Getting older

He says hi, probably because he considers me to be an old, long not seen friend. Or maybe he is just curious what has become of me.
I don`t really feel I know anything about this partially bald man in wrinkled clothes from a long, hot day; fine lines carved in his face in the corners of his eyes, distinguished grey  at his temples and around his ears.
He looks like an adult, a dad, a someone in an office. Still there is something from the boy he used to bein his appearance.

I wonder if I look as old as he does.
It is hard to believe I`m forty... still only fortytwo, not turning fortythree untill September.

The way I feel, it`s hard to believe there`s not a younger me somewhere out there: A me still slim, fit, ripped jeans and cheeky T-shirts.
It`s the enticing past. A past even better than what it actually was. I know I often look at myself in younger years through pink shades, but I like the idea of it being nothing but good times.

I believe it`s like that for all of us. We wish to go back in time, to a time when we were happy. Or more correctly:  time we imagine we were happier than we are today. We tend to forget what hard work it is to be young.
Some times I can`t stand the thought of not being young anymore. I don`t feel much different, and some times, when I pass a mirror and get a glimpse of myself, I wonder how, what, who and when it happened. Why didn`t anyone tell us we would feel exactly the same now as we did when we were eighteen?
Not that it would matter any: we probably wouldn`t believe them.

I thought that when I turned forty I would have... settled down more, in a way.
You know: live a content and boring life. Staying at home every night, never fall in love, and be satisfied living that kind of life.

Then again...: being settled and living that boring, predictable life makes me capable of making things happen. I travel where and how I want to, I can afford to dress how I want (and I am financially comfortable enough to dress down; cheap and out of fashion, if I please), I am now able (timewise, moneywise and familywise) to take riding lessons for my driver`s lisence for heavy motorcycle, I can buy a motorbike which is actually in an ok con  dition, I can go for a walk at any hour of the day without telling anyone or explaining myself to anybody.

I have become a woman who flips the pillow several times during night, so I can sleep on the cool side. I have reached the point in life when I critically measure my "lovehandles", wondering if I should leave them alone, or pick up on the challenge to get rid of (most of) them.
I read my life in my scars and imperfections and wonder if I would want them to be gone.

Regardless of everything: Deep inside I still think exiting things will happen, though.
You never know...

At peace with people and places

When travelling all sorts of strange things happen. I am on holidays in Turkey, and suddenly I stood face to face with a man I once  knew as a boy. He was 18-19 at the time, a year older than myself. He had a car and could charme a bird off it`s twig. I didn`t really know him all that well, but he hovered in the background of the "crew" I desperately tried to keep up with.

He came over and said hi in the restaurant, here at the hotel, and I just stood there totally caught off guard. My mind went blank and I just couldn`t think of a single intelligent thing to say. Not even hi. Those I used to call my friends back then never say hi, or even recognize my presense when I see them (long story), but here he was: a polite, handsome man with no other agenda than to recognize his memory of me and being nice.

It took me a day to collect my thoughts and feelings, which meeting him caused. Some times you need to come to terms with old determinations of leaving your past behind and start anew. To let people in for who they are today rather than who they used to be. He was never anything but funny and carefree and kind, and I found the best way to  go about it was to stand up and be honest with him... so at dinner I approached him and we had a nice talk.

I told him the truth: It was not my intention to make him feel I didn`t recall him, I was caught off guard since noone from back then ever do say hello. He was equally honest and told me he had been quite... hurt, but when I put it like that he understood, he knew what I was talking about since he often had the same experience with people he used to believe were friends. We ended up being quite friendly, and had a sincere conversation.

When it was time to go he paused for a while, looked me in the eyes and told me he thought it was a brave move to be so frank with him. It made him think that my past was a blessing for him.

Meeting him, was probably more like ships passing in the night. We will never be friends, but my mantra of forgiving, but not to forget, can be a blessing for others as well as it is for me. I am lucky to be at peace with my past, my present and, I believe, my future. Both when it comes to the people in them and how things are.

