To finnish a thought without interruption. To reflect upon the day before it has even started, as it is still dark out, and the birds have only just started waking up in the trees outside.
To listen to your body moving and breathing. Living. Just being. Chest moving up. And down. Up. And down.
Up. Down.
Letting go of feelings felt about times past. Letting turmoil turn into calm waters.
Letting that scene play over again and again. That scene filling you up with sadness and frustration. Letting the sentence be read out loud inside again and again. Saying to yourself what you wish you had said, again and again.
Playing. Acting. From start to finnish.
Until a new scene shows itself. Taking its place.
Being still while the internal theater plays the scenes so lively, you feel you are there now.
How it happened. How it could have happened. How you wish it had happened.
Feeling it deeply.
Have it sink in.
Going deep. Considering, even, that maybe it wasn't even that important to begin with. Perhaps it was not worth this turmoil.
Perhaps there is a simple truth to it. A less dramatic one.
Perhaps.
And it turns from turmoil to still waters.
Only from allowing it the time and space that is silence.
I couldn't watch her eat. It was something I only realised as I grew older. I suddenly noticed, what it actually looked like.
Those tiny teeth in her small mouth. Reaching over something far too big to fit her mouth. Getting crumbs and such on the side of her mouth.
Her teeth yellow and discolored. Not like a poor person's teeth. Like teeth of someone with means to brush and get them fixed when damaged.
Someone with every opportunity and the means to take care of her teeth. But the lack of skill and character to do so.
My picture of her is always that she is eating standing. Or sitting awkwardly. Eating fast. One hand to her mouth. Another reaching across the table to grab something or other for someone.
She has four kids, a husband - who doesn't cock or clean - and a rather large golden retriever, who lacks manners and is laying under the table, waiting for scraps.
There was never any time for her to eat properly. Or there was never a sense of time for her to take, and eat properly. At the table. Slowly. Two hands on knife and fork.
Small bites. Chewing. Stopping to take a sip of her glas. Or responding to a question.
There was also no time for civil conversation. It was in, sit, grab, eat and leave. The mother trying to get all kids to eat without yelling. Sharing potatoes and pieces of chicken equally and to everyones best liking.
She would take something for herself last. Or simply wait and eat whatever was left.
It was not the best of terms for proper eating.
Even so, I couldn't look at it. The food in mouth, open, crumbs on the side, on her chest. Using her fingers to crab an extra piece of bread. Talking while chewing. Multitasking, but poorly.
There was no grace. No air in her step. No lightness or easyness in her moves.
It was rough. Hurried. As if the house could come tumbling down upon the family at any moment. Every hour was fixated on getting through this hour. Getting through a meal. Getting through a car trip. Packing. Vacation drives.
And don't even get me started on school mornings.
Only on Fridays was there a sense of a collective sigh. She was relaxed. And so the whole family was relaxed. There was no hurry. No place to go or problem to solve. The house was steady.
Sometimes there would be celebrations or gatherings with friends or family members. She would dress up with red lipstick and nails. She would put her curly hair up on the top of her head. She would be excited and happy, exhilarated even. As if going out as a family was the only time she really lived. This was life.
The other days we're survival.
This was my mother.
And every time I took a bite, I would see how my mouth would take bites too big for me, and feel the crumbs on the side, and falling on to my chest.
And I'd be disgusted by myself. Thinking that this is her legacy. That I should have turned out better. Learned myself to eat better.
Fearing that my daughters have already learned to eat like me now. Like her.
Rough. Cracked. Ravenous.
She lives for the moments out of the blackness of her room. Moments when she is let out. Even if it is just to dance.
She often imagines the life before this colorless box of a room. Before the solitary sameness of every day.
A life of choice and time biking through the city in a sundress. Bare feet paddling on while smiling and grinning to the people walking along sidewalks in shorts and short shirts.
How the parks where full of young people sitting in circles, talking and listening to music. Playing games. Laughing. Cheering each other on. Throwing their hands up in the air when missing their mark. The woodden stick missed by an inch.
All these moments captured while biking past them on a hot summer day. The dress yellow and dotted. The hair loose and ruffled from spending the night with him.
Again.
