No interference

2016-11-122017-03-14Leave a comment

I’ve been painting, meditating, watching films and drinking tea. It’s a good day. It’s been a good week. A good month too, so far. Johnny and I are getting closer. Hearing his voice through the earbuds while closing my eyes, almost transports him here, next to me. There is no static between us. No interference. Only love.

I’ve never let any man come this close before. It used to terrify me, this closeness, even though it’s been my highest wish to be really close to someone. But I am not afraid anymore. I decided not to be. It was that easy. But getting through all the obstacles so I could make that decision was very difficult.

2015

When we talk, we float into each other, melt together in the silences and through the laughs and we’re cleansing our hearts together, deep inside our invisible home. I know it will take years for us to be together in real life, but it doesn’t change anything. I feel happy. I feel close. Our intimacy outsmarts the missing and the frustration.

Next year will be so different from this year, I can already sense it. This year was all about letting go and to accept what I’ve never been able to accept. Next year will be about finding the pulse of life and getting in sync with it. I want to lose weight. I’ve had so much extra weight on my shoulders for a very long time, and it shows in my body as well. I want to feel beautiful. Healthy. I want to celebrate my femininity. My raw female power and strength. I want to do, to be, to make, instead of healing through the intellect and meditation. Next year will be my first real year as a person, without the traumas or the fear. I’ve worked so hard to get there. I am so close. I am so close to finding life. To letting myself go – without inhibitions. I am so close to whatever reality is about, without the dark edges around it.

What Johnny’s heart has taught me

2016-10-222017-03-14Leave a comment

I’m enjoying this grey and rainy Saturday by listening to classical music and meditating. I am fighting every stress symptom by making breathing exercises and pushing away any negative thoughts. They don’t have a place in my mind. Nor do they live in my heart anymore. My poor little heart. It hasn’t had an easy life, but it is still beating, it’s still filled with all the red fire it was born to produce with every breath. So, it isn’t that damaged. I’ve never let any hate inside it. It’s never been completely drained.

My love affair with Johnny has been so good for my heart. He’s taught me so much about humility, self-compassion and love. I thought I knew everything there was to know about love. The passion. The all-consuming energy. The pain. The fear. The neglect and the rejection. But it turned out that I didn’t know much about love at all. Johnny has showed me how to build a home between two hearts, not only to keep each other company, but to create a whole new heart inside our home. Something which is breathing all by itself, something that has a heart, a mind and spirit but is invisible to the eye. Our love is not about passion or simple companionship, but a creation formed by mutual respect, caring and the way we see each other and appriciate what we see. Both each other’s many beauties and beasts. And we are completely naked in front of each other and ourselves. Vulnerability is the only place where all this is possible to experience. And I’m learning how to trust. How to let go of the fear to get hurt. To be fooled. Betrayed. And destroyed. I’m slowly learning how to move through this feeling of deep love without wanting to protect myself from it. That’s the naked part.

Johnny has showed me how important it is for me to see myself without looking for those eyes in other people. It’s been difficult for me to see myself without judging what I see. Without wondering if I’m enough. If I am lovable. Worthy of happiness. Before I let Johnny into my heart I was in many ways a masochist. Looking for punishments. Humiliation. Darkness. Because I thought I belonged there. That I deserved it. He was there, in the beginning, holding my hand through other destructive love affairs with self-proclaimed victims that I wanted to rescue or mirrored myself through. I felt helpless and drained by those toxic connections. Johnny picked me up, every time I fell. He was always there for me – not because he wanted to be a hero, but because he actually cared about me.

I am softer now, to myself and to other people. Johnny’s gentle heart has inspired mine to be less rough and raw and to embrace empathy and tolerance. I was pretty brutal with my heart before. I wasted its blood, the beats and I let anyone stay in its rooms even though they didn’t deserve to be there at all. I am starting to protect my heart without shutting out love and the warmth from people who truly deserves to be inside it. I am very grateful for having this wonderful man in my life and in my heart. We both give and take from the knowledge which our hearts have collected throughout our lives. We share everything because it all feels important somehow. Even the smallest details. The nonsense. The everyday stuff that will be forgotten by tomorrow. But at least we got to share them with each other. It cures the loneliness of the heart. It creates a home where life is welcoming the insignificant moments as well as the significant ones Where everything has a meaning and is not wasted or taken for granted.

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.

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.

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.

A crash course in “us”

2016-08-252017-03-14Leave a comment

Things rarely happen the way you plan it, but the unexpected always brings something positive with it. This time with Johnny has been bittersweet – I wish I wasn’t so sick and it has made me feel trapped in my own body, in my apartment and in the passivity of waiting for my health to improve, but it’s also been pretty perfect, because we’ve been spending so much time together talking – defining who we are as a couple, what we want to achieve with our connection and the direction in which we want to walk together. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been tough at times. We only have a couple of weeks to figure these things out, then he goes back to the States and it might be another year until we’ll get to build an everyday life together in the same place again. These weeks have been like a crash course in “us”

Our honesty and directness are crucial – we can’t afford to be vague about who we are or what we want, we already have the language barrier, time differences and painful pasts we want to avoid revisiting. Our talks can be brutal at times because we challenge each other, in a positive way, to get to the realness of each other and cut through the layers of insecurities and imagined expectations that’s been forced on us by other people. It hurts to let go of fears by facing them. You’re bound to get your ass kicked by them before you’ll able to triumph and rise above. It hurts to get your comfort zone crushed. To let someone inside even though you are still healing a damaged, delicate heart. It’s confusing to let go of preconceived ideas of what you should be, do, say, or act – and instead just be and see what happens when you are showing your bare bones for the first time. Will you be able to move or will you fall apart?

