I'm back (I think)

Oh my - it's been so long. I'm just gonna jump right back here, I don't know what happened but it has to do with the winter, the cold, the snow, the fatigue and the kids being sick all the time. . No energy. Also: thoughts about changing language here to Swedish. Thoughts about finding a better web hotel since you can't subscribe to this blog unless you have an gmail account (is that so?). And thoughts about how to use the very little time I have got theese days. It is close to nothing. The older the smallest kid gets, the more attention she needs. And the oldest, he who is two years.. well, attention, attention, ATTENTION. The other day I thought: this is sooo not normal.. His outbursts. The drama. But then a mom I know told me that the avarage amount of conflicts with a two year old is about twenty a day. 20. A day. Conflicts.
At night I feel like I try to fall sleep a feet or so over the bed - that's how tense I am, ready to wake up and move over to my son's bed or to nurse the baby. I realize I'm not connected to the bed, then I try to relax.
Ready - this readiness. When will it end - never?

I have though, I don't know how, been doing some art. I did a performance at the Modern Museum in Stockholm. I called it Tender objects inspired by my last blog post. The things, objects to keep, the objects around us .. I had a few actors do a show-and-tell abou a few things they had chosen from their home. It was beautiful, only the setting was completely wrong. It was a club and the arty crowd was very restless due to thirst for beer, I believe. In the next performance (not mine) the audinece got to drink a whole bottle of vodka, I think that was more of what they were after, maybee.

I also attended a workshop for actors. Or, it wasn't for actors, it was meant to be for all kind of artists and about creativity. But it was mostly about performing. On stage. Perferably with an audience.
I often find myself in awkward situations, situations that are very uncomfortable for me. I'm often uncomfortable leaving my safe places. I want to know things. I want to know enough about things not to feel unsafe. I know that's not possible if one ever want to learn something new. And I am. Learning.
I'm learning so much I actually start to get ready to pass that learning on. So. I'm trying to put together a workshop in creative writing. More on that later. More on everything later.

51 objects

51 objects. 

Top shelf:
1. Cocktailglass with note saying ”I fuck you because you publish books”. I experimented with text on objects. The line is from a fellow writer, friend of mine.
2. Invitiation to my exhibition ”The things we never said" at Niklas Belenius Art Gallery in march 2009
3. Drawing with small chairs: ”Not now”
4. Drawing, also with chairs: "Don't tell her"
5. Map of Tristan da Cunha, the remotest populated place on earth
6. A picture of Santeria saints; Chango, Obatala etc. Bought by me at a market in the Dominican Republic sometime in the 90's. During my trip I actually visited a Santeria priest for counselling. He threw some stones on the dirt floor and told me I shouldn't wear black. I always wear black. He offered to give me more advice if I payed for a hen to sacrifice. I declined his offer.
7. Drawing from my husband with loveletter that starts ”I want to draw the greatest drawing.."
8. Toy carousel gift from P
9. Butterfly, found dead and brought home from The Dominican Republic from an amazing island full of butterflies. Displayed in a frame I bought in Sweden.
10. An olive wreath made by P and given to me when he proposed in Catalonia May 2007. We were married two months later.
11. Two cups given to me by  Paula friend  and roommate 1998. We used these cups (and bigger ones) to drink coffee flavoured with vanilla and smoked a lot of cigarettes, while talking about men and discussing if we should get a kitten.
Upper part of drawer:
12. Two small animals in ceramic. Possibly a dog and a sheep. Bought in Mexico on honeymoon with my first husband.
13. A mexican lovecatcher. You put your finger in it and you get stuck. My then boyfriend happened upon it in a street of Stockholm, nighties.
14. Eleborate spoons, wedding gift from our friends in N.Y who are also the kids godparents.
15. Pistachio cookie with almonds, dry. From Venice where we spent New Year 2005.
16.. Our son's birth notice from the paper.
17. Cup from my art show. Inscription says ”I said I loved you when really I was hating myself".
18. A calavera, death as a lady. From Mexico, maybe Oaxaca.
19. A reproduction of drawing by Lousie Borgouise: a male who is pregnant.
20. A jar filled with shells that I picked a summer twenty years ago, different beaches.
21. A frame bought in Rio de Janeiro with picture of a Saint (the black madonna) and my mothers ”In memorian” notice from 2001 when she had been gone ten years.

