waiting (and pain) win

this is my view, these long, painful days, spent mostly in bed. i feel like i'm once again being taught a lesson in patience. back pain takes the time it takes to heal, there's no hurrying it along and there's no escape from it. and there's no denying it and just pretending it's not there. it wins, every time. i've spent so much time waiting over the past year and all of it has been agony in some sense. maybe i'm supposed to be learning a lesson here...about patience and taking things one step at a time. but i remain resistant and defiant to that lesson. i want my back to be better now, so i can go back to work at my wonderful new job. i want to be without the intense pain of the past two weeks. yes, i've been in steady pain for two whole weeks. what is it i'm supposed to learn from that? to get in better shape? to take better care of my body? probably, but the doctor also says it wasn't necessarily something i did, it could just be bad luck. but as i lie here, grateful for the company of cats, i do ponder yoga and meditation and maybe even taking up running. i'm ready for the pain to pass. it feels like i've waited long enough. but i suppose it will take the time it takes. and there's no getting around that. i do wish someone would clean the muddy pawprints off that window tho'...

* * *

can't afford to live in london? try copenhagen.

* * *

what if hipsters need help too?
you may think i'm posting this facetiously, but it's definitely a good read.

holding pattern

the light is changing, becoming autumnal and i mind it less than i thought i would. we didn't have much summer this summer and i thought i would dread the autumn, but, like many other transitions at the moment, it feels like it's right and like it's what's next, just the natural progression of things. what doesn't feel right is that i'm in a waiting phase once again and time has slowed down once again. it doesn't get easier. and it doesn't help my sleep. in fact, it feels like torture, cruelty even. i just want to know what's next and get on with it.

in the meantime, i find myself seeking comfort. soft sheep pelts tossed over chairs, purring cats, the smell of apples baking in the oven, long walks listening to podcasts, a new cut & color. it helps but it doesn't help.

what also doesn't help is an unexpectedly rude email, reading the news, people playing games for no logical reason, strange dreams of wolves and not sleeping properly.

our yearly krebsegilde (the swedish crayfish party) is this weekend and perhaps that will help. tradition, combined with laughter can sometimes do that.

in the meantime, i try to breathe in and just get through it.

winter's last gasp (or too little too late)

so, we woke up to this. heavy, wet, springlike snow, falling in more quantity than it's bothered to do all winter long. but it's already melting and it feels like the last gasp of winter. we'll be back in the garden soon, i'm sure of it.

own your shit

so, yesterday i deleted the facebook app from my phone. it feels quite momentous to do so. and more than a little bit liberating. now those moments when i'm waiting for sabin's train to come or for my turn at the bakery, i can just be with myself, in my own thoughts. i don't have to entertain myself with the inanities of the latest gizmodo or nytimes share or who has just had a coffee with pretty latte art. and i didn't take the drastic step of leaving facebook altogether (baby steps), i just now have to look at it via my computer instead of on my phone all the time. i left it on the iPad, because i've got a wifi iPad and use it more like a laptop in the evenings, so it wasn't such a dominant time thief there. 

there are things i like on facebook and i would miss those. the core group of friends around the world who i interact with the most. updates from the guardian and the nytimes. and the oatmeal and his crazy exploding kittens kickstarter, which just blew all previous kickstarters out of the water. and elizabeth gilbert. she of eat, pray, love fame. i honestly enjoy her feel-good posts. they often feel like she looked into my mind and said, "hmm, this is precisely what julie needs today." like on wednesday when she shared a post about owning your shit. 

she says, "You guys, for serious, it's very important that you learn how to own your shit. At some point in your life, you really have to get honest about the weirdest and most damaged and most broken parts of your existence, and take responsibility for it all...lovingly, but unblinkingly. ... That doesn't mean abusing yourself: it just means taking accountability. Own your shit with love and perspective and self-compassion...but definitely own it."

while we may not control everything that happens to us, we do (and more importantly, can) control our reactions. i haven't done a very good job of that this week and spent a good couple of days completely paralyzed by sheer terror and what feels like the unfairness of my situation. i let it control me and i wasted quite a lot of time and much more energy than i'd like to think about. i was also a complete bearcat to my family and impossible to be around. but, it helped me a lot to just own it. to own that i felt miserable and afraid and anxious and powerless and that i hated all of those feelings and that they were getting in the way of me being able to do something. anything at all. i gave myself permission to feel the way i felt instead of berating myself for being unable to get all of the things done that i "should" have been doing. and it helped, even if it was a bit of a fleeting feeling in that moment. owning your shit is a full time job and it takes a lot of strength. and for me, having that strength isn't a consistent thing - sometimes i'm weak and sometimes i'm strong. but that's part of my shit and i intend to concentrate on owning it.

* * *

gary shteyngart spent a week at the four seasons watching russian state-owned television.

and it was quite amusing.

tho' i'm glad it wasn't me.

and i wonder how different it really was from watching fox "news..."