I was reading an article about social services, and in one of the readers` comments to the article a woman wrote that if you get reported to the children social services as a payback revenge for a break up, a fight, a thing a "hater" would do to you... what makes people end up in such situations? What kind of life, actions or abusive language make people end up like that? It isn`t good for either party to know you have unpredictable enemies who have it in them to do harm to you or those you love... and if you think about it, I am sure noone would want to be a someone who does that.

Forgive. It gives you resources to lead a good life, and courage to go better places. But you don`t have to forget. To remember, both the good and the bad, makes you the better person. At peace with people and places.

Things

Things. Such a short word, and yet it causes so much trouble.

I have been told that every family has its drama; I have never heard of (or experienced) disharmonious family matters which did not, at the end of the day, have something to do with things. Things someone at a time worked hard for and got hold of and which somebody else now wants.

When I was really young I was told by a very wise, old man, that when I grew up I should not collect or hoard things just to show off how much stuff I could gather. I should focus on owning things that meant something to me. Things I needed. Things which for some reason I felt would stand out. It is not the number of things which will show your wealth or fortune: It is their significance.

Because, you see: things bring worries. Houses i.e. must be looked after: maintenance, cleaning, upgrading… it all adds time consuming effort of thinking through, problem solving, choices on colors, shapes, quality,  prices…

I have to admit I really enjoy the esthetic beauty most things display, I admire the innovating processes and the craftsmanship behind the thing, and I understand why it is such a joy to possess a chosen item. But… I am good at not wanting a lot of displayed stuff around me and in the house.

To be dead honest: I am not a good housewife. I do not dust every week, my plants are half withered before I remember to water them, I never check if there is oil or flushing medium on the car; A car shall work: I insert and turn the key and off I go. Everything else I leave to others to do. Not having a lot of stuff makes it easier to clean the house and when I die there will nothing to fight over.

Still, In my house we have a couple of types of things which are… suppose I should be honest enough to say they are out of hand. I do not have storage rooms, you see. I had this idea that what I do not use I do not want to keep… except a few folders with my kids’ drawings, things they create and make from toiletpaperrolls at school, folders with recipes on food I will never make and clothes I will never knit or sew.

It seems like as if we have an endless amount of toys. All kinds of toys and a lot of it. They seem to float all over the place: lego in the sofa, footballs in the kitchen, table tennis bats  in the bathroom, action figures on the hallway floor. I hesitate to do much else than to pick it up and bring it back to where it is supposed to be placed and sorted into boxes with same kind of toys. (I have a lot of really clever storage bins, but for some strange reason I fill them up constantly, and they are always nearly empty.)

Cars, lego, pokemon figures, miniature animals, musical toy instruments, costumes… everything has its own box (-es). It is funny how I think my kids watch way too much TV, and yet they play with something… or at least bring toys with them, at all times.

I do not really collect, but I have a lot of hobby articles. Fabrics, jarn, buttons, zippers, pearls, stones, glue with and without glitter, all kinds of paint, canvas, drawing paper, wires, string, all kinds of pencils, felt pens… you name it: I got it. I always plan to get to use it all, you see, and then I never get the time and next time I see a stamp I picture being used on a really great looking personal greeting card I buy it and add it to the continuously growing stack of bits and pieces just laying around looking like junk. I am not proud of it as yet, but one day it will miraculously turn into dazzling arts and crafts. Maybe. It will.

Now, that I am thinking about it, I have way too much of a lot of stuff. Not items tastefully displayed to decorate the rooms, just stuff. In addition to toys and hobby articles I have shoes, laundry, stacks of books and boxes of things I at one time knew what was… like hardware accessories belonging to something I got rid of 8 years ago, but in case I didn’t get rid of it anyway I keep it… still don’t know what it is for, just keeping it in case I need it…

Young and old enough

A little over a year ago I made the decision to write a list over things I never did, but wanted to do and which I am not too old to go through with. Yet.

It was the perfect time for making plans on my “now-or-never”… for specific things I have always wanted to do or see (or both). Most things I do, I do on an impulse (I learned at a young age that plans often fall through due to… well there are many reasons why you must put your own needs and wants aside), but some things needs planning.

