vacuum

It’s like living in a vacuum. For a million of reasons. One is because in my mind, I have already left my job. Only: I don’t have a new one. In-between does not feel like a creative state. It’s the not knowing that makes it a vacuum. Not knowing when I will find a new job. Not knowing if my new boss will help me find one within the organization or if the new job will also mean an entirely new company. I always have a target which I strive towards. Now the goal is unclear and floating. One advice would be to go with the flow and take the opportunity to do nothing. But what a waste of life and time! Find me a goal to reach – someone!

To help me forget my vacuum, people around me are in need of help. Or at least that’s how I interpret it. A good way to ignore my dilemmas is to try to sort out other people’s problems. I’m sure there is a term for this in the psychology world. It saddens me so when the people I love and respect are unhappy.

I have wanted to go color with finger-paint for so long now! Even thought of crashing a kiddie session at the Stockholm Culture House or the Stockholm Museum of Art – I think these places have workshops for kids. That and other harmless, mischievous adventures have been on my mind for ever. But I live in a vacuum and don’t even do that. It seams like if I can’t fly: I don’t even bother to walk. But my vacuum will pass. I will start walking again. Walking and then running. Happily trying to reach the sky once more. But right now, it feels like it’s an eternity until then.

words

Who has mastered the art of communicating? Is that a mystery forever unknown to mankind – or maybe just to me? “Drunk behind the wheels of possibility” (Fastball) is one of my favorite lines because it’s just so ME! Conversations are just like that: you know there is potential – MAYBE you will get your point across to the other person. But as when you are drunk: no matter how hard you try, you will still not make sense. Not make sense might be to strong of a statement, so let me try to explain. We all have different frames of reference. Even siblings growing up in the same family have basically grown up in different environments. The first born lives a few years as an only child and gets ALL the attention, just to have that taken away the instant the next child is born. That child always had someone else around to entertain – at least when they where very young. Entertain or get beat up by. Never the less: something entirely different.

Not only do we have different environments growing up: it’s the man/woman thing as well. There is research supporting that men and women’s brains are different. No wonder it’s so hard to communicate between the sexes! Sometimes talking to men feels like trying to bounce a basket-ball that doesn’t have enough air. No matter how hard I try: it just won’t reach the heights I want. Or do I not try had enough? Maybe even before the conversation glide towards a more delicate direction, I have shot it down. Probably. There are so many things on the road of life that has molded who we are and how we view our surroundings. But actually it's just an encounter between individuals. This is how a relationship starts: a meeting. A meeting with another person who you get to explore by having them talk, and you talk: about yourselves and everything else. It has to be "chicken shit" talk at first. You just can't blurt out that you think about death and are scared of ghosts (or what ever secret you might have). This would make anyone turn and run. I think that's one of my challenges, to understand that it's just that at first: chicken shit to get to know the other person lightly. It confuses me. When are we supposed to let the other person know more about ourselves? How long will it take before the other person opens up to you? Not until we reach that point will we know if the feeling is mutual. Up until then: all we can do is keep talking.

flowers

So what’s this thing with flowers anyway? Has it always been so symbolic for humans? I know in high school, English A or what ever the course was called, we read Hamlet and had to write a paper on it. One of the suggestions for thesis was the meaning of flowers. Today I can’t even remember that there was anything about flowers in Hamlet! My thesis was that Ophelia was too good for this earth. Oh no: I’m not a fan of drama or anything…

I went to buy flowers for my new boss and another new co-worker that starts tomorrow and on Monday. Two stock-conservative, not so spunky men. It ought to be potted flowers so the welcome last longer than the newbee free ride so to speak. We don’t want the flowers to be withered before the guy even gets in on Monday. What kind of signal would that give! So what do you get for this group of people? Something that lasts without a lot of TLC, and maybe without water for longer periods of time. Cheery but sober at the same time. I spent way too much of my company’s money on these plants and my biased beliefs. Watch these guys come in and have brought their own dazzling plants to put in their offices!

Another flower allegory I have experienced is men and their relationship to women. Being a Swedish woman in the US was looked upon as being a little more exotic for US men than what a Swedish woman is for Swedish men. It’s delightful being looked upon as exotic. Lots of perks comes with that title: nice dinners, trips to faraway places, undivided attention from busy men with important jobs, men willing to try something new for them which they though I would enjoy (like walking through a museum and read about every single painting, running across the Golden Gate bridge etc.). I’m sure there are more advantages that other women have gotten as well, but this is just a sample from my list. This is all good until you realize that you are exotic and interesting because you’re like cut flowers: expensive, beautiful and the centre of attention for the week they live. But they don’t need any true maintenance. Potted flowers need maintenance. They should be watered regularly and the dirt should probably be changed every two years or so. Sometimes I think men have not understood that the only thing they have to do for their potted plants to be glowing and fabulous is just that: give them water every now and then. If these men have wives (let's hope I haven't been dating married men...), all they had to do is give them a little bit attention. Instead of spending time trying to figure out what I (the other woman) like and get excited about: find out what your spouse would be happy if you did. I went to a sales-convention. In one of the sessions we all introduced ourselves and spoke briefly of what we did. This one guy was in the business together with his wife. Everybody wanted to know how they could stand each other 24-7. He said that once he realized how pleasant it was to have a happy wife, he started to do things that he knew she would like. The gratification of drinking a beer with his pals after work was so much shorter than the extended benefit he got from coming straight home from work for instance. The beer night lasted: the beer night. The happy wife lasted: a life time. Instead, men spend lots of money on what seams like exotic cut flowers. Not realizing that the potted plants could be just as amazing and exotic if you nurture them right.