Joachim is now a successful author and theatre actor but he is in a crisis - mentally, physically and emotionally. After a stroke he has regained his health but not his confidence. A move from Vienna to Berlin with his family has not brought the positive change he hoped for, instead he feels personally rejected by this cold city and its unfriendly inhabitants. At the theater he doesn't feel up to the demands of the job and in his writing he is stuck. And last not least he has behaved appallingly towards his family and wants to flee the scene of his shame. He hopes to find some peace and quiet in the countryside so he moves in with his 86-year-old mother for a few weeks
Contrary to him his mother seems to be at the peak of her physical and mental fitness. She lives alone in a big house with huge grounds that she herself takes care of, mowing the grass on her lawnmower at neck breaking speed, taking a bath in the ice cold North Sea every day no matter the weather or the amount of jellyfish floating around in the water, having a whisky at 6 pm sharp every day and apparently enjoying her life to the full. Never tiring, never stopping to complain, she finds meaning in taking care of people and things, treating everything with the same care and devotion. The narrator wanted to write a book about his life in the theatre but slowly it turns into a book about his mother and the amazing resilience and joy of life she embodies.