Lower part of drawer:
22. Pine cone labelled with handwritten note: Lucca, Italy 2007.
23. Little shack made out of a camembert box. Me and my husband, then boyfriend, travelled 2007 with that camembert in the car, and we thought the smell came from shells we had been collecting, we even got chlorine to clean them in the hotelroom. Later on we discovered the origin of the smell. Nothing wrong with the cheese though..
24. Branch with grey moss. Labeled Anna o Christos house, 2007
25. Photo cut out from newspaper; portrait of Marguerite Duras as a young woman.. My favourite book by her is "Le ravissment de Lol V Stein"
26. Photo from newspaper, portait of the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector.
27. Shell, probably from Brazil.
28. A small coral or seagrass, origin unknown
29. Shell bought in Parati, Brazil in 2003
30. A small bone, possibly from bird, shape of a plane. Find made by P.
31. Seastar. I know I have found it somewhere but I don’t remember where. You see, those labels are very useful. You think you will remember, and then you don’t.
32. Calavera. Gift from childhood friend K whose sister lives in Mexico City.
33. Sea urchin, bought in Brasil.
34. Small boat made of wood and paper. Made by artist friend Amy Finkbeiner and given to us in company with additional two boats. Amy lives in New York.
35. Pomegranate, dry. Given to P when we first met.
36. Sea urchin bought in Brasil. Once I stepped on a live sea urchin. It was extremely painful and one of the thorns didn’t come out until six months later!
37. Note from P. ”All my shacks are about my longing for you”
38. Shell with a hole in it. Labeled: Bretagne 2007.
39.  Crystal. I don’t remember where I got this, I had it like forever.. Probably got it in Stockholm, sometime during my twenties, that being my new age period, when I believed in the power of stones. As an example: I slept with an amethyst under my pillow to relief sorrow and had this crystal in my right pocket supposedly for good energy. Or was it the left pocket?
40. Shell, origin unknown. Looks exotic.
41. Shell, origin unknown. Same type of shell as 40.
42. Little table for a dollhouse. Bought it a couple of years ago, for art or maybee just for a dream of having a doll house, fully equiped. I dreamt of one when I was a girl, but when I finally got one it was not the dream - in white and pink, but something my mother had made herself in a carpenters workshop.. well..
43. Small turtle, wood, painted, from Brazil.
44. Big shell from Bretagne. Me and P went to Spain by car in 2007. We passed Bretange looking for lighthouses.
45. Chrysler building made of wood, gift from P from one of  many visits in N.Y.
I always go on about how I’d love to live there. But when actually visiting, I feel completely lost. But the dream lives on.
46. Small car, maybe a cab in N.Y - from the same souvenirbag as above.
47. Note, small, on paper ”I love you”.
48. Cookie cutter, shape of a plane. I have a fascination for old fashioned planes. It comes from the books by St Exupery who wrote ”The little prince”. His novels for grownups is mainly about his experience as a pilot and are beautiful.
49. Butterfly out of fabric. Broken, magnet gone.
49. The Statue of Liberty made out of wood.
50. Michael, the archangel, small picture.

On the side:
51. Necklace made out of coloured beads made by my mother while she was expecting me.


          

tender objects

When I moved houses last time it was the first time in seventeen years. I had lived in the same place during all that time, seing myself as a restless person, yet refused to leave. It was I might add a beautiful place. When I left I threw away two car loads of junk. Or memories. I kept some in the attic. I can't believe how much things i seem o gather around me. Let's face it - I am a collector. How ever much I want to live minimalistic with only a few things around me, I will not succeed. And my husband has the same ambition towards the empty space, but he too is a collector and seems to have an eye for finding the unexpexted or seing poetry in the most humble objects.

I'm obsessed with memory. Much more than "memories". Memory as a place, places as memories. I am fascinated by objects and what they mean to us, but also their inner meaning. The presence of someone, something, objects and their connection to places and to that place in my head where memories gather and fade away as time passes. I have a drawer on the wall, with some of theese objects of memory. I made an inventory and the result is presented in my post "51 objects".

November rain

The dampness, the moisture, all the waterdrops in a day, our walking on wet leaves
morning; I feel their bodies moving near my body in our rooms the baby's body is the closest
love is this
in the morning, in the moisture, still remember sleep, still remembering those warm sheets
and blood streaming, hearts beating without visable effort, just the streaming, heartbeats
the breathing both within and around us
milk flowing her drinking at dawn, eyes closed
everything is silent
silently streaming, hearts are beating, questions asked and answered
what gratitude
for the yearning
for new days to come
for this damp day
for their love

one too many mornings and a.. moment of clarity

Funny enough, but not ha-ha funny, having decided I was not going to loose it again - the very next morning I did it again. One too many mornings-

My son, the two year old, wakes me att 6.30 which is OK. Everything earlier is NOT ok. But once he is set on starting his morning there is nothing one can do about it. Still, at that hour of the day I'm dead tired. He carefully withdraws the covers, even at the feet, then he says Up! Up! UP!
Great.
The smallest one, the baby, wakes up - wants food. My husband is obviously asleep in my son's bed, as he has taken the night-duty and slept beside him. I'm ready to take the morning"routine".  I try to nurse the baby, but my son comes walking happily with a toy hammer and I have to postpone the nursing.
This is very stressful, (anyone who has been nursing knows it does something with your hormones..).

