An apple(cake) a day keeps the doctor away

After a summer busy to the point of rupture I have arrived in Spain and unsurprisingly come down with a cold. Thanks to bad weather and a relaxed schedule I'm spending the day in, curing myself with the good things life has to offer...like chocolate and applecake. Because hey, as you say; when life gives you sour apples make apple cake. And then it might just be that there is truth to the saying that an apple(cake?) a day keeps the doctor away. Let's hope so.

A taste of Spain

Really there is only wine, olives and a mullet missing...

If I were a choir, but then again no...

She has perfect pitch, the conductor standing in front of the choir. No individual diversion will pass her by; no off pitch note will go un-noticed. Basses, tenors, altos and sopranos, the yins and yangs of choir dynamics, the highs and lows of sounds are all under her spell.

I find myself wishing I was like her, that I would be perfectly sensitive to each and every component of my being. Having the ability to immediately know what was off balance and where. And then to focus, to first find silence, then healing and then completion. Like she does when she silences the choir, practices the bad until good and then puts it back into its context.

And I think to myself that we should be grateful if our choir always sings the same song at all. Happy when all components move harmonically in the same direction. Off tune is not always our only problem, sometimes it’s off target as well. She does a great job at it, keeping everyone focused. Again, I wish I could hear what she hears.

There is always a dominant note, a top-note, like in perfume, that which sticks out. Sometimes it’s low and hard, others high and shrill. For some of us the top-note varies, for others it hardly ever changes. But the top-note always needs the others to be extenuated. A bass in itself will become monotonous; it requires altos, tenors and sopranos to finally become a song.

So can you always hear your own top-note? Or do you even know what song you are singing? When harmony is distant can you muster your energy, find your perfect pitch and recenter your forces? Can we be our own conductors? Or are we dependent on the reflection of ourselves from others in order to truly hear our-selves?

Is it possible to change our song and learn the rhythm, tact and melody without being accompanied by an instrument? She uses the piano, to clarify and to lead. It holds her hand as she lingers her way to satisfaction. Who holds yours?

There is always mañana

Spain always means learning new behaviours. Especially for a timewise scandinavian like myself there are many lazy lessons to be learned.

Lazy lesson no. one is: There is always tomorrow...or there is always another one tomorrow.

In hectic northern Europe you often get the sentiment people try to do as much as possible in as little time as possible. In Cádiz you quickly learn, what you don't do today you can do tomorrow, or next week, why hurry?

Jose, a spanish aquaintance put it very nicely; he said: "I don't understand why people make such a fuss when I don't come to a party one night, when they know there is another one tomorrow". As our conversation continued into the early morning hours and we established that I had been to class earlier the same day, he burst out into modest applause for the fact that I was still on my feet at 3.30 am. Whereby I answer: "But I had a siesta" (and the applause were inevitabely 'withdrawn').

So what I learned from this was: Don't stress! If you don't go to a fiesta today you can always go tomorrow (you will be missed, but you won't miss anything if what you really want is to stay at home). And if you DO want to go to a fiesta, there is always siesta. Time is on your side here, today and...mañana.

Att komma fram

Hon är vacker
tycker han
där hon härjar
i hans drömmar.
Hon är vacker
där hon simmar
i hopplöshetens
strida strömmar.

Hon är stark
känner han,
hängiven i allt
hon tar sig för,
och varm är hon,
älskar,
som ingen annan gör.

Och hon är ömtålig,
fast det ser man inte
det har hon lyckats dölja,
hon har gömt det väl
bakom vältalighetens
förrådande slöja.

Han väntar på henne,
fast hon aldrig
tycks hitta hem.
Han ler när han ser
att hennes hjärna vill,
men hjärtat kommer sen.

Och han våndas,
där han står
med öppen famn.
Han säger:
Älskling,
varför kommer du aldrig fram?

Persistence is the medicine

Yet again I am taking on the constant battle against spanish procrastination. It´s endearing how many people can attempt helping and actually not succeed; not due to ill-will but rather a lazy ignorance(?).

Yesterday I spent one and a half hour calling my phone-company in order to get my line up and running again. This was after being told at their store that: "No you can´t buy a modem separately, they come as a package deal with the line". Accordingly this was my second mission, getting a new modem. After making SIX calls to SIX different people, someone finally opened up my file properly and told me what to do. And here I was, thinking: "They must think I am such an idiot to keep calling". Apparently persistence is the best medicine against procrastination (even though it can prove to be exhausting).

