lux aeterna

No stargazing these days. This is what midnight looks like in the month of June. But to walk through the dew on a summer's night, picking flowers, to the symphony of all the birds... This is what I was made to do.

my bedmate, afternoon sun

Afternoon is the new morning. Just rolled out of bed, was going to make the computer play some pretty music while I hit the shower but here I got stuck reading the blogs of strangers and half-strangers.

Pulling three night shifts in a row and I'm almost not scared at all, alone in the gangster place all night. The shadows in the deserted restaurant deepen around 1 am but then the light gains ground again and I can hear the birds outside. Wondering at the weird people who wander around at 3 am.

This is one long day, lasting from Sunday lunchtime till Wednesday night perhaps, or whenever I manage to go to sleep in darkness again. In the evenings, groggily drinking my wake-up coffee, I feel I missed the transition of one day to another, because sleep is usually the boundary but sleeping in the daytime in a darkened flat only seems like an afternoon nap. Going to work close to midnight I remember that I was there this morning too and my brain fails to cope with this Weirdness.

a few tips from the Coach

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.

You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds."

(Gospel of Matthew, The Message)

the corridor between the worlds

The ugliness of it, and yet the sparkling magic in the air. Which door should I open today?

I know there is an adventure here somewhere...

living in the dark corners of cosmos

The tranquil days at Heartburn Hotel are gone.

The holidaymakers with their kids, dogs and suntans are flooding in. The workers and businessmen who have spent weeks and months in the quiet of the hotel over the winter, smoking and reading the papers and ordering their steak and beer in the evenings, grumbling pack up and leave.

Some of them stay. A few of them I never see but the computer tells me they are there somewhere, in some obscure room in a faraway derelict building. The young ex-convict, a few hardworking builders who diligently leave early in the mornings and return for an early night, a few others.

Late at night I walk through the overgrown jungle that used to be a garden on my way to lock up the sauna building for the night. A roaring fire is lit in an old fireplace at the other side, behind the trees, and an old man with snow-white hair and beard is sitting there quietly staring into the flames. It is a peaceful sight. He is there almost every night. His days he spends cleaning the hundreds of windows of the hotel, a task to which he seems to dedicate his heart.

Except for his threadbare clothes, he looks like Santa Claus. Maybe he is.