Train Stories

Yesterday when sitting on the train...

...a girl in front of me was speaking an unfamiliar language. Strangely enough, I could understand everything she was saying. Odd? My guess is that it was a Slavic language but one can never be sure.

... I read a story about a kid who had given his Easter egg to a beg.. sorry, EU-migrant*. A good deed, indeed. However, is it still a good deed if someone (probably a parent) decides it's worth boasting about? Don't good deeds lose some of their shimmer and glimmer when people start making a big deal out of them?

...silence.

...interior design. Apparently people over 30 need to colour match their book shelves and have art in their homes. All these "shoulds", "musts" and "oughts" make me cringe. Especially when I have time to think about them on the train.


* the term EU-migrant is rather complicated, as media often uses the term to refer to homeless people from other (poorer) EU-countries. I have used it here slightly ironically. as the term could apply to any migrant from another EU country (including me). Please note that I'm discussing the term, not the people. You can read more about it here (in Swedish).

[500 Days] Fiilistelyä

Hello friends!

I have now a long list of posts to write, but let's begin with a "feel good"-one. 

1) Google knows how to confuse (and to entertain)

2) Oh my, Google shocked me so badly that I have nothing more to say.

Just kidding. 

But let's skip the list. 

Let's see. 

Life is quite ordinary. I am starting to think that ordinary is good. The other day I noticed that I'm quite the Conservative and Unexcited. As always it was a book that gave me insight. I think monogamy is great. And so is order and following the rules. And paying the taxes. My inner rebel has been silenced. It will probably show its face when it's time to vote. 

The great question: will I vote? This is a tough one indeed. I'll actually be in Finland before the elections, so I could vote without the hassle to go to the embassy (because let's face it, Finland is so much easier to go to than central Stockholm).. One should always vote. It's a duty, a responsibility and a right, all in one. But what if none of the candidates feels right?

Change pt. 2.

Change yourself,
change everything,
change life.

Develop. Become better.
Be better.

Go searching,
avidly, constantly.

If not good enough,
change yourself.
Find a better self.

Fake it.

Run.
Run as far as it takes you.

Smile to the world.
Turn your tears into laughter
and your fears into light.

Change, go on changing.
Find a new costume,
and new life.

Dress up,
play,
pretend.

Come on,
do it.

Only one life.
Too short to stand still.
Too short for traditions
and pretenses.

Enjoy the silence.
Go!

Enjoy the scenery,
enjoy the road.

Remember, too short.
But hold on the core,
to what is really you.

Life, an endless road that ends too soon

Change

the act or instance of making or becoming different.

változás. muutos. förändring. zmena. изменение. cambio. zmiana. 

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

- Leo Tolstoy -

Breaking A Habit - Or Just Growing Up?

Yesterday at 7.17 am I was standing in an elevator admiring my new trousers when it hit me. I had managed to rid myself of the very bad habit of impulsive and compulsive shopping. It is a process that has taken me years but I am happy that I achieved it. It was something I talked about trying to stop - but as it turned out, I had stop trying before I managed to stop. In many ways I think that habits are created and broken when we plant that little seed in our head and almost unconsciously let it grow there. Sometimes things take time, but eventually we will get there.

But whom am I kidding? The truth is that I want to show you my fabulous* new trousers.

* my sense of fashion is so fabulous (or shall we just be honest and call it peculiar) that I usually find everything I need on sale.

Things That I Adore Right Now

Cosas que adoro ahora mismo. Rzeczy, które uwielbiam teraz. Вещи, которые я обожаю прямо сейчас. Veci, ktoré zbožňujem práve teraz. 

Home-made chai latte

My new journal for 2015 and my red tea pot!

[500 Days/ Day 7] La vida es bella

2nd day of holidays. It's been a while since the last time. It's quite nice to just sit here in my pajamas and philosophize. Actually I should be cleaning since we will be moving to a new flat the weekend after we return from Spain. Oh well.

Last night before falling asleep, while I was lying under my warm blanket, I thought about pain, death, loss. And fear. I did feel something close to fear then. All my life I have been living by the rule that everything is OK because it is up to me. I decide about my own attitudes, about my life. Even during those moments that I hide from the world within my shell, taking the role of an observer, I can snap myself out of it. Everything I feel is just a perception of reality. I can think like that because I'm never ill, I don't know what real pain feels like. What if something truly horrible happened, how would I cope with that?

