Holy Hell

2016-09-172017-03-143 Comments

The summer is still hanging on even though it’s about to be fall. It has been the hottest September in 160 years here in Sweden. I absolutely loathe heatwaves. I miss rainy days, dark clouds, stormy weather, grey skies and fresh air. But I guess these are the last days of summer.

From “Holy Hell” (2016)

I watched a great documentary on Netflix yesterday – “Holy Hell”, about a charismatic spiritual teacher who formed a cult in California in the 80’s, called “Buddafield” and the filmmaker was documenting the events and lives of the members, with his camera, during his 22 years with the cult. I am very creeped out by most religious beliefs and spirituality that is based on a leader (a God or a teacher) and the submission of his followers. People might think I’m into religious spirituality because I’m writing so much about the inner core and how to embrace the inner world. But I’m not. I am so not into that at all.

“Ship of Fools” by Mia Makila. 2008

When you hear religious or spiritual people talk about being filled with light and energy from reaching some kind of spiritual ecstasy, they always describe an “out of body experience”, like the spirit has been liberated from the physical body. To me this is the opposite of what I want to experience. For a person who has been dealing with PTSD for two decades, and a dissasociative disorder, where you separate your mind from your body to survive traumatic experiences and memories, there is nothing holy or liberating about the out of body experience.

2014

Once you start to protecting yourself with the dissasociative state, it is hard to go back to experiencing things with both body and mind connected. I still separate myself at times, even though I’m not going through another trauma. I separate during sex. In arguments. In situations where I don’t feel safe.

This is also visible in my art from a year that was particular hard for me – where I only created octopuses. An octopus doesn’t have a body, only a big head with tentacles dangling underneath:

From my old blog:

“It was so easy for me to separate my emotional experiences from my carnal existence. In some situations I could actually feel how I disappeared, how I drifted, far, far away from myself and abandoned my body – just as I felt abandoned by life and love.

When you are sexually, emotionally or physically humiliated and destroyed, you feel completely invisible. To not be seen, to be ignored, to not be listened to – even though you are pleading for your life, trying to connect with the abuser to stop the violence and humiliation,, you are completely extinguished as a human being, not only emotionally but in a way even physically. You feel invisible. Your body is still there, but it doesn’t matter. You are just an object, a meat blob. Like closing your eyes but still being able to see everything that is happening around you, everything that is happening – to you.”

The most significant thing for me now is to reconnect and experience life (and myself) with everything I am. It is the most spiritual thing I can imagine – to experience happiness, creativity and pleasure where I am deeply connected between mind, body and spirit.

It isn’t about finding a light in other people – or from a divine leader to be able fill the void inside your soul, it’s all about finding it within yourself and then do something wonderful with it – as a contribution to the external world. That is what spirituality is to me. A self-intimacy and self-compassion that turns into a balanced and warm energy that I want to share with other people. It is simply about taking responsibility for your own happiness and then sharing it with the world – or with somebody else who is your equal so you won’t lose that sense of inner balance and connection. The beautiful inside-the-body-experience.

There’s a story waiting to be told

2016-09-152017-03-14Leave a comment

From one of the computer folders of my digital artworks

I’m feeling excited about building this new art show. This is the first phase of creating a collection of digital works and I will make a million changes in the selection and add more to it as I’m creating new ones. I will also incorporate other expressions – paintings, poetry etc. It will be an art show dedicated to my spiritual (and artistic) metamorphosis.

Digital works being born in my printer’s office at ProImages in Stockholm, 2013

As I am going through all the digital pieces on my computer (so many of them are yet to be printed for the first time) I can see a story unfolding in them. I’ve been working with PhotoShop as an artistic media since 2007 and I’ve reinvented myself many times since then – but ironically I started out making black and white pieces and now I am back to the monochrome palette again.

Early digital works:

“THEY” BY MIA MAKILA – 2007 (DIGITAL) Edition of 5, 36 x 44,5 cm, PRICE: 4000 SEK

“The Gathering” by Mia Makila, 2007 [digital]

“The Strange Girl” by Mia Makila, 2007 [digital]

“The Hitchockian Girl” by Mia Makila, 2007

“Bird Lady” by Mia Makila, 2007

I will try to find a way to tell this story right. To do the important and beautiful processes of spiritual awakening and the metamorphosis justice. It will be a very personal collection of works – and the story will work as closure for me to that particular chapter of my life.