But the brutal nature of honesty together with the smoothness of intimacy makes the relationship vibrate with life and energy – and there’s a clear sense of movement and progress and that gives me the biggest sensation of relief and satisfaction.

“You have to work hard for the things you want otherwise it’s not gonna be what you want but a compromise or something else and you’ll end up dissatisfied”, Johnny says. And it’s true. I’ve worked hard to achieve my dream of becoming an artist. Whenever I’ve had to compromise in my art I’ll end up losing my true artistic voice. I’ve worked hard to just be me without having to sacrifice or compromise who I am in order to fit into other people’s expectations of me which leads to depression or getting caught in traumatic places. So I understand the importance of the hard work. I just wish my mind wasn’t so full of little wounds, created by the traumas and the PTSD, it makes the hard work feel even more difficult and hard. My traumas are connected with love, intimacy and vulnerability. But that’s also where the magic happens in my art. That’s where I feel at home. Naturally it gets confusing at times. I need these deep talks with Johnny, otherwise I’d probably freak out and just give up when the trauma wounds are too sore or bleeding. But I’m lucky we share this open-hearted connection and that we both want to change and adapt to each other without losing our integrity. Change is hard work – building a home is hard work, but also so rewarding. I have been breaking free from my past for several years now, but now I’m actually breaking free from who I used to be in that past. I still don’t know exactly who I am when it comes to love and relationships – “great” Johnny says, “let’s find out together!”.

Underneath my skin

2016-08-242017-03-14Leave a comment

We are having long and deep discussions about creativity. It’s like injecting life into my veins. It feels so good. We talk about his writing, my art, my writing, our differences and shared processes. We are both in transitional phases. Changing. Evolving from something familiar and old to an unknown expression. I’m restless about it, he’s not. “You can’t rush it, you just have to absorb and digest new ideas and visions, while leaving the old behind. It takes time”. I can’t help thinking that it’s also exactly what I’m doing with my past.

I’ve been without skin for over three years now, since the last break up when I also broke up with my own past. It was a painful experience to step out of my familiar skin to become naked and fragile – both to myself and the world, in order to change and grow. The same goes for my painting. I’m changing skin or at least shedding a layer or two. I feel awfully sensitive and a little exposed.

I use to live in a skin that was colored by what other people expected from me. It was a skin of a mother to the men in my life, the skin of delivery machine, their whore, nurse, the good girl. It was the skin of the artist who produced artworks to sell instead of saying something important. My skin tore up easily because of the metal from the delivery machine and it was melting from all the pressure.

Manic Mandy by Mia Makila, 2013

To be without skin makes me feel so vulnerable. I can’t go back and dress myself in my old skin. It doesn’t fit anymore. I just have to heal and take care of the new, thin layers of skin – produced by life, time and the peace I feel inside. The more peaceful I feel, the stronger the new skin will become. Both on my body and in my paintings.

Sometimes I flinch when Johnny touches my new skin, not because it’s painful but because I feel so sensitive. But his touch is the best cure. His love helps it heal. Our home makes it grow stronger. My new sense of freedom lets it breathe. I’m slowly accepting myself and the new skin that’s emerging in the rawness of my metamorphosis.

So I am without skin, but what a lovely feeling it is to let the inside get a chance to take a deep breath before it’s covered by new layers. It has been a time of self exploration – to find out what has been hiding underneath something that was suffocating me for so long.

A master plan and how to destroy it

2016-08-232017-03-14Leave a comment

I never realized that the fear of my own past has created all these walls of protection. After nearly 20 years of being non stop in either destructive or dead relationships, I’ve become sensitive to so many things when it comes to relationships. It would be easier just to spend the rest of my life alone – without anyone by my side. It would be easier to isolate myself completely. I don’t fear loneliness – there’s nothing worse than the loneliness you feel in a dead relationship anyway. I always have my creativity. My art and writing will always be my company. I would live only by my own rules, my own expectations and fulfill my needs without making any sacrifices for anyone else. I would feel safe in my loneliness because there wouldn’t be anyone there to hurt me, to leave me or to destroy my sense of happiness. I would be lonely but free – and I could make art all the time. I would become a hermit genius who produces like 10 000 drawings a year. I would create an amazing legacy.

It is a tempting thought. Somehow like it’s a loophole – it would guarantee a pain free future. My life would be a trauma free zone. I would outsmart the unknown and create my own destiny – and the magic word would be ‘avoidance’.

But it’s only tempting for a minute.

I look over at Johnny while he’s not aware of my stare and for a second I’m a little annoyed. Who is this man who makes the avoidance seem like a bad idea – who challenges my idea of becoming a hermit genius artist and instead wants me to be in a relationship again even though I clearly suck at it? I could ask him to leave now, then I would pursuit my plan of loneliness and avoidance and it would be the last time I would be this close to a man ever again. I could ask him to stop loving me, because I am too damaged anyway. It must be hard to love me. I have my freak outs, my days of tears and sadness, moments of ugliness and darkness. What does he see in me anyway? Is he blind? Stupid? A masochist?