We - or I - watch the news and see all these horrible things - illnesses, wars, conflicts, repression - going on in the world, yet we - or I - remain unaffected. That could never happen to me. It's an attitude that I despise but it is difficult to get rid of it.

I also watched a TV program last night. Oh yay, I'm being so creative during my holiday. Some Swedes were in New York, cooking. The program itself is of no importance. But there was once sentence, only one sentence, that caught my attention. If you have a dream, you have to go for it. You have to. Sorry, my bad, that's two sentences. We live in a world where everyone is chasing a dream. Or multiple dreams. I like life, and I like exploring the world. Planning is fun, too. But this constant chasing of dreams and goals. Does it make us happy? Does it really? Those two sentences left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Dnes je skvelý deň! [Days 2 and 3/500]

Dnes je skvelý deň, today is a beautiful day. Monday, pondelok. Sometimes - quite often - I think about Slovakia, niekedy mi chýba Slovensko.

Good morning, Monday.

It's raining outside. And it's dark.
Yet the world is beautiful. 
My holiday starts on Thursday and I'm already longing for the sun.
Maybe it is not Slovakia as such that I miss, rather, I'd say it's the sense of adventure. Oh, well. if adventure doesn't come to you, you go seek adventure. In the little things. 

That sounds like a plan.

It is crazy. I am one of those people who need routine. Yet, I am one of those people who needs adventures. Or maybe just a certain degree of cosmopolitanism in my life.

Good morning, World. 

500 Days: Day 1

500 days from today it will February 23, 2016. 


I wonder what will happen in 500 days. What places will I have been to by then? What will I have seen? What will I have done?

Today, on October 11, I am sitting under a blanket in our living room. I am drinking a lemon-flavoured energy tea, feeling quite satisfied with myself and life. My boyfriend is sitting at the kitchen table, studying. The sun is shining outside and I'm getting ready for the things I want to do today: clean the bathroom, dry some chilies and feel inspired. 

Lately I have been thinking a lot about appreciation, inspiration, gratefulness, thankfulness. I have read about Ayurveda, schema therapy, mindful eating, the importance of narratives, Spanish grammar. I have started to practice tai chi. I have enjoyed the colours of autumn and visited my brother's baby daughter.

The world around me is wonderful. 

But I think we need more simplicity. And goodness. The other day there was a drunk man on the train. There was something so innocently sincere about him when he cheerfully talked to the people around him. All the sober ones looked dreadfully bored. The most beautiful thing was when he thanked the couple he had been conversing with: thanking them for their time and the half hour well spent on a good conversation. 

One of the highlights of any weekday morning is my morning walk. Fifteen minutes from the train station, through the city centre. As long as my feet don't get wet, it's a time that I cherish. A time for collecting thoughts.

After work

Before work

Photo Diary: Caminando

This week I have spent a lot of time walking. Walking is more than simply great exercise, it is the time to gather one's thoughts, to enjoy all that is beautiful in the world. I have noticed that I feel much better after a walk during my lunch break or after work. 


Or as Friedrich Nietzsche put it:

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. 

Last Sunday before the elctions

Somewhere between Vagnhärad and Trosa

A runestone

Fog!

The Week That Was And What's Still Left of It

Saturday morning. It feels so good to stretch out in the morning, to have time to enjoy the morning coffee. This week has been tiring, but wonderful.

On Wednesday I went to my first class of taiji (T'ai chi ch'uan) and it was great. I have such lousy coordination and balance, so this will definitely do me some good. Like yoga, it's great for the mind, too.

One of the great things about the place where I work is that we get a lot of books. And not just any books - cook books are the ones I'm often going for. (I have also found a pile of books about politics, as well as some great novels, so I'm happy)

The book in the background has a lot of interesting recipes. As it's about the 5:2 diet, the dishes are very light. However, there is a lot of fish and veggies in there, so it's definitely a book for me. I could also not resist when I saw the leaflet about juices. One of the supermarkets had made and it was free. It looks interesting, so I could have paid something for it!

Tomorrow there are the elections coming up. I get to vote in the local elections, which will be fun. In general I think that voting is an obligation - it is one of the few ways in which we can make our voices heard. Anyhow, I will write one post later on about my views on this particular election.

