ink and pen

LET THEM BE THE INK, INSTEAD.

 

Update

Today is one of those Mondays where I feel restless enough to be on top of my game on the productivity department. At my desk it works perfectly on a time we have more to do than time to do it. It also helps to clean up the mac and by default, the nearly 100 messages on the gmail account.

Why don´t you write anymore? 

This comes from somebody whom has read every single one of my posts, but never has left a single comment and somehow shocks me.

Did something change? and when?

Some months ago I got to know this really cool blogger whom has managed to control her anonymity quite well. Over coffee we talked about great it is to be anonymous, to be able to vomit your most deep feeling without retaliations, to be brutally honest, and dark enough to be incredibly interesting…

At some point, the comments, the feedback, gives you as much (if not more) pleasure than the freedom to say whatever you want out loud, and the hints give us away.

Some people have figure out who I am, and now things have changed

Why do we blog, I reflected on my way home, why I did start blogging, and why and when things started to changed, and more interesting, the price I (we) had to pay when things change. When others put a face on your words, when your love ones know about how you feel through a declaration made public for everyone to know… When then you risk to hurt those love ones or to instigate misinterpretations…

I wondered if blogging has become a alternate route to personal conversations, a route to avoid direct confrontations, a route where the end may be either getting reassurance from the unknown people or sour confrontations from the known love ones…

… Then what?

tic tac

@Tumblr

 

– What are you doing?

– I am getting dressed. I gotta go.

– But…

– But what?

– I didn´t know you smoke…

– You just met me less than 3 hours ago. There is plenty you don´t know -and  don´t need to know.

– I thought… I think I would like to know more of that “plenty.”

– Honey, your time is up. There is still “plenty” outside waiting  for me… and the clock is ticking.

–

7 years and missing you the same

(My brother, my confident, my half… Sintu RIP 15-05-2006)

 

When my time arrives, let me go.
Although i may have things to see and things to do
let me me go, because it is my time.

Don´t tie yourselves to me with tears,
rejoice in all the years we been together.
I have loved you so much,
and you have given me much happiness.
I give you thanks for the love everyone has shown me,
but now is time for me to travel alone.

So if you need to cry, cry a little,
but cry only for a while
and then let your grief be comforted
by the knowledge that we will meet soon.
It’s just for a moment we are apart from each other
so bless those memories in your heart.

Despite life goes on, i will not be far away,
so if you need me, call and i will come.
Although you may not see me or touch me, I will always be near
and if you listen with your heart,
you will feel all my love around you, soft and clear.

Then, when it is time for you to walk this path
this lonely road that i have to do now,
I will greet you with a smile
and i will say “welcome home”

Actual vampires (quickie)

The Vampire – Edvard Munch

 

Some, parasitic by nature.
Most, parasitic by circumstance.
The worst ones… parasite by choice.

Self absorbed, manipulative,
playing the victim card.

So called friends 

Parasites that will (try to) suck your into their spiral
but not now…

Not when they encounter a strong pack.
Not when we finally see through them.

I laugh for being on a black list.

Parenting or laziness

– I need a cell phone, he says. He is 6, and he seems so offended, standing there, with his arms crossed, because he needs a cell phone.
– You need a cell phone…
– YES! he tights his arms around his body angrily.
– Who the hell are you gonna call to? Dora the explorer?

They say most things come on three, or something like that. In the afternoon I get scolded because I am browsing my 10 y.o journal, and as I walk upstairs, news on TV are discussing the children´s right to a private life.

What the hell?

I totally get that my girl, who´s 10, needs a break from her brother who is 6. I understand that when she is with her girlfriends she needs some privacy, in the same way he does not need his older sister busting his balls when he is with his buddies. And I understand also that kids need their own quite time alone.

I get that.

What I don´t get, is when I hear that there is not ok to see what your kids are up to, to be in a precise tune when it comes to a pre-teen girl. What I don’t get is that it seems to be perfectly ok for us parents to leave complete freedom and no boundaries to our children.

