(midnight inspiration)
Tag Archives: sweden
A Swedish Christmas.
Like always. I keep thinking that I won’t make it home for Christmas, but this year – again – it just happened to work with my travel plans. Nice, but at some point I also want to be dramatically missed. Sweetly told somewhere that ‘is it not difficult being without your family?’ but also surrounded by good enough people that it isn’t, not really. Maybe next year.
(But to clarify, it is amazing being home. I have an amazingly amazing family. Here we are on a frozen lake my grandma later told us not to walk on.)
And now, writing this, it’s the dark evening leading up to the new year. My head is pounding and I want to sleep sort of, but I think I’ll read some poetry and stay awake the way you’re supposed to. I’ll wait a bit longer. That’s been the theme of my whole year.
(Does it sound like I’m not happy? I’m happy. Just on my period, ya know girls. I’m good.)
(Pictures for my last post)
(Florida, love, I missed you)
2018.09.23 Goodbyes
(The sun falls into our garden at an angle, and it flows over the dead tree with five perfect spiderwebs in its corners. Threads grow from the ground up into it, my mum put them there for flowers to follow. They will continue next stummer. Right here, the sky is half blue, half dark gray. Water rests on the grass from ten minutes ago. It’s green still, and for now all golden, in this last rest of summer. For goodbye, go down with it.)
This is actually goodbye because I’m going to America again. Like, tomorrow. I’ll try to write there too, but here’s something I’ve discovered: This blog is about swedish summer, and about this cabin in the midst of it. If I continue, I need to figure out how to make it about the rest of my life. Possibly by figuring out the rest of my life. We’ll see.
Hugs from me.
Sunday thoughts (2)
(From a weekend away with my church. We do this every autumn, go somewhere and fill the days with get-to-know-each-other-games and bible studies. When I was a kid it was the biggest event of the year, sharing a room with friends and staying up til midnight. It’s different now, not bad though. This year I had deep conversations with the adults. I’m in between categories.)
Anyway, thought of the week:
Maybe your weakness is revealed not so you can finally get out of it, but so that you can be in it. Stay in the place of desperation. Find yourself in humility.
Rest
I didn’t blog for a while and then I felt like I should but then I didn’t want to so I didn’t. But then I felt like I should again, so I planned a day to be productive, but then I wasn’t and in the evening I realised that I was so full from work and then trying to rest myself back to me, that I just wanted input before I could pour anything. Now I’m okay. It’s a bit unpredictable, that. I don’t know if that’s professional, but it’s how it is. (I think a lot about professionalism like that, how you should treat creativity as a business if you want it to be. But it’s really not that simple. And you’re allowed to be much more not simple.)
Anyway, I was working a lot, so here’s a selfies from my cabin (like old times on this blog) of late night painting flowers on my hand, and then my current mood after coming home from work.
Headache.
July 24th
I just worked a 14 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, and I’m like HIGH on something, it’s like time is no longer a concept and I just called my friend because I needed to TALK and then I couldn’t stop DANCING around the kitchen because it’s like my feet won’t stop MOVING. My friend says it’s sleep deprivation. Maybe.
(Here is where I sat during break today, breathing in the sun)
(Randomly, SONG OF THE DAY is Whatever it takes by Imagine Dragons, the bridge to that song is like ahhhh) (I’m sorry, excitement makes me drop all my adjectives)
(Also sleep deprivation gives me so much inspiration, I need to stop and slow down and go to sleep but I just want to write and do stuff and okay bye)
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.
Midsummers Eve
Flowers and rain.
Sister and sister
Me with my actual sister
(in the city, eating ice cream and waiting for the bus home in the 9 pm sunset. I had given her lion face paint at a carneval).
Me with my “I have known your name since before I remember being a person” sister
(in her uncle’s cabin that she has the key to, where we went to spend a day painting but actually spent a day talking).
eirians 