Company and beauty

Feels like ages ago since the last entry and actually it is only a few days ago. What has Trollet been up to? Well, she has been meeting friends and been trying to pack her flat in boxes. Decent amounts of wine have been consumed. Friday she spent the night with three lovely creatures but in the morning/day when she walked home she didn’t feel very lovely. Her head was spinning around, feeling dizzy and sweaty. The best part was that when she came home she directly had to start packing the flat and clean… not the best combination. Luckily Bex came over to keep her company and later the same evening 6 more friends came over with wine, beer and vodka. Oh la la. Trollet was still so tired from the night before. But she realized how magnificent it is to have 7 good friends at your place drinking wine when you are packing and getting ready for a great adventure. Wouldn’t be fun to do it alone. Today Matsen came over to say good bye, and that was really nice. He is great.

Last night certain things were said that always makes Trollet feel strange. At some point of the night they were talking about Trollet and the strange effect she has on people; don’t ask her why they did this. Amongst other things F said that many people say that Trollet is beautiful. Hmm, huh? Well it is not a news flash that she apparently has some kind of sex-appeal as she has been hearing that for as long as she remembers but beautiful… she can’t relate to that at all. Trollet, beautiful? She could admit social and maybe cute sometimes, but beautiful… That special Someone has also been telling her lately that she is so beautiful and for Trollet it is like someone is talking about another creature. She is maybe funny and strange, but not beautiful. Feels just as ridiculous as when some dude a few weeks ago wanted her to be his princess. PRINCESS? Jesus Christ, who thinks Trollet wants to be a princess, give me a fucking break. She is rather a hangover tired looking Troll than a beautiful princess.

Isn’t beauty anyways in the eyes of the observer…

Empty

Christmas holiday is over and Trollet is back in Turku. She feels incredibly empty. Where are all the great emotions she just had? Are they gone? No, she is just trying to hold it all together. Trying to be rational, which is not always the easiest.

Trollet spent Christmas holidays talking about Benin with relatives. Some thought that it sounded quite interesting while her uncle said: “have fun with the niggers”... WHAT do you say to that?? Maybe nothing, too chocked to say anything at all. Grandma couldn’t understand why Trollet would go there in the first place, WHY Africa? She thinks that as Trollet has a master degree she should get a job in that area. Trollet tried to explain that she has a master degree in philosophy… and that doesn’t simply give you a job. She couldn’t then understand why Trollet has studied it if she knew all along that she wouldn’t get a direct job out of it. Trollet tried again to explain that she doesn’t want to have an ordinary job, whatever that is; that she wants to travel the world. That she doesn’t find it appealing to settle down at one place. Grandma said that Trollet is weird and a confused being; that of course one has to settle down, have a family and get a proper job. Trollet again explained that this Benin job experience is also a part of a bigger picture. This might open new doors, new opportunities. And that philosophy is fascinating and studies in it gives you an incredible base for further pondering. What is there to ponder about, grandma said? Well yes, one can wonder, what is there to ponder about. How about the phrase above “have fun with the niggers”…

Trollet doesn’t expect grandma to understand her or her lifestyle (luckily she only knows small small fragments of it) as grandma never had the chance to study as they couldn’t afford it. She has worked from the age of 16 at the same factory. Then she got two daughters and when they were around 10 her husband died. She has always struggled with money and security was the most important thing, which Trollet can understand. Based on this it is understandable that grandma doesn’t understand Trollet’s way of life, but one would also think that she could be happy that Trollet now has this fantastic opportunity to travel, work abroad and be a free spirit. Nope. Old dogs don’t learn to sit and grandmas don’t learn to appreciate new ways of thinking and living.

Trollet also got the question if she plans to take someone from Benin with her back home. Who, she asked? Well someone, an African, or a few. What? You can’t just take someone with you home, sounds like people talk about domestic pets. Will you take a puppy with you home, for your amusement? What is wrong with people? So just because I am a white female I can go to Africa and take a few men with me home? Hey, hello!!

Trollet is empty, very empty.

In between emotions

Trollet is right in between big emotions. Wanting to feel, just breaking down all the walls around her, and feel, feel enormous emotions that are inside of her. She wants to show them, tell that someone in a way that someone would understand, without feeling trapped. In all honesty she has no idea what she wants from that someone, she just can’t stop thinking about and wanting to be in that someone’s company. At the same time she also wants to pack her bag and leave, just run, run like hell. She is good at that. She wants to put it all in a little box that she can open once in a while and be remembered of a great passion. Maybe that is all it is, passion? Maybe. Wouldn’t be the first time.