The unresolved

2016-09-132017-03-14Leave a comment

The night came with more darkness than I expected and I’m feeling slightly melancholic. Going through this process of acceptance is hard. I’m walking through a parade of things unresolved. Flaws. Shadowlands. My mind is trying to work it all out, by just accepting it, but it is not done without a great inner resistance. Like I’m hoping to find a solution for the unresolved at the last minute. But there is no point in trying. I have to accept that life leaves you with these unfinished symphonies at times.

The silence is not a waiting room anymore. Your hands look a bit like mine but I will never know how they will age with time. The years that we wasted will grow into a soundless void. My tears will dry and turn into a collection of dead pain. The blood moon will never rise again. I won’t have to write any more black letters. The truth won’t have to burn in three’s.

Trimming the horizon

2016-09-132017-03-14Leave a comment

I keep waking up from strange dreams at night. Last night I was on a beach and I trimmed the horizon with a pair of scissors until it started to rain then I ran into a room with a kitten that held me hostage. Other times I wake up wondering where Johnny is and I call out his name until I realize he’s back in California. It is a confusing time of overlapping timelines – I’m looking back to find some kind of closure and acceptance of my past, and the future I want to share with Johnny seems so far away (that’s probably why I wanted to be able to trim the horizon) all while going through many changes in my present moment. It’s a blur of ‘then’s, ‘now’s and ‘later’s. Both me and my life is a work in progress and I have to accept that I will feel like this at times, bloody confused.

At least I know where I am now. I am here, the past is over there behind me and the future is in front of me. When you live with PTSD the timeline is different; the present moment is glued to the past and the future doesn’t really exist. But it doesn’t feel as confusing as this because then you only have one time to consider and it’s your past, almost like it’s carrying you through the timeline but not into the future but rather going round in circles instead.

When I started doing self-therapy work three years ago, I had no idea how much work it would be to clear out the timeline so I could see a horizon. But now I do and it looks spectacular. But it feels so far away. Unreachable. I guess I have more work to do to be able to feel like I will be able to reach it and all the wonderful colors it holds.

(photo found on tumblr)

Trapped in amber

2016-09-122017-03-14Leave a comment

A still from one of my favorite TV series “Fringe” with people trapped and frozen in an amber quarantine

Johnny and I have been watching Fringe together, but from opposite sides of the world. I really love that show and it tickles my imagination, especially all the philosophical elements.

As we were watching the episodes where people have been frozen in time inside the amber quarantines due to the overlapping of an alternate Universe, I was thinking about how I wish I could do that with my past, just trap it all in amber and there would be no way for me to reach it – or for my past to ever reach me. I think I have to create my own amber quarantine, inside my mind.

I’ve tried to run away from my past, I’ve tried to block it out, I’ve even had some suicidal thoughts at times (don’t worry, I would never surrender to those thoughts) when the past has come too close to my present moment, but it’s impossible to escape it and trying to escape it doesn’t make me feel at peace. It’s just a desperation of not feeling like I’ve had closure. PTSD is not easy to live with, and at times it can be confusing to live with the past as a shadow to every passing moment.

You can never run away from the past – but at the same time the past is no longer part of reality. It is merely a collection of used up time, memories, words, feelings, actions that once was part of reality but now gone. The only way my past could ever reach me is in the way I allow it to exist in my thoughts. I make it real, I break the laws of reality when I visit it through my pain and the vicious memories.

I love the quote: “Nothing controls you, you control nothing” – it is a good reminder of how my past has no power over me, here and now, in this very moment and that I can never go back and change anything. People from my past can return, familiar situations can be duplicated, but I am a different person now – I am not the same person I was back then. Today I would not accept the things I once accepted, I would not love the people I once loved – I would not even start the fights I once started. It wasn’t worth it. None of it. Not the love stories, the passionate affairs, the tragic warfare, the silences, the stupid strategies to prove I was right and not failing. Who cares about all that? Who was I trying to prove all that for anyway? Why was my attitude that everything would either ‘make me or break me’? Why did I take so many risks when there were no rewards?

My past is not only a collection of dead time and vivid memories of old mistakes, it is also a collection of questions and they are keeping my past alive. I’m like a restless ghost haunting my own past – asking ‘why, why, why?’. I have to accept that there are no answers and that the only question to ask is ‘how, how, how?’ – how I want my life to be, who I want to be, and how I want my future to look. That is an exciting question. The why is only loaded with confusion and pain.

