2006-05-26

A little group of minutes

Sometimes in one moment my mind looks at the life I have lived so far in one quick backward glance. A glance packed full of random images flowing into one another, changing seasons, weather, and daylight, bits of music accompanying them sometimes, family and friends and people talking and laughing and waiting and dancing and sitting still. Christmas Eve pushing the car on a snowy road with my family. Singing with Eva in the middle of the night beside a dying campfire. Watching a snowstorm swirl down outside the window. Putting a log into the woodstove. Setting down a bowl of tomatoes. Washing dishes watching the suds die away. Staring at a butterfly. Yelling and slamming a door. Mailing a letter. Watching hurricane waves. Eating blackberries from the branch. A kiss.

No one moment in itself is the definitive one. In the now, as each is happening, it seems small. Sometimes at first glance it may seem that nothing at all is happening. But if I stop and think about it, there are millions of things happening in this one moment, and it is seamlessly taking its place in the string of moments that make up time.

I can fill in its details one by one. There's Per, sitting on the other side of the table at his laptop. There's music playing, a guy we went to see last night from England who plays a 12 string guitar. It's quiet, grand music that lends mystery and importance to this particular little group of minutes. There's the cloudy day outside, shifting as the seconds go, brightening and darkening again. There's everything growing, and birds and planes overhead, and water boiling for coffee, and the neighbors making noise upstairs. And there's all that's beyond: the street outside where a man just rode up on his bike, the quiet woods with animals moving eating and hiding, the ocean lying like it always does between me and my other home, and all its life, and all that's in others lives here and there and...

2006-05-25

Earthquake!

There was an earthquake in Stockholm last night, right here in our area. People heard something like an big explosion sometime after 1 am and some felt their buildings shake and vibrate. They started calling the police to report it. The police sent out cars and helicopters to patrol the area looking for fire or something. But there was nothing to find since it was an earthquake- a 2 on the Richter scale. How crazy is that- an earthquake in Stockholm?
I didn't hear or feel it at all. I didn't really believe it at first but it's there in the papers. Wow.

Yesterday: fighting and making up. Emotional and stormy. Once I get upset about one thing it seems to just open the floodgates for all other feelings that have been kept inside lately. Spent some time down by the water writing, which made me feel a lot better. It was really windy outside, and sunny, and sitting in the sunshine in big gusts of wind immediately cleared some of my cobwebs away. It's hard to feel completely miserable in that kind of wind.

I remembered how I have often had different rocks to go sit on and sift through my thoughts and let myself feel how I really feel for awhile and stare into space. There was a rock down by the water at home, it seemed made for thinking and retreating to. A short walk down the road and then I would perch there, sometimes dangling my feet in the water or picking up periwinkles to look at. It's funny how habits I had as a kid still resurface with me now. I hadn't realized it, but I have several places down on the rocks here that serve exactly the same purpose. Just the thought of "going down to the rocks for awhile" suggests retreat, pause, temporary escape into my own world.

This reminds me of something I was reading on artist Keri Smith's blog the other day about re-creating spaces we made for ourselves as children. Spaces where we can feel safe to play, experiment, and create outside of the usual world requiring products, explanations, justifications. One of hers as a child was a fridge box she cut windows in and coloured, etc.

I made tons of these spaces for myself, with my sisters and friends or by myself: fort, camps, hideaways. I made them in the woods, and under apple trees, and in the woodpile, and in tall grass, and at the beach among the rocks and in my room by hanging sheets up everywhere and pinning them together with clothespins. Some were elaborate, with many rooms having different moods, purposes, or themes. Some had only the bare essentials of something resembling walls: branches woven together, lines of rocks and seaweed, stacks of wood with towels hanging across them...It almost always had to do with making some kind of space one could be inside, no matter how makeshift. A space where you made your own rules, were busy with things you wanted to do. And once it existed, it was REAL. It took on a secretive, magical, cozy feel.