In a fast-paced life as we live nowadays, it is so easy to park the kids in front of the TV, the iPad or the computer. I am not saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with that – once in a while, I am grateful to be able to take a little “brake” myself also. What I believe that is fundamentally wrong, is not to follow what the kids do then. What I mean is that I, as a parent, need to check who does she talk on Mine craft or Moviestarplanet -and more important, who is asking her for her e-mail or phone number.

So hang on a second… Since when we parents have become so lazy?

I trust my kids… The point is that I don’t trust the predators of the world… Mobbing, harassment, pear pressure… If I am completely oblivious of what is going in their life, how am I going to protect them? How, if I don’t have control of what they do, and with who?

I am not stupid, -at least I´d like to believe that I am not. I believe my children will go and do that things we all did when we were teenagers, I believe they will have secrets, they will hide things from me… But I keep reminding myself that they didn’t ask to be in this world, that it was my decision to have them here, and it is my responsibility to protect them and to guard them until they are strong enough to do it alone.

There is simply no rush to grow up, no need to speed things up. The idea that mascara and heels and internet friends scare the shit out of me. Let the kids be kids and be alert, l keep telling myself. I understand their need to feel more grown, the need to “belong”, but that doesn´t mean I like it. I understand also that at some point I need to compromise.

He asks for a cell phone. I think fast. I have an old phone that doens´t work, I turn it on, set the alarm to 1 hour and I send him out. He can´t call but he has an alarm that makes him feel important and grown-up. He is playing out, and I am sure he will be back in 1 hour on the spot. Win-win situation, I guess…

In the meantime, I will keep being a lioness -because it is my job and my responsibility. I will keep snooping on my daughter´s journal because… Well, see the video and know why…
 

Disintegrating

Christine, the strawberry girl
Christine, banana split lady
Christine, the strawberry girl
Christine sees her faces unfurl

She is pretty, but she is not a prettyface and despite she knows she doesn’t need make up, she feels she needs a mask nevertheless. A few times, in front of the mirror she wonders what is she is really hiding from…

She thinks of him. He certainly does not wear “New Wave” make up, or dark clothes, and probably he doesn’t even know who The Cure is, or Siouxsie and the Banshees or Joy Division, like she does. He is older, like really older and his style is impeccable, presentable if you will, well mannered and serious behind some round glasses.

Unreachable?

She feels inadequate, but she likes to listen to him. He likes to read out loud, despite his class is totally uninterested on listening to him, but she likes to listen to him, she likes to think he reads only for and to her –and at some point he notices that, and eventually, he notices her.

She tries not to shatter, kaleidoscope style
Personality changes behind her red smile
Every new problem brings a stranger inside
Heplessly forcing one more new disguise

When he leans his head down and peeks over his round glasses, the light´s reflection on the glass disappear; when he leans his head down and exposes his eyes, she can see blue oceans looking at her -talking to her. And when he turns his eyes to the book and keeps reading, his moving lips mesmerise her, her mouth opening slowly, watering…

Why the boys her age are so… clueless?

Now’s shes in purple
Now’s she the turtle
Disintegrating
Christine, Christine

Reminiscence on any given Monday

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Please be careful is never careful
Till it hears the gun
She will always pay the bills
For the having big fun
He talks so well, what can you do,
It’s pretty plain he means it too
I don’t want to sell you lines,
I only mean to do you right
But I’m a simple slave of appetite,
I’m a poor slave of appetite

Hunger howls, hungers red,
Hungers stays till it’s fed
Then it some h-h-how fades,
Then it somehow leaves your sight
Depending on it’s appetite,
Depending on your appetite

So if you take – then put back good
If you steal – be robin hood
If your eyes are wanting all you see
Then I think I’ll name you after me
I think I’ll call you appetite
Here she is with two small problems
And the best part of the blame
Wishes she could call him heartache
But it’s not a boy’s name

If you grow up to be, just like him, just like me
You’re fighting for exclusive rights,
For honeymoons each sleepless night
In which case I’ll call you appetite
Yes I think I’ll call you appetite

So if you take – then put back good
If you steal – be robin hood
If your eyes are wanting all you see
Then I think I’ll name you after me
I think I’ll call you appetite