Leaving as the one on top. The one needing the other less. The other left hungry for more. Slightly uneased. Unsure of their situation.
Being happy she was not the hungry one.
Life felt warm and happy. And so bright. Sun shining from a blue sky. How the shadow formed from rays touching the trees in the park.
Two girls shaking from laughing while walking next to each other as they crossed the park. Waving at a group of friends. Possible some boys they like.
All the little moments that she saw from the rush of her bike.
These are the moments she relived from the depth of the darkness in her room.
Not cold, nor warm. Less like a room at all. No windows or doors to open or close. No wind moving through the air around her. Instead it all stood still. As if time wasn't real in this room.
A blackness so thick it made reality disappear. She might as well be swimming in the depth of an ocean. Or gliding through the universe.
But even then, she would be surrounded by fish or a sort of life in the sea. fluorescent bugs or large octopuses. Or in space there would be stars. And stardust. The occasional comet or asteroid. Or a blinking sattelite would pass her.
She would see life in the depth of the ocean, or experience things out there in space.
She would see human innovation. Space stations with large space telescopes showing us what is out there in the great beyond even further into space. A blackness, but with moons and stars and the burning soon.
Here, there was nothing.
Not even a stir in the air.
A sort of prison that would be horrid, if at all it felt like it existed. Like she existed.
It left no hope.
But then the lid would be lifted. She would be blinded from the light. She would be deafened by the tiniest sounds.
A sort of temporary hearing loss from coming into existence again.
One or more objects would show themselves below her. Shiny artefacts that someone loved. That would feel the warmth of someone. Be close to someone.
Be part of the world somehow.
Move past things and people, see colours and hear birds churping.
Like biking down a summer street while passing people living through small moments in the blossoming park.
They would go out into the world.
But she would be stuck.
Forever turning and turning, being blinded and deafened. Only to return in the darkness of the box once more.
Det er for sent at hoppe fra. Jeg kan kun hoppe ud nu. Jeg er fastspændt. Det suser. Jeg tænker desperat over en undskyldning, der kan få mig ud af dragten. Ned på jorden igen. Uden at jeg skal springe.
Jeg ved allerede at alle undskyldninger vil komme ud som en løgn. En gennemskuelig løgn.
Fordi det vil være løgn.
Jeg vil ikke alligevel. Jeg tør ikke.
Eller jeg vil gerne.
Men alt indeni mig skriger. Det er ikke mig, der skriger. Det er alle dele af min krop.
Mine lunger gør ondt, ribbenene gør ondt. Storetåen, knæene, det yderste af mit hår, der flagrer hårdere og hårdere.
Hvorfor har de ikke fortalt mig, at jeg skulle have håret strammet til med elastikker. hårnåle.
Fordi den der flyver det lille røde fly er en mand. Og fordi den jeg er spændt fast til, er en mand.
De har ikke tænkt over det, for de har ikke langt flagrende hår, der kaster sig ind i ansigtet og foran øjnene, der sidder bag de stramme briller.
De virker ikke bange. De virker heller ikke spændte eller glade, som jeg havde forestillet mig det.
Det slår mig, at de er irriterede på mig. Fordi jeg ikke har det sjovt. Fordi jeg ikke får det meste ud af det. Eller fordi jeg er besværlig.
Jeg føler mig i vejen. Tung som jeg står der fastspændt til den unge lyshårede mand. Dreng?
Tung at danse med.
Gammel.
Som når jeg står og taler på kontoret med min telefon flagrende i hånden, og den 25-årige medarbejder griner og siger, at min telefons lygte er tændt. “Som en rigtig boomer”.
Det betyder, at de synes, jeg er gammel. Utjekket kan det vel oversættes til.
Det er også dét, jeg føler lige nu.
At jeg er for bange til at jeg også kan være cool.
Det er ikke cool bare at hoppe ud af et fly.
Man skal også kunne gøre det med en særlig stemning i kroppen. Er det glæde? Eller en form for naiv spænding. Mod på livet. At tage en stor bid af livet.
Det kan ikke lade sig gøre for mig.
Jeg er uncool.
Også selv om jeg kaster mig ud af et fly i 1000 meters højde.
