Another beautiful and fantastic bundle of words from Storypeople .
I opened my inbox this morning and there it was – telling me it’s time to go.

And it is.

Just a week or so to go. A few more nights of cold feet at and the tough mornings where dark skies hover over this island i live on.

It’s not that I have not tried or that I don’t understand the magic of living in this part of the world. Because I do.
But, no matter how much I’ve tried to look at the changing of seasons as something beautiful, there has always been a little too much darkness, a little too many wet shoes and freezing fingers. No matter how hard I’ve tried to collect any sort of energy from what’s around me, I somehow end up drained from all of it. I don’t know how to deal with it.

Summer was amazing.
Fall was spectacular.
Winter is not my cup of tea at all!

Some people might call it running away. That I am just postponing the inevitable, that I’ll end up here sooner or later anyways. Many of them think I don’t want to grow up or simply that I’m too scared to realize that I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. But so be it then.

I know that this is not where I belong. At least not this time of the year.  Knowing I’m saying good-bye to it for another year feels great. Knowing I do not need to deal with the long, dark days feels very relaxing. It’s just for another few days.

Then i might feel alive again.

I’ve been thinking quite a lot of this whole process you’re going through when you miss someone. I’m getting a little bit confused at this point, because I seem to react and feel in ways I never thought I could possibly do.

There has not gone many days where I have not missed someone.

See, there is no way you could ever have it that perfect, that every single person that ever touched your heart or ever crossed your path and made a mark could all be where you are – at all times. No matter how beautiful and wonderful that scenario would be, it is not possible.

So we miss people.
Every day.
Each second we breathe and moment we live.

Sometimes more vibrant, more real, in ways where you can almost smell their scents or hear their laughs if you simply close your eyes. Those times it can make you smile as the memories dance on your eyelids but also tie your heart into a small piece of nothing where you can hardly grasp for air.

There are times you miss someone just briefly. From nowhere, with no warning, your heart – and the world with it – stops for a second or two. Aching. Smiling. Pure feeling of some sort. And then time starts moving again, and the moment is gone.
But it was there. They were there.

And of course there are the small thoughts, the quick ones. The ones you could compare to a soft breeze a summer night, or a snowflake landing on your tounge – you should (and do) feel the slightest cold but before you can sense it, it’s gone.  But those too makes the people you miss in your life right there, even if it is only for the smallest of seconds.

The hard part of missing souls you feel connected to is when it tends to prove itself to be a long, mind wrenching struggle to let go of the feeling that you miss them. When you sometimes can walk around a whole day thinking about some people miles and miles away. This kind of missing usually happens when I just left them, or when I know I get to see them in a very near future.

And here is my confusion. I’ve had this long, never ending, mind wobbling craving to go back to Cape Town and to meet everyone again. I have always known that I would go back, and that it would be soon, but somehow I might have thought that it would not happen after all.. It’s happening now. And the excitement I feel is out of this world, but the closer I get to my departure date – the further away from everything and everyone I feel.

I have come the phase where I start thinking about scenarios where I meet the ones I’ve missed very much. How I will react, how will they react, now what, oh shit, look at you, where am I, what am I doing, i’ve missed you, I am so happy to be back..
And I do think about every single one every day and I still miss them, but I am getting a little bit confused regarding the fact that I’m more withdrawn to the fact of going back instead of dancing my socks off with eagerness over my return.

I don’t usually feel like this. Why is this?

Maybe it is as clear as the fact that the sun will set each night, slowly descending in to a sea of colors.
It might be. And it probably is. I simply think I am a bit scared that everything that was then might have faded in to something transparent, something less touchable and less real – just because I want it so bad to be just as loving as it was then.

Soon it will show. And I’m excited for it.

When I was sixteen I went on my first trip abroad. Me and my best friend at the time got on a plane and flew to the magic islands of Indonesia. For a few weeks we were island hopping, sunbathing and moscito hunting. We got to see trees larger than life, bugs smaller then your eyes could focus on, meet people with the whitest smiles and step into adventures I could never have even imagined existed.

I was sixteen. It was heaven!