Even as a teenager I still did this, but in a more complex way: twice I gained access to "abandoned" buildings and worked for weeks with friends and my sister Eva to clean out the rooms full of junk so we could then make them into our own space. One was "Jamie's warehouse" up on the hill, an abandoned furniture factory in which everything smelled of sawdust. The other was later, when I was 17 or so; it came to be known as The Hangout. It was the most elaborate of all. It was an old cottage on our property which my father had used in the 70's to shape surfboards in, and later to build boats in. We cleaned out huge amounts of junk and then set about painting floors, putting up art, acquiring furniture from yard sales. We used it as a studio for making things, a party cabin, and a place to sleep in the summer. It was, at that age, a great, great thing to have such a space of our own.

Anyway..I 've lost my thread. I am hungover today and fuzzy-brained. Wishing way too often that I had some cold spaghetti to eat from the pot. (This is somehow one of the best hungover foods ever. )



"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"oh Anna
you're a house with many rooms
and all the secrets deep entombed within you
i know a few"
-the microphones

2006-05-23

There's more in nature than at the mall

We went to Dalarö in the archipelago for a birthday party. We slept outside in a pocket of blankets and sleeping bags under a pine tree. The tree was a short round one, so it made a cozy shelter. Bits of bark fell softly from it every now and then. They landed on us and around us, reddish brown. I woke up every time a bird flew over. They were flying pretty low, it seemed like they had some kind of route low over us, under the trees, then swooping up to the right or left. If I kept my eyes closed I could only hear the movement of their wings.

It got dark late and light early.

In the morning, we stayed there quite a long time, looking around us and taking a few more naps. I watched ants in the grass busily working. A bug came and landed on the blanket. It had wings like a bee, but was smaller and paler, "an albino mini-bee." It moved to a blade of grass and stayed there for a long time. I said it was listening to us, studying us and writing things down. "I know what you're up to, " I told it. "I can see you're taking notes." It stayed there for such a long time, sitting perfectly still. I kept checking that it was still there, and it always was.

I also found a blade of grass with a cartoon-like loop in it. It was growing upward, but then looped around and back up again. Why?

2006-05-18

Dive

Ten o'clock and not dark yet. It's a dusky dark blue out with all the windows across from us warm shades of yellow and orange.

I worked on silkscreen ideas today, none of which really worked. I don't feel like an artist today, or a writer. I read a lot about creative process on the internet. How different people deal with feeling stuck/blank/lost. I learned that I am lacking in discipline. I should have a routine which triggers creative work. It seems that it doesn't matter if you have ideas if you don't have the ability to sit and work them through routinely. I already knew that. Just have to be less lazy. I did a collage in my sketchbook which made me feel slightly better.

I read about Maurice Sendak's view of creativity. That it contains an element of despair, and that the artist must "dive into limbo." This may be true at times. But I think if there's an element of despair then there should also be an element of joy. Release and freedom. Or that that despair should lead to such positive things. Otherwise, why create? The word "dive" implies that you are going to resurface, splashing in the sunshine, gulping air, having seen or gotten something. Bringing something up from the depths.

We've been hiding out these days. Avoiding all the reality type things. Holed up being project-y, waiting for it to get warm out again. Making meals out of whatever's left in the cupboard. Which is creative in its own right. Yesterday we managed to make 4 "burgers" out of 2 fishsticks, 4 sesame nuggets, and 1 veggie schnitzel. "What can you make with a can of beans and...ricecakes?"

It's a waiting day, an in-between day, a quiet day, with it's breath held a bit and it's shoulders a little tense.

2006-05-17

Mess making

I finally did a bit of mess-making/collage today, it's been weeks. I don't know what I'm doing exactly but it feels really good to sit down with the goal of making a mess, messing up, and playing. Writing some scrawly whatevers, smearing paint, snipping and pasting scraps. I guess I've been trying to remember how to play lately. That may sound odd but I think in some ways I actually have forgotten how, or haven't really been allowing enough time for play. I started to feel, maybe in the years since I graduated from art school,(and had to start paying off my student loan) that I had to smarten up and put first things first. That meant doing things that I could earn money from. Everything had to become something, be worth something.

