christmas with no line breaks

My white witch coat. Snow falling on Christmas Eve after a charcoal winter. Trying to avoid spreading a pandemic by going to only one Christmas dinner. Salmon, lamb, rosolli, herring, meatballs and about sixteen different kinds of sweets. People who are always there for Christmas, some that are not, some that are in quarantine. Finland-Swedes, a Swede turned Finn, a Kurd, an Afghan, someone of Thai origin. A Christmas tree, rhyming and laughter and a wonderful, wonderful feeling. Youngsters who watch people eating on YouTube and show me that I really can't pretend I'm up to date with what youngsters like these days. A night and a day spent with an old lady. Delight and irritation. Chocolates, a ton thereof. A scent of wild mint and hyacinth. A burst of experimental creativity involving glitter, water colours, matchboxes, toothpicks and golden ribbons - and that familiar feeling of this is kinda fun but what's the point really? Walks in snowy woods and festive neighbourhoods in dubious grey daylight. Fiction writing. Faraway laughter in the night. A little doubt and fear as darkness plays its tricks. A glittering bottle I have not dared to open yet. A friend bringing spicy glögg. Time to read fantasy and theology.

what a winter night holds

A winter night is full of candle-light, hot peppermint tea, words on a page, spicy smells, dreams, weariness and fear.

on writing, disgust and crawling through the world

I'm reading about writing. It's pissing me off. Everybody says: Just sit down and write.

I should have known this already but I'm not like others, not in my passion for writing either. It's when I sit down and write that I can't write. I have to sneak up on my writing, pounce on it unexpectedly when I pretend to just walk by all uninterested. 

And I feel a deep disgust for myself if I detect any desire to be published (a blog doesn't count, nobody reads those anyway). The world is full of words being screamed, of attention being craved. I don't want to be a part of that.

And despite my idealistic longing to do something good, I'm too broken and alone to do more than occasionally smile at someone as I crawl through this world on my way to the next.

a sleeping spell all over the country

December is cold steel and wet grey wool and a sleeping spell all over the country except nobody is allowed to actually sleep. 

It's dragging yourself out of bed after a restless night, daylight lamps hurting your eyes or Christmas lights reminding you that you won't get through the day without hearing "Last Christmas" at least once. A constant fog even when there is no fog. 

It's clementines and scented candles and the mirage of a holiday and a little hope and buying a really expensive bottle because it glitters and reminds you of happiness and spices. 

It's being awake for lunch hour and going back into hibernation afterwards. Forgetting what being warm feels like, what summer smells like. Stiff muscles and fear of demons. Vitamin D and melatonin. Restless words pouring out, quieter thoughts too tired to surface. The beauty of grey fog.

It's face masks, uncertainty and no concerts this year, and maybe a little more rest.

December is also thai food with friends, volleyball with friends, Zoom meetings with friends, really weird phone calls with friends, a reminder that you can't make it without friends.

gravel, sun and a red skirt

I don't remember how it actually happened. The tall, lanky man was sitting on a chair outside an Irish cottage, on a sunny summer's day. I think he pulled me down to sit on his lap, or maybe it was my idea. We probably kissed. In any case, the chair tipped over and we both fell on the gravel, which hurt him more than me because I mostly landed on him.

I remember I was wearing my blood red wrap skirt, because in that moment it opened and showed more than was completely decent. He teased me about my "wardrobe malfunction". I laughed wildly, still lying in his arms, on the gravel under a warm summer sun.

Later, he texted me: "I  have a bruise on my arm where a girl fell on me. Not that she was heavy, mind."

I remember the day I met this man - I was in high heels and walked with him into a kitchen. I turned around and smiled at him and knew that I liked him.

I also remember the last time I saw him. It was just a glimpse of his anguished face because he refused to look at me. I turned my own face away because I knew I had destroyed him.

But that day with the gravel, the sun and the red skirt is my strongest - and fondest - memory of a man I once loved.