My Thoughts On My Body And Other Issues

This is the final post I am writing for the August Writing Prompts. Instead of picking a particular prompt, I decided to mix and match them, in order to analyse my own thoughts on body issues and self-confidence. You may find a list of the prompts here

My first memory of being aware of my body took place in a bath tub a couple of decades plus some years ago. That was the time I told my mother that I was fat because my thighs were big.
She said I wasn't fat, besides being fat doesn't have anything to do with one's thighs, only the tummy.
I do not know where the idea and consciousness of being fat came from. My surroundings were not too obsessed with thinness. Not that I recall, at least.

I was more than a head taller than the other girls in my class. I have not grown a single centimeter since I was 11 years old and still, my ID card says that I am of average height.

My period started before I knew what it was.

I had no idea what happened to me and already then I was hiding within my shell, not wanting people to know about my thoughts and secrets. Writing about this topic is difficult because it is something I have never really wanted to talk about. All these years, I have somehow detached my body from my mind. The body is not really me. This detachment between mind and body was probably based on some type of survival instinct. Instead of having a body that the world would accept, I decided to develop my mind. A good idea, in theory. The problem with striving for perfection - whether it is physical or intellectual - is that one will never be quite good enough.

I know now that I am neither fat nor ugly. But for a long time I felt invisible. I still do, sometimes. Growing up with that feeling has made it difficult to socialize with people. I never felt the need to be called beautiful, and I do think that this is an unnecessary compliment. It is much nicer to be called intelligent. If I ever have a little girl, I would want her to appreciate such traits as kindness, intelligence, generosity and humbleness. Beauty is but a fleeing notion.

Sometimes I feel that I would like to be more daring about my appearance - to play with make-up, dress up and have more fun with fashion. One of my promises for self-pampering last week was to wear make-up, I actually did and it felt good. Who would not want to look like this:

In general, I'd rate my confidence as good. Or rather, I don't care too much of what others think. At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own happiness. Bad hair days don't exist if you don't let them. Having a decent level of self confidence does not mean that one is always happy and that everything is perfect, is more about accepting the imperfect self. Accepting the imperfections is also easier if appearance is not so important to begin with. Some people I know struggle a lot with their self confidence, and sometimes I just want to tell them that it is so much easier if one forgets about the rest of the world and focuses on oneself. At the same it is difficult to give anyone advice on matters like this one, because essentially self confidence comes from within.

Last but not least, I have one confession to make, I may feel OK with the way I look, but looking better than OK is scary. By being wrapped in my own invisibility, I don't need to feel people looking at me, I can go on with my own business in my own little bubble. So, if there is something I would like to "achieve" confidence-wise, it'd actually be the stretching of my own limits, to see how stunning I could actually be. Not because I'd have to, but because it'd be fun. Confidence, then, is more than just accepting and being happy about oneself, it is also about letting the world in.

Feelings For This Upcoming Week

Monday again. I feel Mondays are quite nice actually, since I get to sleep in. The sun is shining and my mind is straying again in a sudden bout of wanderlust. There is so much I want to do. Sometimes I wonder where all these ideas come from.

My mind has decided it wants to learn either Arabic or Japanese (which one would you pick?). I try to reason with it, but it does not listen to me. I still need finish my Summer Language Project - Russian is left - before I can even consider other languages.

It would also be fun to test a new sport. The thing is, the job pays something called "friskvårdsbidrag", i.e. they pay certain amount of money that can be applied to (only) sports. So, it would be silly NOT to try a new sport.

TRAVELLING! We have two trips planned for September - to Vilnius and to Gdansk - and since September is approaching, I am starting to become excited. It will be so much fun!

In short, the week ahead seems to be exciting. There are some great plans with friends, the sun is (still) shining, etc etc etc.

Have a good week!

Skriver du?

- Skriver du?

Två par solglasögontäckta ögon vände sig frågande mot mig. Väntande? Ointresserade? (Varför ska folk ha solglasögon på sig när de pratar med andra människor?). Två par ögon vars ägare var vana vid att ha, och att uttrycka, åsikter.

- Ibland. Svaret kändes inte gott nog på min tunga. Det var blekt på något sätt, intetsägande. Det klingade lite falskt och mycket osäkert.

- Jag känner mig lite språkhandikappad. Jag kan inte uttrycka mig som jag vill, sade jag till sist. Ärligt. Men jag tror inte att de förstod vad jag menade. 

Poniedziałek [PL: Monday)

The sheet is blank before me. It is strange, how the sentences won't stop appearing before my eyes when I have nowhere to write them, but as soon as I have somewhere to put the words, they disappear. Typical.

