Kategoriarkiv: Personligt

Podcast 47/52 – Peak creative windows

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Jonathan Fields points the finger on a sore spot for me, in this Good Life Project riff. How do I structure my days to ensure I work with my natural thinking and creation cycles, rather than fight ‘em? And what times of the day am I most organically creative? Listening to Jonathan, I realize I don’t really know my daily thinking/creation cycle all that well.createLike Jonathan, I have a peak creative window late at night, say from 9 or 10 pm and a few hours onwards. If I am still up by then, and there’s something to get done, boy, can I ever get it done, and with good quality at that.

But what – or rather, when – is my daytime creative window? Hm. I don’t really know. Have gotten into a somewhat lethargic routine on mornings when I don’t have to be somewhere at a set time, with a social media-session (that usually lasts much longer than the 15 minutes I aim at…), my daily Headspace meditation, doing my Seven exercise and then making a green smoothie, drinking it while reading the news paper and completing my daily Sudoku. And you know what? Nice as these slow mornings are, there is something within me wanting to come out, that isn’t. I’m not helping myself by structuring my days in a way that helps me get it out. Running more on mood than anything else?

I read someone who said they preferred to give people a hand up rather than a hand out. And that’s what popped into my mind now. How can I give myself a hand up to actually work with my natural creative windows? Making the most of them, if nothing else because it’s enjoyable?

Kvalitetslitteratur!

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Sonen fick en bok i 11-års-present av (bonus)moster och kusin. De högläser den själva och fastnade för den, så när oktoberfesten stod inför dörren, var presenten given.

mördarens apaMördarens apa, av Jakob Wegelius.

Sonen la händerna på boken redan samma kväll, började läsa och var hooked. En vecka senare när vi åt på restaurang med morfar hade Mr B boken med sig, och mellan rätterna plöjdes kapitel på kapitel. Morfar som själv är bokmal av rang gladdes stort åt barnbarnets uppenbara läsiver.

Och ett tu tre kom han med boken till mig och sa att han läst ut den. Bästa boken ever! Det ni, det är ett gott omdöme det. Sen skulle vi åka på helgutflykt norröver, varpå han raskt packade ner boken, så att jag skulle få läsa den. Jag hade lite annan lektyr med mig men blev varm i hjärtat av hans omtanke.

Och när jag väl började läsa den tog det endast ett par dagar innan jag plöjt den (alla 619 sidorna, älskar tegelstenar!). Sista kvällen (eller ärligt talat, mitt i natten) så släckte jag tom ljuset i syfte att somna… när jag efter några minuters vridande fram och tillbaka i sängen – till makens förtret – insåg att jag inte ville det. Jag ville läsa klart för att få redan på vem som egentligen gjorde vad och hur i allsindar skulle det gå för alla och envar, alla dessa härliga karaktärer som porträtteras med varsam och skicklig hand av författaren, både i ord och bild.

Kvalitetslitteratur måste jag säga. En bok som passar perfekt för högläsning (lagom långa kapitel) för en lågstadieknodd, som slukas av en elvaåring under två tre veckor, och som plöjs på två tre kvällar av en bokmal till 43-årig mamma. Så vill du ha ett boktips för alla åldrar så grabba tag i ett exemplar av Mördarens apa! I gengäld kanske du har ett alla-åldrar-boktips till mig?

 

 

 

Day 9 NaJoWriMoPrompt: Important or Special Numbers In Your Life

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Numbers are very powerful in life. For today’s prompt, write about at least three or four different numbers that have special meaning for you. Examples include: a special year, a particular age, a specific time, a grade level number, a dollar amount, or a number of days.

Numbers.

So. Special numbers. Or rather. Numbers with a special meaning to me. Hm. Am I that attached to numbers? Not so sure, actually. But of course, based on happenings on a specific date, or year, it’s easy to place extra meaning upon those numbers.

Like the number seventeen. I do like the number seventeen. I’m born on the seventeenth. As is my youngest son. And my bonus-son, at that. I remember at school, always picking the number 17 if there was a number to pick. Me and hubby even got married on the 17th. Guess who picked that date?

