current issues on a west coast

Maple leaves
Selling used clothes
Pouring cheap wine into an empty Bordeaux bottle
Back ache
Desperate need for keyboard space
Sleeping on the floor
Exile from a concrete desk

Study French or Arabic next?
Who filled the freezer with raw kale?
Can I be truer than I already am?

the pain and the new perspective

Persistent and debilitating back ache has its upsides. Last night, in a desperate attempt to find out whether my bed is the cause of the problem, I dug out an old mattress, threw it on the floor and made my bed there.

I didn't actually sleep any better. But I had a lovely evening watching TV in bed (usually not possible) with a candle at my feet. And I woke up to an immense sky looking down on me through the window. It felt different. It felt like a holiday. With back ache, but worth it.

an atlas in my lap

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

(Warsan Shire)

snuffboxes and secret societies

The office in the clothing business is filling up with people.

Now there is the man with the snuffbox, the girl who wants to buy a drawing board, the woman who asked me to join a secret society, the man who swears so much and the woman who knows absolutely everything.

It never fails to amaze me how I spend so much more time with strangers in the office than with my "loved ones". And how competent they are. I thought I was the only one.

indifference shut me out

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”

The Seventh Seal (1957)

mute

This autumn, I'm mute and scared.

But I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

green, blue and glitter

The definition of grace: A day in the sun in October, in the middle of nowhere. When you thought summer was already lost. With mother, meringue pie and colours: green, blue and glitter.

what surviving looks like, my dear

"And it has been
one hell
of a year.
I have worn
the seasons
under my sleeves,
on my thighs,
running down my cheeks.
This is what
surviving
looks like, my dear."

(Michelle K.: "It Has Been One Hell of a Year")

sunset to five hundred songs

Last days outdoors. With blankets and a sun that glitters from across the sea, so low on the horizon that I'm squinting down on it from my fourth-floor balcony.

The cold is creeping up on me through my thick socks. But I can't stop watching the boats streak across the golden mirror of the sunset bay, talk to the last of the birds and listen to my five hundred songs. Because this is as close to me as I can get.