My list started off very cautiously:

#1: Go to London by myself again, like I used to do. To walk through museums, streets, markets and parks. Sit on pavement restaurants with a cup of coffee, or a decadent glass of wine. Just enjoy impressions with no one tugging my arm or calling my name.

#2: Getting my house sorted. Everything to have its own place, and everything is to be put at its own place.

#3: Get a driver's license for heavy motor cycle, and buy one. And, of course, ride it.

#4: Go to Bhutan

#5 …..

…. The list goes on with quite a few more things I want to do.

Some things I have to put off a bit, but my first move was to call the driving school and schedule my first lesson and the essential theory course. I bought all the necessary equipment: suit, gloves, helmet and boots and started taking lessons without ever having been on a motor cycle before. I have to be honest with you: The reasons why I wanted to do this were not because I have reached a rebellious stage in life. And yet I do acknowledge I am in my 40s and midlife crisis do hit in the strangest ways at the most inconvenient times. Still waiting for the crisis to hit, though. So far life is getting better each and every day (but that’s another story for another day).

I was thinking that I have been a mother for 18 years. My youngest is now 6 and more independent. It is possible for me to get away now, go somewhere with only room for me, my driver’s license and my visa.

It would also be cool to have a legal excuse for wearing a leather suit at my age (that plan was torpedoed as I ended up with a GoreTex suit). I still look cool, though.

Last, but not least, my workplace is removing all the parking spots; I need to be able to get home if something happens to my kids. I couldn’t possibly wander about waiting for the next bus.

In spite of lacking the initial reason “FUN”, that is what I found when I learned how to ride a motor bike. It is great! I can’t believe I haven’t done this a long time ago. Even though I hate doing things I am not good at: Riding a heavy motor cycle is the most fun I have had in years!

Made me thinking:  As we reach certain ages, we tend to think more about the past and find joy in memories of what used to be. That is so not right. The older we get the more we know about life. That knowledge can only add quality to what we choose to do.

My grandmother was a widow for 11 years, and then chose to marry a man who had never been married before. He had a major crush on her as a teenager. She knew, and yet they had never held hands until they met again. She was 67 when they got married. He was 68. Many thought they were mad, and it was quite scandalous to get married at such an old age. They got 20 adventurous years together.

Life is not over just because of a number. It is not fair to anyone to sit down and wait for the end to come.

I think I am:

Young enough to have emotions. Too old to play those games. Young enough to try something new. Too old to have to like it all. Young enough to have faith in people. Old enough to know everyone isn't good. Young enough to laugh at myself. Old enough to not mock others. Young enough to participate in discussions. Old enough to realize when I’m wrong. Young enough to take defeat. Old enough to be well-equipped for more. Young enough to think ahead. Old enough to accept there has been water under the bridge. Young enough to be excited about the future. Old enough to remember the past. Young enough to love. Too old to carry hate. Young enough to show consideration. Old enough not to expect anything in return. Young enough to wish for more acquaintances. Old enough to choose my own friends and acquaintances. Young enough to live. Old enough to appreciate all the good things in life.

The impact of food

The other day I was reading a book which made me think about food. Not thinking about food in the sense of what I would like to eat, but more about what impact food has on our lives. Or rather: my life. I eat a lot of strange things, but there is also a lot I refuse to eat… from various reasons. I eat from different reasons, and I am sad to say most often I am not really hungry.

In parts of the world people spend their days trying to find something to eat, anything at all. In our part of the world we spend a lot of time wondering what to choose to eat, where to order it from or how to prepare it.

I am not very good at ordering take away. I am good at ordering food at restaurants, but to tell the truth I prefer to eat at home. When going out the part I treasure the most is: I don’t have to do the dishes. I confess I’m not a good housewife; it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just… I know it isn’t pointless, but when someone says they don’t see the point because it looks just as bad in a few hours anyway, I totally understand where he or she is coming from. The house is fairly tidy when I go to bed, though. The thought of getting up in the morning knowing the kitchen looks like a raided area is really not cool.

