Sick

Sunday, the day after the Circus wedding it hit me. I woke up completely blocked and my face was swollen like a big round moon. My throat was soar and I felt weak.

Monday I was worse, had a high temperature and when I phoned my boss to say I was sick he could hardly hear what I said, that’s how hoarse I was.

Tuesday – ALL symptoms were gone! No blocked nose, not a trace of fever and my throat was perfect. It was strange, I still felt weak so I allowed myself an extra day to sleep instead of going to work.

Then came Wednesday and Thursday, funnily I was weaker and felt very odd, something was wrong, I felt dizzy and faint. But still no other symptoms, I was by now beginning to have a bad conscious about not going to work cause outwardly I looked perfect.

So on Friday I went to work, got there a bit late of course (only 3 hours), sat at my desk, switched on the computer and felt weird. Then I fainted. Sort of semi fainted anyway, caught myself before I hit the floor.

Fainting is a very fascinating experience, the hard floor under ones feet suddenly turns into wobbly jelly and colours and shapes shift back and fro, swaying or are warped out of proportion.

Anyway a nurse took my blood pressure and it turned out to be pretty low (90/60), I was recommended to lay down or go home. Now an interesting thing happened, my mother called and when she found out she freaked! This may be a normal thing for a mother to do, when they find out their child is sick. But my mother has never actually enjoyed that part of motherhood. Only rarely did she believe us if we were sick and to pamper a sick child was not her thing. My father on the other hand was the one who bought us ice cream if we had a cold and sat on the balcony with my sister wrapped up in blankets all night when she couldn’t breath from asthma attacks.

But this Friday my mother freaked out for a little low blood pressure and rushed over to take me home by car.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much spent in bed and by now I was getting annoyed cause my head was completely clear, I was not tired, on the contrary I was full of energy. But my mother was worried and this as I’ve already mentioned was odd.

Monday – I had promised to call my very kind but mumbling doctor and ask him about it. Our conversation went something like this:

- Hi Doc! I don’t feel very well. I feel strange.
- Hmm.. ok..mmm…so what are your symptoms?
- Well that’s the thing I don’t really have any, I just feel really really weak.
- No symptoms? Fever?
- No fever, only one day. No I just feel strange, weak, as if I have a temperature but without the actual fever. Do you know what I mean?
- Ehh..no…
- Oh… Well it feels a bit like walking on candyfloss and rotating at the same time. Do you understand?
- Well, actually I don’t.
- Oh…How about if I’m walking on a spinning cloud or like on a gigantic pannacotta?
- No, I am sorry, I don’t know what you mean. Do you have any pain anywhere?
- No, no pain. But my arms - especially the left one – and legs fall asleep all the time. You know “pins and needles”, but it will occur for no reason. Oh and my blood pressure is low 90/60 and has been for some days now.
- Oh, hmm… I don’t know…mumble mumble…heart…mumble…mumble… test…
- Eh? Sorry? Did you say heart?
- Hmm…yes, I think you better come and have some tests on your heart. I don’t have any times left but I will let you come in after practice, I think I should see you soon. How does Thursday sound to you?

So Thursday it is. Great. Finally I will find out exactly what is wrong with me.

No. No. That is not my heart you can hear thump at night when I can’t sleep for worrying.
No, I am fine really, what?
Why I am rubbing my left arm?
Oh its just a bit cold and I lost the feeling in it strangely enough.
But it will be back soon.

No worries.

Leaves

The Culture Festival of Stockholm

Two weeks ago I worked for a big festival in town. I had got the job from an acquaintance of mine who lives in the same neighbourhood.

At the festival I was in charge of organising the dressing room areas for the artists who numbered to between 50 and 300 artists per day. We had 2 very large auditoriums to our disposal and I arranged them like little rooms, only without walls. Instead of walls I taped the outline of walls and doors on the floor, so it would look like a blueprint of a house. I thought it was quite fun.

Everything went splendidly or so I thought, my acquaintance who was now my boss wasn’t very thrilled by anything I did or said. She constantly checked up on me “Have you missed this?” “Have you forgotten that?” “Maybe it is better if you do it this way” “Maybe you can do that instead” But the worst was her tone of voice, she spoke to me (and to everybody else) as if she was talking to a five year old, with her head leaning a bit to the side and a patronising smile on her lips.

