Talk, Tolerance, Tattoos and Being True

Sitting in the sun. Cup of lemon, ginger and ginseng tea by my side. A slice of self-made honey and linseed bread on a plate, with real butter.  The kitchen window is open and the sounds of my neighbors sitting outside chatting mingle with Mary Chapin Carpenter singing on my computer. I am waiting for the doughnut dough to rise and shall then start baking some sugary goodies for tomorrow. Still not decided on whether to fill them with strawberry jam or vanilla custard, or maybe I'll just let them be all simple, cardamom goodness. Heavy decisions, oh so heavy decisions...

A week has passed, the spring is well and truly here. I have no great plans for the next couple of days, though it is the May Day weekend which means all sorts of parties and revelling all around. I think I am just going to be. Enjoy the sun. Happy people. Smiles and laughter. I am right now as I write feeling so at ease, so peaceful that I think there's more to this than a home filled with sunshine and the scent of freshly baked bread, lovely though it is. And of course there is. Things happen. Life throws you a curve. You stumble. You fall. And maybe for a moment you wonder if it really is worth it getting up again. And then you shake such silly thoughts out of your head, brush the dust from your skirt, straighten up and say, it's all life. 

And the three greatest gifts of moving on
Are forgiveness, hope and the great beyond.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

'Leaving Song'

This morning I actually got shocked while looking into my car rear-view mirror while being stopped at the street lights on my way to take the Daughter to the kindergarten. Whose eyes are those?!? Only a few weeks ago my Daughter run her little finger underneath my eyes asking me why my eyes were surrounded by blue. Why I had a  silent look in my eyes. She's a perceptive little girl, that one. And today, if we forget the crows feet and the inevitable baggy bags under those peepers, I realised for the first time in a while that there was a sparkle in those silent eyes. And, maybe, they were not so silent anymore. 

What happened? Nothing, really. Except moving forward. Taking charge of things. Baking and sewing. Reading and writing. Talking and listening. One evening, I was driving home around 10 p.m. from my cleanup shift at the Daughter's kindergarten. Its a Waldorf Steiner kindergarten and is run partly by the Support Society in which all the parents belong to, and all the parents take part in helping any way they can, which includes cleaning the kindergarten instead of hiring cleaners. So, I'd done my shift, was driving home. My Mother was sitting at home as the Daughter slept, in case she woke up, and I stopped the car by the bridge that runs across the river, for a moment. To see the last rays of the sun disappear behind the fjells. I was tired. My nailpolish chipped. My hair dirty and matted. And I felt very, very happy. And as I got home and my Mother left, I made myself a cup of tea. Sat in my reading nook in the kitchen and listened to the silence. There was still an eerie kind of light outside, and again, I felt so very happy. How little does it actually take!

In a couple of weeks I'm heading to Tallinn, Estonia for a few days to rest and relax with a lovely friend of mine. Plans include sitting in the sun, the shade, with a glass of wine in hand, good conversation, watching the world hurry by. Spa treatments. Pampering. I recently found out there's a newish vintage shop in town, so I plan to take a peek. My friend recently made a full turn in her life by changing from the life on the fast line to getting newly trained to a new job within the church, helping people. I need to talk to someone about the issues around religion, God and humanity that have been buzzing in my mind lately, someone who does not think that faith means faith in your own perfection or that divine means belief in your own divine right to do whatever it is you wish to do, to others and to the world. That as long as you keep preaching your own beliefs to others, it doesn't really matter what you yourself actually do.

Yeah. I trust people. I want to trust people. I want to believe that people mean what they say. And yet, of course I know that it is not always so. But sometimes I feel like literally shouting. Put your money where you mouth is! Practice what you preach! Words are just words and appearances just appearances, if we don't do as we say when there's nobody watching, no audience to see how we're behaving, then what an earth do those words really mean. Nothing. I've met people who preach tolerance and open-mindedness. And yet their tolerance, or their open-mindedness have never been put to test, and when they are, you see their faces change, their attitude towards you shift just a little. Yes, they should be saying, I tolerate as long as I myself don't have to deal with it in any way in my life. 


My Sister and her Life Partner are having a baby. And it is my Sister's partner who is having the baby. Yes. They are both women. And I love them both dearly and can't wait to be an Aunt. I'll be sad if I see some of you people leave my blog because of this, but we were not put on this earth to judge, it is not to us. So so many things have happened this spring that have made me realise really just how skin deep the so-called tolerance of some people really is, and how deep their self-centredness. Chronic illness. Bisexuality. Homosexuality. Mental illness. Different skin color. Different religion. No religion. Gender. Political views. Taboos? Still??

I made an appointment to have a tattoo made. Its not my first, but I haven't had more for years and years because I was told not to. And I let someone make that decision for me. I have always loved tattoos, no piercings for me, please, I don't even have pierced ears, but tattoos I like. So now I am going to have two. At a go. And frankly, have hard time believing I'll be stopping there. And I think they will go very nicely with my frilly apron, thank you very much. 

And now I must excuse myself and go bake the donuts. And I'm going to wrap some in a tea towel and take to my neighbors outside. Spread the smiles, people. Share the happiness. There's too much cruelty, intolerance, rudeness and insincerity in the world already. We don't need any more.