* * *

i thought this article was very interesting and thought-provoking.
it seems we call for a muslim enlightenment every time there's a new tragedy.
but maybe we no longer really understand enlightenment ourselves.
or modernism.

and maybe what's really needed (tho' that's not mentioned in the article)
is for the sensible, moderate muslims (which are surely the vast majority)
to say that enough is enough.

own that shit.

while i am waiting...

waiting is seriously underestimated as a device of torture. they should use it on those guys at guantanamo, i swear they would crack and tell them whatever they wanted to hear within a month. while i'm eternally waiting, i thought i'd dig out some bright colors from my fabric stash and make a quilt. i always instinctively turn to anna maria horner's bright, cheerful patterns. they just brighten up these grey, february days. and there's something to sitting down with fabric and the sewing machine and making something tangible that you can have in your hands, or your lap, as it were, when you're finished. i chose a simple triangle square pattern. i hadn't tried it before and it seemed like it would sew up quickly and not tax my brain too much. because that's the other thing that waiting does to you. it rather heavily taxes your brain and renders you not very clear in your thinking. and moody. moody as all hell.  just ask my family. at least they'll soon have the comfort of a quilt to console them. or to hide under when the waiting storm cloud that is me blows through. stringing people along like this is just not right. but at least something bright and cheerful might come out of it.

i certainly hope this wait is worth it.

* * *

did you see that president obama made a buzzfeed video?
how awesome is that?

* * *

nice piece in the new yorker on jony ive and what's ahead for apple.

* * *

also in this week's new yorker, a new murakami short story.

* * *

and one more from the new yorker.
an interview with flemming rose, the editor who originally printed the muhammed drawings
that may have sparked the chain of events culminating in copenhagen last saturday.

* * *

dang, it is a good week for the new yorker.

worth the wait

it wasn't easy, but i got through the waiting at long last. i spent the morning ironing and cleaning and tidying and at last selecting my outfit. i shouldn't have gone with the vintage boots because one heel (which i didn't even know was weak) cracked as i walked from the main building over to where i will work. i was able to glue it and hold it together for the day, and now it's just a funny memory.

had to have a selfie, of course. this is, after all, the age of the selfie.

and this is what was waiting for me on my desk when i arrived. a whole stack of apple awesomeness. it really doesn't get any better than that.

and i got to fish through a box of minifigs for the ones i don't have (alas, they weren't all there, but i will get the final two, i'm certain of it).

in denmark, you nearly always get a welcome bouquet of flowers when you start a new job. i had to bring mine home to enjoy them. most jobs, however, don't come with a whole lot of lego. but then, most jobs aren't this awesome.

the waiting is almost over

i wanted to report that i have what i call my sunday evening feeling. it's that feeling brought on by knowing that the laundry is done and put away, the dishwasher is going, the stalls are mucked out and all the animals are fed, you're bathed and ready to read a nice relaxing book before bed and you're completely ready to face the week ahead. and while all of those things are true, i don't have the serenity of the sunday evening feeling at all. because i'm just way too excited to start my new job tomorrow! i feel a bit like a child trying to get to sleep on christmas eve, lying wide-eyed in the dark, imagining christmas morning. hurry up already tomorrow!

* * *

reading this will make you want to hop the next plane to istanbul.

there's going to be a lot of changes around here

it's been awhile since i went to a regular office job on a daily basis. the last time was the misery that was siemens wind power. i believe they will eternally take the prize for the world's worst workplace (and that includes those clothing factories in bangladesh that burn up whole rooms of employees on a regular basis - those must be better - and that's not even hyperbole). if there's just less crying in meetings, my new job will be much better. but already, i digress. 

as i impatiently wait for the next ten days to pass, i have been pondering how it will change things around here that i'll no longer be making my own schedule. of course, i have been working over the past few years, but it's different when your schedule is largely your own to plan. if i wanted to do all of my work between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., that was cool. if i did my work while wearing the same sweatpants and t-shirt three days in a row, that was also cool. now, people will be expecting me to appear, fully clothed and coiffed and not wearing the same thing for days on end, in an office during normal business hours. on a daily basis! and although i have no idea what i'm going to wear, i am really looking forward to it.

but it will change a lot of things. like when the horses get put out and put back in for that matter. it will also mean that i won't be here to play cat flap to the cats all day long, letting them in and out at their whims. they're going to have to decide at the beginning of the day whether they're in or out and they're going to have to stick with that. and sabin will need to use her new bicycle rather than having me chauffeur her from school to starbucks and back at her whim. (there will generally be a lot less whimming around here.)

as for the interwebs, i hope i'll spend less time on facebook and generally messing around online. i will still use pinterest to relax and as my sunday morning ritual. i expect to have more to blog about, rather than less and to expand my daily photo horizons beyond my own back yard. i'm looking forward to that. i will undoubtedly need this space more than ever to process what i'm thinking about all of the new input. 

so although things will change, i'm so much looking forward to those changes. i can't wait to be with people every day! new people, learning new things! getting new stimulus and input and having access to different sorts of creativity and creative types. i know it's going to give me so much energy and open up so many new synapses in my brain. it's very hard waiting for it to begin.

i'd like to say i've been using my time wisely, tidying up, getting caught up on laundry, making fabulous meals, sewing up a storm and creating all kinds of things. and to an extent, i have, but not nearly enough. i know i'll look back and think, "oh, i should really have written that novel while i had the time."

but there's some kind of paralysis that happens when you're waiting. you sort of shut down somehow and go into a kind of hibernation, preserving your strength until you need it. i hope i can come out of hibernation in the next week. i have a few things to finish up and a few things to get ready and i would like to make something with all of those beautiful supplies while i have the time.