So if you take – then put back good
If you steal – be robin hood
If your eyes are wanting all you see
Then I think I’ll name you after me
I think I’ll call you appetite

Then I think I’ll name you after me
I think I’ll call you appetite

Prefab Sprout – Appetite

Secrets

You know –and you get a kick when you know it, but the very best is that they don’t know you know. And you observe them, like a predator observes its pray, moving careless and unaware of its vulnerability. You savor initially that knowledge with a crooked smile and feel an intense pleasure. Information is power, they say, and information that falls unintentionally on your lap is the most powerful of all…

It is a rush -but the rush evolves and mutates, and most of the time not in a wood way. Is the secret meant to be concealed? Is it meant to be discovered? A secret is (almost) never a good thing, and (almost) always conceals some harm, some betrayal or some deceit…

As you are damn good collecting secrets as you are keeping them, the question remains…what do you do, then, when the rush settles and the the pain of those secrets smack you in the face?

How do you keep playing the secret?

Photo: x-shadow.livejournal.com

Don´t forget

Remember to be true,  to others,  but mostly to yourself.
Don´t fall. Don´t let them push you and make you fall.
Be who you are and stay strong.

Like a child chewing the top of a pencil,
frowning,
deeply thinking,
concentrate and don´t forget:
either you do different things, or you do things differently.

Implosion

It doesn´t hurt, but I feel it physically in my body. It is like an implosion in my deepest core, bending my body at the waste. My chest fills with air, my breath stops until I sneak my face  from behind in between your hair and I exhale “I love you”

It doesn´t hurt, it doesn´t,
but even if it did… I wouldn´t want it any other way.

 

Cats and dogs

Photo by Daniel Chowen

By instinct she leans over to pick a bag of cat food, but then again she remembers she doesn´t have a cat -that the cats that used to come to the house are long gone. There is no more purring, no more scratching, no more biting – at least not in that way, anyway. The small flap door has been replaced by a solid door that she has painted and make it look beautifully in harmony with the house.

It is Friday and she is alone, and right there in the middle of the store her back aches, because she is still leaning over the bag of cat food and who the hell puts those bags on the lower shelf and her back makes a “pop” when she stands straight while she mumbles that she is way too damn old for this shit.

The sensor flashes as she leaves the store and the doors shush open to opposite sides. She sees his tail wagging immediately as he sees her.

She smiles.

She pets him lovingly.

“Let´s go, buddy… Let´s go home”

 

 

Summer dictionary

Things with great significance this summer. Since I am still in a lazy post vacation modus, I don´t do alphabetically… Not that is important anyway, right?

Paradise: my parents beach house that is. Being some meters from the warm sand, the waves that put me to sleep every night…

Family: no drama, no fighting – just chilling this year (thank you happy pills)

Bleach: this year my mother wins an special award for ruining just 1 pair of shorts. Honorable mention for 2 missing socks.

Gossip club: 13 minutes into the first day I know who is who, who is doing what, where, how and/or who. Rule nr. 1 is to position your beach chair strategically in the sand. Also, minimum age is 73, I think – but I got VIP gold membership at the end of our stay.

Friends: one specially, Mireia, my true and closest – can´t tell how much I love her in just a few words…

Life guard: The usually big-like-a-closet and experienced guys that come from Argentina to work the Spanish summer were replace for this cute as a button, 40 kg young  out of school boy. No need to say that he was the laughing stock every single day he walked pass the Gossip Club.

Money: I have spent a lot… No need to say more.

Sexy time: Zero; well, honestly, some 30% flying solo.

Goosebumps: nothing like bathing naked, really… Take your suit off in the water and feel. One of the best sensations ever. Not good only when one of your kids run out of the water towards the next beach and I had to walk naked a couple of hundred meters to get him. That day I got fired from the Gossip club or I got my VIP gold membership status… Still not sure.

Shameless: this show, the American one, was my real entertainment way before falling sleep. Genius!!

Movie: This year, the movie date for the girls features “Moonrise Kingdom” and pink popcorn. Super sweet and funny. Was Instagram to have a movie, it would be this one.

