Honey Dawn

It was a jet lagged morning that we climbed out of bed and drove in the darkness to a little clearing away from the road. Elder slept on his favourite, thick blanket in the long grass and August stayed close as we explored. Slowly the world expanded as the light spread across the landscape. What had been a wall of night turned into rolling hills and a wide body of water, still and bright. The grass turned into a deep honey colour, gold and red abundant. We climbed trees and danced until it really properly felt like day time and then we went back home wondering why we didn't welcome every new day like this.

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Retracing

My hands smell of fresh, succulent lemons as I prepare breakfast, lemons that were picked from my parents' farm. It's so strange that a scent can be so much, could carry so much meaning. I am giddy from the very thought of it, as it lingers on my hands.

We are in an old, new place. Back to my roots in my childhood town and the farm I used to call home. The people I used to know are here still, unchanged in many ways and kind like I remember. As I have grown this place has remained still. I look the same as I did before I ran away too but beneath my skin, every part of me is different.

Familiar faces on the street come as a shock to me. Introverted, in my own made up world, I forget that here I am forced to meet people from my past. I am so happy to see them but I become a little bashful and say silly things, scolding myself for being so ridiculous as I walk away red faced and slightly embarrassed. 

My small boys flourish here. Already I see so much change in them. Before the sun has emerged above the horizon we are awake, jet lagged and anxious to see the sun we walk through the shadowed garden and wait for its impending glow. August runs, giggling. He is ecstatic, like an imprisoned bird set free to soar again. My parents' dogs, black and white and wild, follow August eagerly. They are almost always by his side, like his animal guardians. Our days spent here are spent outside. I follow August with my camera and Elder sleeps peacefully against me in his carrier. We collect eggs and pick raspberries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes and snow peas from the garden. August learns quickly and knows how to find them. He walks satisfied from the garden with sticky hands and his plump lips stained red.

Elder is like sunshine on a dull day. He is happy and giggling and patient, content with his world. It is a relief to be the mother of such a calm and gentle creature. Adjusting to two children is tiring and my busy mind slips easily into distracted frustration. I will be forever appreciative that loved ones are near enough to save me, that the incredible task of loving and caring is shared with my family.

Life's dynamic has changed now that Elder is here. The slow, easy days when August was so tiny have changed to organised, regimented ones or complete chaos, mostly the latter. It's hard to accept that those bliss-filled days are gone now but this new tempo is ripe with possibility and has taught us to strive for bigger, better things. I wish we could decide on a path to take now. I remind myself that it will come in time and if not, we will carve our own way.

Each night a weary August pulls me to the door as he rubs his eyes and I pick him up, wrapping my warm arms around his tiny body and walk him outside. The stars here are brighter and more beautiful than any other place I have been. We are drawn to them. They call to us, just as Sirens would entice sailors by their deceptive beauty and promise. I sing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' as we stare out to the never ending universe above. August waves to the sky as I take him inside. I wonder sometimes how he can contemplate such an extraordinary sight.

When my mind wanders from reality, daydreams are filled with fresh food and a garden of my own. I am more lazy than I would like to admit when it comes to food but I'm hoping that a working garden created by my own hands will be the encouragement I need to dedicate my time to making wholesome meals. While we're here, with space and support I would like to turn my day dreams into reality.

How long we plan to stay is unclear. We are lost, as we so often are and life here is insecure. Tomorrow we might have to leave but maybe we will stay and discover something incredible. 

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In transit

Blurry faces from every part of the earth pass us by. I wonder where they are from, where they are going and what language they speak. I wonder how different their life is from mine and then it fades from mind as we thread our way through a bustling airport, far away from home.

The motion of our everyday life is paused as we travel for the first time in a long time. I am grateful that we are on the road again, it stirs a passion and excitement in me. Elder is only four weeks old and August is as wild and curious as ever. The trip is long and hard but wonderful too.

We arrive in Abu Dhabi in the early hours of the morning. With a fifteen hour wait before our journey continues, we leave for the city. August sits still by the large bus window and stares at the warm, foggy morning. Palm trees and manicured gardens line the clean streets and shiny, new cars speed passed us. It feels like I'm dreaming. The city is sandy and bright and the buildings are giant. My head is spinning with weariness.

We step off the bus, the breeze is a gush of warm, dry air and men dressed in long white robes stare at us. We wander through gigantuous streets before our bodies are aching and hunger stabs at our empty stomachs. We hail a cab and speed through the city to an outdoor restaurant on the beach. Barefooted on our shaded lounge chairs we eat breakfast while trying to stop August from destroying the table arrangement. We succeed mostly but despite our best efforts he manages to steal one of my socks, never to be seen again.

