So many thoughts, whirling around my brain. Each one glitters in the streetlights like snow, before coming to rest in the cold and crispy covering that coats everything. I would make a good troglodyte, I sometimes think, or a hermit, burrowing away inside my cave, surrounding myself with the things I want and need, no desire to go outside and squint in the bright sunlight. Usually I’m drawn to sunshine, but this weekend, I seem to have been working on my anti-tan.
Tjej, another American expat in Sweden, got a group of us together recently and after a lot of hard work on her part, today launched Stavfel, a group blog where we can practice writing in Swedish. I’ve been in Sweden for 8 years, and I consider myself fluent, but it made me think. I rarely write in Swedish, almost never in fact, not at work to my Swedish colleagues, and not at home to my Swedish friends. I’m still thinking about it, but now, hopefully, I’ll be doing something about it.
ozswede wrote an excellent rant about smokers and smoking (which, unfortunately, is friends-protected and not open reading for the public) and it, along with the comments it generated, made me think a lot. I’m still thinking about it.
Marilyn wrote an excellent post today about the collision between blogging and real-life and how and why people keep them separate. It made me think a lot. I’m still thinking about it.
Sometimes I worry that my thinking about so many other people, my first family, my relatives, my friends back in the States, my friends online, my LJ friends, overshadows and blocks out my thinking about my family HERE, my friends HERE, my life HERE. My real life. I worry that verian doesn’t have a job yet, and I commiserate with lady_chai‘s sleeplessness, and I worry about idahoswede and her husband. I’m putting a lot of mental energy into sending positive job vibes to galestorm and purrthecat and thesidhe and others. I’m invested in the relationship troubles, the pregnancies, the sick family and friends, the depression, the mood swings, the weight issues, the wedding plans, the children, the move to a new place, of all of my friends and family and the people whose lives I’ve been given a peek inside and become inextricably intertwined and interested in.
I’m also moved and thrilled when the good things happen, I’m applauding when things go right and things go well for all of these people all over the globe, whom I consider to be friends, who I know worry about me or praise me or send ME positive energy when I need it, too.
And I think, this IS my real life. It’s as much my real life as the very real ups and downs I deal with on a daily basis with my husband, my children, my work, my friends. It’s part of what makes me get up in the morning, and it’s part of what sends me to sleep with a smile on my face, or a hope of better things for someone I care about who is struggling. I’m not just living vicariously through Bluepoppy’s house-building, or Julia’s strength in the face of tragedy, or Melanie’s delicious sense of beauty. Each time I read these friends, each time I read something YOU have posted, there is an electric charge, a spark that shoots from you to me and back again.
If I was living in a musical, I’d be breaking into song right about now.
***
Martin: Mama, what’s a speed shovel?
Liz: What? A speed shovel? I don’t know. What do you mean?
Martin: You know, what the astronauts ride in…a speed shovel.
Liz: *blank look*…*pause*…*sudden comprehension* OH! You mean the space shuttle!