When I sit down to write...

I get all frustrated and the ideas I might have had seems to just slip away from me. I tense up and feel like I am drowning. My thoughts just wander away from everything, and I start fantasizing about things that doesn't remotely come near to the truth. I almost feel like dying sometimes.

I might start the day with thinking that today will be the day when I sit down and start to ponder upon my ideas, write down memories and stories, both fictional and those things I have experienced myself. But I never get around to doing it. I thought that today I would try the exercise from Writing your Way. And so I sit down and try to looked at how it feels like to sit down and write.

One thing I can say it that my thoughts circle around what I cannot seem to get down to doing. Writing. And now painting as well. I wonder why I am like this? Why I have trouble doing things? Why I crumble up inside and freeze up. One thing is to not believe in yourself, but that isn't merely something you cannot get over. It must be something else, but what? Why is it so hard for me to do this. To find the flow, to dare to express my thoughts, feelings and emotions, my ideas. Is it weakness? Or am I that blocked?

I condemn it before I even start, I think. I sit down and before I have even written anything, I tell myself that this is never going to lead anywhere. And that's exactly what happens. I need a totally change of the way I think about me, my life and what I want to do. I am frustrated because I feel like I am throwing away everything on meaningless stuff, stuff that in the end doesn't matter. And someone's way too early death makes me think... Why am I throwing away my time on these petty little thoughts when I can have it all, have all my dreams come true. But that is one thing. I see that I can have it all, but the problem is that I don't know how to get from A to B. And that is why I always run back to A before I have even tried to even see the B. Now this is getting cryptic.

One thing I do notice when I sit down to write, is once that I do it, I feel alot lighter in my body. I love the feel of my fingers flying across the keyboard. I love that I actually can manage to find the words. It lightens up my mind. And I think why don't I do this every single day if it makes me feel so good? And that's where I am lost for words. It is definitely fear. But what am I afraid of? I think again maybe it is because I am so used to feeling like a failure that I couldn't stand feeling like one again, or maybe it is that I am scared of not being one... Finding out that it was a lie all along and I have thrown away some good years on just crap. But then again, would I be who I am today without the darkness? The darkness of the thoughts that I am never going to be good enough. Will that make me appriciate who I will become even more because I know what it means to live without it?

There is always a choice. Maybe it is the easiest thing in the world once you've taken the choice not to be untrue to yourself anymore. Then it seems like idiotcy not to have made that choice a long time ago. But it is so hard to do something when it takes every last bit of energy that I seem to have. But I've got to push myself from now on or someone else will push me in a direction that I might not want to go. And I know that then I will only continue in this vicious circle and never really get out of it before it is too late.

I have to find a way to mend my heart and find a way to my soul. And maybe writing can help me with that and I am very scared of what I'll find so the easiest thing is to become a blocked writer, a blocked artist. And so I sit here, knowing full well what I should do and I don't. Is it any wonder I am frustrated! I go around in these circles, and I never find any end at all... Round and round and round... Frustrating. So when I sit down to write I feel the frustration and I feel like crying and I feel angry at myself for letting everything get to me. I just feel a little hopeful and hopeless at the same time... Confusion and frustration... Walking in limbo...

Just some pictures today... Don't have much to say... Nothing that you haven't heard before...

Footprints

We all want to leave our mark on this earth, like a footprint in the mud. Something that we will be remembered for. But how do we want to do that? How will we achieve it? Who will cry when we die? And why do we want to leave a mark? For our egos sake? Would we still want to leave a mark even though no one would see it? Would it be so important then? If no one knew, only the earth. Where does the need to me noticed come from? Is it the need to be famous and recognized, to be loved by others? Or does it come from a need to know that when we die we leave behind something that matter, something that tells us we mattered? That we did not struggle in vain? Maybe the need to be famous has become a shadowy thing for what we really want and the reasons we are reborn over and over again...

Just some questions I am not capable of answer, just throwing out there...

It's always remarkable how moods can change. One minute you are up the other down. Writing no matter what mood you're in. I should try that some time...