Rain: back in Bergen, kids are out for some days and I am alone. I feel alone. Vacation is over. I feel blue, more that the sky I long for.
The last one, but not the least one:

Mr. Incredible: He decides to buy a Volkswagen Up!, basically a backpack with wheels, and I change his name from AttentionWhore to Mr. Incredible. 4 days and I will be in his arms…

How about your summer? What words would describe it?

Closed for vacation (I think….)

 

.

 

 

Tonight

I will leave the door open
and the lights off
quietly waiting for you.

I will crumple the sheets
tight under my fist.

Tonight
I will taste salt
while you taste sugar
my skin arching in the dark
making shadows.

Not your typical Sunday

I posted this laying down at the beach with some friends while they were grilling dinner. I had a great Sunday: I took the kids to town in the morning, had some lunch, took awesome pictures with my new lenses, and we ended up the weekend grilling at the beach. I needed this chilling, I tell myself, when I started driving back home. It is some minutes over 7pm when I hear the cell phone.

– Are you home?
– Not yet, we will be there in some minutes… What´s wrong?
– I am bleeding- really bad, I think I need to go to the hospital right now.

It is no secret that I am not Mr. K, my ex-husband´s Nr. 1 fan, but Sandra, his new wife, I am really fond of. She is from Brazil, a kind, sweet and patient woman whom I feel absolutely comfortable leaving my children with. Sandra is pregnant for the second time, she is due in a week and her mom and sister are in town.

Sara, her sister, is supposed to go back to Brazil tomorrow. She is quite happy that the baby hasn’t given any problems, and she hopes that it stays that way until she leaves. She came to help mom across the ocean, but that is pretty much it. Now Her sister is bleeding bad.

– Get in the car right away, Sandra.
– I am bleeding so much…
– Now! 

I try to push away from my mind the pool of blood I have just seen and I squeeze her hand. It´s ok, I tell her. Is it? I ask myself silently.

I can see the hair on he arms raise when the nurse spread the contact gel on her belly. I squeeze her hand again. I think I smile. I hold my breath for endless seconds until we hear the baby´s heart.  I squeeze again. I know I smile. She does also.

I listen in Norwegian, carefully and I know now what it is going to happen before they tell Sandra in English. The placenta has erupted, she has lost way too much blood and the baby must come out now. NOW! She cries when she hears cesarean, but she has to stop, because things are so bad there is no time for emotions.

– Do you want to be with her in the OR?

Sara is completely overwhelmed, scared and freaked out. I believe my help has to be put aside and bring forward the consideration that she is the sister and she is family and I am just the husband´s ex wife. And the ex wives are not supposed to be wearing scrubs in the OR comforting the new wife and wiping tears. Ex wives are not supposed to be the first person holding the new wife´s baby, taking pictures or memorizing the APGAR scored.

– She shouldn’t be alone, Sara.
– You go, you speak the language, if something happens…

So l am in, full scrubbed, and I am doing all those things ex wives are not supposed to do -and I feel honored I am sharing that moment with Sandra.

I move back and forth between the OR and the room where the baby is, information, passing information between doctors and Sandra, trying to reach Mr. K, taking pictures…

– Do you want to bring him to her?

I take the baby -my God, he looks so much like my our son, and I bring him to her, and I hate for a moment that she can´t hold him, because her arms are spread full of catheters and she can´t hold him, and despite she can caress his face with her lips, I feel like an intruder and I hate that she can´t hold him…

– 10 fingers, 10 toes – he is a mini version of our son.

I tell Mr. K on the phone, and I feel for him, because he is unfortunately out of the country, and because despite I am not his Nr. 1 fan, he is the father of my children, and now he is the father of her children, and I like her, and I like her children also.

She has lost more than 2.2 liters of blood, so she remains in the intensive care unit. I drive to her house, take a bag with toiletries, bring it back to the hospital, do one more round between doctors to make sure she is ok, call Mr. K and update him, pick up her sister and bring her to their house. I get my children and bring them home.