We stay for hours, August happily playing in the water and on the playground with his papa. I stay to breastfeed Elder in the shade. When August sleeps we all sleep. I am exhausted but stay sitting as I doze, trying to look inconspicuous. Luckily there are few people about and the waitresses don't seem to mind having a family of four napping in the corner. Guiltily, we order more juice as an excuse to stay.  

I wake to a light breeze and the sound of the Muezzin's call to prayer coming from a distant loud speaker. The sound is long and rhythmic, almost hypnotizing. I adjust my eyes to the brightness but relax, realising the boys are still fast asleep. I see the golden sand dunes in the distance, the edge of the city seems like the edge of the earth, desert never ending afterwards.

Each road we walk onto we stare up in awe. I wish I had the energy to enjoy it more but my senses are dulled and everything is hazy. We explore the giant buildings and wander the wide streets, sometimes taking a cab when we are tired. After a late lunch we decide to make our way back to the airport. We run out of cash to pay the cab driver and for some reason we can't withdraw any money, so we are left to apologetically talk our way out of paying. With only a few coins left we manage to buy our bus fare back to the airport and I am so relieved. Gladly, we leave the heat and bustle of the city behind.

We have hours still to wait and we take turns to play with August, his energy is boundless. I lie on the floor with him and stare up at the intricately tiled ceiling, pointing to the all the different colours and shapes. The light outside fades into night and the boarding lounge becomes busy. Time drags along slowly as we wait but soon the rush of flying erases our earlier impatience.

I study August's reaction as we take off yet again. His small features are alert but I can see the weariness in him. As soon as we are soaring we slide easily into our dreams, high above the clouds, towards our next adventure.

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Home among the apple trees

Last week we woke well rested in our new home. We had arrived the night before, exhausted from a cross country train trip and a week of packing and cleaning and were snuggled together in bed by 9:30. The day we moved was the first day of Autumn and the weather matched. It was cool and brisk and it was exciting to be moving on just as the seasons were. On our first morning in our new home I sat outside on our new porch and let the notably warm sun wash over me. The fat, fluffy bumble bees were happily buzzing around the bushes that weaved their way up the stairs to the house and the pretty tree in the front yard sagged under the weight of its ripening apples. It was warm and beautiful but Autumn was still in the air. I have been here so many times before but it feels peculiar to call it my home now. It feels like a proper home, where artwork sits proudly on the walls and the chandelier in the dining room glitters in the sun. None of it is mine but I can pretend.

A week on and our bags are still packed and sprawled across the floor and filled boxes are untouched waiting in storage. Some day we will organise them but I'm glad most things are hidden away some place safe and in no need of attention for now. After moving all of our belongings I've realised how little we need and how little we want.

I have been using the opportunity of having August's grandparents so close by to spend some much needed time making food I love, playing and creating the healthiest, tastiest dishes I can, heavily influenced by the apples, currents and black berries in season now. It is a delight to cook with freshly picked produce growing just outside the door and even more satisfying to share it.

We have spent glowing afternoons in Rasmus's parents' summer home and early each morning we drive back to town. Those morning have been incredible. I sit in the back seat with a newly woken August staring out at the green and misty countryside, wrapped snuggly under a blanket and with those giant morning eyes he has, I could just drink in the sight of him forever. With the gleaming almost sanguine sun rising from the horizon I felt a calm excitement as the car lurched forward along the empty morning roads. I felt a tinge of longing to just keep driving, to be lulled into a dream state by the never-ending countryside and the movements of the car beneath me. I'm pulled each time from my quiet respite when we reach home and have to go inside, when the day begins and those misty mornings and dreamy Swedish landscapes disappear from memory, when reality settles.

We are still adjusting to life here. I keep catching myself thinking of when we have to go back home to the big city and then realise we have no home to go back to now. After spending so long there it feels hard to let go, but time will help with that and life here will take over my thoughts. The dynamic of this place is different. There is a certain calmness here as I suppose there is in most smaller cities and towns but it has a much more dramatic effect than expected. We will mould to its rhythm as we have moulded to city life. But I am glad for the new surroundings, the fresh air and the space to grow.

                  
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Uprooting

This has been a week of swirling hormones, tears, entire days spent feeling hopeless in bed and Rasmus, my sweet boy Rasmus, being beautiful and perfect and taking care of me and our baby. I have been trapped in my bed, my self made prison and refused to leave. I have been selfish and stubborn and tears have poured down my cheeks for hours in between my long naps that make the sun rise and fall outside my window, almost unnoticed and unnaturally quickly. Rasmus has rested ready to eat meals on my lap, laid his calming, loving hands on me and gently kissed my wet face as I lay in darkness wrapped in grief. He has fed and dressed and loved our son as I am having internal battles with myself in the lonely bedroom, a world away.