I’ll put that inside of the amber quarantine as well.

I love how I am always rescued by movies and TV series somehow. They trigger something positive in me, and I can’t count all the moments where a line or a scene has made me moved forward in my thoughts. It’s odd but nice. And it makes me a nerd, but that’s ok. Because I am sharing all these moments with another nerd. We speak ‘nerdish’ and it makes me feel really good. It makes me feel loved.

Time to put my past in an amber quarantine. I’ve got stuff to do.

And oh, I just love the Fringe title song, here is an extended version:

A quest to find a new place in the art world

2016-09-112017-03-14Leave a comment

Exciting inner creative processes are in motion. I know what I want to accomplish next in my art career – with a future art show and it’s gonna be different from anything I’ve done before. Less shocking perhaps but more personal and poetic. It is so god damn hard to let go of my old career because it was everything I had ever dreamed about, but at the same time I couldn’t take the pressure that came with it – and it was killing my creativity. And when you think about it, it’s not a difficult choice; to choose creativity over past achievements. It’s not about looking backwards anyway – and what really kills creativity is any form of comparison, even if the comparison is to your own past achievements.

My art in the “UPSET” art book of contemporary lowbrow artists, 2010

I need a clean slate, a fresh start and a new place in the art world. I’m letting go of my old artistic position as part of a movement or style – I am my own genre and I am flexible in both expression and style. It was very tempting and very flattering to be part of the lowbrow art movement and the pop-surrealist community, because I’ve never felt at home anywhere, socially. It was like I found my people, but at the same time it was holding me back and I started to adjust my style and the motifs to fit the movement or the group shows. I won’t do that again. I’m ok with being an outsider or at least not part of any group. The struggle will be harder when I walk alone but without compromising my artistic integrity and my genuine expression.

Although I am very proud to be one of the pioneers of the digital art movement – what I like to call “the digi wave”. I have many friends and colleagues surfing the digi wave in the art world. Their digital techniques and expressions vary a lot. Here are some of them;

Sonya Fu

Aeron Alfrey

Casajordi Bousquet

Alexander Jansson

My life isn’t mine without you as the heart of it

2016-09-102017-03-14Leave a comment

The missing is unbearable today. You are suddenly so far away, perhaps even a year away. I hate being this broke. I need to find more money so I can kiss you again, sooner than in a year.

A language spoken not stolen

2016-09-092017-03-14Leave a comment

For the people who are questioning the authenticity of digital art and would say “What about the ‘stolen’ images you collect from books and use in your digital collages?” I want to answer: “I paint with pictures. The images are my colors. Poets don’t invent the alphabet nor the language when they are writing their poetry.” – Mia Makila

“Still Life With Flowers and Love” by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital collage]

My latest obsession

2016-09-092017-03-14Leave a comment

I can’t get enough of Christine and The Queens, I think I’m a little obsessed with her. At least it’s a big time girl crush. I get so inspired by her genuine charisma, passionate energy and the subtle sensuality.

‘Acceptance’ is more about letting go

2016-09-082017-03-14Leave a comment

work in progress – “Out of Reach”

I’m getting nowhere with the clinics, I’m frustrated but I’m slowly recovering. The health care system in Sweden at this point is basically following the trend of the DIY movement; Do it yourself. But I’ve become pretty good at figuring out how to treat myself and I know what medical care that works and what doesn’t. As long as my health is improving, I don’t care if I have to play doctor, I hate hospital milieus anyway.

Part of my self-treatment is to let go of the stress from this summer. It’s been a lot. I have some heavy decisions to make when it comes to how I want to build my nearest future. I also have to go on defining myself as an artist – I have a feeling that I have to let go of some things to be able to push through the struggles I’m dealing with in my creativity. Something is holding me back and I know exactly what it is, but it’s hard to accept.

It’s my audience. You.

Perhaps I have to kill some darlings – your darlings – in order to continue working with my art. I know I will lose a lot of admirers, fans and collectors if my work took a different direction, if my focus point would shift from the things that brought me success and appreciation – to a whole new genre where I’m not familiar with the audience. But that is the privilege I have as an artist, to reinvent myself and my expression over and over again throughout my career. I have changed so much since my early works and my art is changing alongside my personal metamorphosis.