* * *

must get some tiny people.

and photograph them.

like these.

only in my own way.

11/12.13

ahh, it's one of those rows of numbers to which we ascribe significance. is it lucky? is it auspicious? do i need to create some sort of ceremony around it? if i don't, will bad luck befall me? or will i miss the only chance ever to be able to use the in-a-rowness of these particular numbers? what about the fact that americans think the portentous date happened back in november, due to a writing convention that says month-date-year rather than date-month-year, like the rest of the world? is this my last chance at luck? significance? fate?

probably not.

but just in case, one does feel some kind of need to mark the day. to have it be different or better somehow. i will admit to a bubbling optimism in my mood today (after a trainwreck of a monday and a blah tuesday). my mind is brimming with ideas. i feel motivated and energetic. optimistic. happy. i want to write and sew and bake christmas cookies and even, yes, fold the laundry. i'm feeling optimistic about laundry. it's that good.

maybe there is something in the air. and maybe it can be captured. maybe it can't and you just have to ride with it and enjoy it while it lasts.

whatever it is, something has shifted. my wait isn't yet over, but it suddenly seems bearable and i feel optimistic about the outcome. whether it's the due to 11/12.13 or not, i'll take it.

* * *

speaking of cheery optimism,

go play with this, by the good folks at moo.

monday will sometimes bite you in the ass

it's a balmy 8°C (46°F) outside and foggy. the winds from last week's storm (the increasingly aptly-named bodil), have finally subsided and it's so still you can hear water dripping from the trees. in many ways, it's a really beautiful day, despite it being grey. but it's also a monday and sometimes monday just bites you in the ass.

it actually started already when i woke up with a start, far too early, thinking of a group of friends i had 25 years ago in california. they were a shallow lot and hadn't crossed my mind in years. it wasn't a nice way to wake up. so, as i am wont to do, i grabbed the iPad and checked in to see what was happening in the world of facebook. near the top of my feed was a local friend, expressing delight that she could hear her elementary-age children in the other room, getting into their stockings for their advent calendar presents, and exclaiming "shit and fuck" with delight over their gifts. it made her feel like she'd really picked the right presents. yes, these swear words coming from the mouths of kindergarten and second graders, were words of joy and christmas cheer. and their mother was proud.

after all these years, i do realize that our english swear words, while in widespread use in denmark, do not carry the same meaning or impact that they do in english. and i freely use them, even the f-word, myself. however, i never get used to them coming from the mouths of babes. i just really think that's not cool. and it still causes an almost literal jolt of culture shock when i hear (or in this case, read) it.  i commented on the post that where i grew up, if i'd reacted to my christmas gifts with swearing, i'd have had my mouth washed out with soap. one of the others commenting on the post responded that there was nothing about swearing. she didn't even recognize shit and fuck as swear words. i knew then it was going to be that kind of day.

soon after that, my child began texting me, plaguing me to let her get the office package for her macbook air. yes, my child, requesting to put a microsoft product on a mac. she may as well have asked for a ferrari with a ford engine. it made me realize i've utterly failed as a parent. so, determined to end it all, i headed down to the lake. only to find that the tree from which i had planned to hang myself had toppled in the storm. trees around here just give up so easily.

ok, i wasn't really going to kill myself, that was just for dramatic and humorous effect.

soon it was time to go pick up the child from school. she and her friends got in the car and began talking in a sort of pidgin danglish and it was driving me completely mad. i was so not in the mood for it. it was like when someone keeps repeating what you say and you want them to stop and they won't. i had that same panicky feeling that comes from that. like it might never stop and you will probably have to stab someone before it's all over. and then there will be a mess and the explaining to the parents...

but then the phone rang, it was a neighbor, telling me that our horses were out and running around in the fog on the road. so we rushed home. the girls jumped out of the car (thereby ending the danglish madness) and grabbed them and started walking them home. and yes, they were just hanging out on the road. silly horses. then some maniac drove by at high speed and the two they had hold of got away again and the chase was on. and do you think that asshole took a look in her rearview mirror at the chaos she had wrought? no, she did not. but i grabbed a bucket of grain and a couple of leadropes and we got them in. they were all snorty and excited after their adventures.

i kind of just want to crawl in bed and have this day end. but i guess some days are like that. especially mondays.

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.