But lately I feel an urge to do just the opposite of that: do things that don't necessarily make sense in the real world; the world that money makes go round. To do things where process matters more than product. Where I let myself be happy and messy for this while; a while without rules, deadlines, pricetags, justifications. I have to let go of the to do list and the should do feelings and that is never easy because I can't justify playtime as being necessarily productive or worth anything, except for myself. Although if I'm honest with myself I know that is reason enough.

I want to unlearn some things. I need to unlearn how to be neat and not get paint on the table or on my shirt. I want to relearn how to make a mess, a mess like you make when you're playing as a kid, a mess you hardly notice because you're so caught up in building a fort, or making a book, or cutting up a million scraps and sticking them together. I want to unlearn what writing should be. Unlearn how it always has to make sense. Simply spend some time with things I love: words, colours, scraps.

What are we really doing when we play? Trying out who we can be, who we might be? Or maybe not even that. Maybe just doing the next thing that seems fun. Seeing what happens. Enjoying the feel of paint sliding across paper more than the look of the marks later. Needing the release of emptying words into a notebook more than it sounding good later.
I finally did a bit of mess-making/collage today, it's been weeks. I don't know what I'm doing exactly but it feels really good to sit down with the goal of making a mess, messing up, and playing. Writing some scrawly whatevers, smearing paint, snipping and pasting scraps. I guess I've been trying to remember how to play lately. That may sound odd but I think in some ways I actually have forgotten how, or haven't really been allowing enough time for play. I started to feel, maybe in the years since I graduated from art school,(and had to start paying off my student loan) that I had to smarten up and put first things first. That meant doing things that I could earn money from.

But lately I feel an urge to do just the opposite of that: do things that don't necessarily make sense in the real world; the world that money makes go round. To do things where process matters more than product. Where I let myself be happy and messy for this while; a while where no rules are supposed to apply.

I need to unlearn some things. I need to unlearn how to be neat and not get paint on the table or on my shirt. I want to relearn how to make a mess, a mess like you make when you're playing as a kid, a mess you hardly notice because you're so caught up in building a fort, or making a book, or cutting up a million scraps and sticking them together.

What are we really doing when we play? Trying out who we can be, who we might be? Or maybe not even that. Maybe just doing the next thing that seems fun. Seeing what happens. Letting each moment lead to the next.

2006-05-16

We are advised not to worry

I spent yesterday morning calling the Canadian Embassy asking questions and figuring out what to do if Per's visa doesn't arrive in time. We were advised not to worry by the guy at the embassy, who seems to know exactly who I am when I call, since I practically lived on the phone to him while we were preparing the application in February. I'll tell you this: applying for a visa to Canada is the opposite of simple, even if you're married. Picture if you will a table stacked high with papers, forms, guides, requests for photos, requests for details on every trip you've ever taken, requests for blood tests, police reports, evidence of everything you've eaten, seen, thought, said, or done since you were born... Such was the scene at our place during all of February.

Anyway, around lunchtime, with comical timing, a letter from the Canadian High commission in London dropped through the mail slot, which stated that the visa has been granted! Actually it stated that "your immigrant visas appear ready to be issued", as if they were as surprised as we were that it happened so fast. I celebrated the moments directly following the news with a dance in which the skilled eye could pick out Hawaiian, Russian, and breakdance influences. (oddly, no Canadian, although perhaps that was also present in a subtle way)

I don't really want to put in a bunch of asides here about who's who, what everything refers to, but since it could be confusing/annoying in some cases if I don't, refer to the About Me section for clarification. Not that it will really clarify much.
____

Swedish word learned today:
begära- request

Swedish word I like of the day:
hoppsan!- oops!/oopsie!

