the only way out is through

i can feel that i'm out of practice at this. i sat down at the computer to write after some surprise overnight guests (the best kind) left this morning and nothing really wanted to come out my fingers. it didn't help that our internet at home was iffy after being unplugged in the night during a lightning storm. instead of fiddling around and troubleshooting it, i headed for the library, but it's hot here and that's not helping the flow of ideas. i never used to lack ideas to write about, but my writing muscle has clearly atrophied. i was thinking that a way out of it would be to muse on a single topic or word, along the lines of john green's anthropocene reviewed podcast, where he rates two random things on a 5-point scale. but i can't even think of a word to muse upon. i think i've bottled up my words and thoughts for so long that they've formed a kind of cork that needs to be removed and it feels like i've misplaced my corkscrew. maybe just expressing all of this will help me remember where i left it. in the meantime, i recommend that you seek more exciting corners of the internet until i find my groove again.

yoga-induced stream of consciousness

the scene: yoga this evening. the room lit by fairy lights, the faint smell of sweat and jasmine in the air. mats being spread out. everyone silent, not even a murmur between friends. deep breaths and sighs as everyone settles down on their yoga mats. all of us in our own heads and trying to settle down into our own bodies. it’s not an easy transition. our teacher comes in. her calming presence quietly fills the room and our minds quiet. or at least mine does and i sense that the energy in the room settles down, so the others’ minds must go quiet as well. the stresses of the day wash away.

it’s yin yoga, so we push gently into long stretches, held for what can seem like ages at times and like not nearly enough time on other occasions. my mind leaves the lists and the counting and strangely flits to an apartment in chicago. where did that come from? it’s not even an apartment i lived in, only one i once looked at with a realtor on a whirlwind day of looking of 18 properties. where did that come from? it involved a kitchen island and what i would now call a hyggeligt atmosphere, tho’ i had no idea of that word then. there are seemingly no emotions tied to it, it’s just a random memory, popped into my head. and a remembered feeling…the green of many plants, the coziness of the kitchen, white-framed glass doors. why was it again we didn’t go for that one 20 years ago? i don’t remember that anymore now. and why did it come up? i think i could find it again, there in hyde park. i wonder who lives there now and if they changed it? does it still feel the way it felt then? does it somehow know i had a visual memory of it in yoga class tonight, 20 years and an ocean away?

then we change positions and someone farther down the room farts loudly. thankfully, not me. no one giggles, tho’ i want to. danes are polite like that. yoga can be strenuous and the body wants what the body wants. it’s natural.

home to my little weekday apartment. spinach for dinner. i could (and sometimes do) eat that every day. i revel in the quiet. listening to podcasts – britney luce’s sampler episode this week – cheat codes – is inspiring. i send it to a friend and mark it saved on my phone to listen to it again. it makes me want to get off my ass and make that podcast i’ve been talking about for a year now. what is stopping me? and then jonathan goldstein’s new heavyweight podcast feels poignant and touching beyond what i want in this moment, so i turn it off and put on the spotify playlist i discovered in a restaurant in klaipeda. it’s called freedom dub and you should go follow it. it’s great, loungey remixes of all the songs you know. in the best way. perfect to write to.

and it’s been far too long since i let the perfect conditions for writing happen. it’s nice to be back.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

this morning, when i went outside, this is the world that greeted me:

why is it that a magical coating of fluffy, white snow, while hell on the traffic, somehow softens the world? the edges are all a little less pokey and everything seems that much more magical. and that somehow makes everything better.

it's been a great day. i've written three small articles. they flowed out like a gorgeous extra virgin olive oil into a pan. i've turned the tide on the bad week. and it's all because of the snow. and the new shoes don't hurt.

the tuesday that felt like a monday

i slept like total crap, partially because of the bewildering behaviour of my sister, but also because i always sleep restlessly when i have to get up early to catch a flight. i'm not a morning person. but i made it and even had time to pick up that fabulous YSL mascara and some mac lipstick in the duty free. then, i ran into a colleague on the flight and had a very pleasant conversation all the way to the office. so, despite the sleep issues, the day started pretty well.

this writing that i've been agonizing over for several weeks and which i sent off yesterday was the start of my tuesday troubles. i didn't feel good about it in the first place. i've written and rewritten so many times that it's all a jumble and will never be right to me. but, i learned today that a decision has been made about the subject i was writing about that will take it in completely another direction, so not only was the writing crap, it was now wrong. of course, i couldn't know that 'til i got here, but it did underline the isolation in which i'm working. maybe this distance thing just isn't working for me anymore, as lucky and privileged as i feel to have this situation. i need to be where people are and where the conversations are happening.