So, it's Monday. I can talk about the weekend. This weekend I have learnt that alcohol might make the most unexpected person interested in ecological food. Food, in general, is a big topic here and with the elections approaching, it'll be interesting to see if food (and the quality of it) will make it to the list. Storms are lovely. Swedes are very serious about their crayfish parties and the autumn is here.

Life is beautiful! Smile!

Autumn is here!

Crayfish Party

The Art of Travelling pt. 2

There have been so many travel-related things going on around me, so I really felt the need to write a post about travelling. 

First, my boyfriend's sister and her friend are currently planning a 6-month-or-so trip to Australia and I am so jealous. I want to travel too!

Second,  I am reading a wonderful book called Annanstanslängtan. Noteringar från ett krympande klot. It's written in Swedish by a person called Anders Mathlein. The title could be roughly translated into something like Longing for Elsewhere: Notes from a Shrinking Globe.

Third, LePorkstar has written a good post about travelling.
Travelling has so many meanings for people: some travel for pleasures, others travel because they want to satisfy that thirst for knowledge and new experiences. Some people travel because that it is the cool thing to do in our modern society. I would like to think that travelling requires a certain level of open-mindedness and a wish to improve as a human being. 

Travelling has always been important to me. I remember how my dad took me to the playground when I was about two years old. They had a "bike carousel" there, one of these: 

I used to bike round and round, shouting out the next stop. At the age of 2, I was fairly open-minded about my travelling: the distance between Moscow and Washington was very short. Even then, I felt the need to see the world and to somehow escape the normality of life. Travelling, I believe, is a type of escapism. A desire for more than this. 

There are two "firsts" in my personal travel history. The first time a friend of my mother's took me to Riga, Latvia. The year was 1992 and seeing the realities of the collapse of the Soviet Union affected even me, a kid too young to actually understand things. I remember how the queues to the shops were long, there was no bread and people preferred us to pay in Finnish currency instead of rubles.

The second first was my first trip on my own. During my teens, I had a lot of snailmail penfriends all around the world. A friend from Greece, a girl my age, invited me to visit her and her family. At the time, I was 18. The trip was far from the normal beach travel to Greece, instead I got to see Athens, some islands and the mountains, while experiencing the Greek hospitality.


Travelling - for me - has always been more about scratching beyond the surface, trying to learn about the place and the people I am visiting. It is also about languages, culture and food. Oh yes, food is important. The best part of travelling is to try various local dishes!


The best kind of travelling is when you stay in a country for a longer time. I have been lucky to have this opportunity, several times even. It is during these longer stays that one understands the workings behind the facades: a tourist might not have the time (nor the interest) to understand all the complexity and social forces at play. At the end of the day, one understands that people are the same everywhere.


Sweden is not an exciting country to live in, but at least it is easy (and fairly cheap) to travel from here. That is always a great advantage! The other day we bought return tickets to Poland for 35€ (for 2 people). How crazy is that?

The Art of Travelling pt. 1

I wanted to write a post on the The Art of Travelling but it seems we are crazy busy now, so now time to hang around on the sofa. The post will come, now to something random:

However, I was asked to create a fan page for this blog on facebook, you find it here https://www.facebook.com/zsuzsslekplats 

By the way, I get so annoyed by being stressed. Does that happen to you too?

Linguistic Impossibilities

A while back, I had the following thought:

I have a vague memory of having read somewhere that Franz Kafka had an identity crisis of sorts that stemmed from what he called "linguistic impossibilities". I was reminded of this the other day when I spoke about the art of writing with some friends: sometimes it is so extremely difficult to express oneself in a language that one is supposed to know inside and out. For example, even though I know a language at native level, I still feel limited and "rootless", not being able to express myself the way I would like to. Other people think it sounds good, though.

Indeed, I managed to find one article on Kafka's linguistic impossibilities (here). Living in Prague at the beginning of the 19th century, German-speaking Jewish writers faced a problem related to language and writing:

"[Jewish writers] exist among three impossibilities, which I just happen to call linguistic impossibilities.... These are: The impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing German, the impossibility of writing differently." (F. Kafka)

 I have always wanted to write. I have written letters, e-mails, blogs. But I also always had a feeling that my language was too weak, that I had not the right skills to perfect the tool and to use it as it should be used in the contexts I want to use it. I know languages, sure I do, but I cannot turn a single one of them into poetry. In a way, I find this issue to be related to Kafka's linguistic impossibilities. When I was young, I was taught to express myself in Swedish - a language that I hated, now I only dislike it. I remember how I used to say that I'd love to write but the stories don't come to me. Now I think that the stories have been there all along, but I did not know how to express them properly. Swedish is a language that is not me, it is not my essence. However, I know it better than any other, and it's the only language I know how to play in.