After what is a couple of hours of navigating through what is close to chaos (don't do this don't do that) we are getting closer to the time when my husband sees my son of to daycare. But at this time the baby is getting fuzzy and the two-year-old even fuzzier.
When I finally loose it, it has again to do with those little gloves he doesn't want to put on. I want to have a smooth and nice farewell, but time is running out. The small fingers of his that slips away while he is shouting for something I do not get. But it has to do with the grouphoto of his daycare buddies on the fridge. "Yes, those are your friends and you are going there!" He' s protesting. "You are going to meet them soon!" But he doesn't settle for anything and refuses to put on the gloves and gets loader and louder.. The baby gets loader and louder too. .

Then I suddenly find myself throwing the gloves on the floor, I say something - let's say it's "goodammit"- and tears start flowing. My husband asks what is the matter.
"I can't stand it when he is screaming and crying" I scream and cry. Logical, right?

That's the second I loose it and give up - and that's exactly the same moment I realize what he wants. He wants to hold the photo. He wants to bring it. As he always brings something from home to daycare, like my husband said: "it's like a bridge from home to there".
If only I had watched him more carefully. How important were those gloves after all? If I had been watching him more carefully I would have known. I know it's not so easy and I do forgive my self about this turmoil and that I loose it. Still, it's uncomfortable. For me, and certainly for him.

When my husband returns after he has left him at daycare he tells me how our son had brought the photo, to show the other children. How they gathered around, pointing out who was who. (I find that very funny.) My husband said "don't worry, you're a good mother". I said: "it is so hard somtimes".


It is hard to feel so insufficient. They need me so much, the children, both of them, equally.
And then suddenly it dawned upon me: I'M A MOTHER OF TWO.
Well, I admit, I have noticed before - but it kind of hit me. Like a moment of clarity.
I suddenly understood the situation totally from their perspective - just how much they need me.
Why? Why do they need me, why do they want me so bad?
Because - I'm their mother.
This filled me with so much compassion and fear my eyes flooded with tears - again.

Compassion - of course. From the deep of my heart. Fear - of not being enough for them!
And frankly, for a moment, fear of the fact that there is NO ESCAPE. Maybe this sound strange to you but I was always very fond of escape routes. For several reasons I don't do escape any longer.
And this one? I'm stuck. Thank God for that.

My concern for your tomato plants

For those not familiar with Richard Brautigan, the sense of humour might not be that obvious in the poem about starfish shared in my last post.. It's kind of subtle. True or not, I'd still like to share with you a little more of his poetry -

MY CONCERN FOR YOUR TOMATO PLANTS

I stare at your tomato plants.
You're not, I'm not pleased with the way they are growing.
I try to think of ways to help them.
I study them. What do I know about tomatoes?
"Perhaps some nitrate" I suggest.
But I don't know anything and now I've taken
to gossiping about them. I'm as shameless
as their lack of growing.

MELTING ICE AT THE EDGE OF YOUR FINAL THOUGHT

Oh well, call it a
life.


FOR FEAR YOU WILL BE ALONE

For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren't you at all.

listen to starfish

The name of this blog is a line I came across the other day while searching for a name . . I found a poem in a Richard Brautigan book that belongs to my husband. It reminded me of a line of my own in a collection of poetry I published years ago. Something about.. listening to a starfish with your hand,  letting your senses move towards a brand new way of listening.. an exquisite listening.
That's what I'm after. That new way of listening. Call it intuition? My inner voice? Something outside of me?

Richard Brautigan was a writer published in the 70's, it's not my favourite writer of all times, still, I do like his sense of humour and I enjoy reading his work. His poetry is somewhat sad but funny too.
I would say that in his writing he is an "affectionate pessimist".
His great sense of humour contradicts the fact that he shot himself in his cabin in the late seventies.
Or maybe not. A good sense of humour can't save you from everything, can it. 

Here is the poem that Richard Brautigan wrote who inspired me for the title of this blog.
For some obscure reason I find it hillarious.
*

CALVIN LISTENS TO STARFISH

Calvin listens to starfish.
He listens to them very carefully,
lying in the tide pools,
soaking wet
with his clothes on,
but is he really listening to them?

*

(Oh, and when I think of it, my own poem was about jellyfish.)