I really don't know what I am waiting for... A little sentimental now... Watched Finding Neverland today... Cried my eyes out at the scenes in the theatre with the children watching the play and getting the adults with them. Genius:) Like Dustin Hoffman says.

It makes me long for the lands of my imagination even more. Just still afraid to jump right into it. But I am not giving up. The day will come when it comes pooring out of me. For now I just have to ponder upon why I can't manage to sit down and write the stories that I know are hiding inside of me. I will keep on searching for that story that just have to be told... I just have to believe...

Now that is hopeful, isn't it?;)

No problems, only challenges

I'm writing a little in the morning! I was up at 8am today. And the first thought on my mind was that I had to look at having little money as a challenge, not a problem. I mean what is the point of wishing for something that I don't have right now. I don't have a lot of money. That's the reality of the here and now. But that doesn't mean that I won't survive.

I have to look at what it is that I really need. Do I need to drink five ice coffees a day? No. Do I need to smoke? Yes, I do. But I don't need to smoke a lot. Instead of thinking that I don't have enough to supply my need, I should look at it as a golden opportunity to smoke less and eventually get rid of my need for them. There is a thing in our society that if you have a lot of money you should spend it on seemingly needless things. We shop till we drop and are in debt. I guess that I can become a stronger person out of this. I don't need two pieces of fish on my plate. So yesterday I took one. That means I still have two pieces left for two days of meals. Every day I can challenge myself to using as little as possible.

I guess I learnt that I can do this. I can survive with little, and that will give me great lessons. I think there is only problems when we look at them as problems. If I transform problems into challenges, it will be a lot easier. I guess that shift will make living more easy. And it will give me an advantage also when I get more money. Because I don't need a lot to survive. And thinking the question: Do I really need this? It will more often get the answer no rather than yes. I think this is a good thing and a great lesson to learn. I can do anything I put my mind to)))

In other words, I feel much better today than a week ago...:)

I am feeling a little bit better now. Once again picking myself up, little by little. I am wondering what I will do different this time... I think that by every time this happens, I get a little bit better at distancing myself. It is what happens when you push a person down long enough.

It gets easier to stand up again, because I am tired of letting her get to me. I am tired of her saying that she loves me unconditionally then says those things to me, that I don't care about her or my grandmother. She says that she is my mother and that she cares about me. But every time she sends me those messages I am thinking that she loves the pain and feeling like crap more than she loves me. Always think she doesn't know any better. I don't think she knows what she does. But even so it doesn't mean that I have to stand for it. I am getting closer to the breaking point.

Well, I am picking myself up again... Little by little... Still hopeful)))

I am Dina

Nicky... again!

New picture))) I have contained myself from taking too many pictures of him... I don't know how healthy it is for Nicky to get flashed every second minute........
But he looked too cute here to miss a picture...

The Flame

I am born into a world of darkness
and I forgot all about the light whence I came.


The flame that shines through the darkness, is the brightest of flames. It may not light up everything around it, but it gives us a point to focus on. And maybe, just maybe we dare to walk forward…

The flame that gives us meaning in what seems like a meaningless world. When everything else fades into the struggles and pain of everything we might feel inside or see around us. It is the flame of curiosity we can behold in the eyes of a child encountering something new.

The flame that I can feel when I am creative. A lovely moment of being completely consumed with what I do and time and space just seems to disappear. It is those moments that fill me with hope, that bring meaning and joy.

The flame is what we feel when we look at someone we love. It ignite us, take fire and burn strong within us.

The flame is our spirit, the soul of what we are. The soul that walks through life in the physical darkness, bearing hope of one day stepping into the circle of enlightenment about the mystery of mysteries, of life and love themselves.

The flame is hopeful
The flame bears the promise of a better day
It keeps darkness away

I made soup today. From scratch:) Scrimp soup... It taste good)))

Other than that it has been a day with me doing nothing at all. Watching some tv and writing a couple of lines. I guess that's how recovery goes. Some days are really productive, others just quiet and uneventful. I can't really say what it is. He he))) The morning pages has become such an intergrated part of me now that I don't even count them. I began this year with a new notebook for my morning pages, and I am doing three pages now))) It feels like it is a little bit more. Or maybe it is just switching to a new notebook... I don't know. It was really hard to do them today.