As a teenager and young adult, I had a certain fascination with the year 2000. I wanted to have a baby that year, thinking it would be so cool to always know one’s aged, based on the current year. Turns out, I opted for the even cooler 1999, having one foot in two millennia.

numbersMy fascination with numbers actually has more to do with keeping track, logging, one after the other, increasing whatever I am tracking by one. And this is something I’ve done since I was a child. I kept track of all the books I read from January 20th 1986 until my son was born in October of 2004. I logged incoming and outgoing letters for a huge chunk of my life, but I think I let that particular habit go way before the book-logging-habit was kicked. Today, I’m logging the number of days in a row I’ve done my Seven exercise (458 days today) as well as my Headspace meditation (460 in total, but missed a day 179 days ago…). I have a certain affinity to numbered challenges (such as #NaJoWriMo for instance) where I know how long it will run and I do prefer when it is done on a daily basis. And even though I don’t keep track of my blog posts the way I did the first year of blogging, I do aim at daily blogging, which has now rendered me the proud publisher of 1063 posts on this blog. (This will be the 1064th.)

So. Numbers. This is what I came up with.
What about you – any numbers with special meaning in your life?

Day 8 #NaJoWriMoPrompt: Write About Your Creative History

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For today’s prompt, write about your past in relationship to creative expression. What are your earliest memories of being creative? Describe some great opportunities or missed opportunities for creative expression? What do you think helped or hindered you from being creative? Do you have creative people in your family? How have they inspired you? These are general questions. Write about the topic and see where it leads you. Happy journaling.

My creative history. Wow. That feels like a massive assignment. Especially since the Create the impossible-course I took at the beginning of the year, which made me realize that there is (an opportunity for) creativity in everything, even something as mundane as making dinner is a creation.

My earliest memories…. ah, I honestly I have no clue. But, my maternal grandmother taught me to crochet (and later on to knit as well), and I do remember being at kindergarten an crocheting endlessly long threads from a ball of yarn. Rolled it into a skein, and voila, had myself a new ball of yarn, in a manner of speaking, to start all over again. So I crocheted yet another endlessly long, but slightly thicker, long thread, from the initial endlessly long crocheted thread. Think I might even have repeated the same procedure yet once again. Limited use for long crocheted threads most definitely, but I did create. And I might have been around 4 or 5, I’m guessing. There’s remnants of other kindergarten creations still remaining at my mom’s place. Various ornaments for Christmas and Easter for instance.

wrist warmersAs I’ve written about before, I think my creativity has, to a large extent, been expressed using my hands, in handicrafts. When I think about creativity, that is where my mind goes first of all. And perhaps there’s a bit of a need for results and usefulness in my thoughts around creation, for myself. I create something which is needed, or desired, or that which is useful. Like the wrist warmers I’m wearing right this instant. I knitted them a few years ago, when the urge to create something with my hands grew within, until I couldn’t contain it anymore, and dug out needles and yarn from my various hiding places… Having a set end goal in mind, I started to create them, working without a pattern, but knowing what I wanted them to become, once finished.

I wonder if that’s a bit of a hindrance I’ve imposed upon myself: there must be a need, an end-result that can be put to use? Have I ever created just to create? For the sake of making it? Without any hidden agenda, a lack of purpose? Just. To do it. Nothing more. Nothing less. I don’t know.

I mean, even my blogging is to a certain extent purpose-driven. I blog with the intention to get my thoughts and ruminations down on paper, making them come alive outside of my head. So… How do you do it, when you just create, for creation’s sake itself? I honestly don’t know. Do you?

God Man – check!

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I september anmälde jag mig som God Man till ensamkommande flyktingbarn i Malmö Stad, och i torsdags fick jag besked att jag är godkänd. När jag väl samlat ihop alla papper som behövdes för själva anmälan, så var det tyst ett bra tag. Men för en två veckor sen ungefär så fick jag ett telefonsamtal från Avdelningen för Överförmyndarärenden (AFÖ), med en önskan att boka in en tid för telefonintervju. Sagt och gjort, det löste vi dagen efter. Ungefär en halvtimmes samtal, där AFÖs representant ställde lite frågor i syfte att ”klämma och känna” lite på mig. ensamkommandeEfter en bra intervju så blev jag lovad ett paket med lite lektyr kring ämnet, och blev även inbjuden till en utbildning för blivande Goda Män för ensamkommande flyktingbarn. Den var jag på i tisdags förra veckan. Innan dess hade jag tagit mig genom lektyren, och fått en något större förståelse för vad uppdraget faktiskt omfattar.

