A New Romance

I love it when I wake up, and before I'm fully conscious I register that something is different, and I like it. And then I realize it's you, filling my room with light.

I love watching you from my window as you cover the world in white.

I love watching you falling.

I love the way you float in all different directions, as if unsure which way you want to go.

I love your silence.

For me you are foreign interesting and delightful. Yes, I am full of romantic notions of you I know. I am aware that when I first saw you last week and greeted you with squeals of delight and a little dance that my North American and Swedish friends looked at me with a knowing glance. I guess they know you better than I, but in any case I tried to ignore them and stay with the romance and delight of you.

I must say, however, that you did lose a little of your charm when I realized that you'd come between me and my bicycle. I really do like my bike to get around. I also noticed that you seemed to get slushy or slippery when lying on the ground, I guess you must get bored when you're no longer floating in the sky. It makes it difficult for me you know... but I guess everyone has a dark side.

You seem to have come early this year, I guess you're keen - I DO like that - but it will be interesting to see how our relationship lasts if it's this intense for the next few months.

I wonder how I'll feel about you in February... will I still be just as smitten? Or will I be planning to be in a place far a way from you, where this time of the year is full of beaches and sunsets and barbeques and picnics under gum trees and blue skies, and where there is only a memory of you in the place I keep my drinks cold...

Only time will tell!

No Such Thing as Bad Weather...

They have a saying in Sweden that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

I started off in August (which was rainy cold and miserable for most of it) with my upbeat "Well I guess I need to go shopping then!" He he. Ha ha. See how adaptable and funny I am. Summer Jayne summer Jayne... in Sweden again.

The last few days, as September rains and gale force winds descend upon this patch of Skåne, I have been fighting and resisting the urge to even allow 'the weather' into my consciousness. I do not want to spend my whole time here on that bloody subject again. I didn't come here for the weather...

But, as I stood in the bloody freezing windy rainy cold waiting for a bus and the 'no such thing as bad weather' phrase came to my mind the only response in me was:

Bullshit.

There is good weather. And there is bad weather. And there is shit-house weather. This is not the first option.

Ok. It's off my chest and I'm hoping that I will not mention the weather again...

Snippet of My World

I am sitting at my desk, which is lovely light wood and large.

I am facing the window, and on the window sill in front of me is the beginnings of my herb garden: basil, rosemary, coriander, mint and citron mint (lemon-mint?).

Beyond the window of my fifth floor room I see green green green. Trees… the closest I think are apple, and in the distance I see a wind power turbine, turning turning and the Malmo tower.

On a clear day and if I stand in the corner on my tiptoes I can see the Oresund Bridge: the bridge between Sweden and Denmark.

Behind me lies my new Ikea rug full of stripes of different colours and upon it my guitar which awaits my return with eagerness, and a whole lot of clothes I’ve been playing dress ups with.

To my right sits my ‘lovers-weekend-bag’ (for those of you who know what I mean). Yet unused… but she's still looking spunky and full of hope… ; )

My bed is in the corner and a bookcase to my left, full of the select few that made it this far with me, and all my new text books which seem very interesting… to name a few: A Climate of Injustice, Fast Food/Slow Food, Environmental Anthropology, Global Energy Shifts, Economies and Cultures, Rethinking Environmental History.

Under my bed is a mattress that I managed to ride home with yesterday… eagerly awaiting a friend or sista to visit.

The soundtrack of my world lately has been Jonsi. If you don’t know it… GET IT. Jonsi’s album ‘Go’, and Jonsi and Alex’s album ‘Riceboy Sleeps’. Beautiful, ethereal, angelic stuff. Suits trains and planes and the transience my world has been.

I’ve been in Sweden 2 weeks now. There is a peace and a calm that I feel here. Everything has been falling into place. Gratitude. Being in Karlskrona was wonderful. Beautiful to be somewhere so familiar and to see friends so special to me. Was also happy it wasn’t my final destination this time…

I arrived in Lund for good on Monday. I felt a bit unsettled. I went to Ikea…. NOT the place to go if you’re feeling lonely/fragile/vulnerable in any way. Everyone – I mean EVERYONE was in a couple. I wondered if there was an aisle at the beginning where I could have picked up my other half. (Went back Thursday, couldn’t find it. Must be BYO...)

Anyway.