because of my struggles with this piece of writing, the articles i turned over were really quite down to the wire...i am not proud of this, but, despite my best efforts, it seems that it couldn't have been otherwise with this particular writing, because lord knows i tried!!! my boss was disappointed about my turning it in at the last minute. and because i was already disappointed in myself about it and feeling guilty about the absurd amount of money they pay me to do this job and what a crap job i had done, it felt that much worse. he's an excellent boss and we had a good talk about it, but maybe it's even worse when you disappoint someone you really like and respect.

so i left the office late afternoon, feeling close to tears with disappointment in myself, but i didn't want to cry on the train in front of strangers. so i fiddled with my iPhone, which usually lifts my spirits. i went and checked into my hotel, dropped off my bags and headed out to find a new murakami at the bookstore (books in english are strangely affordable in norway). on the way, i happened past the shop where i bought the fabulous purple el naturalistas a couple of months ago. and there i found some fabulous RED el naturalistas, which were the last pair, but miraculously in my size (sadly, i don't have my camera with me, so i can't show them to you)! so i snapped them up and my spirits lifted a little bit. then i had some chinese food and eavesdropped on a strange conversation between a middle-aged dread-locked african american guy and a young norwegian girl (more about that another day).

when i came back, i had a bunch of lovely comments on yesterday's sad post waiting for me and that made it all a whole lot better, to know you guys support me and are thinking of me. everybody has a bad day (or days) once in awhile and it makes a whole lot easier to get through them when you have friends. thank you, dahlings, it really means a lot.

an intellectual life

today i drove across the disturbingly windy øresundsbro (that's a bridge) to sweden to attend an all-day symposium in honor of my father-in-law. it's the one that upset me so much when i received the invitation a few months ago. i was pleased to see that there is still a glimmer of being pleased that i'm crossing a border to another country, even tho' it's pretty much like going to another state. i do apparently retain some of my former awe of living in europe (to be said to oneself in a hushed tone). but, i digress.

as i listened to a danish architect speak about urban planning and how he has basically lived his life in a reaction to the modernism of mies van de rohe and le corbusier, and a retired seagoing captain speak about regional cultures and identities and a rector of a university speak about the meaning of an entirely new field invented by my father-in-law, it struck me that i am living an insufficiently intellectual life.

how much time do i spend thinking about what makes cities tick? what makes a great urban space a great urban space? and how do our surroundings affect us? what effect will places like dubai have on the people who live there? you might think that i would have no business spending any intellectual energy on such questions, but you would be wrong. perhaps if i devoted more time to these questions, i would get to the bottom of what makes me uncomfortable about singapore's pristine, clean, safe streets.  would i be able to live there and keep my sense of self as i know it? should i even want to? should i be more open to change than that? shouldn't i ponder those questions in a bit more depth?

and the question of culture and identity is certainly relevant for a person who is going on ten years outside the country of her birth. what remains of the culture and identity i grew up with and what has been layered on top of it? and what does that mean to my identity? who am i today because of the things i've experienced. why is it that i can take the piss with sarah palin's cross-eyed flute performance when my adelaide from guys & dolls in the miss south dakota pageant was no doubt no better or more successful? what aspect of who i am today distances me so far from that person that i was that i'm ok with that?

what am i really doing with the chance i'm being given to write about one of the most important industries in the world? 90% of the stuff on the planet is transported by ship at some point and there is an enormous shortage of people to sail those ships. and i'm writing about that these days (when i'm not experiencing a total writer's block). am i doing enough with that chance? i could have a real effect on an industry that's undergoing an enormous change. have i devoted sufficient intellectual energy to the questions before me?

after today, my answer is that i could do better. and if i do, it would make peter proud. wherever he is. and for some reason, that seems really important.

thoughts wrestled to the page

earlier this month, i bought a beautiful fabric-covered binder in (yes, you guessed it) bookbinder's design. actually, i bought several. it's a disease with me, i know. but, the purpose of this particular binder was to hold printouts of my blog postings from this blog (there were others for the other blogs!). to bring them out of cyberspace and onto the page. i have already printed and put all of the earlier postings into the binder. and i decided that i would make a monthly ritual on the last day of the month of printing the postings and putting them into the beautiful binder. and today is the day!!

