Following nature

Through one of our apartment windows fell a square of golden light. There were rain drops on the window, and a dark grey sky overhead, but at the edge of the horizon there was a sliver of bright sky, and in the midst of it the sun shone brightly into the hooded windows of our loft. I had to take the trash out, so I did, but halfway down the stairs the sun didn’t shine in through the windows anymore, having already dipped too close to the horizon and our neighbouring building hid it, and so I was scared that I would not be able to see it again and stand there and look at it while it set like I’d planned. And so I think that’s what it’s like with nature, you can’t see a beautiful evening sky and think that you’re gonna paint it later, you have to drop everything you’re holding and do it right now. There is no procrastination in nature, only time for different things. Right now the grey has lifted, and even though the sun has set the sky is still bright blue, and the lines of clouds golden.

(Also I did make it, when I walked upstairs again the sun waited for me on the fourth floor, and on our fifth it still shone through the kitchen window.)

Photos from the library, wednesday

DSC_0566-01DSC_0567-01
(And evening notes, from my notebook:
One thing I know: this always helps, even if I forget about it when I stand alone above the clouds, millions of miles from the closest star. Eons between me and the closest physical object. A chair, a window. Writing like this always helps. Now I sit for real in this couch, big notebook leaned against my knees and teacup against my stomach. It doesn’t necessarily make me understand, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,)

Walking Thoughts of a Sunday Evening

I walked through the forest today, just after the sun had set, but while the sky was still clear enough that it could have been a cloudy midday. The birds were singing like crazy, as if trying to call the day back. The forest floor was covered in green leaves and white buds that made my heart hurt. Soon those flowers will bloom and it will look like it has been snowing again, until they die and leave space for summer. I looked and walked and thought that this was the saddest sadness I’d ever seen. The birds see death and think of birth, and I see birth and think of death.

Zambia Travel diary – day 2

2015.09.03  10.55 (Technically, even though my understanding of time is a blurry mess by this point. We ate lunch at 1 am). Kenya airspace. This journey has been a journey. Because I love travelling, I really do, but there is a point where your body feels so weird from lack of sleep mixed with not being able to go anywhere that makes me itch. I shouldn’t complain though. We just flew by Kilimanjaro, life’s pretty good. A weird thing I’ve thought about though: It feels like I’m not leaving anything at home. Some things that would be a bit heavy of course, my books and creative stuff, but everything I use on a daily basis I’ve brought with me. Apart from my bed (which I’m regretting). But I could live like this. I could. From a bag with my favourite clothes. Laptop and camera and notebook. I could.

IMG_2086

Streets of Lusaka

IMG_2079 IMG_2082 IMG_2093 IMG_2090 IMG_2089 IMG_2088

20.05. Lusaka. It feels like it’s the middle of the night. I’m sorry for my ungratefulness. For being spoiled. For intending to make all this about me. It’s difficult to be so far away from your comfort zone, but I know that I need it. Let me grow from it. I thank God for showing me people beyond the ones who think just like me.

Like what

I hate myself and I love myself and I am my own worst enemy and everything I could ever adore. Half of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, meaning that I write this sentence not having a clue how to end it and maybe that way it will end up great and maybe that way it will just fade into nothing as the lack of plans mixed with my own fear of action makes me too comfortable with being still. It’s itching, my soul, constantly knocking against the inside of my skin and I turn around secretly and tell it ’hush’ because I am in school or at work or at home and I have no space left around me to explode in. The earth is turning beneath me. Spinning. Walls are vibrating with the sound from the TV in the room next to this, the fridge is humming and everything is making noise, creating soundtrack, making itself heard in a world were nobody listens because why on earth should we, except that it makes me feel alive and so I breathe in. Look out or lock myself in or observe and see and live and listen, to all and everything and nothing and I have no idea how I live or what I see and sometimes I’m collected but this very moment I’m shattered all over the world and I have no idea what I’m writing down on this computer in this room in this tiny huge world but it’s okay. That’s okay.

The clay under the sand

IMG_7091

On the beach next to my grandma’s summer house we found a pier where I asked my mother to put her hand in the water for it to look like she’s magic. I don’t know, she might be. And underneath the sand you can find clay that you can shape and let dry, or just apply all over your body for a homemade clay mask thingy. We looked very strange. It was a good day. IMG_7101IMG_7117IMG_7135