Zambia Travel Diary – Day 11

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 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.

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Streets of Lusaka

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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.