Suddenly he notices my stare and gives me a smile. Oh crap, don’t smile, don’t look so happy. It makes all these thoughts seem so delusional. I smile back. Great, now I’ve done it. Now it’s too late to ask him to leave. This happiness makes it feel impossible. I don’t like it. How can my magic word be ‘avoidance’ when I just want to explore everything in life with this man? What’s wrong with me?

He comes over to me, puts his arms around me and I suddenly forget about my plans of loneliness and solitude. He whispers in my ears: “I know you feel scared, I know you feel naked and vulnerable right now. I understand. But I don’t want to put you in another cage. You’ve known too many cages already. I want you to feel free. I want to make you happy. I never want to take from you, only add. This is the first time in your life where nobody is demanding something from you, more than to be yourself and it freaks you out. But I am here. I won’t leave. I am here.”

His words feel wonderful inside but they’re equally scary. Because the antidote to avoidance – is trust. And here it is – I either trust him or I can go on with my plan of avoiding everything he represents to me. Love. Pleasure. Happiness. Sharing. Or I can go for all those things and trust that everything will be alright. But all that comes without any guarantees. Without any walls of protection.

“Just be Mia”

2016-08-202017-03-141 Comment

My best friend, my team mate and my boyfriend.

My health is slowly improving and I’m beginning to enjoy my time with Johnny without feeling anxious about having to stay at home most of the time. I think in a couple of days, I will have recovered completely.

The good thing about being sick and forced to be at home has been the hours we have spent talking, caressing each other, getting to know each other in a more intimate way than we would’ve done if we had been busy doing things outside. I’ve learned a lot about myself these last few days. This is the very first relationship after all the bad ones – when I felt like I was playing the role of the ‘good girlfriend’ which was all about serving my boyfriends and sacrifice myself and my needs along the way. Now, I try to be myself and to be naked and real about what I want and need. It’s not always easy. I feel torn between being ‘the good girlfriend’ and myself sometimes – not because Johnny expects anything like that from me, but because that submissive behavior is so ingrained in my mind. I feel vulnerable in being myself without making sure that my lover is comfortable, satisfied or happy all the time.

But Johnny is constantly challenging me to kill the ‘good girlfriend’ act. He keeps exposing me when I try to serve him: “stop that – just be Mia”, he says. I feel safe with him – but very naked. Sometimes I don’t know what to do when I don’t need to serve a man’s needs. I feel a little lost but of course it’s liberating and gives me a sense of freedom. And whenever I fall back into my old behavior, he looks at me with a smile and says: “just be Mia”.

But what is it – to just be Mia? I am not sure. I know how to be me when I am all by myself, but when I am in a relationship that doesn’t require anything more from me than to just be myself, I get a little lost. Because I’ve never really felt equal to anyone else, I don’t know my position in the relationship. That’s when I reach for Johnny’s hand – and it’s always there for me. We are slowly learning how to be ourselves with each other without losing anything, without making sacrifices in our needs and wants, without compromising away the essence of who we are.

Being sick has forced me to show my most naked sides. I have been too drained to be anything other than myself. It has been the perfect timing to figure out who I am when I am in a relationship. Like I am in the process of learning how to push through my old personas to let my own voice be heard for the first time, without being judged or humiliated. I am loved. For just being me. And every time I forget about it – Johnny is there to remind me to “just be Mia”.

I feel so lucky.

A clean house

2016-08-152017-03-142 Comments

I woke up with a smile this morning – I could feel it in every part of my body. Like I was smiling with everything I am. I let the morning light illuminate the smile for a long time before I left my bed. I spent the whole day cleaning the apartment, for your arrival of course. I scrubbed the inside of the microwave exactly like I’ve scrubbed myself clean through therapy these last few years. Very thorough. You’ve been been by my side through a couple of short lifetimes already, even though we’ve only known each other for about four years. You were there when other men tried to steal me away from you. Some of them thought of you as a threat, but you never considered them to be a threat to you: “let them be jealous of me, let them talk badly about me, let them focus on me as a rival, and I’ll just go on focusing on you instead.” you said then. You are always calm and wise. It must be that native Mexican blood in you. One man even wrote a cruel poem about you to make me look at you differently, but he failed miserably.

“It’s not a dream when I say that I will kiss you one day…” you once said before we had ever met in real life, “…it’s not even a plan – it is a fact.”

And you were right. We met. Kissed. Fell in love.

Since then, we have been building a home together, from each side of the planet. That home is in both of us but has only one heart.

While I was cleaning all the mirrors, I thought about all the things we have in common on the inside. Like our internal mirror. The sensitivity. The sensuality. How we filter reality through our curiosity, intellect and imagination. How we believe in magic and how we create it together. The way we are equally focused on the smallest little detail as we are when it comes to seeing the bigger picture and how those two things always are in a fascinating juxtaposition against each other. How often we make each other laugh. The deep wounds we are healing in each other. Our empathy. The gratitude. Our native language of intimacy and nakedness. And our nerdiness. That’s one of my favorite things we have in common. I love how we can spend hours analyzing fictional characters from movies and create background stories for our favorite characters in TV series. Especially when it comes to Hank Moody. Or Poussey. I loved our dissection of Hannah Horvath when you were here last year and we watched four seasons of Girls together.