Early works:

Semi-Paradise by Mia Makila, 2006

Alone In Hell by Mia Makila, 2006

Holiday In Hell, 2007

Works from 2014-2016:

“Not a Phallus” by Mia Makila, 2014 [digital]

The Screaming Rug by Mia Makila, 2016 – digital.

“A Binary Dream” by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital]

My life used to be a very private version of Hell. Chaotic. Dramatic. Painful. Everything in either black or white – but at the same time burning or in flames. Now, my life is full of love, longing, sensuality and stillness. I’ve found a harmonic grey-scale (visible in my latest digital works) within the black and white.

As I am thinking about all this, a title for a future art show emerges. That is evidence that I am on the right path. Acceptance is more about letting go than it is about finding new answers. I need to accept that I can never go back to being the artist I once was – and I can’t force myself to be the artist I would love to be even though it doesn’t come natural to me. I just have to let go of my timeline of success and failure and accept the artist I’ve become, going through all that. The artist I am. Now. Celebrated for my past achievements – but not forced to live up to the expectations that came with that. I have big plans for my future art projects, but I need more money. So let’s start there.

I’m letting go of your expectations of me. Thank you for loving my art so far. It has meant so much to me. But I have to have the freedom to reinvent myself from time to time – and you are invited to follow me on my journey, it will be a roller-coaster ride for both of us I’m sure.

The danger of non-acceptance

2016-09-072017-03-14Leave a comment

I had a little breakthrough in my self-therapy yesterday. Psychological breakthroughs are equally tough to face as they are liberating. It means you have pushed through a wall – and acknowledged something that you haven’t been ready to admit to yourself before and suddenly you are so clear in your mind – and things finally start to make sense.

I’m not a crazy cat lady, I’m the crazy notebook lady! (self-therapy books)

As I am working with my self-therapy and making research and notes in my notebooks, I often return to the same conclusions, but always with more understanding or new theories which will add something important to the old ones. I gradually build a clear understanding of my own behavior and emotions – and then I can move on and hopefully change from the core out.

notes from 2013 explaining the main movement of the ‘dance of death’

One thing that I keep coming back to is my theoriy about the dance of death (the destructive relationship, see older post here). I’ve filled notebook after notebook with theories and illustrations about the cycles of abuse and psychological submission/dominance.

The basic foundation to the dance of death is one person feeling submissive to another who’s acting like a victim that the submissive person is trying to rescue but being dominated and damaged in the process – and ends up a real victim (and the abuser won’t recognize or acknowledge the process of this dance which leaves the submissive person feeling lonely and powerless or doubting the whole experience).

A simple movement of a bad cycle going round and round but each time becoming more toxic and damaging for the person who’s trying to rescue the other (and the fantasy of what it COULD be like if the other person would change their behavior). A base for co-dependency.

This is the first step in getting caught in a destructive relationship – and the reason why many women stay with men who abuse them (or vice versa). But there’s more. Here is a ‘destructive ladder’ I’ve found in my work yesterday:

Lack of acceptance. I could not accept that the person I loved (and the victim I wanted to rescue in them) could ever abuse me or use psychological manipulation to put me down, to force me into a submissive position, to blame me for their damaging behavior etc, because that meant that I had to leave. The thought of leaving scared me so much that I’d much rather accept being treated badly. Because the abuser doesn’t want to take any responsibility for their actions or words – and their damaging behavior, I was left with all the guilt, shame and the heavy responsibility of blame. That makes it even harder to accept that the relationship is toxic and leaving the ‘victim’ I was trying to rescue is very difficult when you feel responsible. The lack of acceptance made me stay and paradoxically accept the abuse .
Expectations. Instead of accepting reality, that I was being abused, I turned to my expectations that things would get better or that the person would change, that they would come around and understand what they’ve done and apologize, that I could change them and make them see just how toxic their behavior was, that they would suddenly be full of remorse and regret and cry and promise never to repeat their abusive behavior. Of course that never happened. The lack of acceptance made me stay and accept their abuse and the expectations of a future time where everything would be alright, would make it even harder for me to quit the dance of death.
Responsibility / Guilt. Because I wanted my expectations to come true, I had to carry the responsibility all alone and not make anything worse by saying the wrong thing, by being confrontational or provocative, I had to adjust my own behavior and censor myself to not make the abuser angry or more hateful. Here is where I would lose myself completely to THEIR expectation of who I should be to them and the guilt I felt for being who I really was made me even more submissive and cemented my role in the dance of death even stronger.
Blocking out negative emotions. Because of I had to live up to their expectations of how I should behave, what I could or could not say or do, to make them comfortable and happy enough so that they would live up to MY expectations of them (to stop being abusive and start being empathetic and loving), and because I refused to accept the real nature of the relationship, I had to block out the negative emotions in order for the ‘lie’ of the dance to go on. This repressing process of real and powerful emotions is very damaging and leads to a disassociative state, memory loss, depression, separation of the self and makes the dance of death seem natural and normal. It will take a long time to reclaim all these emotions if a dance would ever end.