She will be stuck with herself, just the mind, the lump and Trollet in Benin. No one else. She enjoys doing that, going to places where she knows no one but she just realized today that she is doing it again. Trollet is leaving. Of course she knew that she is leaving, it is her choice, but it really hit her today. She will leave with all these emotions, not knowing what to do with them. Time changes things, in good and bad. Now she doesn’t know what time will do to these emotions and that feels like standing on the edge of a tree branch that someone is slowly breaking. If she doesn’t move from the edge she will just fall down. So should she jump? Should she try to reach the tree? Should she wait for the fall? Should she try to climb up or down? No idea. What she does is escaping. She has never escaped this far before. Well once she took the train to china. Benin still feels further away, in many ways.

Trollet is surprised about all these mixed emotions about many things and important people. It really hit her today that she is leaving and suddenly she felt like the glass in too full to hold its content. Its running over, which might be a good thing. If the glass is too full it is good to pour some of it out, in the sink. Which part is she pouring out? The strong emotions? No, she can’t, they are not willing to leave the glass. Maybe she is just pouring out the confusions that she is feeling. Lots of the emotions got to do with the fact that she is leaving for a great adventure and she doesn’t know what to except and all that, but not all of them. Maybe she will find some “inner peace”, whatever that is, at the beaches of Grand Popo. Or then not. Maybe she will be able to separate some feelings in 5 months, what has been excitement about leaving, passion for someone, love for someone, an urge to leave and so on. Maybe someone also knows but they don’t reach the same point. It is all possible. It is called living.

Standing in the window looking for those morals

So today she is doing it, standing in the window wondering where she left those morals, but she is not searching for them, just wondering where she left them. She doesn't have to look hard because she knows exactly at which point and where she left them. When that hand touched her hair and those lips touched hers she completely forgot the meaning of morals.

Oh dear.

A kiss became a mess and Trollet made an escape. So the story goes. How hard is she looking for those morals? Nah, she will make herself some coffee instead. What kills her is the impact this has on others. As silly as it seems this really has an impact on others, especially for the one that had to witness it all. Is Trollet now full of regrets and feeling terrible? No, she is actually not. She was very aware of what she did. She wanted it and still does.

Trollet is hosting a party tonight at her place. She will go and get some whiskey. Think it might be needed tonight. She is feeling funny, strange and weird.

Throwing morals out the window

Did she throw her morals out the window and desperately tried to find them in the morning. Running around the city wondering where the bloody hell she left them and at which point? Actually she did not. She kept her morals in her pocket, so they would poke her once in a while saying: hey we are here, don't forget all about us as you will need us, defenitely need us. Did she need them to remind her about their existense? Yes, she did. In fact she really did. She was ready to digg an enormous hole, throw the morals and their friends in there and put as much shit on so that they would never find their way out. But she didn't. Why did she need them? Was it so necessary to have morals, and so what if she wouldn't have had? Well trollet and someone realized together that burrying morals would be very fun indeed but would cause much pain. Pain for many people, and it is defenitely not worth it. Still after deciding this she got the urge to forget all about it and just go with the flow, but no. Is she now proud that she wasn't a complete bastard?

Shouldn't it be obvious, to not cause pain when u have the choice to not do it? One would think so. Sadly not always for the mind or the lump. Sometimes the mind tells trollet to: Do it, Trollet do it, and she does. Other times the mind is trying to talk sense to her when the evil lump has a will of its own. The lump just takes over the situation and draggs the mind and trollet along for adventure. She is not complaining. It is called life. But trollet can share this piece if information: standing in the window with tears in the eyes looking for the morals that got lost somewhere in the way is not a great feeling? Not saying; ups, shit, what did i do? Cause we always know, we know, we just decide to not care. We just want to put common sense aside and loose it. So one cant say: i didn't understand what i did. fuck that! of course one knows, one just decides to not care. So standing there in the window wondering where those morals went can be a shitty feeling as u know that you chose to not care, not care the slighest. Trollet is not talking about cheating, bur rather messing things up for others, but of course also for oneself. This realization stopped it yesterday in time. Surely she could have not cared, but the truth is that she does care, she doesn't want to cause Somone more mess than already being in. Easy for trollet to mess things up, pack her bag and go to Africa. Sounds fair? Nope.