Once I was done with all the cleaning, my apartment was no longer mine, but ours. A clean house where we can create more magic in each other. All that is missing now – is you.

While you’ll be traveling amongst the clouds, over the mountains, across the big ocean, later today, I will be here, waiting for you. I feel excited and happy – and a little restless. But if I was able to wait half a lifetime for you, I can manage to wait another day.

About the artistic loneliness

2016-08-112017-03-14Leave a comment

I woke up feeling somewhat rested, it’s been a while since I slept for 8 hours straight. My health is improving and I’m feeling positive about things. I’ve missed this feeling. I’m soon strong enough to paint again.

I’m lucky to have a couple of weeks left of summer to enjoy without any pain.

I’ve talked a lot to Johnny lately about how I feel lonely in my art. I don’t have a context here, I don’t have a place in the art world in Sweden and sometimes it gets lonely. I have a few other Swedish artists that I know and talk to, but we are outsiders in the art world here. Johnny wrote the sweetest thing about this matter:

“In terms of stimulation for your art and for your creativity – eventually you have to find that in yourself, in your life, in the things that surround you. If you depend on others to stimulate you in this way, it becomes a crutch, something you depend on to create, but you dont NEED someone else to create. You are a very creative person, very intelligent and you look beyond the surface in everything around you. You read between lines, connect dots -this is the stimulation that is in you and for you. When you look to others to provide that for you it’s a starting point, but you have it in you to find starting points. At one time you needed them to provide starting points as you were finding yourself creatively, but i think you have grown into yourself, you are in a place where you dont need someone elses starting points, you have a river…an ocean…a galaxy of staring points in everything around you. I think you have been around people who demand that you see things the way they do and you played with the boundaries of how they saw things in the world and created worlds around them that were you within these boundaries, but you dont need them anymore.

If you looked at a tree I know you would find hundreds of ways to use the form the texture, what the figure looks like, how it represents how you feel or how you see something in the world. You dont need someone to tell you how to look at it or that you should look at it, but if you do, I am right here sweetheart. I am trying to help you not be dependent on others when I see you so clearly and I see how brilliant your mind is, how amazing your imagination is, how you have so much to say and that you can find a way to say it through anything around you. That’s the expressiveness and the creativity of being Mia.”

It was so comforting and beautiful. I might be an outsider with my art, but I’m certainly not lonely with this kind of love and support in my life – in my heart.

There’s no place like home

2016-08-042017-03-143 Comments

I feel like fall is approaching. It’s windy and the air is slightly crisp. I love that. And it’s only a couple of weeks until my love will come here and we’ll get to share the wind and everything else, together. Against all odds, we have found something solid and beautiful together that doesn’t get affected by the distance or the frustration of being apart. For the first time in my life I have all the patience I need.

I’ve also allowed myself to have doubts. I am so used to being ‘slurped’ by other men in my past, I mean I was seduced by their attention so much so that I was swallowed up by it and couldn’t think straight. Like I was spellbound and drugged by it. I didn’t get a chance to feel if it felt right or not, or to have any doubts. I am very cautious about the slurping now. I know it’s a manipulation just to catch me, and once they have me, they are very different from what they first appeared to be. It’s creepy. The slurping effect is like buying a fancy car and then realizing you are sitting in a cardboard box that just looks like a real car.

I am all about authenticity and being vulnerable and real together. No wonder I’ve been miserable in my past relationships. Some people think that you should work hard to GET someone – to work really hard in the hunting process, but once they have you, they stop making an effort and they let go of their commitment and focus. I believe in the opposite thing: the hard work starts once you feel like you are committed, when you have built some trust together. That’s when you can create something truly beautiful and magical together. And I won’t ever let go of the commitment or the focus on the connection, because that’s when it all goes to hell.

All the doubts have led back to the same place, and it’s the home we are creating together. In each other and in the world. And there is no place like home.

About pity party, love and worlds gone topsy turvy

2016-07-192017-03-142 Comments

From my notebook about the “friends” I invite to join my pity party

I’ve been struggling with anxiety for a few days. There are just so many things up in the air right now, so many important processes in motion. I feel like I don’t have the strength or energy to deal with all of it, simultaneously – but I have no other choice. And then I feel overwhelmed, lose my drive and host my own pity party (see video in my previous post) and end up with anxiety. The trick is to not let it get to you – just let the change happen without making any resistance. If you are ready to change or if you are forced to change to adjust to a new situation – then resistance won’t have any impact on the result anyway. But it makes you feel in control for a while.

The more I understand about myself, the more I am able to relate to other people and understand their behavior as well as my own. It isn’t always a good thing. Especially not when they don’t want to hear your brilliant insights or aren’t interested in changing in order to become better people. It is frustrating at times. A spiritual or mental awakening is the biggest thing that can happen to a person, but at the same time it can make you feel intellectually lonely and socially misplaced. I don’t have many friends because I find myself on a different frequency than most people, but the few friends I do have mean the world to me. We share a frequency and a deep understanding of the value of life. Many of my friends have survived traumas or some kind of betrayal.

