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.