true colors shining through

One summer's day, many years ago, I threw the first draft of my Master's thesis out through the open window from the seventh floor - a crumpled sheet of paper. It fell on the busiest street in the city and I never saw it again. Not that I missed it much.

That summer I suddenly transformed from a lazy, shy and somewhat lonely dreamer into a restless, confident life-lover. My days started with lunch at the student cafeteria with friends, then we drifted through a city that sparkled with life. We hade icecream on the river bank, listened to live music in the park. There were fizzy drinks in dark student pubs, hamburger meals, hot chocolate at outdoor cafés in the cool evening air. On rainy days we went through an impressive amount of films on video or in the cinema. There were choir rehearsals and Sunday services in the church where all the interesting people went. There was the occasional, dutiful visit to the university where I was supposed to be working on my thesis - usually just to look for fun stuff on the internet. There were excursions to the archipelago and to ancient cities, there were picnics beneath the old oak tree.

I suddenly found myself surrounded by interesting people who wanted to hang out with me. With me! I was enchanted.

My most faithful companion was the boy I was in love with. I had never met anyone who was willing to spend entire days with me before. When our friends went home, we had sandwiches and long talks in my flat. Too wired for sleep, we went for walks or bike rides in the white nights of summer,  along the slowly flowing river, all the way to the mysterious, brooding castle. We climbed the highest hill to watch the sunrise in a happy daze of sleep deprivation. We danced all night, wildly, on a ship in a storm where the dancefloor heaved beneath our feet and martini and love warmed our blood - waltz and foxtrot and tango. I teased him and tricked him into eating the bitter rowan berries as summer was turning into autumn and he tried, unsuccessfully, to throw me into the sea.

There was also jealousy, despair and many tears. It's just, ah, a little crush ... But when he left, I felt strong and brave. I sat down and wrote my thesis.

A man can't change you. Daring to finally be yourself can.

dust, dirt and did you hear that?

March is intense brightness and sunglasses. Melting snow, dust clouds.

It is the first seagull shrieking somewhere high in the sky, people saying "Did you hear that?"

It is dirty windows, awakenings, people with surprised and hopeful looks on their winter-pale faces.

that dark roast feeling

Sometimes I like to sit with my laptop in a coffee house that has an international, trendy look to it. With hipsters, teenagers, young professionals that mutter into smartphones. Ambient house music from the loudspeakers, heavy but soft and seeping into my soul. Coppery yellow lighting. The smell of sugar and dark roast coffee and the feeling that I could be anywhere.

That coffee house has finally arrived in town.

life like melting snow

Urban wellies, grey corduroy, shiny padded jacket. Nerdy-cool librarian glasses, beanie. Confidence.

A walk through wet streets, chanterelle soup in the fragrance-coloured market hall, a dreaming browse in the second-hand shops. Fabrics, letters and glitter passing through my hands. Chocolate cake and life watching. Back-ache. Hope.

Air that looks and feels like melting snow. Sparrows chirping. The last month before the earth wakes up.

I'm thinking back to more exciting days when I laughed in foreign languages. But it is here, in my uneventful town of  melting snow, that I walk the streets in peace and confidence.

one of the many that got away

I showed my friends a picture of the guy I was desperately in love with when I was sixteen.

They said, "He doesn't look like he can deal with your madness."

I'm glad I didn't end up with that guy. I'm glad I have friends like that.

drop a hornet on my head

It was a day of bright sunshine on snow, a day when I donned my thickest coat and warmest mittens to survive the heart-stopping cold.

The whole city gathered cheerfully to watch a large military parade. Everyone was down at the seafront, many ventured out on the ice. Children were throwing snowballs. People stomped their feet to keep warm, smiled with frost-bitten faces.

Then, time for what everyone was waiting for: The air show performed by a daring pilot in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet. The aircraft thundered in. It danced above our heads for ten minutes or more, in and out of loops and dangerous-looking maneuvres. At times, it pointed its nose down and dived straight towards us with a threatening roar, then pulled up and showed us glowing jet exhausts, the noise increasing to a deafening thunder that had us covering our ears. Sometimes it blew past at an impossible speed, sometimes turned or rose so steeply that it seemed to almost come to a stop.

It was unbelievably impressive. And I was paralyzed with fear. This was exactly the nightmare that I often have. In that nightmare, I'm watching an aircraft circle above me, knowing that it will soon crash right where I'm standing, knowing that I have no chance of escape. And here I was, watching that very plane doing impossible maneuvres that surely would make it drop out of the sky. Watching an F/A-18 coming straight at me with terrifying speed. I remembered every video clip I had ever seen of fighter jets plowing straight into the ground, so fast the camera could barely keep up.

Time to face the fear, then. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. But I wrapped my arms around myself, stood still and forced myself to watch. I can't say that I enjoyed it - but the adrenaline flooding my body surely spiced up the whole experience. I won't forget it.

I have not had the nightmare since then.