And because life’s been difficult and painful for both Johnny and me, we share a deep connection based on gratitude and appreciation for what we are able to build together. That and mutual respect for each other’s weaknesses and strengths. I am not used to being in a relationship based on respect. It’s both such a great foundation for our relationship but also the most confusing thing. Where I am expecting an aggressive reaction – he’s kind and accepting, in times when I think he’s gonna judge me for something, he’s embracing it. And when I expect him to betray me, he’s just holding my hand through whatever I’m going through. It makes my whole world go topsy turvy. I am so used to the opposite reactions. To be judged, humiliated, ignored, punished or neglected. The love I feel from Johnny restores all the broken pieces of my poor little heart. I am so grateful.

I just have to get through this time of anxiety and worries without losing any momentum. I’ve worked too hard for this. I can’t let anything come in between me and my will to live my life as I am destined to live it and not as people expect me to live it. This is the process of independence and it’s scary as hell. And I love it.

House roots

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“Strings Attached”, 2015

“Iceland” 2015

“A BINARY DREAM” BY MIA MAKILA – 2016 (DIGITAL MIXED MEDIA) Edition of 10, 42 x 48 cm, PRICE: 5200 SEK

Something wonderful is happening. For the first time in my life, I’m growing roots and they are deeply connected to the ground. I’m not floating around in space like a balloon without a string anymore. I’ve found my place in the world just by being true to who I am and in the love I feel for Johnny. Geography doesn’t matter. Nor does circumstances. When you find your home, in yourself and in another person’s heart, external things are not that important. I am still broke but I feel very rich. To be poor is a state of mind (in this part of the world), feeling fortunate as well.

I’ve known Johnny for almost four years and our love story has been complicated and rich in details and colors. So much has been standing in our way – other lovers, bad timing, health issues, distance and money. But we are still here, we are still in this connection together. What started out as a few strings attached grew into a complex and beautiful root system. The progress of our love story is visible in my digital art. Look closer at the three pieces above. See how the floating house with just a few strings attached to a star slowly develops delicate roots which are a little more connected in each piece. Not yet touching but slowly making contact while creating sparks of light and warmth.

Some years earlier the houses in my art were adrift, hard to reach or full of smoke and flames – just like my relationships at the time were either explosive or disconnected.

“Out of the Nothing Box” by Mia Makila, 2014

All the Bears In My Garden

Can Not Reach Mommy

But there’s more happening than the creation of my new roots. My house is growing taller, like a tree – and I’m stretching out, reaching out, unfolding, pushing myself outwards like I have long and curious branches wanting to touch the world outside myself. Wanting to be part of it and making it part of my very own existence.

Johnny is setting me free into the world. There’s no possessiveness, no chains. I’m still struggling with fears, trust issues and insecurities at times, because of my traumas, but every day I learn something new from him about generosity and kindness. He’s making grow and blossom by letting me be me – all the way. I’m very grateful. I hope I am doing the same for him.

There is so much out there for me to reach for.

I will try to explore this new sensation of being rooted but so free to reach for the sky, in a new digital piece. A tree house perhaps. Or why not a house tree, somewhere between the depth of reality and the dreams within.

From him to me right now

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I’ts like you leave light prints all over the place where you’ve been – your light is connected to your beautiful curiosity and playfulness, it adds so much to this world and you are just made of it, like a light sculpture captured in your core – in your being.

– Johnny

The process of happiness

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It’s been difficult for me to write anything lately because I’m going through so many different and wonderful processes at the same time. Processes are abstract and hard to define since they are in constant motion, sort of in the same way the sun is dancing across the waves of the ocean. It’s easier to describe a process after going through them. The abstractions are less abstract then and replaced by substance and meaning – and a new sense of clarity. Every day I’m experiencing self-empowerment and letting go of negativity and fear in both little things and in bigger ones. I’m focused on pleasure, happiness and strength – and it takes a lot of trial and error to change my thinking style and the way I’m accepting it.

I try not to fall back in old behavioral patterns, but it’s hard sometimes. I’m still struggling with the thoughts that I don’t deserve to be happy and loved. The manipulation is rooted deeply into my system.

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Why wouldn’t I deserve to be happy and loved? Because it makes someone else feel bad about themselves? Because I am not good enough? Because I am in debt to the world? No theory makes sense, they’re all stupid. If I don’t deserve to be happy – who does? Someone who’s more ‘perfect’? Someone who doesn’t demand anything of other people? Someone who’s less fortune than myself? All this is also so silly.

I understand that I can’t just change my approach to happiness over night. It’s a process, like I described. I just have to accept that today I felt happy and loved and no one could ever take that away because I don’t allow people to punish me or shame me anymore. Happiness is a choice – an attitude of the mind. If I want to feel happy I will find a way to feel happy. And then I’ll actually be happy. That’s the best part of process of happiness.

A restless house

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The monthly hormones are messing with my head again, I’m feeling slightly off – and it’s still too hot outside. My mind is like a restless house where the windows are closing right after they are opened. I can’t think straight. I know I am being whiny right now, but I have my reasons it’s just not the ones I just listed.