My kids love McDonald’s! They don’t get to eat there often, but when they do it is a treat! People and campaigns keep telling what disgusting ingredients you get served in your food there, but let’s get real: people have eaten all parts of the animal for as long as humans have eaten food.

In Scotland they eat Haggis, here in Norway we have something called “Lungemos” (= hashed lung), old fishermen around the globe enjoy to suck on a fish’s eye, oysters is a delicacy (to me it tastes like still water… and they are part of the sea’s brilliant refuse disposal service), boiled pig's trotters; the list of delicacies with not denominated origins or ingredients is very long.

Still… I leave it to my kids to enjoy the happy meals there (at McDonald’s). It is purely based on taste, smell and texture. It is nothing “personal” or a specific disliking; I am just generally not very fond of processed food.

There isn’t a lot I’m not fond of, but there are some dishes I have problems with. The thing I have the most problem with is how some use garlic to kill all other tastes in the food when they cook. I don’t mind garlic, but I don’t understand how some can make everything taste like… well, garlic.

Don’t misunderstand me; I use garlic from time to time myself, but for a purpose. Not for the garlic itself. Thinking about it, there is a good chance my cooking is rather old fashioned. I don’t really mind, though, as long as people eat what I cook.

I love to watch TV shows like Masterchef, Hell’s Kitchen and other similar shows. First of all I can’t get over how everybody seems to paw about and handle the food… I can’t for the life of me understand why topnotch chefs and cooks should break an egg in their hand, in order to separate the yolk from the egg white. Is there anything wrong with using the halves of the eggshell? And the constant breathing on the plates, from 10 cm away, when the dish is plated. Touching the hair, then back to fingering the food they have prepared… I would rather not know.

And how come the smaller the dish is, the more exclusive it is?

Do people eat in secret at home before eating out? Just wondering, because when I went to visit my parents last week, she invited the entire family to a barbeque. Then she told me she knows nothing about barbequing, so she left the planning, shopping and cooking to me. I was not very pleased, nor was I surprised; it is always like that. Every time I go there I end up cooking and baking on a large scale.

I sulked for a bit, thinking so much for being the visitor. Again. But after a while sulking is boring, so I started preparing for the feast. 20 people were coming, so I bought 3 kilos of chicken fillets, 3 kilos of salmon fillets and 2 2-kilos beef rib steaks. Along with the baked potatoes, broccoli salad, potato salad, garlic bread (yes, I bake a great garlic bread), the watermelon-/feta cheese salad, green salad and olives, I thought it would be enough food. Now, my family does not consist of heavy eaters, and yet they emptied their plates. They were full, but there were no left overs either.

It’s always like that when I cook, so how come the really good chefs insist on such small portions? Don’t they want people to leave their table full and content?

I love long meals with lively conversations, discussions and jokes. I like to gather people around a table and have meals. Most days I have two or more extra kids for dinner, but I don’t mind. It is nice. We talk with each other instead of to each other. I think it is important for kids to learn that. Having conversations, I mean… and it is important for them to learn to appreciate tastes.

Otherwise they will eat at McDonald’s while thinking they are eating a nice, adventurous meal out, or, they can be travelling around the world and miss out on half the travelling experience.

Because: “To him food was identity, culture, family, how you define home and love and who you are - all of it at once....It's not just the pie. It's the chemistry and physics. It's place and time and history and religion and music...I felt blurred by his presence, overwhelmed with double vision - the world as I was seeing it and the world as Henry would have.”
― Bridget Asher, The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

If I change you must too.

To pay attention to people in your surroundings means you get to know their many ways on how they respond (including what buttons you need to push to get the reaction you are looking for), when they are serious or not, their moods, what causes they believe in, their habits… and their bad ones. They become predictable and you have this notion of what you can allow yourself to expect from them.

They say people don’t change, but circumstances do. When circumstances change, traits in people (which you, of course, suspected they had in them) go from a latent potential to a strong characteristic. OK, maybe not really strong; but at least a lot more conspicuous than before.

I see this “change” in people I think I know well… until they give up something which used to be part of their lifestyle. It is good to give up things you feel decrease your quality of life in any way, what I don't think is ok, is how negative they often become to both my bad habits and others', even though they previously had the same lifestyle.