I have to have the Nicky picture of the day today also:)

The Nicky pictures of the day:)

Not the sharpest picture in the world, but very funny:) Toe-spreading cat

Thought I'd start the first day of this year with my guy:) A camera is a lovely thing:) I can take many many pictures of him)))

We are doing a lot of cleaning today. By now I've had it for today. But it is a good sign that I am actually beginning to think about decorations. Of that walls that is. There is still a lot of sort to be done, but at least I am getting to where I want to be. Going through my stuff is a good symbol for all the hard work I have done inside the past years. The clutter symbolizes all the clutter that I have been carrying for so many years. The old must die to give way to the new. I like that way of thinking. Not knowing what the new is just makes it so much more interesting. In my horoscope for the next year it talked about letting go of my ancient ways of thinking:)

My new year's resolution is just to continue on the path that I have begun now. To take baby steps and to do instead of just thinking about it.

Again: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! CHEERS!!

I want to wish you a happy new year. I have just over four hours left of the old year and expecting my mom any minute now!

Tomorrow is a new beginning!!
Hope this year will bring answers and developments and clarification to us both! With lots of creative solution-making:)
Talk to you next year;)

There are many things that can be talked to death. Dreams can wither and die if they are pondered upon for too long at a time. When we sleep we dream, and those dreams are never still. There is always an action going on. We do something in them. That is what dreams are for. Dreams give us something to reach for, an idea about a change we want to make, something special we want to do.

When dreams die, we die. Not a physical death, though that is of course the most severe consequence of losing our dreams. We lose our way in life, and it becomes dark and unfriendly, and some of us cannot bear it and decide to end everything.

That is not how life is supposed to be. There are not enough talk about those things only a dreamer would allow themselves to think about. The bohemians talk about love. They dare to dream of the things that can rock our very core. Artists dare to dream the unthinkable. The creatives live to see the worlds that exists beyond this world. Life should be poetry in motion.

This is how a novel should start. With love. The clearest dream of them all is about love. The love for life and what it represents. We are so surrounded by death that most of us find it normal to watch lives being utterly spent without consideration for what that means. In the news we hear about 10 people dying in a bombing. We shrug our shoulders and the number ten just fades into the background. But all of those people had dreams. Dreams about a better life for themselves and their loved once, a life away from poverty or war. And yet it seems we all engage in wars at every level of the word. War is somehow become a way of life, and stories about a peaceful community like Atlantis or Avalon is just legends, myths, something of the imagination. But if we can imagine should stories, they must be true. When the first human being was killed by another, it must have started somewhere?

Now we live in a society that glorify violence and killing, only they are rebuked in order to protect our society, but not until it is too late. And if the murder is horrible enough, or if you are born of the wrong race and family, we can sentence death upon that person. But isn’t it already too late? The life has already been taken? Where is the talk about dreams before violence and desperation takes over? Because the reality is that most murders isn’t by cruel and evil human beings, but by people who have been torn away from their selves and tossed into a despair that turns love into numbness.

The first stages...

It speaks for itself:)

Kurt - Middle-earth Idol

I want to listen to Dance with me again and again;)

And I had to put Geir sing Elvis by memory;)

The walk

I put on a lot of clothes, two think sweaters, because it is minues 9 degrees outside. All that I can to protect me from the cold, and still be able to walk. I decided very quickly that this was not good for me, so I decided to do two things at once. Go to the store and walk:) I chose a store a little further away from me, so that I did have ten minutes walking one way and ten minutes the other way.

What did I think about? It is funny how when you start you think about the task, but it only take a minute or so before you forget and you mind wanders. I thought about how I am today. That I am feeling okay and not okay at the same time. That I almost feel the anticipation of what is going on inside physically in my body. It almost feels like a dark cloud is about to lift off of me. I walked past Kampen church and notice for the first time that the church has stain colour glass. And I thought it was a shame that the church wasn't always lit inside. I have probably seen it before, but not when it comes to its rightful place with the light inside of the church. I thought it was a shame that the churches in Norway these days have opening hours...