But since we are still on speaking terms and she wants me to work at the festival next year I must have done something right or maybe I just didn’t do too much wrong…

The best part of the festival was working with the unpaid volunteers. We had about 20 of them, all different sizes, colours, shapes and ages.

There was the greying 50-ish German man who loved everything to do with electricity, if you asked him to move a table from one end of the room to the other he would find some electrical extension cords and start taping them to the floor instead.

Another elderly French speaking man from Burundi was very sweet and he said “Yes of course” to everything one asked of him, only then to disappear for an hour. On his return and questioned why he hadn’t done what he had been asked, he would just smile sweetly again and shrug. (At the end of the week we realised he could talk but didn’t understand any Swedish).

Then there was the little plump old lady who smiled so much her face shrivelled up in a thousand wrinkles. I asked her to fill ONE (1) thermos with coffee. This she did, the only problem was that when I came back from some other chores she had continued to brew coffee and filled every single thermos, jug and cup in the whole room with coffee (about 20 litres of coffee) and she just stood there completely lost and begged me for some more vessels to fill.

There were some young stars as well.

The funniest character must have been a young girl who tripped in on stilettos, tiny shorts and a minute bikini top late one afternoon. She clicked her way over to me and flashed a great big Miss Universe smile at me from behind her huge Chanel sunglasses.

Our job was to make coffee, fix catering and tidy up, her attire was more suited for sipping cool drinks by a pool. I didn’t say anything because I figured that she would come dressed more appropriately the next day – but alas the stilettos, the bikini top and tiny shorts were with us the rest of the week. This Little Miss Universe was more of a talker than a doer, a wide eyed naïve thing. Everything was amazing and fabulous and wonderful and brilliant and WOW! She questioned everything to pieces: why this and why not this and who are you? And why are you? And what are you? She actually prepared 100 questions for me to answer about my life...

But I also met a very nice girl from London, a writer who just moved to Sweden to be with her love. She was (thank you god!) one of those people who when given a task she would do it 150% and then do some more, intelligently as well, without complaining and always smiling.

Parents

A difficult species, parents are the two beings one is born from and then grow up with.

Two people, who love you unconditionally. Or so they think?

Two personalities, with their own lives that they have lived to the fullest. Or rather not?

Two grown ups. who say when you are little “As long as you are happy, we don’t mind what choices you make in life” and then when you get a little bit older they say “Maybe it would be better if you take flute lessons instead of guitar, it’s a much nicer instrument”.

A father, who dotes on the child and loves her to bits by singing and telling her stories and answering all those impossible questions of an innocent. But when she gets old enough to see his unhappiness and she asks about it, he breaks her heart into bits, by ostracizing her. Taking away her right to his words, by silencing her world.

A mother who dresses her daughter lovingly up in flower patterned dresses and rosettes in her hair, praising her prettiness. But when that same daughter grows up, the mother’s focus turns to the ugliness of the legs or the scruffiness of the hairstyle.

A dad who says “I refuse to send our daughter to the University of Arts Saint Martin’s in London, she will suffer terribly from homesickness” just because he dropped out of the same school and also because he would suffer from longing, even though our relationship was silent.

A mother who wishes for me to find a nice proper man with a good education preferably a doctor or lawyer and it would be nice if he was Polish as well. But when I find a proper Polish man with a good education she still tries to hook me up with other guys.

A man who still says “As long as you are happy I am happy” but when I, his daughter tell him I am moving to another country to be with my love, to be happy, he suddenly breaks his silence and tells me in icy cold hard words about the stupidity of my choice.

Why is it so hard to walk away from that? Why is it impossible to let the words slide off my back without touching me? Why is the bond so strong to these people so hard to break? Why do I still feel so guilty?

Festival number one

The last two months have had so many impressions and overloaded my brain that now I can hardly breath without burping up some confused memory or picture. LESS than a week after I got back from Israel and the wedding there my loved one decided to surprise me in Stockholm. I hadn’t even unpacked my bag yet!

I was overwhelmed, over the moon and over worked. Luckily I was the only person at work so I could “work from home” another term for “pretend you are working hard when you actually aren’t”.