And it’s not easy to disrupt the cycle or end the endless rotation of the dance. But I did, more than once. If I’d only accepted the reality of the situation and the destructive nature of the relationship, I wouldn’t have stayed in the dance.

This is one of the most important discoveries I’ve made in my self-therapy so far.

Back to (my) nature <3

2016-09-052017-03-142 Comments

The evening sun

2016-09-052017-03-14Leave a comment

The first evening in a long time when I don’t feel blinded by the evening sun but rather comforted.

Someone helped me get unstuck!

2016-09-052017-03-143 Comments

Life is funny. It has happened many times that I’ve received an email from a stranger who’s following my blog, at the exact time I’ve needed to hear whatever they have to tell me. I am not religious nor do I believe in fate, but this is something that has meant a great deal to me, spiritually. Today it happened again. A kind person helped me fill in a blank space in my inner journey and now I know exactly where I have to go next. Stuck, my ass, now I am on my way again!

My blank space held the question “What is the opposite of ‘expectations’ (both good and bad)? How can I go on without feeling the weight of them?” The answer was embarrassingly simple;

acceptance.

So, there it is. Such a little word but with the complexities of a whole lifetime of trying to get there.

But at least now I’ve found a new direction for the path I’m walking on. Sometimes getting stuck is just one step closer to getting unstuck. Getting lost is one step closer to defining what home really is and where it is to be found.

With the concept of acceptance follows many steps of self-discovery and self-compassion. I am ready to work hard to accept the things I haven’t been able to accept before. I have to accept myself and my nature (and my body), my limitations, shortcomings, strength, my superpower, my talents, I have to accept reality, situations and people I can’t change, hearts I won’t ever be able to reach, I have to accept the love I am offered, I have to accept that I will always carry a big sadness within my soul but also to allow happiness inside, I have to accept that my past will always be a part of me but that it can’t touch me anymore, the slow processes of trauma recovery and that I can never live up to what other people want me to be for their own comfort.

To accept all those things is also to let go of worries, fears, stress, frustration and the sense of being powerless.

What this person did for me today with her email was not only to help me get unstuck, she also gave me hope that everything will be alright. As long as I am in a constant movement forward, everything will be alright – even if it means accepting being stuck for a little while and not being able to run wild but to take the smallest steps to be able to move forward.

I’m unstuck and hopeful.

What a beautiful twist to a bad day.

Tools

2016-09-052017-03-14Leave a comment

The tools to overcome this hard time in my life might seem simple but they are hard to balance and that’s the most important part of overcoming things. Finding balance.

9:20 pm: killing heavy expectations

2016-09-032017-03-14Leave a comment

I’m working on my self therapy tonight, trying to map out how to kill the expectations that are holding me back, all while listening to Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart of course.

Seen on my walk today:

2016-09-022017-03-142 Comments

My beautiful city, Norrköping, Sweden

A golden texture

Swirl

The blue popped

Random surrealism

Surprise.

Green

Dream girl

Bright

Hearts for sale

Expectations

2016-09-022017-03-14Leave a comment

I’ve spent a couple of days with more visits at the clinic and making research about something that I think is the essence of most of my misfortunes; expectations. I have high expectations of myself, I expect bad things to happen when I feel vulnerable (PTSD symptom), I feel like I have to live up to other people’s expectations (that’s why it’s so hard for me to be myself around other people and why it’s so easy for me to lose myself and my inner voice), I create a dreamlike world full of expectations in my head and reality has no chance to live up to it – and I expect the worst outcome when faced with a problem (catastrophe minded).

This is a good topic for my research – and it’s a key to many locked places inside my mind. Maybe it’s even connected to my art and one of the reasons why it’s been so hard for me to work since I got a little successful 10 years ago, because I suddenly felt there were new and higher expectations of me – both from other people and from myself as well.

