The thickets
What a tangled affair this thing called my life sometimes seem to be.
How to make sense of it?
Job — get up early, do the seven mile bike trip, catch the train, go to the office, make the magazine, meet up with colleagues, exchange ideas, agree, disagree, write the article, catch the train back, bike another seven miles; home.
Home — help with breakfast and get son to school (on some days), kiss loved ones, listen to stories, buy groceries, fold laundry, cook, organize, cut roses, perform hilarious bedtime routines with the kid (a stand-up comedian was lost on me).
Write — Saplings and novels and stories on the train to and from work and at other free intervals; blogs way too late in the evening in front of my computer screen; diary everywhere and nowhere and all in between.
Read — a lot less than I used to, but then I am so filled to the brim with all I ever read that I guess it’s time to do my own work rather than read much more of others’ for a while. Not that I don’t read at all, I do. Only sparingly and if it really strikes my fancy.
Take phographs — whenever I possibly can.
Arrangements and engagements — a performance with an enthusiastic kindred spirit on the importance of children’s literature, figured as an outlandish travel agency offerent trips to All Places And Beyond, which we have decided to call Book Your Destiny; a day on reading stimulation for a considerable audience of library professionals where I get to moderate a debate and have to deliver a personal and creative key-note lecture at the end; an exposition on refugees during which Jurgen and I can present a handful of Saplings on the topic, including Dawn.
Publications and Residencies — a lot of practical stuff going on. The official news of the Sweden residency is already out there, but I can’t wait to share more.
Not just now. Not yet.
And yet, to know yourself to be privileged, incredibly so.
No major drawbacks, no diseases, no loved ones dying or in dire need, no financial drawbacks, no wars or dictatorships. This is a life of abundance.
And if stuff tends to get too much anyway, for a brief moment, through the thicket of complications, the best things in life always stand out. Drawn with the sharpest of pens, cut from the darkest of grains.
A single clear note, calling us home.