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I always thought that if there ever would be anything coming in between two lovers, it would be other people – lovers, flings, exes – or just a sense of growing apart. But now I know it also includes health issues – in my case; diabetes (and no, I’m not the one with the disease). When someone gets sick it changes the dynamics in the relationships, suddenly there’s new obstacles, new routines, change of plans, a new focus, seriousness and worries. The disease is stealing things from both its victim and the relationship. At times I feel furious – and I have no one to blame or anywhere to put that rage – because I can’t really be angry with my boyfriend for getting sick and there’s no one who made him sick to begin with. The energy turns into a restlessness. And at times – despair.

I can’t really do anything to help from this side of the planet – he is doing his best on the other side. The only thing I can do is to be there for him and to accept what is happening. The latter is way more difficult. But I have to accept it. I’m still too mad to do that. And it’s easy to let the ego ask the questions; “why now?” and “why is this happening to me when I just found the best love of my life?” – but it’s not even about me. I have no right asking such questions. Yet, it is affecting me and the fantasies I had about us. I guess all the fantasies are still there, I just have to adjust them to fit the new reality. But it still sucks.

This is definitely a test to see how steady and stable the foundation of our relationship is. I thought we had enough obstacles with the geographical distance, with practical things like moving to another continent to be be able to be together, money stuff – little things like that. Life is both an amazing place to explore – and also nothing but a pile of crap at times.

What true love looks like even if the lovers are separated by an ocean

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The balance between vulnerability and trust is the key to a deep intimacy and a love that can survive a huge geographical distance, time differences, problems or any obstacles. I feel so fortunate.

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Harmony of the core

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I feel so much gratitude for the people close to me. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have so much love and appreciation around me. I’m building a new family of friends and I have Johnny across the ocean who’s looking after me more than any other boyfriend whom I’ve shared my everyday life with, ever did. I’m painting my life with careful brush strokes. Every decision I make has a meaning and is pushing me forward instead of me clinging to what I already know. I’ve wasted so many years, tears, heartbeats and headaches on the wrong things. Stuff without substance. Destructive things that drained me. And unattainable fantasies and ghost hunting. Now I want everything in my life to be real, positive and to unfold naturally. I’m done forcing life in the direction I want, life doesn’t work that way anyway. I am accepting the fact that even if I make decisions and even if I’m leading my life in a non-forced way, life is still full of surprises and occasionally creates little mazes for me to find my way out of. But with acceptance comes a sense of inner peace. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted for myself.

There’s a big difference between being comfortably numb and emotionally paralyzed that I use to feel – and to be at peace. The serenity of the heart and mind has nothing to do with passivity. On the contrary – a vivid inner life of wants and dreams but with the acceptance of circumstances and reality, creates the perfect balance of ambition and stillness – and ultimately finding the harmony of the core. It is very difficult to get here, but once you find this place everything in life unfolds with a sense of ease and simplicity.

To share but not to have

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Working at the gallery is opening up many new places in my mind, not only when it comes to my own art, but also ideas for projects and possibilities I’ve never considered before. I’m having so much fun. I think I’ll finish my painting in a few days. I can’t wait to show it to you. After that, I have more ideas for paintings and drawings. I see them all in my head already.

It’s been a rough week for me and Johnny, it’s hard to be so far apart. Having a long distance relationship is not easy. People think that long distance relationships aren’t really real because of the lack of physical interactions, but at times it’s even more real than a relationship with someone who’s there with you since the only thing you are able to share is verbal communication. Talking is always good. It is the foundation for any healthy relationship. But it’s still hard to maintain a long distance relationship – especially when the missing turns into frustration and the frustration turns into all kinds of bad energies. But love will survive any obstacle, if there’s a two way effort to make it work. I’m happy to have found a man who’s willing to fight for me, no matter what comes our way. I feel lucky. But at times I feel lonely here on this side of the world. It’s the backside of a long distance relationship. To share but not to have. It’s a lot of dimensions getting lost in the void between us, but they are still there. I just wish I could feel his hand on my face right now, telling me that everything will be alright. Because it always will be, in the end.

“Painiverse” – My space suite [2013]

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Selfie from 2013 – in the process of making the tough decision to let my life fall apart in order to unchain myself from my past

Before I made the decision to break free from the chains of my past and to leave my whole life behind to be able to start over in a new place – I was dealing with the heavy weight of this decision in a suite of digital images of Space, void, loneliness, distance and isolation – but also with a slow movement through the darkness – orbiting a core – the gravity of freedom.

“LOVERS LOST IN SPACE” by Mia Makila – digital

“SUCTION” by Mia Makila – digital

“ATTRACTION” by Mia Makila – digital

From my diary 2015:

The view from the top floor is nothing but a white sky. It’s too cloudy for me to be able to see beyond the whiteness. But there is a black stain somewhere in the white. I look closer. Now I can see that it is the smallest Universe. Space. Darker than anything I have ever seen. I realize that this little micro Universe is my pain. An old pain, it doesn’t exist anymore – and now it’s a memory in the shape of fear.