På utbildningen var vi strax under 15 personer, och under tre timmar fick vi lite mer kött på benen kring vad uppdraget faktiskt handlar om, och hur man kan tänka och agera. Att det inte finns några Rätta Svar blev ganska tydligt, och vi hade kunnat fortsätta bra mycket längre för oj vad samtalet böljade fram och tillbaka. Mycket intressant! Tror vi alla är pirrigt nervöst nyfikna på hur det faktiskt kommer bli att vara God Man. Och en sak gjorde mig lite förvånad. Visste du att det är fler män än kvinnor som agerar God Man? Det visste inte jag, och jag ska ärligt säga att där kom mina förutfattade meningar på skam, och även bland oss som var på utbildningen var det en (liten) majoritet av män.

Att alla inte passar som God Man, det kan jag förstå, men dessutom är det ju så att uppdraget kräver en ganska flexibel arbetssituation, vilket säkert är det som ställer mest käppar i hjulen för folk. Att kunna möta upp det ensamkommande barn man blivit förordnad, ofta dagtid, på Migrationsverket,hos Socialtjänsten, eller i skolan för utvecklingssamtal och dylikt, gör ju att de som har svårt att komma från inte lämpar sig så väl för uppdraget, tyvärr, hur personligt lämpade de än är. Så om du anser dig personligt lämpad och du har möjlighet att vara lite flexibel med tid, så tycker jag definitivt att även du ska kolla upp hur man går tillväga för att bli God Man i kommunen där du bor.

I torsdags hörde så AFÖ av sig och berättade att de gärna förordnar mig som God Man, om jag själv fortfarande ville acceptera att bli God Man. Självfallet sa jag Ja. Nu väntar jag på själva förordnandet, som troligen blir två ensamkommande barn, vilket är Malmö Stads praxis. Man förordnas två barn, lite grann för att man inte ska bränna allt sitt krut på sitt första, om man bara finge ett förordnande. Risken finns att man går all in, och ger och gör så mycket mer än vad uppdraget i sig egentligen omfattar. Dessutom är det så att man blir tillfrågad inför varje förordnande, man kan alltså säga nej om det inte passar sig just för stunden.

Så nu går jag i väntans tider, mycket nyfiken på vad som komma skall. Massa frågor snurrar rundor i skallen min, det vill jag lova. När ringer de och frågar om jag vill åta mig ett eller två förordnanden? Kommer det bli flickor eller pojkar, eller både ock? Varifrån kommer de ifrån? Vad har de varit med om på färden hit? Kommer vi kunna prata med varandra eller kommer vi behöva använda tolk? Kommer jag kunna hjälpa dem svara på alla frågor och funderingar de kanske bär med sig? Kommer de att känna förtroende för mig?

Allra mest pirrar det kring frågan:
Vem är människan jag kommer att möta och, förhoppningsvis, lära känna väl?

Växtkraft, del tre

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Sonen förändras dag för dag, jag ser hans drag växa till sig, allt mer av de barnsliga dragen försvinner, och i dess ställe träder något annat fram. Som en skugga av framtiden. Jag börjar, allt mer tydligt, se glimtar av mannen han kommer att växa upp till. Jag önskar och hoppas den vuxna mannen tar med sig det bästa av de drag han hittills visat upp i världen, under sina första elva år på jorden.

Ömheten, kärleksfullheten, humorn. Förmågan att njuta, av beröring, av en kram, av att gosa med katt eller hund.

Det konstnärliga, skapelsekraften, färgkoordineringen och förmågan att se och själv skapa vackra mönster.

