How little my inner routine changes even with the Swedish headquarters
I try to paint in the studio Jörn built for me next to the sauna but my mind is so restless.
The news is horrible everywhere and all I want is to bury my head in search for something that makes any sense to me anymore.
So after an hour holding my paintbrush and staring at nothing, I decide to walk back to the barn house. Jörn and his father have hidden away in Jörn’s office with Zoom meetings and the transferring of power from Josef to Jörn requires hours of them locked away.
Elsa has gone back to the city. She said to see Andreas perform and check in on the Swedish Opera House that is actually located not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A block or so from Gerald’s and not too far from the Plaza hotel. But when I think of present life ….
I don’t fit anywhere that makes any sense
I’m not used to family; to people noticing if I’ve stepped out or returned…. The awareness of that unknown phenomena to me (always watching but never among one; always watching from outside, the outsider; other people with other families from outside their window; like my nose up against the glass: wonder—what is that like?)I felt and noticed of the ‘familia’comfort of Jörn’s family presence. Being around them. At first it was so hard for me ….accepting thoughtful gestures even as I like to give them, accepting it is impossible to me…. I’m not used to it. I find moments when I stop and fall into thought as I try to determine if —I don’t mind if anyone notices —was she hit by a car; fall into a pit; get accosted by someone…. No, I’m not used to that
And also, I realize something else that seems to bother me…. The real world out there?
Real?
I find I have trouble connecting with the electronic world. I don’t notice that people have an authentic heartbeat.
People, I guess I find, aren’t real in the real world,
it’s all a persona and though people are talking constantly out there through that electronic screen, no one is saying anything. They are just filling time and deluding themselves that time is endless for them and they just get a set of new hearts when they refresh their game
and deep in such thoughts, irony! what’s worse it seems I keep hearing Link’s theme playing in my head
but for me, it is not at all what being alive is—I cannot giggle life off in empty performance and stare at a screen and make pretend as the real game —life— is meant to be engaged in but people don’t do that much so, I find I sit and often brood ….trying to find something constructive to fill the void that’s gone missing out there
“Duvan,” Josef has taken to calling me by Hanna’s version of her father’s name for me
and when he says it now it gives me such a start as I hadn’t seen him there
I look as he walks over to me,
“you have been angry at me,” he says and looks into my eyes with his deep Nordic blue that sees everything