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I suddenly understand that inside this dark Universe is everything I have ever known about myself. About life. About love. Pleasure. Happiness. It is so tiny – but when I am floating around in it – it feels infinite. Once I am inside it, it is a closed world, it becomes my everything and I become the only detail inside it. I can’t see that the world outside is infinite, and that I’m just swallowed up by a ridiculous little stain – insignificant even though it’s packed with pain. Once I am consumed with this world, swallowed up by it and reconciled with the pain, I feel free.

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It’s just me and the dark void. Nothing else. I let go of any resistance. I let it take me deeper inside. I am so lost – but I feel part of something familiar and absolute. There is nothing but me and the familiarity of the darkness. Nothing can hurt me here. Because I am already floating through the pain or the memory of it.

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It is my ‘Painiverse’.

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Photos from a walk in the moonlight, a week after the break up 2014

The time right after my decision to break free, my life started to fall apart in the most wonderful way, and my digital art changed as well – the planets grew smaller and turned into important details in a new mythology that mirrored my new life. Here are works from 2014:

“The Taste of Time and Paranoia” (digital)

“NOT A PHALLUS” BY MIA MAKILA – 2015 (DIGITAL) Edition of 5, 40 x 44 cm, PRICE: 7500 SEK

Out of the Nothing Box (detail)

Out of the Nothing Box (digital)

I’m staring right into the eyes of death. Or love. Whatever. That’s when I feel your bullets hit me right in the heart. Bullets of fire. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to.
I can feel how everything is destroyed. Or saved. Or whatever. Blackbirds, blood moons, lion breaths, rotten flower beds – like fireworks above it all. Exploding within and inside.

And I realize – I don’t know the difference between love and a beautiful murder. – MIA MAKILA, 2014

A ‘near-life’ experience

2016-04-282017-03-142 Comments

How can I explain this to you? I’m not sure that I completely understand it myself. Ok, so you know that feeling when you’ve had too much coffee – your hands are trembling, your heart is beating really fast and you feel sort of hyper? And you know that feeling of being really, really in love – it’s like you’ve swallowed the whole Universe and it’s overwhelming and wonderful at the same time? OK, so add the feeling of being deeply inspired (like after a day at the Louvre) and intensely horny (after the best foreplay ever) – that’s how I am feeling right now. All of that – mixed into a very strange sensation of having a ‘near-life’ experience.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been posting a lot of poems written in Swedish lately- I wish I could translate them but it’s impossible because I play with words a lot. I had no idea that I would be writing poetry like this. In Swedish. I have been planning this year to the last little detail:

1. self-empowerment process
2. go back to painting again
3. find a way to make more money
4. write a short story

Writing poetry was not part of the plan, but I guess that’s the nature of plans – life will change them without asking for your permission. Thank God. And now, I just can’t stop writing. I was so focused on reconnecting with my paintings again that I didn’t see how anything else could ever be even a bigger release. But that’s exactly what my poetry is to me. A big. Fucking. Release.

I’ve done so many changes in my life lately and I feel so liberated. And with that comes a sense of innocence. Like I returned to innocence after my traumas. And like anything is possible. Like I can do anything I want. Be whatever I want to be. Say whatever I feel like saying. I’ve never been this private in my creative expressions before. They are all self-portraits. Diary notes. My core beliefs. It feels really powerful. Explosive.

As I am writing these poems, I feel lighter in my heart. Like my blood has been clogged by such deep pain – and now it’s rushing through my veins without any resistance. The pain is fading into the past. Into a void beyond my reach. It used to be sharp as a blade. Infinite. Swirling into itself and out again. For the first time I can see what has been hidden underneath it. It’s me. Life. Love. Light. Poetry. Art. Passion. Sex. Humility. Gratitude. Peace. Freedom.

It makes me feel high, even on foggy days like yesterday.

My blood is rushing. Fast. My mind reigning. I feel clean. But so filled with stories. Colors. I’m deep into my own thoughts but still extremely present in the world outside myself. I’m absorbing everything and I let myself get absorb by external elements.

I wish everyone could feel awakened like this. We all deserve it. We are all capable. We just have to let go of all the layers of crap that other people and society have forced on us. It’s hard to do. But possible. Just look at me. Look inside me.

It’s the only way I know how to explain what I’m going through right now.

The other worlds

2016-04-182016-04-182 Comments

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The weekends are so surreal. Two different continents melting into one. California and Sweden coming together. Like palm trees covered in snow. On each side of the lost hours between two different time zones, we create our own world. Mornings are covered in stars. Nightskies are colored in light blues. Hours of endless conversations. Laughter. Some words lost in translation. Others born out of absurd linguistic compromises that makes us both laugh.

Three poems by my boyfriend Johnny Hernandez:

I learn a lot from his work. That’s the good thing with having a writer boyfriend. I want to learn. At times I feel inadequate in my writing, because I haven’t read that much. I don’t know what’s good taste, bad – or if there are any rules to follow (or break). But thanks to our talks, I’m slowly learning. And I’m gonna start reading. Novels. Classics. And contemporary ones. Poetry. Movie scripts. And everything in between.

I stopped reading when I lived in the traumas. People told me I couldn’t write. That I wasn’t smart enough to read. That I had terrible taste so I shouldn’t bother. Manipulations will make you believe crap like that. Violence will enforce those lies. Even though I was the one with all the talent, I gave up writing. Reading. Until I forgot how much it meant to me

Now I’m reclaiming those things. My talent. And my intellect. I am looking forward to exploring it. And to get lost in the world of books again. I am eager to learn. Hungry for knowledge. Curious about what I can add to the world through my writing. I have so much I want to share with you. I just need to figure out how.