it's a very satisfying feeling in some strange way, holding that stack of my thoughts in my hand, punching holes along the side and inserting them into the beautiful binder, between dividers the color of the rainbow, on which i've stamped the months. thinking back on the hours i spent composing the words (and some of the ones where i didn't spend much time, but just dashed them off). rereading and tracking my state of mind somehow made tangible there on the page in ink.

when i'm writing, i'm often surprised at where it takes me, often it's not where i thought it would when i sat down at the keyboard. there are days when i wrestle my thoughts to the page and others where they simply flow out my fingers in some automatic, almost organic way. but, it's one thing to see them on the screen and quite another to line them up in my beautiful purple binder at the end of the month. i can highly recommend it, you should definitely give it a try.

have i mentioned that i adore the blogosphere?

class envy

my sister is taking a creative writing class at a community college near where she lives. i am sorely envious of this class. i want to take a creative writing class too! i want to get together on a weekly basis with fellow-writers and discuss our writing! i guess, if i'm honest, that's a bit of what we're doing here in the blogosophere, isn't it? however, it would be nice to do it in person. to be inspired by others. to get their feedback. the human, social, interpersonal interaction. that would be pleasant.

or would it?

the first week, my sister submitted some of her blog entries from the blog we write together. she submitted this one on vitamins and this one on making pizza together with her children, this one on the bread culture of the US vs. Denmark and a couple of others.

she got feedback from her classmates like:

--"too personal."

--"too out there."

--"too rambling,"

--"possible lawsuit on the horizon from the guy with the bad wig at the health food store."

what the #*¤&%???? seriously, people! have these people never read a single blog before? these are completely NORMAL entries. there is no question of libel or slander in them. it is the most absurd reaction i can imagine and further confirms my suspicion that the country of my birth has lost its last shred of common sense and apparently now its sense of humor has gone as well. it is seriously beyond comprehension to me.

it's clear that there are at least 7 people in iowa, the teacher included, who haven't really heard of blogs and haven't read them. even more interestingly, it makes me realize that those of us all pouring our hearts into cyberspace are actually forging a new genre. one that literary critics and even just simply readers will have to form a relationship to. it is a more personal way of writing. it is more "out there." yes, at times, we are rambling--but that's the nature of the beast, as it were. we're closer to a journal or diary style of writing. it's not journalism. and i think that people had better get used to it, because it's here to stay. because there is an authenticity blossoming here in the blogosphere that simply isn't to be found in other places.

if i were in the class with my sister, i'd bring this up and try to push my fellow readers/writers to expand their notion of creative writing, the keyword, after all, being creative. maybe i'm not so jealous of the class after all...

apropos stories

from march 21:

i continue to ponder the story possibilities that lie in my own life. writing them into fiction might be a wonderous way to explore the path not taken. what if the choices had been different? the lived life would surely have been different as well. or would it? would it end up the same place anyway—what is the role of free will? i think from having been raised presbyterian, the question of free will/destiny underlies my thinking rather significantly. combining this with notions of memory, recognition, absence and i find that i can’t sleep from thinking about it. to create characters, to think about their motivations and actions—i find the possibilities thrilling.

yesterday, i was reminded that a person’s life can be radically different than it appears to be on the surface. that their inner, hidden life can be something else entirely to what it looks like to the outside world. a character is building in my mind, one that will enable me to explore this possiblity. i think i will write and see where the writing takes me.

there is a novel inside of me

from march 20:

and in these days where i’m not wasting my time in front of the internet, i can feel it percolating under the surface—that novel that i’ve long felt is inside of me. i think it comes from reading siri hustvedt’s latest novel—the sorrow of an american—and also her book of essays—a plea for eros—and realizing how much autobiography is in her novels. that somehow makes me feel “authorized” to write from what i know. to set the novel in the settings i know and to use characters that are based on people i know. one doesn’t have to use their stories per se, but just their characteristics. and perhaps my own, which are, of course, the ones i know best of all. one never really knows what stories lurk underneath the surface, does one?

i get to write!!

i just wrote my first short article for my new job. it's a small piece on the crewing shortages in the shipping industry and what my new employer is planning on doing to address some of the challenges that this poses. i won't go into details here, because what i'm actually most excited about is that i get to write in my job! it won't be the only thing i do, but it will be a far more significant part of it than it's ever been before. and that makes me really happy.

and don't worry, i can still use proper capital letters in that context, i haven't completely forgotten how.

of and by siblings

hilarious op-ed piece from the NYT by Elizabeth Gilbert & her older sister, Catherine Gilbert Murdock:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/opinion/22gilbert.html

worth a read and worth thinking about writing something together with one's sister....