When you go... you know

I had to pay for the overweight for my suitcases today. I had to pay a lot.

The funny thing is all the other times I've left, I always knew: "I'll be coming back, this is still home". This time it was different. This time I really felt I am setting out to find a home, I'm really leaving. It's ironic, all the 'rehearsed' moving, all the times I've slid past the baggage drop without paying, it was just practice, just not to scare me off.

Now, it's the real thing, and the real thing hurts, in your heart, in your mind(which struggles to keep together all the pieces of the moving puzzle) and even in your wallet.

When it's the real thing there is no cheating or escaping. When you go... you know.

I want...

In London this year I want…
…to find a really great apartment (at a really great price)
…to make a good plan and follow it
…to find a really good summer-internship
…to get back into shape
…to start with yoga again
…to enjoy my courses
…to achieve amazing results
…to see more concerts
…to visit museums more often
…to not neglect my sleep
…to have more visitors (when we can match vacations)
…to discover new parts of the city
…to go more to the cinema
…to keep my Cádiz calm
…to find little places that only I know about (smultronställen in Swedish)

On the move

Yesterday was a great day. Apart from a raw cold digging into my bones it was…special. I started off the day with my father, we had breakfast, a talk, went to look at furniture for him and then he dropped me off in Malmö, where the work began. I hitched a ride with a couple of friends (or two friends who are actually a couple) and went back to Lund (my hometown) with them. This is where the actual moving started. They rented a truck and five of us filled it all up in a little bit less than an hour (WOW). And back we went to Malmö again…to unload the truck, because we all really love carrying sofas and deconstructing and reconstructing beds.

We were a good team, correction, we were a wonderful team; efficient, encouraging and we had fun. I am yet to see three girls carrying a huge dinner table across a street laughing hysterically; still I was one of them. After redressing couches, making beds and placing drawers in their place it was finally time for dinner. In the middle of mess and boxes we sat down and had the remains of an immense Lebanese buffet, delicious! For desert cheese and crackers, and juicy pears, and what was left of red wine from their summer wedding, but most of all there was laughter, smiles and conversations.

Although exhausted, I think all of us, surely I, still looked at the boxes in envy (and joy). It was a real home, a place to be and to stay. It left space for a real life, without the stingy demands of a poor student. It was the future, far away for some, closer for others. Still, we were happy, we got to take part, we got to visit for a second, to imagine ourselves there…it has to be enough to last me a few years, I sucked it all in and left it there.

Today I took out my suitcase, again. And I’m packing it to live this time, not just to visit.

The trapeze swinger

This song by Iron and Wine took me flying back to their concert in Lund last January. This song, like their entire concert feels like a swinging trance...wonderful...my sick-bed obesssion.

Hello 2009

I decided not to say goodbye to 2008, goodbyes are sad and sometimes quite ambivalent events. It has discretely flowed into becoming a new year and I shall leave it at that. Instead I will warmly welcome 2009, full of hopes, but without expectations; a year open for new experiences with old friends and perhaps the reliving of old experiences with new acquaintances (?). It will be an active year, a year full of love, work and some, although not very much wanted, waiting; waiting for the loving visit, waiting for the results, waiting for responses, waiting for flights and for sunny free afternoons. It will also be a year of longing and one of looking; looking for the right apartment, looking for the right facts and that eternal thing, of looking for what is right; the right way to live, the right way to progress, the right way to write, simply the right path.

2008 meant a lot of change. It was the year when I left stress for shanty; big city for bursting beach. It was the year when I learnt the hard way that even if I want things done yesterday, tomorrow is more probable, and I would have to settle for today. It was a year of travelling and thrills, of silliness and sunshine. But most importantly it was the year when I searched for love, gave it all up, tried to define what I wanted, but in the end, finally, found what I needed (as most of us do in the end).

There are things to bring and things to leave behind. In the past year I want to leave confusion and unrealistic expectations, dwelling sadness and slow administration. I will discretely sneak away from that and shamelessly leave it behind. Into the new year I am bringing my love (without either doubt or confusion), my friendships, my motivation and joy, my discipline (cross your fingers), my efficiency (if I still have it) and my ability to not work myself up about things anymore (it’s just the problem of managing to maintain it).

So I welcome 2009, hope for greatness, dream of amazing and ambitiously work for unbelievably good.

Gaza

Det exploderar,
där en väg mött en annan.
De röjer fram nu
utan att stanna.

Det finns ett mål i våldet
trots all sin meningslöshet,
det finns en väg för ilskan
till hjärtats förtret.

Och trots att eldar härjar
på väg som liten gata,
brinner hjärtats eldar än starkare
och än mer för att hata.

Det pumpar stadigt,
trots att solen bleknar
och det ägnar sig
åt hängiven övertygelse
och farliga lekar.

Man letar förgäves efter kärleken,
tills att man kan gråta,
men finner bara hatet större
och ovilligheten att förlåta.

Att mata glöden

När tvivel dundrar
och konkret förfaller,
veknar hjärtats kamrar
av bombens skaller.

Och då hjärtats eld
uti svaghet svinner,
glöder kärlek länge
trots att hatet brinner.

För en brand kan släckas
då en glöd bevaras
och hårdhet försvinna
då värme bevaras
Att älska med ömhet, ord och beröring,
det är att mata glöden
– då kärlek besvaras.