Sunday, March 3, 2024

Make it anywhere

 Dear future hubster,

Ever since that June afternoon when that guy who knew literally nothing about me declared (not that I asked) "you're not gonna last 6 months", I've been- defiantly,  nervously, angrily - watching the calendar every time I ended up somewhere new. Why he felt the need to share his unhelpful wisdom is unclear,  and by now, frankly,  unimportant.  That I reacted with raised eyebrows on the outside and "watch me" on the inside is no surprise, and that he was wrong is a fact. And it's been nearly ten years,  I do hold on to my grudges. 

Since then I've learned that 6 months really is not a long time - I did double that in a place that genuinely made me sick (was not fun, don't try it at home). And that lasting 6 months or a year or 15 is as much a matter of the circumstances as it is a continuous and conscious effort. That there is beauty in being new in a new place, and that beauty and excitement is very much a given, and it is very much guaranteed to fade with time. And that the beauty of the no longer being new in a new place,  conversely,  is not a given. It takes a lot of work, although that work itself is often fun and exciting and rewarding.  That making it past 6 months and more actually requires more curiosity and bravery than setting up shop initially did. And that there are always people to gently guide me, to nudge me, to walk with me.

I hope that random guy in random kitchen learned something similar since; that he's offering kinder wisdom to wide-eyed newbies like I once was. Like I still am, every now and again, on arrival or 6 months later.

(I am alway telling the same story, I know: Life is hard, and it is beautiful.) 





Sunday, October 29, 2023

Is love still the answer?

 Dear future hubster,

I know it's been a while. Not sure if I  have to explain why, with your being entirely a product of my imagination, I guess I also get to decide what you already know, but yeah, new country new job new life etc. Having to learn where the best/cheapest/least crowded supermarket is, and how their checkout process works, and deciding if I'm willing to put up with their less than ideal workflows. Having to learn the metro directions (why does every big city have a weird circle line that can get you to the same place in 14 or 40 minutes depending on which way you go?), and to  not rely on Google maps when it comes to the tram, and rather using the local transport system's app (I don't want to download another app, please, and don't even try with your QR code menus). Having to navigate keyboard distributions that are contradictory, while 4 languages are being spoken around me, 2 of which I speak and 2 of which I kinda understand so I can't really tune them out. Alternating (rollercoastering) between "oh this is actually interesting cool work that I am passionate about" and standard imposter syndrome routines of " how is this relevant to anything that matters, and even if it is, am I doing it right?". Taking two months to make it to a yoga class and then wanting to cry at the opening om because that's not how I'm used to doing it and there's only so many adjustments I can handle.

Having to make new friends. I don't want to do the work, I just want new friends to magically come to existence, like they actually often do in my incredibly privileged life; they just pop up and bring their magic. The magic I want and desperately need, we all do, the laughters the hugs the crys, the ice cream the coffee the fries, the music the colours the light. The simple, quiet presence, when all else fails.

Because, dear future hubster, honeybun, bebe, the world is on fire. Disasters and numbing crises one after the other on top of each other; unspeakable horrors right before our eyes. It's not often that I can't find words; nowadays, I am completely at loss. Nothing in any language I speak can do justice - justice, in particular, seems to have lost meaning. My usual way of processing things, good or bad, is talking about them, so what do I do now that the words don't come?

Jason (one of my many musician boyfriends as you know) has always said that love is still the answer, and... I don't know anymore. Maybe he's right, but... maybe we just don't know how? 

How do we love in this world?

How do we live in this world? 





Wednesday, July 12, 2023

We can never know what to want

 Dear future hubster,

today I am going to be one of those people I usually find annoying, saying great things about somebody who's just died, not having mentioned them or their work's impact on my life in the recent or not so recent past. And maybe I am also one of those cliché girls, swearing on a book that changed their lives.

Many books have changed my life though. Today's story is about The Unbearable Lightness of Being, of which I own multiple copies in at least two languages - I thought I'd read it in 3 but I'm not so sure anymore.

I also distributed many more during the years to people as a sort of parting gift - if you ever meet somebody who received one from me, please tell them that it means that there was a time when I felt so close to them that I wanted to let them in on a revelation; that I wanted to share with them something I thought I'd understood about life.

That revelation, understanding, interpretation, simplified to a motivational poster length because I haven't read enough Nietzsche to be more elaborate, is that there is no control group. Any decision we make is going to be the first and only of its kind, and there is no way of knowing how other decisions would have played out. The "other option" isn't actually real. 

For somebody like me, often worried to extremes about getting things wrong, this - not being able to compare possible outcomes - is unsettling. Sometimes dowright scary. I am just learning to see it as beautiful too, liberating, for the absence of the right choice also makes The Right Choice non-existent. 

