Wind-up Energy

It's been a few days and I'm not exactly sure where to start. This post might unravel with little attention paid to chronology. I apologize and will my best to keep things in a straight line.

In retrospect, one of the best and healthiest things that happened to me over the past few days was accomplishing everything that I had set out to do. It really was only doing laundry and spending time at the library studying Japanese but I did them both - pushing myself to stay on track.

At the library I learned that I'd forgotten a lot of Japanese, which I had expected, and yet remembered more, which I had NOT expected. Granted, I recognized the hard path ahead of me, the path of relearning, but i didn't feel overly daunted. I do have an honest love of studying Japanese and that love impresses me and burdens me with hope.

Before leaving the library, I stopped by the children's section for a book that might aid my study of Swedish. I picked up several books and each had cartoon drawings of brash naked boys. Even though I no longer feel pious and pickled about the human body, I just don't feel like looking at that effigy of un-grown masculinity. I also thought that maybe I was in a 'special' section of the child's library. Bemused, I opted for a book with loads of animals and a hairy professor in it. Safe topics, surely?

A thunderstorm had picked up and I had to wait in the overhang with other patrons as the rain washed down. It hadn't rained in a few days and I imagine the Swedish soil is growing desperately thirsty. But today it is raining as well and even though I felt like going to the library, I'm staying inside to avoid the cold wind and rain. Writing a blog seems like the perfect thing for today.

The rest of the day was mundane, if I recall. I did laundry. A few drunk people tried to scare me from an upper floor of the building. I watched Master and Commander, read from a book, and slept.

Sometime during that day, I hashed out my travel plans for Germany. Next week I'm going to Berlin for around 6 days. I'll be staying with friends and my old host family and visiting my old haunts - or, rather, haunting my old haunts. If it were possible to feel nervous, excited, and calm all at once, then that would be me. Lord, those four months in Berlin were some of the best in my life and I'm still trying to figure out why. But I do know the half of it - great friends, great teachers, great food. It's all wrapped up in an intangible feeling of joy, love, and peace.

I had tried to make plans to visit my family in southern Germany; a retired post master and a skilled housewife. Yet they, as I said, cannot host me. It was a shame. I'd found a ticket for 0 kronor to Frankfurt. Ah well, my roll at the slots didn't pan out perfect.

So I'm going to Berlin again!

Last night I took the 9:15pm train back to Uppsala from Stockholm. Behind me a Swede was talking in his cell phone and I felt like I was riding right in his lap. It wasn't necessarily bad, rather comforting. His voice was low, sad, and it came around me like an old friend whispering in my ear while we shared an embrace after a long absence. I imagined him to be young and for a brief moment, I felt as if we were somehow connected. For the past few days, I've felt dreamy and open; riding an impenetrable cloud.

I was in Stockholm because I was spending the day with a Belgium girl with a penchant for coffee, who I had met on the farm. We crammed our day with so much! We talked smack about the crazy lady who 'ran' the farm, went canoing around the archipelago, ate meat, shopped at a million souvenir stores, ogled the huge cruise ships, drank beer, drank coffee, hashed out her path to one of the airports around Stockholm, and finished up with Turkish pizza. She's studying Biology and in three years, when she's finished up, we playfully made plans to WWOOF around the world - hitting countries like Japan, Australia, Russia, America, Romania, Hungary. We're still not set on the particulars but it would be cool to spend a week or two in each place before moving around the globe. We're each taking friends. Any takers?

I got home and was still overly full from the food. After some time on the internet, I finally managed to rest for about two hours. Awakened at the unholy hour of 2:30am by my childhood affliction of foot cramps, I was pressed once more back to the internet where I chatted with a friend, read this poem, and wrote on a friend's wall. I have a friend from Wittenberg, a mostly Facebook friend, who is an artist with words as well as with his hands. Every once in a while, I feel like being an artist too and we banter philosophical thoughts back and forth. Last night, feeling empowered, I wrote this:

I used to stand at the mouth of a life resembling a cone. The walls pressing ever inward, converging on a dark and distant point in time. Yet now I've found my way to turn around and see life as an ever opening array of unknown possibility where talk of light and dark, day and night - as if they were sentient forces - makes me sigh outward, because I believe they are no longer so definable for me.


With that, you are pretty much up to date with my life. I'm debating the merit of running in the rain or braving the weather and biking in to town. Or maybe I'll just rest here... and read a bit.