All we do is gain or lose control

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Eirians under Longer thoughts

I wish I could lose control.

Splash colours until people cry by looking at them,

turn myself inside out and wipe my blood on the canvas.

Instead I give up halfway through ugly eyes, drawn as if I were a pretentious 12 year old. Disproportionate figures and shapes that never become anything. The thing is, I don’t know how to draw. I repeat lines, and colours, look and remake, but when it comes down to my own expression, I’m empty. Just recreate by hands and in mind. Like we all do, are we nothing but radios? We understand something we think no one has understood before and we tell it or teach or live it. And even tuning in to that, the repetitiveness with which people think their minds are free, is just another of those realisations. Is that what I’ll blare about until the day I die?

Sometimes (too rarely) I forget to act normal in public and I sit weirdly curled up on the bus with the bumps shaking my handwriting. It’s slowing down though. Minutes of looking out the window between every sentence. My mad sadness settles into sleepiness. To quote a song that I like: I don’t know if this, is a surrender or a rebel.

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 12

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Eirians under Zambia travel diary

2015.19.21 11.16 I don’t feel a lot about leaving. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m so inspired for the rest of my life to continue, inspiration usually comes after travel, but maybe because I’ve been here so long, it has already managed to sink in.

15.30 This is not sad, because this is not going home, it’s travelling to yet another place and then you go somewhere else from there.

16.04 I’ve never been interested in finding myself, I think while on the bathroom at Lusaka airport. If I was, I think airports would be a good place to look.

Anyway.

I read about bicycling in the magazine on the plane, and while sitting here it makes me want to be on a bike instead, inhaling fresh air, seeing bright colours and feeling my muscles work. I want to travel by my own strength. Maybe not far, but at least a walk through the woods when I get home.

20.50 At the airport in Addis Ababa. It’s a good one. If I were to travel the world I think I’d like it here. It’s not too big, but not small enough to not feel international. People of different cultures everywhere, the most beautiful Ethiopian scarves in the gift shops and a prayer room at the end of the corridor. The cafés are crowded as well, and they remind me of how the streets outside might be (not as if I know that) with traditional coffee making and people laughing.

Also they have these chairs everywhere that you can lean back in so they become almost like beds. When we finally found an unoccupied one (and now we found two more) I left my bags there and went to look around. I must have looked a bit strange. With no luggage, taking really slow steps and just walking around looking with a blank expression and soul far away in some way, while still being very present, maybe the deepest form of present, because I’m aware that I am. And maybe the least deep form. Then again, no one was probably looking at me.

I’ve been living in that good place in my head ever since I saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and it changed me in the way good art does. It was beautiful, and inspiring, and maybe actually the sort of thing you should watch before you travel, and I knew of it because of a song from the soundtrack that my dance group danced to once. In the movie they played it during the credits and I just leaned back and listened to it while the lights of Addis Ababa closed in underneath our wings. White lights from buildings and yellow from the vein-like streets. Yes.

4 Recent Photos

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Eirians under Artwork

The Storm

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Eirians under Longer thoughts

I walked through a storm today. It’s sweeping over this dark country, we call it Helga like the girls name, like the old Swedish word for holy, like the songs sung at christmas and it makes the trees feel tall and loud. The sky throws things at us. There’s inspiration making my veins itchy. Why? Why now, when I’ve had a self absorbed no thoughts – all thoughts day. When I’ve forgotten to tell myself I’m brave ages ago. I walked through a storm today and it TORE THE BREATH FRom my lungs and I only ever scream when I’m silent.

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 11

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Eirians under Zambia travel diary

2015.09.16 16.19 Lord, give me patience. I’m getting bad again. My head. My patience. My ability to deal with myself when it comes to control of creativity and the irritation of people that irritate me, I’m torn between believing the fault is not in them and not caring because I’m still annoyed.

16.53 I’ve written about this on this blog before, but a few years ago I realised that moving away from home probably wouldn’t make me sad. It escalated to the point where I thought not moving away from home would make me sad. Now it’s easier, travelling is better because obviously I’m not as focused on my family. But then comes the normality of it. Or not really normality I suppose, but when the amazing strangeness of travelling becomes everyday life. My mind falls back into my body, and I’m conflicted again. I spend more time being annoyed, or doubting myself. But I don’t think I’m the type of person that by force of restlessness never will be able to settle down. Maybe it’s just that I need the passionate friendships of youth, and to be more with people who grow with me, are the same size, look at me and see me.

21.30 I finished ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou. It was amazing. It’s the first part of her autobiography, and I find it difficult to believe that a woman can have experienced all that in her early years, while I also understand that obviously that woman can become nothing less than extraordinary.

21.45 Sometimes I wonder what things humans would be if we didn’t die every night. I helped my brother with his english homework a few hours ago and while explaining the Swedish translation of ‘subconsciously’ the word suddenly lost all it’s meaning to me. You know the way words do sometimes, but I realised it only happens in night time. In the morning language is fresh. New. It grows old, like we do, both over spans of decades and periods of hours. It’s such an amazing thing, such a well thought out plan, to give us this rest so that during the day we can actually be awake and ride our roller coasters of up and down, because we forget anyway so why does it matter. (But some nights I walk above my mind, thread the thread binding awareness and hours, and sometimes I know, sometimes I almost know, before it slips away from me, forever, again and again.) (We’re not kids anymore and we don’t have the hope of a million more nights.)