Kampen is a really nice place, old houses and buildings. Very cosy as most of my neighbourhood is. I reached the store without much other reaching my memory. On my way back I saw the moon, my precious guiding light. And I saw a woman standing naked just where I was only it was way back when there was no buildings there, and hills around the sea was covered with woods. She was standing with her arms to the sky, palms up to greet the moon, that will be full in a couple of days. And I thought how it isn't hard to understand that the moon holds such a sway over humans heart. I don't think it is a person alive that hasn't gazed at the moon and felt strangely moved by the sight.

That was about it. My cheeks are still cold, maybe also because they were frozen with tears. My eyes always water when it is cold. And that makes the cold even worse. I am not complaining. I feel good after the walk. Just stating the fact)))

Attention

She sits down at the computer. The screen with an empty page in front of her. She decides that this is it. Yes, it is late. She should be in bed now, but she decides to make an effort all the same, almost like it is now or never. All the excuses she could tell herself, that she needs to sleep, that she can do it tomorrow, that it doesn’t matter. They all disappear behind the thought that if she does it tomorrow it will be completely different than if she writes now. So she sits down in front of an empty page, determined not to let her doubts and excuses get in the way.

She is determined to not let fear get the best of her. If she had decided to go to a café the next day, it might never happen. So she trusts a try. She lets herself go just a little bit, because that is what she knows she has to do deep down inside, take the chance of writing horribly. Her head hurts for the self-inflicted insomnia. The night is to inviting to sleep away, she tells herself, but still all that she does it throw every chance of getting down to the real deal and she goes to bed tired and without being filled by the words that hide behind her eyes, that hide themselves in her mind and in her heart.

There is enough to write about, she thinks looking at the clock, seeing that only ten minutes have passed. And her first thought is to go to the sofa to smoke, to run away, thinking that she will not be able to just let the words flow out. The problem about computers, she thinks, is that the words can flow so much faster onto the screen than if she had done it longhand, and that means that it takes a shorter time to write about what she had already thought she could write. The plans she had made before sitting down, how she could write, and what would she do when all that is used up. She has no idea how to let go, to let the words come, because those she has no control over.

She wonders what it is about this control. What is it that she wants to control? She doesn’t even know that. She lets down her blonde hair, to perhaps lessen the pressure she feels in the top of her head. Her period is in the second day and the pain is less apparent, more like an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. She pulls her hair a bit, frustrated about what comes next. She thinks about a comment she got about why she always kept her hair up in a ponytail. She doesn’t know. It is just comfortable to not have her hair in her face. Sometimes though, she has her hair down, but that is often because she wants to hide a bit, and hair flowing around her face does that for her. Hides her… Besides, with her hair down it gets tangled in the back and gets hard to comb through.

The minutes tick by so slowly. She is getting restless now. Completely terrified about running out of things to write. Her crosses her legs, tapping the foot on the floor, not to any beat, only to the restlessness in her. She wants to scream. She wants to have something to write about, and she knows she has sources for books. People around her, parts of their stories would fit nicely into a story, but always the stories slip from her, existing only in her mind where they unfold beautifully. But the moment she tries to catch them with words, they laugh at her and run away, and she doesn’t have the strength to chase after them, wondering if they are worth it. What if she feels forced into a story that doesn’t suit her? She is so scared of losing her dreams. So the safest thing is to watch them run away and turn the other way.

Everything around her is chaos. She is chaos. But from chaos there is always some kind of order in store. Storms are chaotic, but the sea is always calm after a storm. The grey won’t last forever. There will be sunshine again, or moonlight. Outside she knows the moon is growing into a full moon. She loves the moon and always greets it with enormous joy when she ventures out after dark. Today she walked to the store and walked towards it, though she was distracted by it being so cold, and she thought she would have to take on the warm fussy black coat next time she was going out. At least now that it is so cold. She coughs as if to remind herself that the cold can make her sick.

