it's a slippery slope

i made the mistake of joining a retro toy group on facebook. two of them, actually. it all started with being on the lookout for vintage lego fabuland characters. because obviously, i hadn't found enough of those on ebay...

and while there was no fabuland in the groups, i did run onto these little teeny tiny people, still in their original package. and i just had to have them.

of course, i didn't really care that they were in their original packaging as they weren't going to stay there. i had to take them out and play with them.

it seems that the lego minifigures were just a gateway drug to wider toy photography...

et småligt land

these days, there are many refugees on the move throughout europe. leaving their war-torn homes in syria and iraq, coming ashore in barely seaworthy boats on greek islands, getting on trains or trucks, or failing that, walking their way up through europe. they're trying to get to germany and sweden, which are the main european countries standing up and taking responsibility, opening their doors, their stadiums and hearts. meanwhile, the minority, xenophobic and apparently tone deaf danish government took out ads in newspapers in the middle east, discouraging people from coming to denmark. this means that the hundreds of people who need to cross denmark to get to sweden are being stopped at the borders these days. yesterday, several hundred of them walked along the motorway and it had to be closed at one point for their safety. some danes form "welcome" committees on the overpasses, spitting down on the refugees and screaming obscenities in broken english. these are shameful, dark times.

last night, instead of standing up and taking any responsibility, the danish prime minister, lars løkke rasmussen, apparently went to a wine tasting. the police, overwhelmed with people at the borders, have elected to stop trying to register those who don't wish to seek asylum in denmark and just let them go on through to sweden. yesterday, they were stopping them, but the numbers are too large for that now and taking people off trains and buses to forcibly register them was only creating chaos and large crowds of people walking on the motorways.

for all of my complaints, i do love living in denmark and i love many things about it, including the welfare state which allows people to get back on their feet when they're down. but this makes me (and a whole lot of danes) sad and embarrassed and ashamed. and it's the direct result of years and years of heightened xenophobic rhetoric. and now the whole world is watching and it's not a pretty sight.

wednesday witterings

i have wasted 24 hours of energy and sacrificed a good night's sleep over the most ridiculous casual vacancy-esque local control-freak, power-hungry, senseless game-playing situation that should never have been a situation. but i always think of these things as fodder for an eventual novel. or at least a memoir. i do wonder when i'm going to get around to writing that? and somehow, just like that, my brain cleared of it sometime this afternoon. possibly because we are having glorious autumn weather - sunny days, just the right temperature, no wind. i am so affected by the weather, both good and bad. and by a new set of possibilities opening up. dare i say there is excitement and hope stirring in the days ahead? and a trip to copenhagen.

clinging to the light

so much unnecessary madness today, i am clinging to the last, golden rays of autumnal sunshine.

more tomorrow.

believe me, i have a story to tell...

rising from the ashes

i'm not a fan of brené brown (pretentious git, i could not stand this ted talk by her), but this post about her work on brain pickings did speak to me.  it makes me realize that it's time to release the notion of idealized perfection and acknowledge that it's been really hard for the past year. my dream job being taken away for reasons that feel false and disingenuous has left me wounded in ways from which it feels like i might never recover. to have found something that felt so perfect and so much like home and have it taken away hurts so much. i wonder if i'll find a job that feels so right ever again? will all other jobs pale in comparison? and the thought that i might not ever be as happy in my work again is truly frightening and leaves me paralyzed. at times, it just seems like too much and i want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and just sleep until the world is different. or at least until my view on it changes.

but brown's work is about rising from the ashes of defeat, not about sleeping it off. it's about the guts and resilience it takes. she says, "the process of regaining our emotional footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged." the grit it takes to do this is often lauded in today's world, as we rush headlong towards happy endings, but brown says that discounts the pain and the hard work of rising again after a defeat. "embracing failure without acknowledging the real hurt and fear that it can cause, or the complex journey that underlies rising strong, is gold-plating grit. to strip failure of its real emotional consequences is to scrub the concepts of grit and resilience of the very qualities that make them both so important — toughness, doggedness, and perseverance."

the truth is, i feel that some part of my identity was stripped from me along with my dream job and it feels like purposeful cruelty. and while i have been fighting the notion that i am my work for a good many years now, the truth is that it's inescapable in our culture. so i am left wondering who i am and what's next. and i'm feeling like any grit i once had that would help me through such an experience is gone for good.

but perhaps each time i acknowledge the hurt and pick a bit more at the wound, it will get a little bit better and i will find a way to rise once again from a failure not really my own. and perhaps that's the problem. this happened to me due to the cold, unfeeling reality of corporate decision-making and despite how very personal it feels, it actually wasn't when it comes down to it. and that makes it hard to know what to learn from it - should i become less trusting? be a cold, unfeeling spectre? do i give less of myself the next time? should i not fall in love with a job i love? do i stop being my real self in order to protect that self the next time around? it's all still very bewildering. i wonder when it will get any easier...

the view from sunday night

that yearly crayfish party is awesome. seriously a highlight of the whole year. i love husband's family. there are always great conversations. deep conversations. confessions even, but in the best, most understanding of environments. it cleanses my soul and leaves me feeling less alone. part of a tribe even. in the very best way. it was just what i needed.

there was a creative workshop today in our fantastic new library/kulturhus. it was good, but it wasn't all easy. it had its moments. where i am right now, lacking excess energy due to the waiting, it's hard for me to give space to another person who is in a possibly lifelong energy deficit. it's like those two lacks clash and make one giant black hole that neither of us can climb out of.  and it's not the most pleasant of feelings.

and as workshops often do, they bring you further than you think they have while you're in the midst of it. as i tried to draw the threads together afterwards, i was surprised to find that they did indeed come together. that's a good feeling. it had been too long.

i've had multiple dreams of wolves of late. they keep coming. there are rumors that the wolf has returned to denmark, but this is getting absurd. i did think i saw one a week or so ago in a freshly-harvested field. for real. it was lean and looked wild. but maybe it was just a dog? would i know a wolf i saw one? and why does it keep appearing in my dreams? what does it all mean?

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.