Finally the phone-line is now back (wow!). However I am still crossing my fingers for a quck arrival of my modem, hopefully it won´t take another six phonecalls...

...and it's a long way home

Well, here I am again; in transit at an airport. Half way around the world (not that far really) and nowhere near going back again. It's a situation that brings to mind things to appreciate. Kind of as a survival strategy to keep yourself smiling during the six hours to be spent (and being spent) on a hard wodden-chair in a bare and impersonal café at La Parra (Barcelona).

Having had quite a tomultuous pre-departure week, the small things are what come to mind; My fathers childhood-stories of comical disasters, positive feedback at work, the smell of my mothers freshly-baked bread on a Saturday morning and then the act of remembering. We all appreciate being remembered and it doesn't take a lot. It is plenty having an instructor at the gym remember his promise to make you an exertube-programme, and delivering with excellence (pictures, instructions, schedule and even a motivational letter). And it is defenitly a good feeling apprehending the excitment of someone remembering your arrival when you suspect you have been forgotten.

In short, remembrance is a good thing to smile about...both the people that I remember and those who remember me. Again it's small acts really, the fact that I have a snickers-bar in my bag is evidence in itself, it was a departure-gift. So I can smile because someone remembered... and I didn't forget.

Vem är hon?

Vem är hon?
Hon som i grunden
säger emot sin egen existens.
Hon som har självförgörande
som essens.

Vem är hon?
Denna mjuka
men innerligt brutala,
som kan väcka mörker
ur sin långa dvala.
Den som i ental finns
och tillfälligt stagnerar.
Vem är hon?
Hon som växer i sällskap
och sökande genererar.

Vad vill hon?
En hemligt uttalad önskan ändå.
Varför räds hon för sällskap?
När det enda hon vill är: bli två.

Har hon ett namn?
Denna som stör
likt bubblor under tapeten.
Vad heter hon?
Om inte ensamheten?

A wall is really just a bridge on edge...

That is what he says; Emil Jensen, swedish singer, poet and stand-up comedian.
Quite a nice thought for a grey day like this. Obstacles are really just stepping-stones to greater things.

Then he goes on to speak about seeing people and lending a hand, deciding your own direction and not licking your wounds when you get them, and how these people, who own these qualities, are perhaps not the most beautiful people in the world, but the world is most beautiful in them. It continues...genuinely inspiring.

So I think that when beauty is in the eye of the beholder...a wall is nothing but a bridge on edge.

Requiem for life

Walking through the park I know it is soon to be the end of greenery. I know it because the wind bites my cheeks even though the sun is shining. I know it because, when you look closely, the edges of the leaves are turning orange.

Autumn is coming and still, in a short while, its summer for me. When you move to Spain (as I will do) you have the privilege of skipping a season, or three. No need to see the trees seemingly whither and die and the air turn grey and cold. No need for that endless wait for spring, where life comes again.

Spain is summer followed by summer, sun always, eternal life. But, even there spring makes a difference. What sets here and there apart is just the amount of death, or winter, needed before life comes again. Nature takes a rest really.

The Latin word for rest is requiés, but most of us will have seen it in another shape. Stemming from this word of peace is Requiem, a hymn of death. Verdi (amongst others) composed one… I heard it… and yes, it is a hymn alright:

Libera me, Dómine, de morte aetérna; Save me, Lord from the eternal death. They sing it out, 300 voices strong. We all wish for it, secretly, both those who sing and those of us who listen; to be immortal, to never see winter. And so, when hearing Verdi’s requiem, it is clear, that what he really did was to create life for himself.

I know Verdi is dead as of more than 100 years; still his name and his music have been current through the times. Although the end of greenery, the eternal death, probably frightened him, as it does most of us, he took things into his on hands, writing operas, symphonies and requiems with the width and breadth of his being.

A requiem, in the end, can really just inspire to accept winter, celebrate rest…and perhaps use it as a time of composition. To do like Verdi did; he created his own spring and rebirth, by composing his way to immortality. In the end what he really wrote; was a requiem for life.