Walking around Ikea. Feeling myself sinking. Thought: ‘OK. Sinking.... Hmmm..... Strategies?!’

So I chose Phone A Friend. Called darling Jess and said: ‘Could you just remind me I’m not all alone in the world?!’

‘You’re not.’ She said.

‘Could you please remind me why in the hell I’m doing this?!’

She did.

In any case I felt immediately better.

My poem from the beginning of my journey came back to me:

‘I know my dark times will be forward as they are backwards.

I know that if I remember to, I will find angels every step of my journey…’

So I said to Team Jayne: Ok guys. I’m remembering. Poetry please!

Soon after I got a call from a girl I’d met waiting in queue for accommodation, Julia. Angel Number One. Do I want to go to arrival day together tomorrow? Absolutely. Was just having a lonely moment. So glad you called. Brilliant.

Got home and went for a run. Started talking to another gorgeous girl. Exchanged numbers. (Spent the morning with her today. Lovely.) Angel Number Two.

Came home and was planting my herbs. A neighbour came to welcome me, see if I wanted a tour around. Yes please! Thank you Angel Number Three…(and WELL DONE Team Jayne.)

Snippet of my world right now.

Love.x

The Long Haul

Night before leaving Australia. Fragile. Open. Scared. Completely vulnerable. Not that I could feel that as inside I felt all triangles and squares. I felt spiky.

I called dad and said that I wanted to say goodbye and he said "How are you?"

"I’m scared Dad."

"Of course you are," he said, and the warmth love compassion care tenderness respect and pride in his voice melted my spiky thorny insides and brought me back to myself.

How do I feel?

Scared.

"So what do you know?" he asked me as I walked the Melbourne suburban street in my pyjamas and uggboots in July and cried into him.

What do I know? What do I know now? 'Thank you for that question...' echoed around my cavernous insides as the wisdom within was invited to speak…

"I know that I’m scared. I’m scared of the dark places waiting for me.

"I know that the dark places will be forward as they are backward and I know they will be wherever I am.

"I know that I’m afraid of feeling all alone in the world. As if no-one cares. I know that in one sense I will always be alone.

"I know that at times I will love my aloneness and cherish it and within it feel All One and connected to and supported by the world and everyone in it.

"I know that if I remember to, I will meet angels along every step of my journey.

"I know that on my travels I will reconnect with friends who will remind me of selves within myself that are a bit faded and rusty and that will absolutely DELIGHT me to BE once again.

"I know that I am so excited about the places that I am stepping into. Inner places and outer places.

"I know that there are ways of SEEING that I am blind to now, and I know there are ways of LISTENING that I’m not able yet to hear. I know there are ways of THINKING and ways of LOVING and ways of CREATING and BEING that I have no concept of yet. And I can’t wait to meet them. I KNOW they are all there… in this beautiful blessed future tumbling towards me that I am also falling into.

"I know I will meet people who will show me ways of loving and being loved and feeling connected and alive and together beyond anything I’ve yet experienced in this world…. But I will KNOW it because LEARNING TRUTH always feels like REMEMBERING something you’ve always known but just forgot.

"I know I will learn things that will open my mind and open my world. I know that a whole universe of new worlds awaits me… and I’m the explorer of my own unknown galaxy… and that excites me on a level that renders the word ‘excited’ as completely inept."

And I felt soft, open, gentle and whole in the complete safe-ness of that state.

Of walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.

"That is beautiful. That is poetry. Write it. On the plane tomorrow you need to write that Jayne. Write it. And take it with you and put it on your wall with that other poem of ‘Home’ that you read to me the other night. They will remind you and bring you home. Remind you that you ARE home, wherever you ARE."

Walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.

Listening for the shimmers of sounds that my ears are just learning to attune to…

Sensing the subtle differences of colours I’ve never before seen…

Watching for the beautiful leaps of head and heart going to new places that feels like a deep and delicious remembering…

Walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.

Home.

There's nothing like moving to make you think about home. There's nothing like moving to get you sorting through STUFF and finding all kinds of trash and treasures... As I've not been posting much here with all my movings and 'see you next-times' I'm feeling quite barren on the reflective front, and so I'm going to share with you some musings on 'home' from the past year or two...

Love to you all.x

Home Is… 16^th March 2009

Home is a stage, with a guitar and a microphone, and dear friends in the crowd.

