Tag Archives: walking

Early morning light

Posted on by under life

This morning the air smelled like rain. So much that it was heavy with it, almost too much. 

I woke up early, because I have a problem with keeping rhythm and “balance” and I know that if I keep trying to wake up at 9 I’ll also keep actually staying in bed til 11. So I get up super early every now and then, to turn everything completely around. Today I had my alarm at 4 am, but I woke up at 3.30, by myself, completely awake and – kind of – feeling ready to start my day. I suppose that’s a life hack for night owls, just get out of bed when it’s still night time. 

I took a nice walk some time after 6, and some guy asked me (in German) if I was just taking a walk or heading to work, and I answered (in German) that I was just walking, and we commented on how early it was and I was feeling much proud of my language skills. 

It’s gonna be a good day. (Or even if it’s not, this is a good moment.)

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(Meeting people)

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

On the 14th of December I flew to New York. And to get there, I needed to get to the Orlando airport, which is like: 3 buses away from Sarasota. On the first one a guy was smoking weed right next to me. Greyhound. America is very weird when you come from a country that knows what public transport is. Then I needed to walk from the Orlando greyhound station to the next bus stop, and I ended up in quite an unsafe area.

The whole vibe was weird. Someone shouted something at me but I just kept going. I was wearing my favourite jacket with a big hood, because it makes me look scary rather than like a victim. Also when people can’t see your face the don’t really know how to approach you. Though then I actually did get stopped like twice, but just good people asking if I was fine. I was moving very slowly with my three suitcases that I kicked at every now and then, so I guess that makes sense.  Someone told me they were working at the scrapyard right there, so if something happened I could just scream. Great.

So, anyway, I made it to my next bus stop and met this guy who was also waiting for the bus. He passed my “not-creepy” test which means he didn’t try to fill all the silences. If you can both go back to looking at your phones a few times without the other person asking stupid questions it makes me feel better, because it makes me feel like I can leave the conversation if I want to.

This guy was also leaving the area to get somewhere safer. He was young, pretty put together. He said he was a drifter, but that he didn’t quite know what he was doing anymore. After one of the silences he hesitated and shook his head at himself, but finally said that he sometimes just wanted to give up. The kind of person who used to want so much, and knows there is so much, but doesn’t know exactly what that is or means. And all of a sudden it’s slipped through your fingers.

We took the bus together. Met a random man from England who was very chatty and I just nodded, pretending to understand the heavy accent. We started talking to the random girl next to us as well. We talked about what a random meeting it was, just four strangers in a bus. Then we made it to the main station and went our separate ways.

I took the final bus to the airport where I slept overnight and flew to New York the next day.

This story doesn’t really have a point. Or maybe this: How can you save people? I just want to be better at helping, I wanted to say exactly what that guy at the bus stop needed to hear, but I felt like I just got too chatty with my advice. I should have let him talk more. If nothing else because I’m curious now. And also this: I like the people you meet while moving, but I love in some sad way the people who are also moving. And it’s nice meeting them on multicoloured streets under black nights. I wish I could do something for them and us. What if you had a place where the travellers could just come and stay for a bit, for free somehow or to really connect and put their stuff down for a while. Something.
And lastly this: I just hope he finds the right people, good people, to surround himself with. I think he’s looking for streets to sleep on and it could end so badly or it could end well. I wish home upon all of us. In all of us: safety.

August but it Feels like Autumn

Posted on by under Artwork

The weather is getting cooler and I was walking this evening. I’ve started to walk when I want to listen to new music, so I can hear an album through from beginning to end. On my way back, right as I was walking the last few metres before houses and trees start to close around you, the sun came out from under the clouds. Resting just above the top of the trees while the rest of the sky was still a dark grey. It made stripes of field glow in yellow as the rain kept falling. Weather makes me feel things.

Here’s a completely unrelated picture of a sketch I’m working on right now.

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Zambia Travel Diary – Last Day

Posted on by under Zambia travel diary

2015.09.22 02.02  There’s someone screaming on the plane. Not constantly, just every now and then, but imagine a man’s voice sounding like a baby that’s almost crying. Also the movie I just watched left me with a bit of a bad feeling. I know I shouldn’t be scared, and I don’t know if it’s offensive that I am, but I decided to take a short walk and must’ve walked past where he sat so he started screaming and clawing with his hands (he sat a few seats in by the windows though) and I jumped and almost ran a few steps. Now in my seat with my heart still hammering, but it doesn’t really matter because I don’t think I could have gone to sleep anyway and now at least I’m not stuck in some middle stage.

This made me think of what a good story idea it would be to have someone mentally ill try to take control over a plane, and then make it really disturbing (Not to judge this man in question, literally don’t know anything about him), but the story idea creeps me out even more.

09.09 We’re landing. I can’t decide how much I mind. But I do want to take a walk through the forest behind my house. Just a short one. Because that’s a part of me and my childhood, but not, never, part of the frustrating feeling I want to move away from home for. (Sidenote: The 2nd Law by Muse on low volume is a very suitable background for flying today)

16.32 It wasn’t as cold as I would’ve expected when we stepped off the plane. Sweater was quite enough even though I could feel the colder air on my face, clear and crisp. It’s definitely autumn, but the leaves are still green, the sun still brings warmth to your face and the sky was blue. It could almost be a spring day, one of those early ones when you make an attempt at walking barefoot but the stones are cold under your feet. Or an early morning at a summer scout camp, or taking a break from skiing and having your body warm and the sun reflecting on the snow to melt your icy face even though the air is cold. I love these things so very deeply.

I did take a walk when I got home, even though it had started to rain and drops slid down my face. I found some colourful leaves then, that showed me that maybe this is autumn, but I don’t mind, that’s what I had expected. I am, however, gonna take a warm, long bath now. (I realise right before getting into the bathtub that my hair still smells like Zambia)

21.52 I’ve never been very patriotic. I love and very strongly dislike my country in the way you do with things that are what you are, yet so very different and they don’t understand. I love the way the world looks now, with the possibility to be international and unbound by cultures and borders, belonging everywhere and belonging nowhere, and it was first recently that I realised that regardless of the rest of my life, I will always be Swedish. It’s too late, I’ve already spent too much time here. I still try to ignore it though, maybe because most of the time I don’t even feel it. It’s like what I wrote earlier, that I don’t feel like I’m coming home, I’m just going to a different country. Lies, lies, how could I believe that it wouldn’t affect me to see it from the sky, forests and small fields surrounded by tiny red houses, like toys my brother played with when he was younger. How could I believe I wouldn’t react to the smell of it, like I’m inhaling lakes and forests, or the way everything is green green when we drive from the airport under blue sky dotted with tiny clouds, the sun shining down on my from the side window and the air bright in my lungs.

I feel like this is the thing I will never remember, and always be taken back by. I can see it, the type of life I want, filled with travelling and differences, and the way I always forget until I’m welcomed home, like the way I was welcomed home today while walking through the forest, the rain drawing tears on my cheeks like a sacrifice, like a purification, like a reminder that you’re here and you’re tiny, these forests knew you before and will bloom for many afters.
It’s a weird thing to have, such a big home.

(And I’m happy now, curled up and warm under white sheets, with the misty and dark autumn night outside. It’s different, jumping into autumn like this, because I like time to long for things, like eating chocolate and savouring each tiny bit, but now I’ve mashed it into my mouth and life is big, grander, great and waiting for me outside the door.) Goodnight.

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