Wonderful Day

One of my best friends in Sweden, Mohammad Gedi, comes from Somalia. He is a fantastic guy who works hard, is always positive, and is one of the nicest people I have met. Over the last eight months I have heard stories now and then of his life in Somalia and the family he was forced to leave behind when he fled to Sweden. He always told them with a funny spin and made light of the gravity of his situation, but underneath his positive demeanor there was horror. Gun fights, a family of 12 he hadn't seen in over three years. He had no idea if they were alive, dead, safe, in grave danger.

Gedi worked harder and faster in school than any other pupil and always had a smile. He was helped me move my huge sofa from out third floor apartment and wouldn't even let me pay his bus ticket home. Today, I sat here writing in my blog about the loss of balance and security in my life when Gedi came into the computer lab and sat beside me. We talked for a few minutes, then he mentioned, casually, with a gleam in his eye that he had discovered his family. Safe. Every single one of them. In England. I felt like my heart would overflow with gladness.

All this time he has been working, waiting, searching. A young guy of 22 alone in the cold north and suddenly all his fears were laid to rest. Words can't express how grateful I am for his sake. This world doesn't have enough guys like Gedi. When I think about the perseverance of this kind friend of mine, it really dwarfs the issues of balance I have in my own life. Thank you Gedi.

Self Observation

Today I met with a counciller for the first time in a long time. I have been struggling with some inner demons, with my writing, with quite a lot of stuff actually. It was so nice to hear a professional confirm all of the conclusions I have come to and validate the observations I have made. I felt... whole again.

The first month that I was here in Sweden I walked to the grocery store one day. The store was about a 20 minute walk away on a normal day, but the way was unfamiliar to me and the ground was very icy. I'm Canadian for gods sake. Slippery ground should't be a problem for me. But it was. Even Canadians need good winter shoes. It was dark, and minus 30 degrees celcius, and slippery, and I was lost. It took me over an hour to walk home, slipping every step and carrying a heavy load of groceries. I fell twice. By the end of my trip I had tears freezing on my cheeks and a very very cold face. That pretty much describes the way I've been feeling over the last year.. I have had a relatively simple life, just as the walk to the grocery store was relatively simple task.. yet I have been slipping and losing my balance and becoming disoriented.

I felt like my talk with Eva gave me a good pair of winter shoes...

My Book at Last

I actually began writing yesterday. I spend most of the day in front of my computer and my book started to come alive. I decided to scrap the idea of writing fully from the beginning. Now I am just chronicaling the actual people and events of my story. This has really turned out to be the best thing that I could do. My story has developed in complexity and seriousness. I will have a skelton before I actually begin writing the scenes. I would have thought that this would be a soulless way of approaching it, but it's actually working very well. Wish me luck!

Green Growing Things

Those of you who know me well know that trees are necessary to my happiness. There is just something about the fresh green buds in the spring, the leafy splashing patterns of sun and shade in the summer.. the pungent sponginess of decay and colour in the fall... mmmhhhh... the smells and colours fill the cavity of me with life and wakefulness.

Our last apartment had a fantastic view of the lake, which I loved. This one is nestled down into a little neiche... or so it seems. In reality is is surrounded by green growing things and this makes it feel wonderful to me. I love it. There is a small forrest across the park, a white flowering tree in front of our kitchen window, and climbing roses creeping up the wall just outside our bedroom window.

Some deep peace seeps into me as I sit on the sofa in front of a very large window and see all the growing things around me. I love it.

Heart Beat

A met another ghost on Monday. The ghost of an unborn child who haunts his parents relentlessly. I have a new friend from school. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be friends with her and had been brushing her off in a careless and hurtful manner. There goes the image of Meredith the kind. One day she asked me why I shut her out so often. I must admit that I often let a curtian fall in front of my eyes, mind, and heart whenever she started down a tangent that didn't coo to my fancy. I answered blandly that I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to be friends with a person who held some of the opinions she had demonstrated. I could see her swallow and tread carefully with her next few words. She described her life in Sweden, thousands of miles away from her family in Uganda and gave me an image of loneliness that cut me deeply. What a brute I was! When I was young and untarnished I always thought of friendship as something to be offered to those who needed it.. not those who were cool enough, or who fitted into a preconceived image of what a friend should be. Certainly one of my very best friends doesn't fit the bill.. but somehow that never mattered.. I loved her to the ground anyway. So I took her into my heart.

On Monday she called my celly. I was at school surfing on a natural high. The life was coursing through me and I was shining. Immediatley I heard that panic seeping through the phone. Contractions. The baby was only 5 1/2 months old.. too early. Way too early. I went immediatley to take her to the hospital with my heart chewing away at my throat. When I got there she was standing with a stocking covering her hair and a bathrobe on.. nothing else. She seemed rooted to the place with fear. We joked a bit and I made her life despite everything, then we drove to the hospital.

In the examination room the doctor squirted some cold gel onto her stomach then pressed an instrament that looked like a dildo to me against her tummy.

A heart beat.

It was regular, alive, unbelievable. It beat proudly through the silent room echoing in the ears of every person present. A heart beat. That was the baby.

The doctor, a thick beefy woman with stubby fingers and very wide nails smiled a hearty smile. She launched into an explanation of how in the sixth month of pregnenecy there is a section of the lower abdomen that is often over streached and hurts quite a bit... Nothing to worry about.

Then she did a physical exam and her face changed. While we watched my friends insides statically on the screen, we all saw it. A distinctive contraction. The doctor couldn't measure the cervix because it was changing size. And still the heartbeat. It was still there, reverberating trough the empty chambers of our hearts.

It is worse than I thought at first. The chance of you loosing the baby is very high.

But not certain, I said... pleaded.

Very high.

The doctor left the room to consult with a more senior doctor and my friend sat there, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her husband, who had joined us after we got to the hospital sat there stupidly, frozen to his seat. I gave him a solid jabb in the leg and pointed at his wife.

Go home and wait it out, said the doctor upon her return. We don't know why this happens sometimes and there is nothing we can do about it. Come back and check yourself in when the baby starts to come.

We left feeling desolate and a little sick to our stomaches.

And the heartbeat, that wonderful and dreadful heartbeat, echoed in our ears.

Icy Deeps

On my way out to the barn I drive by a small, dark pool. It sits on the outter side of a curve in the winding road and seems to be carved out the forrest. Last spring there was a layer of ice over the dark water long after the large lakes and the ocean were melted and now, in the fall, the ice has begun to grow like cancer. It streaches over the surface seperating the icy deeps from the outside world.

I notice this seemingly harmless pond every time I drive by. The cows don't pay any special attention to it. The birds fly over it unaware. Yet there is a feeling of darkness that seeps through the still surface.

Two days ago I began imagining a mermaid kindgom under the ice. My mermaids were not sexy sea virgins, but the stolen souls of heroine addicts, taught, streached, bony. Their luminescent skin enemated a silvery green hue and their dark eyes sucked the light from the surrounding world into their void. I shiver in my mind.

I want to write something about this lake, inconspicious and shrowded in mystery. I want to know what breaths in the frigid, lifeless deeps. Days and days go by and my book sits still.. still and lifeless as this little lake.. and I am filled with longing.. heroine? Writing? Cold?