citycorner

   

-it is ramadan over here. the imam sings beautifully from the mosque a few times a day. lots of light decorations all around. a reminder that i have been wanting to fast many times, but not from religious reasons,obviously.

-i have so many mariposas around me. perhaps since i call myself one.

-the temperature cooled down a bit. it helps surviving the city.

-my swedish friend julia slept over, and she spoke in her sleep all night, to my amusement.

-i miss my compost, my compost toilet and the grey water system when i am in the city. here it all simply goes to waist upon waist upon waist.

-i like this song. for a little hippie soul.

-i have no clue which day it is. it doesn’t really matter right now.

-i wish you a fine day.

still summer

   

it is still summer over here. even though the nights in the north are getting chillier. i like those chilly nights. and the sunny days. but it would be fine by me with some european autumn aswell. colorful leaves, rain and hot chocolate.

i am somewhat absent and absentminded. not spending much time behind the computer for a change. this will be the last week of the community workshop, i hope there won’t be too much of a vacuum once it is over. and even if, i will ‘escape’ it on the other side of the globe. oh, and after having visited one end of the globe, i will meet my two sisters on another end! that’s quite something to look forward to…

fabulous three

i tend to be somewhat skeptic towards the concept of a nuclear family. mother, father and kids within the four walls of their home. i more and more believe in a bigger social network, to lean on, especially when you have children. such as the extended family, friends, and/or a community. to raise children alone, within the nuclear family, seems too difficult, too draining. we need people we love and trust to be involved in raising our children.

the little family above has inspired me a lot the past few weeks. how they raise their son is so unique, full of love and freedom while still being guided and supported. it is good to see different ways. to be reminded that almost anything is possible, if we want it.

just a tree

 

i am just a tree
my roots
are with her
but my leaves are with thee

my song of the day.

i am a tree and a spiderwoman. who baked pancakes for twenty people this morning. who dreamt nightmares all night. who is going to a workshop in acrobalance&yoga this weekend. if my energy reserves will be enough. sometimes, i am a camel, with energy stored in my humps and i can go on for ever. but right now, i seem to be a spider, resting on a thin string in my web. love and kisses to you all, and a great weekend ahead.

staying cool

liters of water during the day and a cold beer at night. i blame it on my sore muscles, but there’s nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. of course i don’t drink lapin kulta, nor do i have a bathtub full of ice, i wish did though. instead i walk around looking like a wet puppy most of the day.

21.54

  

bright sun and hot hot hot. in two weeks i leave again. i realized today. and my belly turned over. what happened to august? i need to pack my bag and put my ass on the plane again. sydney and new york. terrible for my ecological footprint, all this flying. and i am trying so hard, to not leave traces, to minimize my own destruction. but the flying weighs more than all the rest together. worth thinking about…

the bliss of august however, has been a very present sara. that didn’t happen in a long, long time. and here’s something to bite into, for those of you who are interested in chomsky and what he has to say.

things we do

     

*beach sessions*big salads*outdoors wardrobe*mud-building*stone balancing*living room chill out*

i am taking part in this community workshop. and i feel like a little seed of something is starting to grow within me. there is so much intensity that i find it hard to explain. but i am discovering the need of a tribe. the need of belonging to and knowing the people around you, not just being on my own ultra-individualistic planet, circling around other ultra-individualistic planets.

poor & happy

 

once i got this really nice shirt from a friend of mine. a simple, white wife beater, full of holes and with ‘poor n happy’ printed on it. i think i got it at a time when i was ,surprise surprise, very poor, which when i come to think about is usually the case. no one becomes a dancer to earn money…the shirt went through a lot and a while back i cut out the text and saved it and today i finally stitched it onto another shirt.

if i remember it correctly, there was an intended ambiguity about the words, hence it could mean both ‘and happy’ or ‘unhappy’. of course the first option is my preference. if you are poor, you might aswell be happy, otherwise it would be even shittier to be poor. eh…don’t you think?

fruitylicious

 

all these fruits. they are reasons enough to become slightly religious. today i stopped on the roadside and plucked figs. the trees were probably a lot older than my grandmother, they must have been through so much already, yet they still bear fruit. i never got the thing with figs. because i only knew the dried kinds we eat in sweden for christmas. fresh figs is another story. they are so sweet, so soft. and just like peaches they have this amazing skin, in swedish it would be described as ‘luden’ which is a very sweet word. ‘hairy’ just doesn’t do them justice.

and then we have the prickly pears. the fruit of the cactus. now, they demand a special technique for plucking and peeling, otherwise you end up with tons of little painful spikes in your hands, which are easy to feel but very difficult to remove. once you’ve passed that phase, the inside is very tasty though. it is also the season of the passion fruit, grapes, dates…among others.

there is plenty of wild-plucking to be done over here. trees that no one touch, where the majority of the fruit will just fall of and rot.