I was, for the first time, introduced to the world by the intense flavours and colors it displayed. The thick smell of heat mixed with the soft tropical breeze was like silk caressing my skin.
The narrow streets were filled with small shops selling everything from ashtrays to plane tickets, from small wooden elephants to drugs of every sort. People were talking everywhere, loud and clear, singing, laughing, bickering and listening. The sense of togetherness in this whole mess of everything was evident and spending just a few minutes witnessing this I felt so much more alive then I had ever done before.

By familiarizing to a world under water and to the phenomenal invention a rainforest really is I started feeling myself being part of something big. Something meaningful and real. I realized there was far much more beyond the horizon then I up until then had even imagined.
My dreams started to be filled with endless nights under starry nights, blissful days filled with people I’ve never seen before, travels beyond the moon and a newborn curiosity for what was yet to come.

With my barefeet playing in the warm waters of Lombok, I had no recollection if my toes and fingers had ever been frostbit and could not imagine how it would feel like to wear covered shoes. Long gone was the slush covering the ground in Finland and even further away was the cold mornings where I, all dressed up in heavy clothing and my face looking at the ground, dragged myself to school.

I let myself go in a world where no dreams were too big and where no feeling could stay inside of me for long. All the emotions that seemed to pop out form nowhere needed to go somewhere and that is when I started to write about it. About the place I laid my head at night, of the beautiful shells I found on the beach, of the strange animals that sang at night and about everything my senses touched. I found it to be relaxing, soothing for my soul and everything I wrote about was put in a different light. I was there, I wrote about everything and all the sudden my experiences came alive right in front of me. I was astonished.
I didn’t really understand how it could feel so good to write about something I already knew everything about. Why I would feel so much more when painting my day to day life in words full of value. But I loved it.

This first trip abroad made me realize what my dream was. It put everything in to focus, and I knew right then and there – I need to travel and write about it. I need to see places and describe them in words where the reader takes my hand and joins me when I climb those mountains and when I taste that dish. I want to share the intensity found on the backstreets of Tokyo and happiness in remote areas across Asia. There are so many stories yet to be told about the world, together with the people and animals we share it with I can not even dream of the satisfaction it would give me to be able to portray, if only just a little piece, of it to the rest of the world.
I would smile for the rest of my days.

The reason for this whole post to begin with was  just to let out that I am SUPER excited. The upcoming weekend I am going to a attend a course that focuses solely on this type of writing. I am hoping to get tons of tips, advise, critique and encouragement, inspiration and focus. You’ve got to start somewhere, right? So here we go..

My dream..

Tonight was one of the most beautiful nights I’ve seen in a long time. There was no wind and the cold, crispy air made your nose a little bit red if you stayed outside too long. Your hands needed to be coverd in soft, warm fabric and your feet needed the same.
With no wind making the tress billow to the sound of rustling leafs the night was quiet.  Still and open.

Since these cold nights usually  never bring clouds with them, the stars peak out and twinkle in such a way it feels like they do it just for you. They dance for you under the supervision of the moon, which also shines brighter and more intense this time of the year. It’s such bliss. You can drift off in a complete sense of serenity. I love the stillness.

I went out for a cup of tea on my balcony. With three pair of socks on my feet, gloves and a massive knitted cardigan and a huge scarf, i sat down and closed  my eyes. It was so soothing. I kept my eyes closed for quite some time and tried to point out what sounds I could actually hear. Usually it’s not so hard, there is always some noise coming from somewhere – but barely any this night.

I could hear a few distant clonks from my neighbours kitchen sink, the sound of a car far away and something moving in the leafs on the grass below. At first I thought it was a cat, but after a while I got up and looked down.

The moon shone down and lit up this beautiful tree down below. Since it is this time of the year, it had transformed itself to a piece of artwork of dazzling colors. And it was dropping its leaves. One by one, two and four together, one, two and then none for a little while. It was a weird feeling over the whole thing. Because I never before so intensly listened to the changing of times.

As i mentioned there was no wind tonight. There was no outer trigger that made these leaves drop to the ground.
They just let go.
Because it was time to do so. Somehow I found that to be a very beautiful and thoughtful thing. Letting go so you can move forward, seeing the good in not holding on if not meant to do so.

With the leafs slowly floatin down to the ground, making a painting of colors underneath the tree, I find myself smiling.

Seasons change. And so can people. I think I will sleep very good tonight, with a window slightly cracked so I can hear the soft sound of the leaves letting go of their branch.