22.14 Lusaka is such a quiet city. You hear the dogs bark. Birds sing in the morning and cicadas after sunset, but the sound of cars only passes by every few minutes and voices are rare, music and laughter not often close by. It sings a quiet song. (goodnight)

22.27 You have a nice garden, right Father? Take me anywhere on this earth, but I know you have a nice garden. (The music I listen to sounds like water drops falling off leaves).

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 10

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Eirians under Zambia travel diary

Do you know who Casey Neistat is? Shame on you if you don’t, he’s awesome. And many years ago he made this video:

The Devil’s pool is this natural swimming pool just at the edge of the Victoria falls. When I found out we were going to to Zambia, I never even thought of actually going there. But we did.

The Devil's Pool, Victoria Falls, Zambia. (They also held our legs and let us lie on our stomachs over the edge, looking down) If you feel like it, check out my Zambia Travel Diary on my blog!

A video posted by 💫 (@tastetheuniverse) on Oct 1, 2015 at 11:07am PDT

I don’t even know what to say about it. Adrenaline rush turned into laughter, I smiled until the wind turned my open mouth dry. We got to lean over the edge as well. The guide held my feet and I lay on my stomach, arms stretched out and face pointing down. I saw the fall, but also just so much water. The rainbows. Like I got thrown into a happy hurricane, I wish I could be there always.

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 9

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Eirians under Zambia travel diary

2015.09.14 22.12 “You want to stay here forever?” Our safari guide said while we took a break to stretch our legs by the Zambezi river. He was really sweet, polite in a way you could be to friends and not “rich white people” and he knew everything about the animals and different uses of plants. Strong cheekbones and kind eyes, the type of person who seems quiet, regardless of how much they speak. I answered “What?” and he repeated the question.
“Yes. Yes I do.” I said but followed him and my family back to the car.

There was something about the temperature. I’ve been spending so much time getting too hot and cooling down, sweating and freezing, that the perfect weather soothes my skin and mind in waves of wind. We sat by the Zambezi river, where it’s still calm and not rushing down the Victoria falls, and I, someone who sleeps with three covers in the middle of summer, wasn’t freezing. My body totally relaxed. The definition of warm wind was blowing past and the late afternoon sun managed to keep the temperature from getting too high while still not making a single chill rung through me.

We continued on our safari after that, took pictures of elephants and impalas. And here I’d been thinking I would need to borrow my mom’s camera, since my 50 mm lens has no zoom whatsoever, but it turns out zoom wasn’t needed.

We had to leave the car and walk to the part of the park where the rhinos where.

Also I stole a part of a roof and put it in my notebook

A lot of trees are very short since the elephants break them down with their trunks.

Earlier in the day we went to the Victoria falls as well, but we’re going back tomorrow so I’ll have even more to show you! Goodnight.

Favourite pinterest inspiration as of lately

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Eirians under Pinterest Inspiration

Be a warrior, not a worrier.

Artsy (Link)

And saaad (Link)

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 7-8

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Eirians under Zambia travel diary

2015.09.12 20.04 We haven’t had electricity all day so we went out for lunch. I had some fruit salad thing with yoghurt and honey, because when your parents pay you might as well.

I’ve thought about sensitivity today. In the way you use the word when describing personalities. I pick up others’ feelings so easily, as if I constantly go around just waiting for something to exchange my own ones with. Or like I have no guard, just let it change me. I thought about it because I can get so annoyed with people who complain a lot and really radiate that they’re unhappy or irritated. And usually it’s not their fault, fault is such a flawed concept, it’s just that they don’t work like that and might just need to say what they think even though they might not feel it very strongly. And maybe it’s something I haven’t thought about because I take for granted that everyone is like me, and so it turns into the height of egoism, to constantly go around putting people down. And maybe part of why I dislike conflict so much, I can’t inflict pain without hurting.

Completely unrelated, but because the power’s off we’ve been introduced to our housemates; the cockroaches. It presents the perfect test of relationships, killing cockroaches. Something I would like to do with a possible future husband. When everyone’s a bit irritated with each other and someone feels something in their hair and you scream and don’t know who’s gonna koll it or who’s gonna have the few flashlights you own. I’m not even kidding. I’m curious. Would you kill the person with the spray that’s made for the insects? Then they probably weren’t made for you anyway. In all seriousness though, I’m gonna stop writing now, it feels like the light attracts the bugs.

2015.09.13 21.53 I really want to go to sleep, so I’m just gonna do a quick recap of the day in list form, since that feels faster.

This morning I actually remembered my glasses, and the outfit combined made me look like a pretentious hipster. My dad confirmed that by saying I looked like someone who could sit and read at a café in New York.
We spent 7 hours in the car, heading from Lusaka to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls. We bought sugar canes as a snack along the way. Also, when we stopped to eat sandwiches, someone jumped off their bike and just stood a few metres from us, watching us eat. We’re like exotic animals.
The hotel we stay at is amazing, I like it here. But when pulling my shirt up to see what was itching I realised that I have red rashes all over my upper body. I’ve been feeling weird the whole day, so I think it’s just heat rashes because my body hates me and is always either too warm or too cold, but I’ll have to look it up when I get home and see if there’s something I can do about it. (Edit: I haven’t)