Intellektet, snabbt, porlande, med en stor vilja att lära. Läser, tittar, fingrar nyfiket på världen.växtkraft sonDet fysiska. I besittning av en fysisk säkerhet jag är avundsglad över, något jag ser i honom som jag aldrig själv upplevt. Tryggheten, vissheten i vad hans kropp och psyke förmår göra, och inte förmår. Han är säker till hand och fot, utmanar sig, men inte dumdristigt. Han vet sina nuvarande gränser och hedrar dem. Sträcker sig lite grann utanför dem, och tänjer därmed sakta men säkert ut gränsen för vad han fysiskt förmår göra.

Sonen min, du vackra själ.
Jag älskar dig. Bebisen du var, mannen du kommer bli.
Och mest av allt, den du är, i just denna stund.

Your writing has improved

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Your writing has improved, she said.

And I agree. I can feel it, experience it, as I write. But also as I go back a year, two, three, to revisit what I wrote back then. My writing has definitely improved, it’s getting better and better, and what I notice is how it’s taking on it’s very own tone and voice. My tone and voice, something that has never before been expressed and explored like it is now. Taking shape before my eyes, the lines, colors, texture of it gradually coming into being, letter by letter, word by word.

The tone and voice of the books I read (and I am an avid reader!), is something I give thought to. If the tone doesn’t reverberate within me, I put the book down (something which I never allowed myself to do before when I was still oh so harsh against myself. If I’d started to read it, I couldn’t be a quitter…. Oh Helena, how harsh you were…). Pick another. Start to read. Going for a book that vibrates in tune with me.

That vibration doesn’t have anything to do with the topic, or whether or not it’s fiction or non-fiction, No, it’s the use of words, how they are placed on the paper, the pace of it, sometimes who the speaker is, and how he/she speaks to me. There are writers whose tone I love, and those that I just cannot get myself to read.

And my tone is slowly growing, with each word I pen, with every blog post I publish (as well as those I don’t…), slow and steady, a blog piece a day, I am honing my skill at writing. The beauty of blogging is that it’s visible, my journey as a writer is there for all to witness, including me.

As I’ve revisited my blog posts of years gone past, I’m getting the feeling there are topics I’d like to get back to, write about, again, to see what I might be able to do with the same topic today, as a slightly better writer than before.

Better and better….

Don’t misinterpret me, to think I am judging what I used to do, as no good. I’m not. I am merely stating facts. There has been a shift, and hence, what I write today is, in my view, most often of a higher quality than before. But I am not judging myself for having been a bad writer before. No. I merely rejoice at the progression I notice, and take pride in it. Patting myself on the back, for sticking with it, for growing, developing, finetuning and honing my craft.

We all have to start from the beginning, learing the alphabet, to read and write…. and then, gradually, as we learn more and more, as we receive formative feedback, what we produce when writing evolves.

I am happy I’ve rediscovered writing, so that my writing also started it’s very own expansion journey. My writing was at a stand-still for many many years, hibernating, in a state of being neither here nor there, neither alive or dead.writing

But now. It’s alive again.
Out of hibernation. Expanding.

It’s the most wonderful feeling.
You know it too?

Graveyard ruminations

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I’m sad to see gravestones in Swedish cemeteries being taken down and removed, for lack of someone to care for them, or perhaps more correctly, pay for someone else to care for them. And I get it. I guess. Someone has to pay the price for it, and all that.

But still. Having spent a few precious minutes of peace and quiet at the wonderful graveyard of St Kenelm’s church in Enstone outside Oxford, I still mourn the fact that Swedish cemeteries are such images of straight lines, well kept graves, and neatly tended shrubs and hedges.

Because the magic get’s lost somewhere along the way. I love burial grounds, and perhaps that’s an oddity in itself (although luckily I know I have several friends who join me in this oddity. I am not alone!), but the real magic of a cemetery is never as well experienced as in a gloriously unkept cemetery found in such number on the British Isles (including Ireland).graveyardsLush greenery, old gravestones, where the writing is all but impossible to read, tipped over gravestones, broken ones, in all manner of disarray. Hundreds of years old graves with a fresh bouquet of flowers and a burning candle on it. Some clearly forgotten. Birds chirping away, the dapples of the sun through the branches of a tree, insects buzzing, a dog barking in the distance.enstone graveyardExperiencing such peace and calmness, my soul settling down into the bosom of my heart, taking it in, all of it. I sense love in the air at cemeteries. Perhaps that seems strange, but then again, grief is love with a twist of sadness to it, right? Looking at myself, I cry for those I’ve lost in this world, because I love them and miss having them around in the form I’ve grown used to. Walking around on a cemetery I feel closer to those who are no longer here physically. Memories of times gone by sweep through me, of laughter, conversations, smells and sounds of my childhood tickle my senses, making me believe, for a split second, that I am sitting at the kitchen table of my Momo, drinking a glass of her homemade pink saft…

Oh sweet memories.

