When you struggle to find the right words...
for your thoughts you want to express, you know that your world is shrinking.
You try to write your thoughts down to revive your ties to the past.
I have discovered a handwritten letter from 1850 in the historical museum in a small European country I was born.
It makes me think about being human in another time - reading by candle light, a life lived without being able to read at all.
Nightfall that brings on absolute darkness. The only heat available is from fire.
When people get sick, they might die, when women give birth neither the child, nor mother may survive.
Most people live and die in the exact place they are born.
Journeys take months and years, if you leave you may never see those poeple who matter to you most.
You may not hear any news of them for months, there are no pictures of anyone, only thing you can do is write...
Looking at ink on yellowing paper in my hand I think about the time when people use tools but no machines...
when seasons matter and animals are essential.
Childhood is brief and there is no adolescence.
There is no vote and you have no say in anything.
You are dead by fifty. Only Sunday off all your working life and the Lord wants you then.
After few minutes with an ancient letter I am feeling incredibly grateful to be alive today.
And then, of course, I look at my laptop and wonder...
...which bit of our life is going to be the most important artefact to people a few generations from now.
I look around on all those places where I spend my holiday...
my working days...
my life..
and I realize wherever I look, the words are all around us. Just like yesterday, today also, the words define us...
Always tell the truth
and feel free.
Said from my perspective,
told in my own words,
words are my passage
to the bigger world.
Little holes in the sky
through which rain
manages to get through.
Words of the bigger world,
that rhymes
freely.
There is no strict form,
just a reason
to ask questions
that I can not answer,
to defend the right
to be wrong,
to repeat one hundred times
that justice delayed
is justice denyed.
To add something
quite deeply personal
and make connection
through poetic images
that talk to me the most.
Words of the bigger world
in small stories
about women,
their loss and longing.
Their loyalty
to those who suffer
daily,
trauma in the eyes,
witnesses of atrocity
literally silenced
has to be revisited
and talked about.
The sweetest words
of them all,
the words to the big women
of the small world.
When was the last time
you have received
a hand-written letter?
That celebration of stillness,
that communion of souls?
My dear old Grandmother,
Mother-in-Law,
God-mother,
auntie,
my dear mother,
lonely women in golden age,
they all say,
it had been some time
since anyone close
has sat down
and written,
pen in hand,
at lenght to them.
A little depth charge from the past.
When I write,
I pour my soul out,
there is no crossing out,
the full consideration
is on the receiver of the letter
yet it is spontaneous
a lovely combination.
Love feeling the writing paper
in my hand
its heaviness,
creaminess,
sensuality.
I see the people,
for whom I write.
A heartfelt letter
carving out a slice of stillness
in a busy day,
a soul-concentration.
The words came strong,
replenishing,
a turning towards authenticity.
I think of the potency of letters
past,
from decades ago:
my grandfather's,
the hand spidery
but the voice strong,
that spiritually softened world
of connection and grace.
Writing sheltered him,
writing shelters me,
from the bigger world
I dream about to enter.
When my Grandmother
received my letter,
she didn't rip open the envelope at once,
but waited for for quietness,
there was something of ritual to it.
It was the shining time
as she read the tonic of my words.
A hand-written letter
arrived
every month
in her letterbox
and filled up
a quiet moment in her heart,
the most immediate breath of life,
the first tiny sun ray of spring,
her heart opens like a landscape
cracking open
after the bitterness of winter,
the world couldn't be bigger,
not for her and not for me.
Emails to my children,
words of happiness
of having them.
We live each day with a light heart
writing to each other
about our truimphs
and our failures
with enough humility
to learn from both.
Everyday words
reminds us
we are more
than our achievements
or mistakes.
We long be free,
and yet we are victims
of our own self image,
slaves to ambitions,
vanity,
ego
and greed.
SMS to my husband
words without obsessions,
life with moderation.
We have found out
long ago,
anything we want too much,
seek too much
and give too much energy to,
will turn around
and bite us,
sooner or later.
Our words
just like us
settled
in the routine,
a well-known pattern of life.
Words to myself,
in my diary,
ready to carry me on,
encouraging me to do anything,
my words
are the living proof
that everything is possible.
The world around you
is just as big
as the words in your mind,
you are what you write....
