måndag 9 augusti 2010

Running

I don't know if I do like running. But I run a lot. I run to be able to feel the existence of my body. To feel my heart beating when I reach the top of the last hill. To feel the drops of perspiration running down my neck, the pulsating heat in my face. There are moments when I forget the existence of my body. When I forget to breath. This is not one of them.

When I run my lungs swallow liters of oxygen. I feel them outside my body. They are so big that my body can't hold them inside me. I don't like the feeling of having my lungs outside my body. But I love to get them back aired and used to their maximum.


When I ran today I passed by two rats. Rats could never give me any good. They escaped quickly and so did I. There are lots of them in Stockholm. My heart beats harder every time I see them. The rats know to run faster then I. It doesn't help me anyway. I still hate them.

Sometimes I run to the bus. That kind of short running is a good feeling even in the moments of running. My legs turn into feathers. But the wind isn't able take me. I know exactly where I have my feet.

I saw a man today. He was running with two different legs. One leg looked like my legs, the other looked like a iron strip that helped him jump like a kangaroo. He seemed to be pleased being able to run with one leg and jump with the other. I'm also pleased even though I don't rune like a kangaroo with my left leg. At least now when I'm back home again with my lungs inside me.

Text: Jennie Åström
Photo: Sebastian Estay

torsdag 5 augusti 2010

Don't tell me I'm naive

When I sat at the bus waiting for it to take off my eyes got stuck at a blinking lamp at the wall outside the window. The lamp was pink and had the shape of a square. I'm sure it's been there since the 80's. I stared at the lamp and listened to the almost inaudible sound of a crackling radio that I located from the speakers above me. The crackling and the blinking made a rhythm. This would be a great starting scene in a film, I thought. For a while I forgot that a sat at the bus taking of for work. I was only thinking about what a great film could come out of this scene.

The moments when my brain start to think creative like that are few. I've been working constantly for two months now. At work I meet only people with problems, trying to solve their lives. I get the feeling that in this small world that I share with my workmates only contain two groups. Those who have succeeded with there life and those who have not. To succeed is to have a more or less well payed job, to have somewhere steady to live, to be able to save money to the retirement and to consume clothes and jeweleries and a nice dinner every now and then. Not to succeed is not to have a job, not to have money to spend, not to be shore about where to live next, and most of all; not to bee ware about the seriousness in the situation. There are two groups according to the climate where I work; the employees in the office and the clients.

To have to work and live in a discourse that serious about life really affects me. I start to think like it. I try to structure my life according to the plan. But it only ends up in one way. I keep on identifying myself as the clients more than the employees. It wouldn't bee a problem if it wasn't for the discourse; that I've failed if I don't live in a secure world with a steady salary and somewhere to life for the next few years. I don't want to be like THEM, will I?

With this discourse in my mind there isn't much time for dreaming. That makes the blinking lamp and the crackling radio at the bus quite amazing. The thought about my dead dreams reached me today, when I took a walk in the forest at lunchtime. I was trying to find a topic to start write about but my brain was empty. I started to construct sentences in my head but I only found pieces of story's that couldn't be put together. A few ours of puzzling and I actuality started to put sentences together. My head started to wright about my life and my dreams. I was the topic I'd been looking for. I knew I was close to something great.

The few times when I've told my colleagues at work that I want to be an author, they've only laughed at me. One said: "you sound like our clients", another asked how I'll be able to support my life economically. Is a matter of fact; it do exist other groups of people. They are few tough. It's a great effort to risk the halfboring life of security for the dreams.

Now that I've started seeing every second of my life as a part of a story, I feel more alive. It's only when my creative mind is wide open that I feel my life being closer my dreams.
I'm gonna live a happy life, working as a writer, living as a poor.
Only if I want to see it I'm not so far from there.
This summer l'm going to send my book to the publisher.
Wish me good luck.
Text: Jennie Åström
Photo: Sebastian Estay