and again, nature is a great example of humbleness and generosity. just wanted to share that. dream sweet and goodnight.

s♥TV=not true

i started the day with reading the news on the net. how incredibly depressive it is. i always wonder how to balance it out. i want to know what is going on, to a certain degree. at the same time, news is not exactly a balanced medium which give you the full picture. and what do we do with all these facts? do we actually need to know what is going on? does it change much? i feel it mostly creates lots of fears and a general distrust against the world. and that for sure doesn’t do anyone good. this is also the reason i got rid of my TV many years ago. haven’t regretted that since. so, i think i told you that before, but i recommend a life without TV. and about reading and digesting the news, i would be happy to hear your take on it.

a nice cup of tea, but he prefers coffee

oh, this is the moment to be thankful for our male friends who are not potential boyfriends. or lovers. or similar. this one makes my heart beat faster but without any complications. just lots of love and fun, the platonic way…

and i could sure need some of that tonight. after a day of struggling with bureaucratic nonsense. putting it all in proportion though, i know it is simply a question of patience and more patience. no big crises, no dramas yet. another thing to be thankful about, freedom and health. easy skanking. amen.

and a little bit of missing….

talking about being a family with only girls, my sisters little e is a great, male addition to the family. finally, my father is not alone anymore.

hey familjen, i miss you! it already seems so long ago i saw you… same goes for all my friends, spread over the globe. i wish i would be on a biking distance. that’s all i wanted to share for now.

all good things are three

 

my neighbor girls. they are also three, just like me and my sisters. watching them makes me think of how we were as little girls. i wish i knew more. remembered more. it is quite amazing to see how three children, from the same parents, growing up in the same context are still so different while being alike.

i am having such intense days i hardly have time to blog. even though my camera is running warm, and i have plenty of pictures to post. waking up around a quarter to six and from then on until bedtime i am constantly busy. busy bee, that’s me. i will give you more details later. kiss&goodnight.

collection/weekword

i could show you pictures of all my earrings. or of the odd tea cups. fabrics. and boxes. i didn’t realize it before, but i seem to collect quite some stuff after all. even though i do a good job at sorting out every now and then. less is more after all.

but one thing i collect more than all above must be pictures. and thereby i collect memories. which is more or less the idea of pictures. trying to capture that very moment. a collection of memories. sometimes i feel that photographing is the same as growing attached to a moment and a situation, rather than staying dynamic and present. almost like a wish to possess the moment. i’d many times prefer to practice non-attachment, but i can’t seem to stop my love and fascination for photography. c’est tout.

elisabeth chose the weekword, look there for more!

i keep taking snapshots. sometimes it is a real relief not to think while taking pictures, but just pressing the button. like today, i was doing mindless, meditative work. polishing wood. and mud-plastering. later i gave two massage treatments, which was also more about depending on my sense of touch rather than on my rational mind. very good, for a change. and thank god it’s friday! i’ll have a whiskey to celebrate that, even though i need to wake up early bird.

miss trouble has posted

no troubles as far as the eye can see. nope. delete. erase. it is all just a bunch of tentative somethings. but no troubles, right?

jaha

 

there are so many intense and fascinating life-stories going on around me. i feel seriously grateful to be surrounded by special people that teach me things about life. there are so many more tools and so many more ways to look at things then we think. if we are just willing to shift the focus. i am not sure i can explain what i mean like this. but still. can you follow?

dutchies, i got 15 dutch coffee spoons from a friend in sweden, now please tell me, the most right one on the picture, is it supposed to be the erasmus tower?

pattern porn

  

old, worn-out cotton with patterns of all kinds and a collection of odd cups. those must be a few of my perversions.

the heat is incredible. i can not do much but lay in bed under the ventilator. how will i perform this night, i wonder? i wanted to share this very beautiful song with you. and wish you a great weekend.

visit evelina!

she is a photographer and a hard working house renovator and on her blog you can find beautiful pictures of all sorts, plus this week you can try to win her cat photos! this is my personal favorite….

p.s if it wasn't clear before, the picture above is evelinas picture!

speed queen in use

 

i fantasize about a mobile home. like this little camper i saw today. it would have a tiny kitchen, a bed, a hang out area, and the most essential and necessary stuff. not more. not less. of course it would still be very cozy and homey. and i could travel around and put my house wherever i feel like. i dream about driving all the way from israel to sweden, stopping by many places on the way. it would help if i had a driving license to begin with.

today i was sitting around in the heat, after i finished rehearsal. going slightly mad. and despite the sun i took my camera and went for a long walk. it is such good therapy, playing with the camera while wandering the streets. my walk finished at the laundromat. i kind of like laundromats, and i seem to have photographed a few already. but today was one of the first time i used one. people seemed to think i was a bit weird, taking pictures of my dirty laundry. but anyhow, laundromats are also nice places to chill out in. you just bring a book, or some postcards to write. but enough of this and good night.