It’s surely one of the reasons why I stayed in all those destructive relationships – I was chasing their approval by trying to match their expectations instead of leaving when I felt like they didn’t appriciate me for who I really am. I call this chase the dance of death and now I can see how it’s deeply rooted in my behavior because I am so sensitive to the pressure of other people’s expectations. To not live up to them has made me feel worthless and not worthy of their love. And I’ve been rewarded for losing my self-respect while chasing theirs – and punished when I’ve demonstrated self-respect while going against theirs. No wonder I’ve become so messed up.

But I am not that innocent, I have high expectations of other people too, and I’m especially brutal with the expectations I have of a partner, mostly because I am so sensitive to what I’ve experienced in my past relationships. As soon as they disappoint me, I think I am close to a new betrayal. And that’s when I freak out – and things get complicated.

Trust and faith are good tools to overcome this fear of betrayal, but it’s hard to trust when you have a damaged soul. I’m doing my best. I’m trying not to expect it. To not look for it. To feel like I’m on to something. Expecting betrayal can make you slightly paranoid and leads to unnecessary suffering. I’m happy I am now aware of all this, it will be so much easier to overcome it.

I had built so many expectations before Johnny came here, what we were supposed to do, places to visit, we would be happy and enjoying every minute of the two weeks we had together. I was blowing up expectations like balloons. But reality popped the balloons when I got sick and we couldn’t do all those things or visit all those places together. I got frustrated and annoyed so I couldn’t feel happy all the time. My expectations transformed from the light and pretty balloons to the heavy weight of a ball and chain, tied to my ankle like a reminder of what a failure I was for not being able to live up to my own expectations. Johnny saw this and made me see how silly it is. I had created my own sense of failure after creating expectations where there’s no room for the unexpected or any reality. Johnny thinks the best way to stay away from expectations is to have the attitude of “engaged improv” (to be spontaneous and present). I like that. But it’s hard to change from being someone who’s all about trying to control life by building expectations (good and bad) to the relaxed and bohemian ways of engaged improvisations. But it is a motivation to let go of any form of expectations. Mine or theirs.

There are so many ways to break free, both mentally and emotionally. I’ve gone through many phases of self-liberty and independence lately. And I’m gonna continue until I feel like I can live my life without having any weight of my past holding me back.

Radical openness

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Sometimes I get these really sweet messages from strangers and people who appreciate both my art and writing that makes my whole heart glow of gratitude. People seem to respond to my candid nature and my genuine passion for sharing my innermost thoughts in order to connect with the world.

– female reader

We live in a time when our integrity is compromised by ego trips on social media or buried under social pressure of not being “good enough” as we are in our true nature. And we overcompensate with things that makes us feel better about ourselves but don’t mean that much. Making deeper connections is what matters, a chance to share ourselves and our life, love, happiness, our fears and the juicy parts of the mind and heart with other people is what we all hunger for. But for that to happen, it takes two things which are tied to each other; courage to be vulnerable. That’s when we can open up and start sharing ourselves with other people. And the sharing works like my reader described it as “medicine” – for both sides. Integrity is not about closing our hearts but protecting the beautiful energy we have to share with one another.

The scent of time and love

2016-08-312017-03-142 Comments

I’m at my parent’s house, I couldn’t bring myself to go home to an empty apartment. I feel sad but at the same time happy and grateful for the moments we’ve shared together in real life, so far. When you are building a home together in a long distance relationship, it is impossible to take anything for granted. Time. Love. Life in general. A long distance relationship is a good reminder of how precious life is – how rare it is to find someone you can connect with on a deeper level – and how time can work both as a highway to common goals and as an invisible wall of limitations and restrictions.

I am thankful that I live in a part of the world – and in a time where time difference as a concept is merely a nuisance and not an impossible obstacle. We are always connected through chats, emails or Skype. It is possible to create an everyday life together through those channels, but of course it lacks many dimensions.

I’m thinking about the sheets in my bed. They still have his scent. My whole bed smells like him. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or if it will make me miss him even more. I don’t want to go home right now. What is home anyway? At the moment I’m not sure.