Long Swedish word of the day: (there are many looooong words in Swedish where 3 or more words are chained together with no spaces in-between)
vuxenutbildningscentrum- Adult Education Centre

I was looking in the V section of the phonebook. The letter W was not included in the Swedish alphabet until recently, and any word that starts with W is usually pronounced as V. ( ex. Wikström is pronounced Vikström.) In the phonebook the V's are directly followed by the Y's, and the V pages are a mishmash of both V and W names. I'm not sure why I need to report this, only that it's pleasing somehow. I relate this kind of information to the kind of absurdity/nonsense that I like in Alice in Wonderland, where rules are relative. In one context they make perfect sense; in another they become silly and unnecessary.
_____

On Friday last week a construction crew arrived and began tearing up sections of the courtyard. It's clear they're going to re-tile a section, but rather unclear why they're tearing up the grass and dumping loads of dirt everywhere. It was awful to see the grass being brutally torn up! It's so easy to destroy things. I often see people in the building across from us standing at their windows watching the progress of the work. A whole category of conversation and thought must have been triggered by this development. I'll have to add to my list of Random Desires Not Easily Fulfilled: To hear everyone's comments about the construction as they watch. A rather mundane desire, for sure, but it would be sort of entertaining.

2006-05-14

Dough

Je regarde seulement.
Jag tittar bara.
I'm just looking.

Short nights. The light lasts all evening and it's easy to forget to go to bed. Then, (since at some point I usually do remember to go to bed) it gets light so early that I keep waking up thinking that I've slept half the day. The moon appeared and disappeared in a short window of time, like it was only rehearsing. Light and dark are in such extreme imbalance here in summer and winter. It's fascinating but disconcerting. Soon, in June, the birds will forget to go to sleep and sing all night.

Moving, getting ready to move, is so weird. All of the things that made you feel secure for years-things being in their place, everything familiar- you just uproot it! undo it! leave it! Sort of brutal and refreshing at the same time.

Going through clothes, books, papers. Sorting out what to keep and what to get rid of. I'm finding layers of time in my belongings like varying layers of sediment in rock. I can see how time has changed things. Per put a dark red shirt in the get-rid-of pile. A year ago I looked everywhere for cloth that colour to use in a project. Now I don't need it anymore. But here's a grocery list scrawled on a receipt 3 years ago that has aged into a treasure.

About owning things; dealing with them. The time spent sorting things, moving things around. Moving things from one place to another. But if you were to take away the things, there would be so much left. The world gets bigger instead of smaller. You're still there: your inner and outer worlds full of possibility, images, memories, ideas. It's good to be without things sometimes. Who was it who wrote about loving the feeling of staying in a hotel room, life pared down to the essential, nothing around to remind you of the past you? A feeling of POSSIBILITY.

Isn't there something else? There's always something else. Sunlight sliding across the floor. Surprising you by landing on your foot. A sore wrist from making pizza so fast yesterday. Pushing dough out toward the edges of the pans. Which was fun. There's something: how nice dough is. Not as in money, (although I like that fine), but dough as in bread dough. Kneading dough. Dough rising.

2006-05-13

Coming to

There's a birch tree outside in the courtyard. I have spent a lot of time studying it, with various coffee mugs in hand, during different seasons. Right now it has new green leaves on it. It has been very windy today, at intervals, so the branches have been going crazy, shifting from yellow to green and back again.

At some point I thought they shifted from green to silver, but that must be later in the summer, or in the fall. I got the feelings that go with different seasons mixed up. It was something to do with the darker shade of blue the water has today, which doesn't belong to spring. I glanced out and everything was fast-forwarded. A plane flew by overhead and sounded like masking tape being peeled from a roll in a long steady pull. Something suddenly made me nervous. I felt an adrenaline rush for no reason. For a moment I felt like everything had been turned upside down by nothing.

Is it because of all the time I've spent putting things off? It's like I've been asked to hand in a paper I haven't written a word of.

Is it because we're moving? I feel as prepared to move as an 8-year-old about to run away.

Maybe it's just the colt-legged newness of being up and about again after having had a cold/flu and coming to. Oh, THIS is where I was. What was I doing? How do you do that, again?