Home is mum and dad waiting for me a Perth International Airport at 5.10am.

Home is walking across an oval, with a cricket pitch in the middle and the four footy posts at either side.

Home is Brighton Beach at sunset.

Home is white sand and the Indian Ocean, wherever those two meet.

Home is endless cups of tea and tears, heart and laughter.

Home is sisters and home is brother.

Home is khaki and blue sky.

Home is sunshine so bright, you have to squint your eyes.

Home is warmth and bare feet on bricks.

Home is summer dresses and nothing underneath.

Home is a day spent in pyjamas, and just me.

Home is my writing.

Home is my singing.

Home is my teaching.

Home is me inspiring.

Home is me reading.

Home is me writing.

Home is a best friend’s couch, or kitchen table.

Home is talking sustainability, spirituality, and life.

Home is the Moon Café.

Home is the Beaufort Street Merchant.

Home is a 5^th floor Chinese Tea House in Harajuku, Tokyo.

Home is an Organic Lebanese place where they feed me, always, in Camden Town, London.

Home is a Hotel in Sweden, where they buy me Soya Milk, and play my CD.

Home is a sparkly, angel filled shop called Mitt Hem in Karlskrona Sweden.

Home is candles and darkness and girl friends remembering their magic, majesty, power and beauty in a hotel kitchen.

Home is Christmas in unexpected places.

Home is phone calls with siblings from round the world.

Home is being listened to.

Home is the silver grey gum trees of King’s Park.

Home is Eucalyptus, whenever I smell it.

Home is Bali, the screaming noise and cool café’s of Kuta, the rice fields and lemongrass tea of Ubud.

Home is the Departure Board of any international airport or train station. I could look at them for hours.

Home is an airport.

Home is jasmine. And everlasting flowers.

Home is grass trees.

Home is Nanna.

Home is sunshine.

Home is my mini mac.

Back to the Land of the Midnight Sun… (And the Midday Moon!)

Sometimes my decisions are made on a level beyond my conscious control. I’m not talking about taking what life throws at you and saying ‘Ah… meant to be!’ I’m talking about those moments when you have a choice to make. Like taking that new job. Breaking up with that person. Moving to a new country. Big decisions that ARE up to you.

Two examples of what I’m talking about spring to mind. The first was a few years ago when I was seeing a guy. I was unhappy in the relationship and had spent a week or so crying and writing and talking to friends and generally in that thinking space, and wondering how I was gonna do it – if I was, and what I was going to say and then how would he take it??? And then something happened. A peace and a calm and a stillness started to come over me. The decision was made. It was over. I felt it in every cell of my being, as if it had already happened in one place and it was just my job to move through the logistics in this world.

Last week I found out I’d been accepted into a program at Lund University that gave me tingles and goose bumps. Human Ecology – Culture, Power and Sustainability. I found it almost 6 months ago now and felt a complete peace and knowingness that that was my next step. I applied, waited, and last week when I found out, I expected immediate joy. I didn’t feel it. When I told people and they all said ‘Are you EXCITED?!’ I began to wonder what was wrong. I didn’t feel excited I felt bloody overwhelmed, anxious and perhaps terrified. I have not lived in the same home for more than 6 months for years now and I am aching for some stillness and to ‘home’ (I’d like to make ‘home’ a verb here).

I came back to Perth in October last year kicking and screaming. This was the last place in the world I wanted to come… And now I’ve fallen in love again. With the sunshine and the blue sky and the birds and the trees and the people I work with and old friends and my students and the Raw Food Kitchen and Fremantle and The Bodhi Tree Bookcafe and King’s Park and Roleystone and Jarrahdale and Brighton Beach and Pemberton Karri Trees and Denmark (WA) and my nephews and family and the accent and the sense of irreverent humour…. And my heart hurt at the thought of leaving all that, and starting new again.

I had a big cry on the phone to my sista (thank you Sal) and she held me and all my sadness and scaredness and fears in her hands and somehow brought me back to my centre. I felt gentle and open and present again.

And ‘I’ didn’t make the decision at all but I felt it, wordless in all my bones.

I’m going back to Sweden. I am madly passionately crazy in love with all things Scandinavia, in a school-girl crush kind of way. It is also the kind of love that feels deep and whole and peaceful and calm… and like… My Future.

Back to the land of the midnight sun for me.