It’s warm today. Hot and not really humid like Florida, but still so much worse because it’s not like this is a country where we have AC. I couldn’t do anything I wanted to after coming home from work, could barely stand because it all just suddenly hit me and my body’s never been good with radical temperature changes. I was just laying on the couch, not doing any of those productive things I had planned and felt bad about it. But then I was thinking about how much grace I would’ve had upon myself had I for example been sick. Yet there are so many other situations that actually affect me worse than ‘normal sickness’ but where I don’t allow myself to be excused. I think that for some reason – when analyzing myself or my situations – I look so much inside of me that I generally isolate myself from my circumstances. But we live in our circumstances. We shouldn’t be victims of them, but not acknowledging them leads to self pity in a different way. It’s good to sit down and feel what you feel. Disappointment over something. Fear about something else. We need to know our starting point and own up to ourselves, otherwise we can’t go to where we want to be – or even be where we are.
Height of summer
My friends from Germany came to visit me and we were very cute.
(Had some good days.)
?
I painted question marks on my hands for some random art thing and I like it so much I feel like I actually want this tattooed.
(a life of wonder)
Sunday Thoughts
A few weeks ago I had the vision that waves were rising all around this garden, tall and mighty. Like the ocean, like the red sea. And I felt it tonight, standing out there. (And I wondered why it is not falling, why it is not crashing down on doubts and enemies, what are the waters waiting for?) I felt God saying that He’s separating me from it. I am learning to not be all the things I’m not. And first then the water can fall on my enemies without falling on me. How can God kill the army if we’re on the ocean floor at the same time? There’s a height and width and depth to the importance of faith in forgiveness and the death of sin and it being killed off in your own body.
More from my A4
(Photos of random doodle papers:)
Tae and flowers
There’s always a pile of A4 papers in front of my computer. I write my to do lists there, or my random thoughts, and when I’ve stared at the computer screen for too long I sometimes take a random pinterest picture and use it as a reference for some quick sketches. They always turn out nicer than they would if I had drawn them on actual good paper. Of course. The same way I always did my best drawings in the margins of class notes. I should go back to school and study something really boring.
Anyway, here’s a quick sketch of the beautiful Kim Taehyung, in his iconic anime character look. I know I shouldn’t just draw remarkably pretty people, but it’s easy because the lines are so simple to follow.
Also, my watercolour palette doesn’t have black, so his outfit turned into whatever colours were close at hand. Creativity under limitation (just always works somehow.)
The Garden Inside
Although this is not exactly what I meant with my last post, drinking flower tea does make me really happy. 
Identity (The Garden Inside)
I have chosen dirt over flowers, and picked up the places I used to grow my values in, to move them inside of me.
I have been blue flowers, from the places I grew up in and the family I’m in.
I have been pink flowers, from what I found along the streets in new countries, from what I decided to be in new places.
I have been a collection, I have gathered them from around me, and (tried to) let the influence shape me into something I like.
I am now picking up the roots of the garden and putting it inside of me, so that I never run out of colours from different continents. So that I never have to starve in a place that’s barren.
Now, I’m growing (myself) up inside.
Smultronställen
The word “smultronställe” in Swedish means a little hidden away place where you can find wild strawberries growing. It’s also used as an expression for something good, maybe like a corner of a dvd store with movies that are good but possible underrated, or a specific destination that you’ve found for yourself and enjoy going to. I think of it like a place in the sun, like a place of unexpected sweetness that is a bit separated from the rest of your life.
There are so many smultronställen in life. I found a literal one next to the road while I was out walking today. And they remind me of C S Lewis saying:
“Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”
But that is not less of an incentive to enjoy it. It’s like saying you shouldn’t enjoy your vacation just because you’ll only be there temporarily. Isn’t it rather the opposite? We have to learn to enjoy our fleeting moments and the frailty of things we love. Not because that’s what makes it beautiful – even though that might be true – but because that is what we have.
My Etsy Shop!!
So I have started an Etsy shop to sell my art. I’ve wanted to do this for the longest time, I even had a shop one many years ago, when me and a friend learnt to make jewelry. It’s a nerve wracking kind of thing, where you don’t know how things will turn out or if you’ll get any sales. But frankly I don’t even have space for the things I paint anymore and life is better when you try to do the things you want to do. Check it out here!!
eirians 