Half an hour has past by and she is sure that she cannot go on writing for another thirty minutes, it will be impossible. But she is determined to stick with the plan. She has to force herself to stay on the page. She sighs. It is hard. And her thoughts run ahead of her. Like they are trying to dictate what she should write, what is appropriate, because she has plans on posting this on a website and she has to be careful what she writes. Everything has to be nicely put together. Nothing too revealing, thank you. But what is the point, she thinks, of resisting the urge to write. She does it now. She wants to write, but doesn’t know how to go past the wall that she has built between herself and her longing and the creative world she feels every single day.

She wants to be confident enough, but she is too scared to even try. She doesn’t even know how. All of her words circle around the same thing over and over again. It isn’t that she lacks the courage to break through the wall. There is nothing she wants more. She thinks her low energy level comes from her not living truthfully. She knows there is a connection between not being happy and her health that she has felt getting worse and worse over the past year. Blaming it on smoking and not exercising would be easy, but she knows that there is a deeper level to it. Her energy would come back again when she felt she had a grasp on what was going to come next. That was not getting a job. That would be the natural step when she had climbed out of this dumb she had gotten stuck in.

It had taken her many years to get to this place. Where she actually managed to sit in front of the computer for one hour straight and just let the words come. Trying not to judge what came out, just letting it be. She still had difficulty in giving details about the physical world. But her inner life was filled with details that she could easily find and describe. She mastered that in a great way, it came natural to her and she wondered if that had something to do with her participation in the world outside her four walls. Not many days ago, she saw a woman walking past outside in the streets. At first she had looked like a child, but when she past she saw that it was a woman about forty if she should guess. She wore a poncho that reached all the way down to the ground, sweeping dramatically around her feet. The woman had no idea that she was watching her. She had no idea why exactly that woman had made her way through the wall and impelled her to remember her, but she thought if she didn’t write about this woman she would be forgotten and she didn’t want that, so she sat down and wrote about her. Not much, just a couple of lines about what she had seen.

Afterwards she thought that it was a new experience that gave her a little ray of hope, that maybe, just maybe, something was changing, that she was slowly opening up to see her own creativity a little different. Not as something she would want to engage herself in, but something that she possessed and had possessed since she was a little child. No she might not have written the stories down on paper, giving clear sign that she was a writer (since writers write down their stories), but the stories she made in her head was always entertaining. She was in her stories, she felt what she thought up. She was in the stories in her head, like she was in a movie. It was like that the past years she had tried to persuade herself from writing, from gaining access to this world that she knew was absolutely wonderful and very much a part of her, like it had been when she was a child.

She thought that it was incredible that could come if you only let go a little. Before this hour she had not believed that she could actually manage to do this, but right now she doesn’t care if it is bad or good writing. She just enjoys listening to music and hearing the tapping on the keys like a far away sound. Even the music comes a little in the background, because the black words flowing onto the page is more important. She tries to concentrate on their appearance than on what comes down, shifting her mind from thinking about what to write next makes the thought of the minutes ticking by slowly go away.

Her black and white cat jumps up on the chair she has besides her computer, for putting books down on, books she takes notes from. Books that she might want to take with her to London or whatever place she wants to stay for a longer time in the future, books that she can then put on a cd to take with her. She starts to think that this is boring. No one would be interested in her telling about taking notes from books. She is patient that way. Doing that would seem like a waste of time for others, but she learns a lot from repeating the words of others. She thinks that there might be an inspiration for an idea in those books, something that triggers her imagination, that triggers an idea or something else. So she keeps busy that way. And she is glad. If she didn’t read a little every day her days would be so much more boring. Her books are her comfort. The stories that can bring her out of her mind for a little while, or teach her something about herself.

Like the book that showed her finally what she had tried to figure out for a long, long time. That she was creatively blocked. That was why she couldn’t sit down and write for more than a minute or so. That was why she threw away everything she ever wrote, because it felt forced, untruthfully, but it still kept her longing for words intact, so she would not forget that this was her dream. She always tried over and over again. Even though it never got her anywhere, it keep her on the path of fulfilling her dreams of being a fulltime creative. She was pleased. She had taken a major step today. She was glad she had listened to that voice inside of her that told her to do it now. To sit down and write. To give details maybe not about the physical world, but at least she had left a rather detailed account about her inner world. That is after all a start, she thinks. And an hour had really past. She had done it. She could now go to bed and sleep in the knowledge that she had accomplished something, good or bad. She didn’t care.