Outside, summer is making one last performance. Blue skies. Sunshine. Heat. But it doesn’t fool me – I can feel a new season comming. And with Johnny gone, I feel like there’s a new season waiting for me in my life as well. I’ve been so focused on our time together (and the involuntary foucus on all my health issues this summer) – now it’s time to go back to dealing with the restoration of my life. Reclaiming things. Explorations. Working on my self-empowerment. Finding a job. Getting back into the art world. Make more paintings. I have a lot to do.

But right now, I just want to go home to those sheets.

Dream flowers at the airport as we are saying our goodbyes

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The threatning suitcase

2016-08-302017-03-142 Comments

There it is. The reminder of the distance between us. We’ll be leaving for the airport early tomorrow morning. Every minute feels even more precious now than before.

The slow process of becoming truly naked

2016-08-292017-03-14Leave a comment

It’s been raining all night, the world outside my window is wet and covered in a misty glow. Johnny is still sleeping, next to me, the bed is warm and so is my heart. He will leave the day after tomorrow. It’s ironic because I’m starting to feel a little better – and we’ve just found our own perfect groove. Building a relationship where you have half a planet in between is harder than I thought, but also exciting and very rewarding. We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t really love each other, then it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Nothing has ever come easy to me, I’ve always been fighting for the things that matters to me, so I am used to struggle – but this particular thing requires a lot of patience and that’s not my best feature. If you’ve found true love, you want to surround yourself with it all the time, it’s only natural. But this way, we’ll prolong the first delicate stages of a love story – and that’s beautiful. Every time we’ll meet we’ll know each other so well but at the same time be like strangers to each other in some aspects. We know each other to the core but there are so many things left to explore in the physical world. And we’ll get to do that in little chunks of time, every year.

What I’ve learned from these two weeks with Johnny is that it takes time for both of us to acclimate to each other when we get together – it takes a week or so to leave the worlds we know – in order for us to create our own. In our world he is not a guest in my apartment, but home. In our world nothing is perfect or done because of expectations – we try to avoid it as much as possible because we are both sensitive to the pressure of it. It is hard to let go of it because of course we both have expectations and visions before we meet, of how it will be like.

To be naked together takes time – and I don’t mean physically naked. That’s where we feel most at home, in the nakedness of each other’s hearts and minds. That’s where the heartblood flows without any resistance at all. Into every moment.

The Superpower

2016-08-282017-03-14Leave a comment

We had another long and amazing talk about creativity. I love these discussions, I need them, I crave them. We continued talking about why we aren’t being creative right now. Why he’s not writing, why I’m not into the flow of painting. We established that being able to bring magic to the world by making art (in whatever form) is like a superpower. This superpower makes you special, makes you stand out, it elevates you from the crowd, it makes you fly, high above reality and everyday life.

But here’s where we have different approaches to our superpower. I am more comfortable flying than I am being grounded. Johnny is more comfortable on the ground than up amongst the clouds. He’s comfortable with the idea that he can fly, whenever he wants to – I am uncomfortable with the idea of having to land and spend time in the real world waiting for that special moment when I’ll get to fly again. “A superhero is a superhero because he can transform himself from an ordinary person into a superhero when he needs to. If he would be up in the air all the time, flying around, he’d just be a crazy person, flying without a cause, without a mission”, Johnny said. It made sense. I haven’t seen it like that before.

I need to accept that I can’t ask from myself to be creative all the time and to not judge myself whenever I can’t find that flow. I need to be grounded at times in order to be able to transform and illuminate myself. I can’t be on a superhero mission all the time. Then it wouldn’t be special or the most private, intimate and wonderful thing I get to share with myself.

I have been forcing myself to use my superpower when all I needed was to be grounded and wait for the right moment to fly. And I’ve been afraid of crash-landing. Of broken wings. To have my superpower being taken from me. I’ve been afraid of losing my direction amongst the clouds. Of flying too high. To get burned by the sun. I have been confused about how to use my superpower and when – or when to stay grounded and enjoy life on Earth.

I have to learn how to use my superpower in the correct way. Then I’ll be able to transform myself when the right moment appears. When I’m on a mission to create magic – something rare and beautiful that isn’t a product of expectations or pressure, but the expression of freedom and joy. Just like flying.

Pink Elvises

2016-08-272017-03-14Leave a comment

Tonight we went to see the American vintage car show – with pink Elvises, Swedish rednecks and a lot of loud motor noises. Johnny laughed and said: “I didn’t know I was gonna spend my vacation in the American South while visiting you in Sweden!”.