24 days left, no, trollet is not dying

Trollet realized once again that she is leaving soon, and today when she was having her morning coffee she realized that 7 months is actually quite a long time. Even though the older we get the years seem to go faster. Sometimes you look back a month or a few and you think, oh la la, how did i do all this? Sometimes 7 months is like a vacum time, but other times it feels like anything can happen. Really anything. Think about the things you can achieve during one week. It can be something good, something unusefull or a lovely mess.

Trollet was in Reykjavik for half a year and.. well yes.. anything and a bit more happened. Too much in fact. As K said the other day, she hasn't seen Trollet so confused and a bloody mess ever before and not ever after. True true. So that was what 6 months in Reykjavik did to her, what will 7 months in West Africa do to her? Then again, one year, times two, in Nancy didn't do her much harm, except a broken heart, one year in Colorado didn't do her much harm, one year on Bergen did her a lot of good except the broken heart, again. What is up with these broken hearts? Well it is good to feel. Trollet likes to feel. She had a period when she didn't feel much for anyone, really not, and that scarred her. She likes to climb high up, as high as she gets, even though it means that she might have to fall harder. Living, it is called. You have to take risks. In love you do that, nothing is ever quaranteed. Better to fall and feel like you will never be able to get up, instead of never climbing and never falling. Trollet is way too passionate for that. She climbs, she falls, she climbs a bit further, she tries to hold on, she jumps, usually she jumps, and climbs again.

Last week has been a good one. Trollet only had a three day work week, so she has been playing with her friends. Lovely friends to play with. Yesterday they decided to paint, really paint. It looked very professional. They chose someone in the room they were suppose to paint, it could be as absurd as one wanted it to be. Fred's painting of Baz was a forrest... Trollet chose to paint Fred. He turned out to be way too skinny and too dark. Then B saw it, it is not fred she said, dont you see who it is? Oh dear, I do, said Trollet, it was silly lump. So hmm, how to change it and make it look like Fred? felt like a lost game, it finally turned out to look like a prison gangster, that looks neither like Silly Lump or Fred. Great fun to paint. They did this for quite a few hours. Trollet could see herself doing this more often.

Back to leaving this place. Trollet will write about being in Benin on www.marinaibenin.blogspot.com She cant write e-mails to everyone so this way the ppl that want to see what she is up to can read about it here. It is now in swedish but she might start writing in english if there are some pple out there that would like to read it and dont understand swedish. We shall see.

The impact of words

Words next to each other create an entirety. Together they mean specific things. Alone they make u associate. Together they say something, or then not. You can put lonely words next to each other without them creating anything, saying anything and even associate anything.

But when they do, they do it intensely.

Words, sentences, paragraphs, pages and books can bring out so many emotions. Well formulated sentences that you never forget. You mark the sentence in the book, you need to mark in order to be able to go back and look at it again; to suck up the atmosphere of that particular sentence, or just look at its beauty. The beauty of a sentence.

Maybe it is a philosophers syndrome to always read with a pen close by. Always making small comments and marking the sentences that are particularly well written or vice versa. It is fascinating to compare one specific sentence to its translation. How is that sentence translated? Has it lost its beauty or is the beauty brought to light in a completely different way. Even more fascinating to do it with several languages; comparing a sentence, the sentence, in French, English, Swedish and Finnish. Oh the variations you get. Sometimes the atmosphere is there, other times the beauty is simply gone. Gone in the act of translation.

Should one translate word by word or translate the atmosphere even though it means that one has to make use of completely different words and meanings? Does one has to understand what the author meant and what the author wished to express or can one just read it from ones own background and discourse. Read it the way you see it, the way you taste the words in your mouth, the way they make you react and the way they make you feel. That is the question of hermeneutics. How to interpret and translate a text.

Can I ever taste the words, the sentences, the way the author wanted me to taste them? Yes, maybe. My mouth still makes them taste a bit different, I put them in my mouth in a different way, I suck on them in a different way, I play with them a different way and I maybe also enjoy them in a different way. The feeling I have, might still be the exact one, that the author whished me to have, even though the words taste different in my mouth.