It is freezing outside (minus 8 degrees celcius). My feet are cold too. If it would snow now, it would come just in time for Christmas, and it would be just like in the song. Not that I am dreaming of a white Christmas, but it has been a long time since we had it here. You have rain today, don't you? Your favourite weather eh;)

I got my period today! Yeah, now I can go back to being a little more stable. A great relief. Why does PMS have to be so mood-swinging? Funny...

Thinking back on the past three days, I actually can't remember much. It feels like I have been inside a loop that will never really end, like walking in endless fields where nothing ever changes. Just the same high grass that keeps me from seeing any horizon, keeps me from seeing anything period. Anything but the sky, but that is a monotonous grey. It feels a little frustrating and at the same time, it ain't that bad. I have been through worse times. Maybe it is that waiting thing you talked about. It's not bad, but it isn't good either. It just is.

That of course leads me to thinking that if the waiting is self-made. If this monotonous landscape is of the mind, can't I colour it, make it into something else? Couldn't I make flowers grow in the endless fields, big, bright red flowers, like roses, that fills the air with a sweet smell? With one stroke over the sky, I could make the sun appear, white clouds rushing across the deep blue sky. I can make it into whatever I wanted, and yet I seem to be satisfied with grey skies and tall grassy fields that keeps me from seeing anything. Why is that? When I can really make anything happen. Put one word after another until they make sense. I could listen to the wind, instead of complaining about it. I don't have to walk against the wind. I could turn and it will blow me forward.

In my mind, I could travel anywhere I want. I can go anywhere I want, even to distant realms that no one knows about, only me. I could colour the world in the most fabulous colours. I could paint with the colours of the rainbow. And yet, I stay inside the little box of familiarities. I don't challenge myself. Maybe I don't, because I don't know how to do that. I have gotten so used to this life of grey that I don't know how to do it differently. I don't know how to shake things up. I don't know how to unblock me, to get unstuck, to move forward. So I stayed in the same place until I believe that it was all there ever was. That I was outside looking in, dreaming of what I could do if only... If only what? If only I was better, brighter, more beautiful, more clever? If only sneaks into your system like an invisible poison, slowly killing off the spirit, drowning that voice of beauty and colour, making everything into grey encounters that just fades into the background as soon as they have passed. And all you are left with is if only. If only I had this, or a little more of that... The poison is working its way through the whole system until your spirit is numbed into believing that this is all there is.

That sounds really depressing. I am not saying that because it is completely like that. For a while it was, yes. I believe it was, but even though the poison is there in the system, there is always a cure. Not all poisons kills you... Positivity is a cure, but it is a long and painful cure. To believe again is a difficult task. I can believe one moment, and the next I just can't travel to that place where I see myself succeed. It's like hitting an invisible wall. It is flexible and at first I can't see it, but when I do, it shoots me back like a sling shot... See? The wall is still there. But it's not solid anymore, and it is not misty either. It is like its made of jelly, sticky and wobbly...

I know I should go to bed now. It's almost 4:30 am. But I don't want to sleep even though I am tired. That means I am finishing a new day that feels pointless, wasted on nothing. Why is that? Why do I end up without doing anything? I get energy from feeling satisfied, like I am doing something. Why don't I do something? Because I don't know what I want to do? It really is a vicious circle! I feel like the clock is ticking now. For what, I don't know. I feel that is my sentence these days. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I will know tomorrow... Ah, it reminds me of this thing in The Artist's Way:

One way we listen is by writing our morning pages. At night, before we fall asleep, we can list areas in which we need guidance. In the morning, writing on these same topics, we find ourselves seeing previously unseen avenues of approach. Experiment with this two-step process: ask for answers in the evening; listen for answers in the morning. Be open to all help.

I will try that tonight I think. Get ready for bed, ask a couple of questions and try to get some sleep. Then see what happens. At least I have written something today, in this blog, that is at least something. I don't really think it's that bad, I just wanted to write and see where it led me...