Is past 11.30pm. Kids are finally in bed. I am still wearing my bathing suit and I have a pounding headache but this time Jim Bean will be more effective that Paracet. I feel tears in my eyes but I keep smiling. The whole thing has been completely like an Almodovar movie, moreover the conversation with the midwives:

– So you are the ex´s wife.
– Yes.
– And you are here with her.
– Yes.
– You have children also?
– Yes, 9 and 6
– And where are your children?
– Her mom is babysitting them…

It is nearly 1am and I cant sleep. I need to call the hospital and check with the doctor if Sandra is OK and if the baby is OK. Sandra and the baby are OK and resting now. Mr. K is coming soon to take over. Now I can rest.

So welcome to this world, Enzo Gabriel, you (we) made it! -I am so proud of you, of your mom and what the hell… I am so proud of myself.

.

Compromises

“You aint playing football, buddy. Whatever you want to do, it has to be indoors”

This I told MissAttitude when she started school. Being a single mom with a 6 year old and a baby, being in the middle of a bitter divorce and a cancer treatment, this was my only condition for her: I am NOT standing under the rain every Wednesday watching you kick a ball.

The selected activity turned to be karate. And last year, handball.

“I want to play handball.”

“Where do they play that?”

“Olsvikhallen”

A hall has a roof, I figure.

“Ok. Go for it.”

Nearly 5 years later, she holds a blue belt, she is grading again in a couple of weeks and she kicks ass with the handball.

My point?

This weekend I spent several hours watching her playing “beach handball”, not on a  beach, but in a field full of sand. It was not even 10 degrees and a north freezing wind. I am still shivering -and still wondering why I do agree to those things. And it all comes down on compromises. The compromises we parents do when we give them the freedom to choose and the compromise for us, parents to encourage, follow, comfort and  cheer them.

We come home and I vacuum at least 3 kilos of sand from the floor. I am exhausted…

LittleDumbass will start school this fall. I wonder what his deal breaker will be, but the conditions remain the same… My deal breaker is seeing MissAttitude cheeks reddened with the wind and the sun.

Fucking sand all over the place…

North is West – come back to me

You are going on the wrong direction, love. North is not North, North is West.

– Now that I am getting used to this, now you have to go…
– I know. I have been ready before I knew I was ready, but I know how it is for you…

My skin knows your skin…

He is leaving, going North, going on the wrong direction. I feel like a woman from the middle ages waiving good-bye to her man, going to war, unaware of when she will see him again. He is not going to war, but to work- and I dont know neither when I will see him again.

The pillow gets moist with tears of sadness first, with drool of lust later on. One last furious good-bye.

My skin knows your skin…

You are going on the wrong direction, love. North is not North, North is West.
Come (soon) back to me.

One night stand

– Why do they call it a “one night stand”?

He turns his head, turns his body towards her. He sees her in black and white -her body laying there, naked, her nipples still hard with droplets of sweat.

– I mean, why specifically a “one night stand”?

Her lips make a big O while she takes a puff from the cigarette. She made a big O some minutes before, but she didn’t have a cigarette on her mouth. Her lips were red and full, and now the lipstick is all smushed around her lips. So hot… so raw and sexy… he thinks, and he feels he is growing again.

She turns her head and looks at him.

– Why night? Is it a pre-requisite? Does it have to be done at night?

– I think is just an…

– I know it is just an expression, she interrupts, what I wonder, is why is it called a night. Does it imply that can be done only at night? I mean, it is 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and we just…

He takes the cigarette out of her hands, takes a puff. He kills it on the ashtray while he exhales; leans over her and whisper ssshhhh so close to her mouth that she swallows the whisper.

– Let’s make it last until the night, then…

 

 

23 d´abril: Diada de Sant Jordi

Hi havia una vegada…
(Once upon a time…)

“Once upon a time” is how one begins to tell – not to explain, but to tell –  a story that will make you believe in magic. “Once upon a time” coming out of your grandparents mouth, means that you need to hurry up and get a seat – or to seat on their lap, to cross your legs like a Buddha on the floor, or to lay still in bed. Something is about to happen.
Escolta amb atenció (listen carefully)

Aaah! Heart pumping.