I am grateful for having lived a life which has created a grand library of sweet memories to ruminate upon.

Near miss

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Driving north, for hours upon hours. Headed for a family celebration.

Darkness comes swiftly. Teen comments on the compact darkness, very different from the much-lighter darkness of the town we live in, which is, throughout, well-lit. Too well-lit, I sometimes wonder? Never that pitch black night, that only is experienced when far away from well-lit towns. Where the darkness is so dark, it’s as if it’s of higher density, more compact, the air itself has a richer texture to it.

Driving on dark roads, through the forests of southern Sweden, up through Småland and Östergötland.
Hubby behind the wheel, teen beside him, me and the tween in the back.

Wham!

Hubby slams on the breaks, and I look up, through the windshield. See a roedeer in the middle of the road, just a few meters ahead of us, looking me straight in the eyes. It skips towards the side of the road, and when we come upon it, it has just made it past the width of the front of the car.

Roedeer jittery jumping to safety into the forest, leaving us in equal safety in the car.

Near miss.

Heart pounding.
Tween asking why we slammed the breaks, being the only one who didn’t see the roedeer. ”I almost slammed my head in the car seat in front of me”, he whines, chocked when he hears what just *almost* happened.
Hubby driving on, shaken, like all of us, including the roedeer.

But for the quick reflex of hubby, what might have happened?
Gratitude filling me, all of me, from top to toe. Pulsing within, along my racing heart.

Near misses.
Sometimes, they bring a gift. A wake-up call.
Sometimes, they pass unnoticed, and the gift is not brought into awareness.

near missesThis near miss – a gift. Reminding me to make the most of what I’ve got, here, now, today, in this very moment. Enjoy what I have, and remember to take pleasures in the small things of life. Such as a look shared between hubby and wife, in the rearview mirror, as the car speeds ahead again, albeight a bit slower than before. The realization, in that shared look, that life is both precious and gorgeous, and we’d better make the most of it, because it can end, in an instant. And it will. Sometime. Until then, I’ll take this near miss as a gift of life, a reminder to live a life that matters.

A library of Memories

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I have a grand library of memories within. 43 plus years I’ve lived and breathed upon this earth, in the form of Me. Thousands upon thousands of memories, shelved upon the bookcases of the library of Memories within. A little bit like the memory balls of Inside out by Pixar/Disney. bodleianBut as I’ve recently been in Oxford visiting the Bodleian Library, that’s the vision I see before me as I close my eyes and let my imagination carry me away, into the library of Memories within.

There are memories of all sorts there, all flavors. Happy, Ecstatic, Joyful, Sad, Grief, Troublesome, Painful, Sweet, Beautiful. And more, much more. Like a library contains books of different categories, so does my library of Memories. A multitude of memories, encompassing all categories (?) of the Human Experience.

I have, sometimes, felt weighted down by this grand library. Memories have stuck, top of mind, not wanting to (or being able to?) settle peacefully upon a shelf, next to other memories of the same type, or from the same time. A heavy load to carry around, dragging me down, draining me of energy.

This rarely happens anymore. I seldom feel burdened by memories and experiences. They just are. They exist. Nothing more. Nothing less. I don’t have to layer them with the rights and wrongs of my past. I feel. Fully. But no longer (as often as before at least) label experiences, and the resulting memory, as good or bad, as right or wrong, as worthy or unworthy.

Being ok with what is, both in the Now, and in remembering the moments of Now long since passed, makes a difference in everyday life for me. It helps me both feel – truly feel – that which I feel, while at the same time I observe myself feeling it. Not judging. That’s what it is. The difference. For me. Can you relate? Do you know what a difference it does to stop judging oneself, in any given moment?