the sinner, the saint and the scholar

A nice girl raised in a church pew.
A tough one in red leather swearing out loud and knocking back vodka.
A bookworm with a degree in literature.
A hotel worker not afraid of bar fights.
A shy one who hesitates to open her mouth.
A flirty one who kisses men without teeth and boys with pierced tongues and everyone in between.
A hopeless dreamer.
A jaded cynic.
A depressed loser.
A life-lover whose dreams have come true.

All of the above came together once ... and this woman here came into existence.

the hero of all the stories

Behind the counter in the bookshop. An elderly gentleman - straight back and clear eyes - hands me a book he has found. It's about the fire that destroyed our city in the 19th century. Before I even have time to say hello, he tells me an amusing anecdote about the same fire.

I giggle at the story - no doubt a true one, down to the last detail - too nervous to remember it afterwards but delighted beyond words. My hero, my ultimate authority on history, the best teacher I ever had, the one who turned boring historical facts into breathtaking stories about adventures, heroes, villains and epic emotions and who made bored teenagers gasp with fascination - he is standing here before me again after all these years, telling me another one of these stories. This one for me exclusively.

This history teacher was also the one who always scared us all out of our wits. So here I stand today, adult and independent, and quake in my boots at a mere look from those sharp eyes. With a desperate longing in me to impress, to connect.

But he responds patiently, graciously, to my nervous attempts at conversation. And suddenly, though I feel so inexplicably young I realise that I must have grown up. I am asking questions and telling stories of my own to this man whom I never dared to speak to before except in reply to questions. I smile, bravely. He smiles back. I may be quaking now but after he is gone I will stand proudly, firmly, on my own two feet. Because some people demand so much of you that you find yourself living up to it - despite your own fears.

God is a DJ

To dance until the world spins around you. To feel the music in your bones and nothing else. To wonder if you are losing your mind and love the feeling. To fly to the moon. To be completely drunk and high and drowned and shaken up by life. To have no tomorrow. To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. To be pulled along with no control. To love. To know you are not who people expect. To meet God among the strobe lights and see him smile at you. To be the music and the motion. To be you.

the tarmac and the temple

The fragrance of the bird cherry blossoms, the first heat of summer, bikinis on the beach. I walk past with sandals and a book bag, drawn by the feeling of strange paths with tarmac heated by the sun. People ignoring me, birds screaming hello. Am I happy or desperate? Try to remember that people are generally nice. That there is kindness. Bare arms no longer chilled by spring winds, sweet whispers of exuberantly green birches. Tempted to buy icecream. I walk past a hotel - the place that showed me I am my own and make my own life. I hide in the peaceful woods - the sacred temple of my childhood. I lift my face to the breeze and look out over the sea - the horizon that tempted me with adventures beyond my wildest dreams.

Returned from my own, from the temple, from the horizon that I crossed more than once, I must now make my home on the wellknown shore once again. And still find the courage to awaken other dreams.