Ironically,  I've been wanting to be The Right Choice for so many so often - and when I wasn't, when they made a choice that didn't include me, or couldn't make one that did because they were held down by their own what ifs, scared to choose me for fear of having to un-choose everything and everybody else, scared of throwing away the other option that might be better, well, then I gifted them a copy of this book, thinking that seeing the brutal beauty of this lack of second drafts and revisions, control groups, comparable other options, will change their lives too. 

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Happy new year I guess

 Dear future hubster,

if there was one good thing coming out of the lockdown misery of the early pandemic days (erm, first two years), then it must be the reduced occurence of bra-wearing, and my attitude towards free titties (my own, mostly). 

I now give fewer fcks when venturing outside without said clothing item (while, I  need to clarify for historical records, I do wear other clothing items) - the number is not zero yet, but it is lower. 

Who knew. 

Friday, December 30, 2022

Where your skates are

 Dear future hubster,
I'm sure I've said it before, but in case I haven't: home is not a place. Although sometimes it might look like a place,  like a moderately ugly orange sofa in the Tshukudu house.
But it's so many more things. 

It is where you're picked up from the airport and handed balloons, water, GT; or where you already have metro tickets on arrival and don't have to line up with all the losers at the ticket machines; you also know which line to take without having to check. Home is where somebody gives you instructions in a way that makes sense to you, none of that 300 meters northeast, but "after the green door". Home is where you get a key, can make your own coffee (if you figure out how the buttons work), and you know you can grab a few hangers for your clothes - sometimes you even get a dedicated drawer!

It is where somebody gets grapefruit juice and oat milk for your breakfast; where there is late-night ramen prepared if you and your jet lag get hungry, where your dietary choices are remembered. 
Ok fine maybe home is at least part food ( shoutout to the good old Luxair cheese sandwich), it is also where you feel quietly smug for ordering un crémant and hearing the flight attendant politely lecture the savages in the row behind who asked for champagne.  
  
Sure, your phone connects to the wifi, but also, you don't need your phone that much, because outside you know your way around a little bit, and inside there are people you want to be with, watching real estate reality shows or playing Scrabble or just gossiping about politics and celebrities and group therapy and sexist poetry and assessment methods.
It's also where five languages are spoken in the house but the only known word for some berries is "ribizli" and everybody understands it.

Home is where you buy extra concert tickets because you know exactly whom to offer them to; where you know the best corner of the concert hall and you know that you might see some familiar faces there; and where the moment you wince somebody asks if it's too loud, too crowded, or if you need earplugs because they know your track record with crowded and loud places.

Home is where you can go out for dinner with some friends and run into others like it's no big deal. It's also where your heart skips happily when you see a place you used to go to still being open after everything; where your heart sinks a little when you hear about places that didn't make it. 

If home is a place, it's not defined by geography. It is a space where you can be yourself, if you know who that is, can think about who you want to be, and have permission to not be anything you don't want to be. More importantly, it's a place where not having the faintest clue of who you are and what you're doing with your life is nothing to be ashamed of or hide. It is a space where everybody knows that most of us are winging it; it's a space where you're allowed to not know, helped in your trials, supported in your error aftermaths, and celebrated for the miniest of wins. 




Wednesday, December 21, 2022

One day the sun will come out

 Dear future hubster,
imagine that you live in the early ages of science when all the knowledge we now take for granted is just starting to emerge. When all that the community knows for sure is that some times of the year dark lingers for longer. Very literal dark, the opposite, the lack of light.
Imagine that in that early age you can't artificially create light, and although you understand it comes and goes, you can't measure time accurately to tell and predict when. And although you and everybody has the profound belief that after the long dark, light will come again, although it is based on experience year after year, at the core of it, it is "just" that: a belief, a hope. For you also know that it's never a given that you and your family will live to see that day, that the dark wasn't lingering for too long to damage life and livelihood. 
Wouldn't you then, when light does eventually win over darkness, bringing promises of warmth, harvest, life, feel that you have been graced by some higher power? 
Wouldn't then you too be inclined to erect temples, to mark, celebrate, adore the victory that has come every year but we never know if the next one won't be different? Wouldn't you feel, after the longest night passes, at that sunrise among the aligned pillars, that you, we, have been chosen? Wouldn't you feel that it's an obligation to let the light in, to carry it, to guard it for the times when darkness comes again?

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Lover of the light

 Dear future hubster,

what time of the year is this? Is it Mumford & Sons season, or is it Tom Waits season? Which one comes first? Do they overlap? 

And if neither of them make your heart sink and expand and ache and glow, do you even have one?