People who become vegetarian, stop smoking, go on strict diets, who start taking the bus in the morning instead of driving their car or in any other way changes their ways very often become unpleasant, almost to the point of unbearable, in their criticism of those who choose to pick up, or continue, doing what they used to do themselves before.

Strange how people do that.... and I dare say most do, purely based on my own experiences and observations. I wonder why they do, though.

Like, when people go on strict diets they start commenting on what other people eat and count other people's intake of calories.

It is really annoying to be with friends and have a good time when everything we eat or drink to add more joy and enjoyment to the get together is just commented upon as something negative. How can carrots possibly replace crisps, nachos or chocolate, for that matter? And since I often feel they communicate too well with my bad conscience, I can’t help but thinking they come very close to sound vindictive, revengeful, deceitful, conniving, resentful and angry.

I know it isn’t fair to think like that since they only want what is best for me, but… Controlling your thoughts is very hard and I feel guilty for my harsh thoughts and I can’t just tell I just felt like that and the whole thing just gives me a bad mood and I turn into really bad company.

In everyday life: Yes, one should not indulge oneself to uncritical pleasure and comfort. There are such things as health risks and problems tie your own shoes, but there is such a thing as own comfort zone and a middle way. Too much and too little of anything is equally bad.

There should be room for conversations about how to improve your lifestyle. After all, we don’t always see how we can improve our lifestyle and still feel good about ourselves.

Lifestyle is often chosen based on what is familiar to us, what we find as means to calm discomfort, financial situation or what we think other people expect from us. And all of those reasons are important. We may not like it, but it is true. We can’t just change because somebody tells us to. If we are to change a lifestyle we need to find something compatible to us first. Only then we can consider remove something from our life to make room for something new.

If we search for a better lifestyle, we have already understood we need a change. If we have come to that conclusion we have issues we must be allowed to figure out. Comments not thought-through, said in a content tone of voice, could very well add to the problem… no matter how well-intended

I'm back!

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on my blog. I guess there are two obvious explanations, on my part, for me not posting anything: Either I make a lot of excuses (well, you probably didn’t miss my texts anyway, so that is rather unnecessary and pointless) or I can pick up posting texts as if nothing happened.

This is a rather transitory forum: There is a LOT of blogs on the net. Most of them has been shut down, abandoned or forgotten about. To many writing a blog, and keeping it up, is rather time-consuming. I would not feel guilty for just leaving this blog behind and never give it another thought. Or so I could probably fool myself into thinking.

Thing is; however bad or silly I might write; when days are busy and flustered with hardly time to inhale properly even once, I get this calm feeling when I let my fingers do the work as they run over the keyboard and type whatever ramble which should happen to run through my mind.

To write has become a valve through which I let me escape from being there for others all the time, and from my name being yelled.

My name is never just spoken as if in a conversation. It is yelled numerous times through the day in different tones of voices, for different reasons, in different degrees of patience...: Sometimes I hate my name. Not because I hate it per se, but most often it is not me, as a person, people call for: they call my name in order to get something from me. Things, money, help, food, attention… the list of reasons why people, very young and older, call my name is close to endless.

I didn’t stop writing all together for this period of time. I finished off the schoolyear reviewing end of term tests, grading exams, preparing for next year, and I just didn’t feel the computer was friendly to me. Strange as it is. My laptop became another demanding element, not human (or my dog, which really knows how to make demands), but nevertheless.

I turned to the old fashioned notebook, writing my thoughts down with a pen. The feeling of the pen running over the page, line by line, creating words in my own personal handwriting was wonderful. It was like finding a long lost friend. I savoured these handwritten pages, with their doodles in the margins, but after I had finished two notebooks, and started on my third, I looked at the notebooks and realized they would become dust collectors taking up space I don’t have. I have stacks of papers I am trying to deliberate myself from already, this was adding to the piles.

It is so much better so save my scribblings where they don't collect dust and only occupy insignificant quantity of space (that sounded very appropriate). So…: I’m back!