Writing does fill me with joy, and this summer I have been writing. This blog has not been my focus this summer, instead my attention has drifted toward an old-fashioned notebook. I think I have solved my linguistic dilemma: I write different texts in different languages. The main story - the big one - is written in English. Only the draft, though. I will translate it myself and add the poetry and the life to it in Swedish.

People You Meet On The Train. Or Finding Your Happy Place.

[oh, sod it. I need a cup of tea to write this post]

Have you ever thought about the people you see on trains? The people you might actually meet on a train? I believe I have mentioned the word train in the majority of the post scribbled down this summer, but why not? Trains are the perfect place for people-watching. A train is the perfect place to invent a story or to hear the tales lived and experienced.

For instance, on the train that leaves Tumba (yes, the place is called that) at 6.38 every morning, there is a Polish girl who looks like Marilyn Monroe. I know she is Polish because she speaks the language. Now, these two facts are quite interesting on their own. Now, how often do you bump into a person who looks like Marilyn? And the Polish? Well, it's good for us notorious eavesdroppers. This girls is a mishmash of mystery, roughness and kindness. Alluring. She works with a man who thinks that she should dress up more, be more feminine, like the women in his country.

A while back, while we were still living in Slovakia and Hungary was the #1 choice for our weekend-trips, my boyfriend and I had a near-death experience. You know how Europeans like to think themselves educated and open-minded and so on? Well, at that time a couple of European girls clearly proved this statement to be false. Yes, there is a country between Hungary and the Czech Republic (must be, because these two countries don't share a border), no, there will not be a passport control. Not even in Prague. No. Yes, please, take a look at that map. And no worries, we will not be taking a detour through Austria.

And today. We were on our way back from the city centre, a Spanish girl and I, when the man next to her started telling her his life story. In soft but quick Spanish he spoke, his nose was big and his greyish blue eyes were tired. I will not repeat the awful things that may happen to you if you live in Colombia, but this man had lived and seen them all. After some twists and turns bestowed upon him by fate, he had ended up in Sweden. And he was far from happy. He wanted to go back to Colombia. This short encounter only raised more questions than it provided answers. And it reminded about a conversation we had earlier this week.

Is there any hope? I look at the world and wonder if there is any hope. Really, is there? People get shot and killed, the ones living in more secure places queue for an apartment for 10 years (welcome to Stockholm) and start queuing for a suitable old peoples' home when they are born. Or at least their insightful parents put them in that queue. People who get pregnant suddenly notice that they are expected to start their shift at 3 p.m. Politicians are proud when they participate in the PRIDE parade but have little to say how to solve the real issues that are chewing our society apart. And you have all the women and men and young people with wrinkled faces who have travelled across Europe to beg for money. And we talk so much: should they be here or should they not? Should we give them a few of our coins or should we not? How very rude of them to try to take our half-full bottles and cans from our hands. But what is the solution? Is there a solution? And at the end of the day, who is responsible for this mess when people no longer have their human value?

And then we have to sad and the ill. People who kill themselves in mental hospitals and people who, at the fine age of 31, do not find a single thing to live for. Because they are not what they are expected to be, and they don't have what they are expected to have. And life did not turn out the way it was supposed to. And it's so easy to tell them to keep on fighting, to go and see someone, to talk about it.

And some people complain about the weather. Two months ago it was too cold, now it's too warm. Guess what, soon it's winter.

And I'm a wee bit ashamed when I admit that I am happy. I am happy with my books, and my pen, my notebook and walks in the sunshine. I love the feeling of being surrounded by salty sea water, and I adore the feeling of new, strange, foreign words on my tongue. And the taste of chili peppers. And I feel that maybe, just maybe, the world might be a bit easier when it's simplified. And a little more love does not make the world a worse place, does it? 

A Piece of Paradise

There, in a forgotten corner of the world, in a place with little human life and almost complete silence, one may find a piece of paradise. The silence is broken by the sound of calm waves rolling in and the murmuring sound of birds chasing each other. I think I found just that - a piece of paradise. A place where one can sit and become absorbed - absorbed in thoughts and in serenity. A place where the world ceases to exist, where the elements meet each other. 

.