I can’t really remember what we did during the 3 weeks I made food some days, other days we had dinners at various friends and family.

One week we went up north to a hippy trippy festival. You know the kind, world music, dreadlocks swinging over Djembes, rainbow coloured cars, cute girls giving away free hugs and strangely enough a Thai food stall behind every tree or bush.

Most of you would probably say that this was the perfect place for me. For some reason people think of me as some kind of hippy which pisses me off no end.

Ok, I have long flowing hair without styling but that’s just because I would rather spend my money on a book than a haircut. Long flowing skirts – hmph, something I only wear at home or on a journey far away. But a long skirt is the most practical attire. A long skirt is warm on a cold day and cool on a warm day. Great protection against mosquitoes and comfortable and one doesn’t have to wear underwear. Plus if I had the gorgeous slim legs of my sister, I too would be wearing uncomfortable and impractical miniskirts like her. But as long as I can hear the tiny voice of my mum’s in the back of my head going “Oy, sweetie, it is such a pity you didn’t get daddy’s thin legs!” I will not bother with the minis.

So why does everyone think I am a hippy?

Because I like roaming the world? Not really true, all I want is to find a place where I want to stay and get out of the place I’m currently in.

Do I embrace the philosophy of love, peace and smoking dope? I love love that much is true, but I do not believe in peace and I don’t smoke dope any more. It’s boring.

And all that stuff that many hippies are on about – healing, auras, dream catchers, wicca, astrology and energies – I am truly sorry because I am sure I will hurt someone’s feelings now but all those things are to me just what they are – bull shit.

So after a week I had overdosed on hippies and Thai food and even though we had a great time, as soon as we got on the bus home I was overjoyed.

Israel in July

Since I wrote last I have been to Israel for my loved one's brother's wedding. It was "over the top", by the sea, massive amounts of food and exciting, but finishing long before it should have finished. It was also a bit nerve wrecking meeting a load of family and as usual a bit boring at times when I stood in a group of Hebrew speaking friends with a phoney smile on my face pretending that I was not present.

The Drummer Boy had got us an apartment in the centre of Tel Aviv so that we could enjoy being together more fully. I mean, I adore his parents but it feels a bit weird sleeping on a bumpy fold-away bed that sqeeks every time you breath - in the room right next to his parents.

The apartment in Tel Aviv was huge and empty apart from some humungous cockroaches who fought for my attention with the hungry mosquitos. Also it was extremely noisy because of the cars, mopeds, trucks, buses, people and cats on the streets outside. What is it with all the honking in Israel?!

I became very sick just after I arrived in Israel, only a major cold but a few days after the Drummer Boy caught it as well only this time the major cold germs had metamorphosed themselves into deadly super cold germs. This is according to the Drummer Boy who was seriously dying for 24 hours. After surviving that first day and night (I mean myself) everything more or less went back to normal. Drummer boy a little paler after his near death experience and myself a bit less impressed by my love.

One of my favorite things in this apartment was our neighbour who every day around noon got up and stood with one foot on the balcony railing next to his dog and watched the world go by.

Queens Birthday Party – Death

My father gets up telling me “Maybe it’s time to leave.”

“Ok” I reply, and turn to George, say goodbye shaking his hand adding that it was a real pleasure to meet him.

George nods approvingly mumbling “Likewise” as he struggles slowly out of his chair extending his hand to my father. “You have a delightful daughter!” he tells him.

Father looks pleased and says “Yes, thank you! Maybe we will see you next year at this function?”

“Next year… no, I don’t think so” George mumbles “I’ll be dead by then!”

“Hehe” father laughs in discomfort “you won’t be dead. But maybe I’ll see you before then, at the party held by Eva next week?”

“Next week? Ahh, yes…maybe. But I think I’ll be dead by then!” George’s replies seriously.

“Don’t be silly!” my annoyed father waves his hand disapprovingly to ward off the difficult subject. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you” he adds and turns to leave.

“But it is time you know!” George raises his voice after him “Its time to die! I’ve had my share of women, drink and fun, it really is time to go! I don’t know what’s keeping them from getting me…” his voice trails off.

My father with a firm grip on my arm guides me away briskly mumbling to himself "Crazy man! Absolutely crazy, that man!"