilets in the house, cleaning away the manure of the indoor living Maltese dog. Otherwise vacuum cleaning, wiping floors, washing textiles, general maintenance. For the house owner, a dog obsessed lady from Belgrade, it is never good enough, no matter how hard we try. She has been verbally humiliating us. Another of my fears I had to overcome: to step into the dog yard, when they were jumping up and down on me like huge hungry bears. It feels like personal growth, that I overcame this fear and developed a way to handle them. I learned a lot of new skills in one month.

At night time, around midnight, we walk the 3 St Bernardians through the dark forest and alongside an old cemetery. Around midnight, because they are like a sleuth of of wild bears. Attacking everyone who would dare to walk through the forest at any day time. It took me a while to get used to it, because the walks happen at a time where I`m normally sleeping. Also it is scary and creepy. The dogs often run away for a nightly wild stroll through the woods, so we need to fetch them.

Once we almost got carbon monoxidised by the defect wood burner, that extruded clouds of toxic black smoke into the air. We could have both been dead, if we were sleeping. The next day we fixed it. Until today our host has refused to take responsibility for this negligence of our security, stubbornly saying that “it`s Viktors fault”-meaning the Russian guy who is here with me. She doesn’t see or doesn’t want to see, that the bad circumstances she left us with, are her responsibility. If we both died she would be in big trouble. Also we have hardly any hot water. Our life is a struggle to constantly figure out new ways to make things work here. You could say that our common trouble is also connecting us to a certain point. Sometimes it feels as if Viktor, the young Russian, and I could even be friends.

Once or twice in a week, we hitchhike to the next little town (there are no buses going) for a bit of civilization and to shop for groceries. Our host lady doesn`t provide food, like workaway standards say, so we spend quite a lot of money, as it`s not at all cheap in Serbia (unlike a few years ago) because of the newly steady flood of Russians coming to the country. The Russians say, they are on the run from Putin´s mobilization and along with them are coming their wives, girlfriends and pets. Serbia is one of the few countries where Russians are welcome. There is a traditional long term friendship between the two countries. The Russians have much more money than the Serbs, so they are willing to pay any price for rental. Within this year, formerly low rental prices quadrupled to the dismay of the Serbs and the food prices went up. I`m paying more for groceries here than in Berlin! Not great at all. Not how it used to be.

Am I happy with the situation? no, but it was necessary to leave. Watching the news today, where the utterly corrupt and incapable German government (the worst we`ve ever had and an other reason I left country) is telling the citizens to get ready for possible military attacks and hardship, I feel I have done the right thing. I have been anticipating this development. I don`t know how long it will take until Germany becomes a country I want to return to. I don`t know when things will change for better, if they ever will.

Will I be continuing this lifestyle? Yes for a while. Until I figure out where I can live and until I can fully sustain myself.

My next stay will be Venice in December. Also dog and house sitting. I´m looking forward to it.

I have already learned so much in one month. About so many things. I have developed new skills. I` m mastering 3 beasts and a Russian and I´m living in nature. A little white dog is utterly in love with me. Pretty sure my next adventure will be something totally different. I`m getting ready for it.