Dust

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I am waking up with a sense of sensuality running wild inside my body. The white sheets in my bed suddenly feel like clouds and the light from the window makes the air come alive. I can see little sparks of dust flying around in here. How can dust be so beautiful? But I’m not surprised. Beauty is always hiding in the most unexpected places. In the cracks of reality. Where the real is almost too real, like a fantasy. Or where the real has never been seen before. Both can be found in the depths of the ocean. In the microcosmic worlds inside a piece of dust. In the surreal theories of philosophy. In the electric pathways of the brain. And inside other people’s hearts. The forgotten hearts. The broken ones. The withering hearts. Fading hearts. Burning hearts. Screaming. Dancing hearts. Dying ones. There is always beauty to a heart.

It’s a tragedy when a heart is closed. Sealed with barb wire. Poisoned with anger. And toxic hate. Full of black holes and dark matter. The beauty is still there, but trapped in the complicated defence systems or in the denial of the true nature of the human heart. The most beautiful heart is the open heart, hungry but veiled with fear – waiting for the right person to notice it, unveil it, expose it and then to be swallowed up inside it. Like it’s a passage to a whole new world. Red landscapes and skies of fire. Delicate blood roots touching you like curious tentacles. Tickling. Teasing. Rivers which takes you deeper within. Flowing like the sensations of a kiss. Wet. Warm. Somehow glowing. It takes you to the heart of the heart. The beating core. Where the rhythm of life is the true law of attraction. You are drawn in, without making any resistance. Whatsoever. Hypnotised. Every beat creates a spell. A rush. And you surrender. Completely. All the way. Inside. And it just keeps beating.

And beating.

Endings and new beginnings

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The last scene of Six Feet Under – with music by Sia: “Breathe Me”. A collection of endings.

It’s a new day. Spring is coloring my apartment in a pale blue light. I’m watching the last episode of Six Feet Under. I don’t like endings. Not even in TV series. But even so, endings have always resulted in something very positive in my life. Like the end is the first step into a new world, full of possibilities. I like new beginnings. Clean slates. Which of course goes hand in hand with endings.

After every crashed relationship, I’ve grown and flourished. After friendships gone sour, I’ve found a deeper understanding of how connections work. Letting go of a destructive entanglement with another person is liberating. Cutting off strings attached to a dark energy is healthy. There are so many ways for people to die and still be alive. It could be your own perception of them that dies when they reveal their true colors. They could lose themselves in various ways. To religion, to other people, to self doubt, to hopelessness and depression. They disappear from your heart and from your life.

When I think about the people in my life it’s like I’ve been a train station where people have come and gone in a flow of different energies. The only people who have always stayed with me throughout my whole life are my parents and Nanci, who’s been my best girlfriend for more than 20 years. I still talk to some other childhood friends but we’re not that close. The rest of them are gone in one way or another. Lovers. Friends. Colleagues.

Me and Nanci.

I’m always moving forward – like the land shark I told you about in an earlier post. I’ve met some amazing people on my journey. And some dark and poisonous souls. I think they have all rubbed off on me – for better or worse. They’ve all helped me shape my inner mythology.

In the last few years I’ve met some of the most beautiful people. I’ve made new friends who feel like they are part of a family somehow. A family I’ve put together myself. New brothers. Sisters. Mentors. Muses. And then I fell in love with my best friend Johnny, who had been there for me throughout other crashed connections and painful mistakes during 3 of the most difficult years of my life. He was always there for me during all my fragile attempts to look for momentarily thrills elsewhere – which always destroyed me somehow. His unconditional love has been a safe haven for me. A place to heal. A place where I am never judged or punished. A place of freedom. Where I am allowed to be myself without feeling awkward and wrong in my most vulnerable moments of fear and freak outs.

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The concept of a lasting connection almost feels foreign to me. I feel vulnerable when I think about it. I know It’s a trust thing. I have to trust myself to surround myself with trustworthy people. I have to trust those people not to hurt me or betray me, something I’m way too used to. I have to trust life to be kind to me from now on. I am looking for lasting connections. I’m looking for things that moves with me instead of me growing out of them. I want a home that doesn’t crumble or falls apart. A home that’s isn’t an illusion of safety. Or an illusion of love. A home without a ghost.

All of those painful endings led me to this place where I am free to build whatever I want for myself. New connections. New boundaries. New rules. A new home. A new life. But I won’t forget the tears that brought me here. After all, water is the birthplace to every new life. Even in my paintings, I’m mixing the colors with water to bring new life to an empty canvas. I am deeply grateful for what I have in my life right now. And it was all born out of something painful that died and got buried in time – which created a space for a new life. To live.

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Just like in the very last scene of Six Feet Under where Claire drives off in her avocado green hearse to start a new life for herself someplace else, after a painful goodbye to her old life and the people in it. Endings are bittersweet. And new beginnings are awfully exciting and scary. And so fucking amazing.

MIA MAKILA

Lowbrow Art & Pop Surrealism

Tag: love