det skal nok gå

autumn is closing in on us. the days are visibly shorter. the wind is more blustery. it's cooler. and mornings are crisp. i feel mostly ready for it (tho' i do hope that guy comes with a new furnace soon). it feels like things are winding down, even as they wind up - i'm busier, sabin's busier, husband is busier. life is rushing past at the moment. energy is being channeled in new ways. time is being spent differently than it was. new projects. new friends. much-needed long conversations 'til all hours of the morning with old friends.

but i was accustomed to the lower gear and i feel like things should slow down a bit. and i should hoard my energy a bit better. when things pick up speed, i tend to waste it on things i shouldn't. fall into old patterns, rather than remembering and embracing the new ones. old procrastinations. old ways of focusing (or not, as the case may be).

i have to remember to take a moment to gather acorns. pet the kitten. pick up the child. ride the horse. breathe. and enjoy the autumn. i love spiderwebs in the morning and crisp cool air. raspberries ripening. chutneys bubbling on the stove.

there is time for everything if you just make it.

fast forward transition

some snow melted, but not all. and hoarfrost on the trees. hurry up spring!

we've been waiting and waiting all week. and we've realized that waiting bites. and instead of being productive and getting things done, the waiting paralyzes you and you stare into space and can't think straight and your arm falls asleep while you're knitting (is that supposed to happen?). you wander listlessly around the house, thinking about how much packing there is to do, but it doesn't really result in you actually doing any of it. Your mind wanders off to that dog sled that should have reached that guy you want to buy the house from wherever he is in the northern reaches of canada. you talked to the realtor yesterday, but he was as laid back as his accent and not at all worried that the guy hadn't answered yet. you asked in a slightly hysterical voice if they had in fact really sent a dog sled. he pretends he knows what you're talking about and laughs.

it seems that your new job will start a whole lot sooner than you thought, which is both good and bad. because you haven't used your time all that wisely and now suddenly you won't have any. but on the other hand, it will undoubtedly be good for you to dress in normal clothes, fix your hair and put on makeup and go out among people on a daily basis. your photo-a-day project may suffer and focus rather too frequently on the wind turbine just outside your new office window. but time will tell.

time will tell on all of it and time takes its sweet time. so strange how it can both crawl at a snail's pace and race by in the same instant. but time is mysterious that way. and life is full of contradictions.

on being thirty-twelve*

looking at the year ahead and the year behind. i always feel like doing that on my birthday. i made a list last year of the things i wanted to do. i didn't publish it here because it felt a bit like some of the items were too frivolous and some were too serious. but i've referred to it off and on, just for myself. in a way it's a bit like the new year's resolutions that i don't really make, it's just at the beginning of a new year of the calendar of ME. i did some of the things and others, i wonder why i even put them there. but as i wrote last year, it somehow seems like the act of putting things down on paper is what matters. it helps you to envision how you want things to be. and that's surely a healthy thing to do.

this year, in the face of daily news of global economic crisis (GEC), i feel much more ready to pare down and live more simply. we really have all that we need, so there are no big purchase needs on the horizon (let's face it, i don't really NEED an 8,000DKK espresso machine). i want to be better at using all of the veggies that come in my weekly organic box. i want to eat less meat. i want us to use the car less. i'm not really ready to say we shouldn't have one at all, but we should park it more and use our bikes and the trains. (it's a bit easier to say that as the weather gets warmer and more spring-like). i don't need any more additions to my stash. i could craft for an entire year without buying anything at all and still have something left over. so, these are the things i'm going to work on during the year ahead . using what we have and not acquiring anything new. i think i'm really ready to do that this time.

*i don't really mind turning 42, so the thirty-twelve reference is just to be funny.

at the change of seasons

at these transitional points of year, as summer turns to autumn and autumn fades towards winter, i always get introspective. last year, that introspection led me to change jobs in order to have more time for the things that matter. now, i find myself reflecting on what i've done with that time i gave myself. maybe it's because i felt like i haven't been utilizing it well for the past week. i have a bunch (seven, to be exact) of different articles in progress and feel more or less stuck on all of them.  it's been great to be working mostly at home for almost a year now, but is it time for something new? would i be more productive if i went to an office every day again? i guess what i'm interested in is why i'm so stuck at the moment.

i think it started a few weeks ago when we had husband's old management group over for dinner on a tuesday night. because i'm working at home, i was, of course, home all day, so i was able to prepare the dinner (a big mess of fajitas) and dessert (a pavlova and some creamy, rich chocolate cups). my sister was here, but she had a lunch appointment, so she didn't come home to help 'til late afternoon.

when everyone arrived, i was wearing an apron over my little black j. peterman dress (dang, it's on sale now!). after all, i didn't want a bunch of fajita juice all over it. while husband took everyone outside to show them around the new place and for welcome drinks, monica and i finished up the dinner. we ate the dinner and according to plan, everyone raved over the food. i messed up the pavlova, because i don't really know my oven so well yet, so it was a bit crispy on the bottom [read: burned] and i foolishly didn't actually notice that 'til i had already served it to everyone. so, i joked and told them to avoid eating the very bottom. all very relaxed.