I only just announced to the world that another baby is growing and soon on its way. I cannot explain how this sadness has reached me.

August is asleep by my feet now. I can hear his little breaths as he dreams his sweets dreams. I am weary with guilt and more sadness that I have been so hopeless the last days, that I have not given him the love he deserves. I can only hope that my mind clears and I can live without this sadness haunting me soon. It hit me so suddenly, with luck it will leave just as suddenly. I know, by the time I share these words my spirits will have lifted again.

We have so much work to do now. So much to sell and pack and clean. In a week we are leaving the big city of islands and moving to the far side of Sweden. Our pile of belongings narrow each day and I'm glad to see it go. It gives me a sense of relief to empty our life of unwanted, unneeded things and only keep what means the most, the beautiful memory filled objects from our past. We sell our furniture one item at a time, helping fill our empty pockets, much needed to pay our way to the other side of the country.

There is something romantic and exciting about living like this, barely making ends meet, the thought of moving away to start all over. I feel like a girl gypsy on young adventures. In a sense, that's what we are, or that's what we are becoming.

I need this newness in life, the last months have been highs and low lows. I need a reality check, I need to be thrown back into the world that I seem to be forgetting and change, work on myself and the happiness of my little, growing family. I forget that this life I live will only come once and that I need to immerse myself in its wonders. There is no time for the sadness I've felt especially because I am so blessed. But maybe sadness is a part of growing, a part of my ever-changing hormones as my body creates a new life and as I continue living mine. I think this has played an immense role in the last months. It feels nice to know that now, it means I'm not going crazy, I'm just pregnant. I just never expected my being to change so much. It's reassuring that all this won't last forever and will result in something so beautiful.

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Trying to live again

It's been another long hiatus since I last posted. Life has been both beautiful and exceptionally hard. Short spells during these last months have been the darkest and most distressing of my short life. Everything is on the verge of going so wrong or so right and my days are a concoction of undecided emotions. I jump from frustration to magic, excitement and terror. The lack of control I have over my feelings scares me but I hope once plans are clear, once we are headed in a new direction, my mind will stop spinning.

We have been at home living what feels like a boring life. We have become so normal, so dull, but on occasion the drudgery is broken by leaving the city and spending the light filled days in the country with our family. As we walk to the lake to swim each day we pick wild berries hiding in the endlessly growing scrub. August whimpers at me until he has had his fair share of the succulent goodness. We pick vegetables from the garden and I'm like a little girl again, excited to walk barefoot and get dirty among the flowers. We almost never dress August during our stays, he runs around wildly and nakedly in all his toddler glory. He moves endlessly and tirelessly.

I watch them play for hours, August and his enchanting cousins. They kiss him and carry him every chance he allows it, following him around like a new toy. We all sit together on the soft, green grass and talk about space and the world and they ask why we have to live so far apart. My answer never seems good enough. I am just met with wide questioning eyes, tinted ever so slightly with the sadness of reality unwanted. One day they will understand.

Being August's mother is filling and at times unbearably frustrating. He is in every sense, a little boy, rough and unaware, careless and easily angry. His tiny legs and feet are always bruised and bloodied from boyish exploration. During an afternoon picnic at the beach I was treated with my wild boy throwing handfulls of sand into my face and hair with a gleaming grin. His cheekiness is undeniable. Only at night will he morph back into my sweet baby, snuggling into my breast he strokes my face and neck with a tenderness that exists only then. He falls into a deep sleep, comfortable in my arms. During the night I hear him wake for a moment before wiggling his soft body even closer to mine and draping an arm or leg over my torso. He always wants to be connected and I will savour that closeness forever.

These are the beautiful moments, the moments I relish rather than the bad.

When we're at home I am restless and I often wake uncomfortable during the night, light already seeping through the cracks in the blinds and I watch the shimmering image it casts on the dark wall before drifting back to my vivid dreams.

Rasmus leaves the warmth of our bed reluctantly, early each morning. He dresses quietly and then I hear the door close as he leaves for the day. I never summon enough strength to pull myself from my slumber and say "Good bye". I just hear his slow movements before he is gone and then I miss him with all my being. He is home now though, for a time, after hurting himself. His new battle wound adding to the growing collection makes me realise how similar August is to him. It is a relief and a joy to spend the days with him again. Our house feels cosier and busier. His presence makes me feel a sort of comfort I cannot explain.

In all of life's absurdity I forget sometimes that we are young still, young lovers with a wild baby. We are passionate, curious and wanderlusting but we have been too old and still. After months of dreaming we are, at last, in preparation mode. We are about to embark on several very new adventures and a very new stage in our lives. We will be busy planning and organising in the weeks to come and then everything will be different. And so it goes....

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