cold with candles

The sun sets behind the tall chimney on the horizon nowadays, as it does in equinox times. I like that half-way mark.

The boats are disappearing from the marina, one by one. Late evenings are dark and some nights surprisingly cold. I don't need the leaves turning red and yellow in the trees to tell me that the  season of ice  is approaching.

It may be the season of being cold and weary but also the season for candles and wool.

let go

 I would like to let him in today.

Because I'm too tired to smile and be perfect. Too tired to fend him off. Too tired to hide my embarrassing flaws and hideous wounds. Too tired to live in constant fear.

I would like to take a little love where I can find it and let it soothe me.

the hero of 2013

Sometimes, ordinary boring days baffle me completely.

Like today: cold rain lashing down, lunch in a little Vietnamese restaurant, and long office hours writing emails in three languages to customers, suppliers and colleagues.

And in the midst of my bored yawns, I marvel over this life.

The unexpected cold after a warm summer - shivering in my too thin layers of cotton, wool and leather wakes me up to the surprising reality of autumn. Diving into the restaurant, greeted by the warmth and my friend's smile and the smell of spices. The lunch hour rush around us - strangers and someone I recognise vaguely and the annoying familiarity of everything and yet, there are  a million new things  to see and learn here. And in the office - I'm in an office, for heaven's sake, moving on to new adventures after years of hotel receptions and shops and lonely rooms, and who would have thought that I would be writing emails in three languages?

Knowing my cautious, anxious nature, it sometimes strikes me as incredible that I have managed to learn things like drive a car or use a computer. Or make friends.

My default settings for what life should look like are apparently stuck in my '80s childhood. When only people much older and smarter than I drove cars, when only the nerdiest of nerds owned a computer, when friends were something that came upon you if you were very, very lucky and Vietnamese food was only found on the other side of the earth. When I was a pitiable creature who needed to be taken care of.

Having survived until 2013, if only to be ordinary, is a marvellous accomplishment.

ain't that a kick in the head

New things attempted today: moon cakes from China and the Rat Pack singing in my car. Both to my liking.

baby, it's cold outside

My small city centre is bleak on a Sunday evening in September. Closed shops and restaurants, only a handful of people around. A chilly wind.

I should be enjoying my aimless stroll while waiting for my two best friends. But I feel my mood sinking. I wander past the market square and see a small gang of hooded teenagers looking bored and two young women with suitcases on their way to the train station. A couple of weary-looking businessmen are exiting a taxi in front of the Radisson Hotel. I spend some time in the DVD rental shop, cheered by its bright lights. There are only two other customers, a young couple picking out a film and buying sweets for a cosy night in.

I feel a dark cloud of loneliness settling over my head.

It lifts when I see my friends. In an almost-empty restaurant, we settle into a dark corner. We eat a delicious, creamy chanterelle soup and brownies with sherbet. I keep my thick, chocolate-coloured sweater on all through dinner - not even the warm lights around us can dispel all the chilliness of this autumn. We talk about death and losing faith.

As I make my way home through abandoned streets, my weariness is heavy. It has been a dark evening. I think of the dreams I had, so long ago. I lost some and found some, now I feel there should be a sense of maturity and calm over my life, a sureness in moving on to the next phase. But I feel lost, and I saw that same confusion in my friends' eyes tonight.

Still, we are there for each other, sharing this like we shared those dreams of our youth. I finally slip my key into the door, arriving in my safe home where a warm bed is welcoming me. Arriving at a conclusion.

It's autumn, and I'm tired and not sure where I'm going, but life is still wonderful.

in the back of the room of knowledge

Today I have been teetering on high heels, leaving work early in order to sit through the public defence of a doctoral thesis, singing old folk songs and eating chocolate cake with friends who whispered furtively about the meaning of words like "epistemology". Like most of my friends there (the respondent not included) I had no idea what the word meant.

But I felt a great joy in being back in the academic atmosphere. Lecture halls have always appealed to me, ideal as they are to someone like me who likes to sit in the back of the room, back to the wall, and see and observe everything, including my fellow students. Doctoral theses are at best difficult to follow, sometimes incomprehensible if you are not familiar with the subject, but this one was actually interesting. I listened and learned a few things about the study of traditional songs ( the meaning of "epistemology" I have yet to learn ).

And I had my best friend at my side. The one whom I was used to having at my side in lecture halls when we were both students - exchanging meaningful glances and passing furtive notes with sarcastic comments about the lecturer's choice of tie, or suggestions about which cafeteria to grace with our presence at lunch. Sometimes whispering with our heads together, blushing when the lecturer gave us a warning look. Raising our eyebrows at the too-ambitous blonde in the front row who always had an intelligent answer to the professor's questions.

It made me almost wish to be back there, on the campus of my past. Taking notes in my bad handwriting, yawning in remembrance of a great night out with friends the evening before, distractedly glancing at a goodlooking guy on my left, dreaming about lunch. Dreaming about a glorious future.

I gave my friend a meaningful look today. She knew what I meant.

walk my dog down a Manhattan street

I don't really need anything feeding my feverish longing for New York. Or for a dog. But this book is irresistible.

It seemed almost incomprehensible to Everett. He had lived with this dog for five days. In five days, his life had come alive for him. His street was full of people, and his city was full of streets. His park, once nothing more than a grand exercise track, was now a landscape, a lawn, a garden, a thicket, a boulder, a swamp.

(The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine)

a sidewalk moment

September sun, coffee and a cupcake at a sidewalk café table, a friend I just happened to run into.

This was not the plan for this afternoon. As usual, I plan something, and then change my plans on a whim. Or don't plan at all, and just wait and see what happens.

My life may be lonely sometimes, and not quite right. But I am free.

go east, young woman

Every once in a while you need to get perspective.

For example, you can bring your mother and sister and drive through many miles of forest wilderness to reach a few remote villages, connected by narrow gravel roads. Alien territory, to you. There's a tiny cemetery sitting there, with the September sun and a mild breeze slipping through tree branches. It's very peaceful.

You can look up a specific grave - it takes a while, because you haven't been here for ten years - and stand in front of it in silence. Your great-grandparents' grave, Anders and Maria.

In a world where it's so difficult to feel connected, you can feel a bond with these two whom you've never met. You just know that they would smile at you with warmth, if they were here.

wake me up when september ends

Phenomena previously observed in September:

* desperate friends and the King of Sweden (2006)
* edgy Finns and a Sunday angel (2007)
* mind games and an apple fly (2008)
* rough winds and a Mongolian doppelgänger (2009)
* circus dreams and a father's voice (2010)
* mission statements and a metal cuff (2011)
* hi - tech mood swings and a Steinbeck book (2012)