one of the group was a woman in my age group, who is in charge of payroll at husband's work (not a small company, so this is a significant position). she voiced political opinions that were more than a bit disturbing (anti-immigrant with an immigrant in the room!). she also joked the entire evening about firing people, mostly to her male colleagues, indicating to me that she felt a need to show she was as tough as the boys. she made comments that made me think that she thought i was a hausfrau (one of my worst fears). but later, when i thought about the apron, i guess i could understand her perception. in short, she totally rubbed me the wrong way in her white french-cuffed tailored blouse.

i suppose in a way, it made me feel a bit insecure. the thought that i could be perceived as a hausfrau almost as horrifying as anything i could imagine. i felt a strange compulsion to prove myself as a career woman and kept making reference to my previous employer (the other big company in denmark), as a means of proving my own testosterone levels. and afterwards, i felt bad about the whole thing. how pathetic that i felt the need to prove myself to some twat [pronounce this in your head as hugh grant would pronounce it and it will sound as i mean it to sound] who i will never meet again and who i could honestly care less about? why did i waste a single moment of angst or regret on this person who so clearly doesn't matter one iota in my life?

did she dig up something deeper in me? some feeling of dissatisfaction within myself? is it time for me to move on to whatever is next, rather than holding here in the liminal space? am i really holding? or is it just that i can't accept how actually totally awesome my situation is? i have the privilege of mostly working at home, so i'm here to take my daughter to school and pick her up. i sit all day at my gorgeous iMac and i write about things that fascinate me (when i can write, which i currently cannot, which is part of the problem) and then i travel to wonderful places, meet great people who stimulate me intellectually and professionally, eat fantastic food and stay in awesome hotels. are you serious, what's not to be satisfied about?

so, why am i feeling restless? why can't i just enjoy the here and now? why do i get all tied up in knots and restrict my own ability to finish the things i'm working on? is it just the changing of seasons? or is it something more? and how do i get to the bottom of it?

lounging around

i'm lounging in the KLM lounge in amsterdam, experiencing the jarring transition of air travel. i left my hotel in manila 18 hours ago and i'm not home yet. the flight time was extended due to the chinese air space of the regular route being closed due to the earthquake. air traffic control in that area is out of comission at the moment. so, the flight was 13+ hours. that's plenty.

i was, once again, seated next to a seafarer. interesting that chevron flies their chief engineers in business class. we didn't talk during the flight until the very end. that was a shame. i guess i didn't really learn from my good experience with the italian captain and already reverted to my danish mode of behavior. when will i ever learn?

i'm sitting here in the lounge in amsterdam in a grouping of four wanna-be egg chairs. the other three people are german, french and dutch respectively. this is something i love--being in a truly international milieu. the french woman is on the phone, speaking rapid french. the german and dutch guys are reading newspapers in their respective languages. i'm sitting here reading my lastest haruki murakami acquisition (the wind-up bird chronicle) in english translation, of course. or at least i was until i realized there was wi-fi and so i turned to my norwegian computer. :-) and my norwegian phone just rang at the same moment a text came in on my danish phone. i am a confusion of nationalities. but somehow, it suits me.

jarring transitions

i started my morning in barcelona. it was sunny and a lovely 18 degrees. there were several thousand madmen and -women running a marathon through its streets. a number of hours later, i landed in oslo, where it is -3 and snowing like mad. only when you fly do experience such jarring transitions. i'm not sure it's good for us, as human beings. how can we catch up with ourselves when the differences are so great?

lucky for me, i'm at the most lovely old hotel up on holmenkollen, sitting in the pretty, quiet lobby, all alone by a fireplace, so i have the peace and solitude in which to make the mental transition to match the geographical transition i made. one doesn't always get that chance, so i'm making a conscious effort to savor it.

the difference in culture between denmark and spain is quite striking as well and was another jarring transition. we noticed it already on the plane, leaving copenhagen. it was a spanair flight and full of spaniards. a bunch of them evidentally knew one another and they were talking loudly across the aisles to one another. they spent long stretches of the flight, standing up talking to their friends, sometimes several rows behind them. speaking quickly and loudly. it was strange for the danes onboard, who never speak in public unless they have to or are together with close friends who they've known since birth. it was really interesting that the cultural differences were so evident already there.

when you travel, at least when you travel for pleasure, you open yourself to the differences. i go into observation mode and try to take note of such things...like the rhythms of the language and the body language of the people. even there, already on the plane, it was evident that the entire rhythm of barcelona was going to be different than copenhagen. the pulse and the beat on the streets was more lively and immediate somehow. less reserved. part of it is simply that there are so many more people, but it must also have to do with language and the actual music of the language itself. people simply express themselves completely differently.

we noticed that there were danes everywhere we went in barcelona. and they seemed to be caught up in the pulse and the liveliness as well, as they too were more animated. they were talking louder and using their arms more as they spoke. so something in the spanish culture was catching. or maybe it was just the sunshine and the warmth.

and now, i transition back to the cooler northern climes as big flakes of snow fall outside and the fire crackles beside me. transitions aren't all bad.