A tale of two cities

There’s a lot of funny stories about people reading books that give them such emotional outbursts that they just throw them across the room. Frankly I think that’s a bit disrespectful to the books. But this one I threw, not across the room to break it, but down into the bed as hard as I could. This is how I dream to write. Books that effect people. It was not a bad book, it was a freakin amazing book. It is satisfying to read, in the way books are when they contain many paths leading in different directions, but form a single road towards the end. I’ve wanted to read it for so long, it being a huge classic and all that. I mean I’ve even read books in which they read this book. And yeah, I give it all the golden stars.

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Goooodnight.

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It’s a lie that to create something beautiful, some part in you has to be broken. But I don’t know that. Because I have a twisted perception of what beauty is.

That’s easier, that’s smaller, and sadness fits. It fills my heart up from the inside instead of existing around it the way my happiness does. It’s small enough for me to hold its definition in my hands even though I don’t know what it is.

 

(I just finished reading Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira and it was small but quite deep and I fell down)

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 5

2015.09.07 11.36 It’s easier for me to feel alone here because I don’t understand. It’s foolish, maybe, of me to look at people and think I know them through my first judgemental presumptions. But I do. And usually they’re close to me. Most people I see, I see a lot, and I like to imagine I solve them like puzzles even though maybe I don’t. Here I can’t even pretend. I look at people and my mind doesn’t trick me into believing I know what’s inside their heads when they look at me. I know that we’re similar all over the world, humans with sparkling nerve-endings and weird theories, but cultures still manage to change us until we don’t recognise each other. Myself as much as anyone else. I wish I could be here long enough to learn how they think, and that we could look the same and erase any visible distance.

12.00 My book is so good. The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Like daang, it might be one of the best ones I’ve ever read.

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22.16 The streets are different here. If you were to drive to the sister of the woman my uncle’s marrying, it’s a right left right left, and you pass by kids walking around in school uniforms, people selling fruits and marble columns. And I found a nice book store today, in one of the slightly fancy shopping malls. Self help book after self help book and tons about business and career, but they had some fiction too (That’s what you need, learn to see from that, learn to see from that).

(2015.09.08 00.04 I just finished my book, The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. I think it’s one of my favourites. It’s small in a way, not high and mighty, bigger on the inside. Not bound by logic in a way that’s inspiring, and magic seeping through every letter into my heart.)

The colours of my autumn

Taking a break from the Zambia Travel Diary to share some pictures of this autumn life I flew (blew) into.

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My favourite thing about autumn is the air and the sky.

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Autumn is the best time to return to Sweden

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On the plane

So, the plane trip to France was wonderful!

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And I’m so used to flying with RyanAir that everything I got for free on my Lufthansa flight seemed like a luxury. Food. I got freaking food. Not to mention free Hot chocolate and tea while stopping and waiting in Munich for my plane to Marseille. And I honestly do love the journey, I could spend a lifetime onboard an airplane, reading and writing and drawing. Not because I create any masterpieces, but still.

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