our city.

dangerous dreamer

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:18:06 GMT

"All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”

First lines

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:27:17 GMT

I dreamt of Aslan again last night, I think. When I need him most, I think he will really find ways to find me. There was a book and written on it was
"Be where you need to be / Be the best that you can be / Do what you can do (I don't really remember the exact first line)
And I will walk after you."

And I felt that I will really be okay. I will be fine.

I have had more than my fair share of near-death experiences, I was surprised to see that first lines in Breaking Dawn. There was the taxi police death chase before I went to Sweden. The truck crashing head on to the car right in front of us, on our way to my own birthday party. And the tricycle which missed me by a millimeter last Friday while I was crossing the street. And the dream of course, the December dream of Coke and choosing love.

I will never get used to it, I think. It will scare me to the point of death itself and I don't think anyone ever recovers. But the only way to get through it and to live again is to believe in the fact that someone is watching over you, I guess. Someone who is walking after you.

All my energy is draining out because I want to save our love. It makes me weak and when I cross the street, I am in danger of dying everytime because my head is up in the clouds, or thousands of miles away trying to reach for you. To pull you back. But what if you are not where we left each other anymore? What if you're not listening anymore? What if you're simply not there, disappeared and run away?

I need to look after myself while I'm outside, I need to live again.

Pig. Hahahaha I love you, asshole. I can never really say goodbye because for now, there is no one else. Yet. Is there another miracle left for me? Will there be another call in an early Sunday morning? A big exclamation point?

Until then, I will live. Someone is walking after me, soft-padded footsteps, a lion. I will always try to remember that. Aslan, please be there.

spring came, rain fell

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:10:30 GMT

spring came
rain fell
we ended up nowhere
then june came
sun shone
are we still nowhere?

if you want me now
you don't have to try so hard
if you want me now
you don't have to try at all

big waves

Thu, 22 May 2008 11:30:23 GMT

you can go to ++++++ and make it better. /js

listen: sad day for puppets

our city

Sat, 17 May 2008 05:56:41 GMT

This is an old city, built to last, not built to be endlessly torn down and redeveloped. I want to live in such a city, not too far from the forest and the sea, and I want to call it by your name.

-Four Letter Word: New Love Letters, Jeanette Winterson

i will possess your heart.

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:19:00 GMT

far away looks, subway stations, escalators, night lights, endless longing.
everything here smacks of you!

and kiss you on the mouth

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:17:16 GMT

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentlemen
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning
In an open tab when your judgment's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as you're lying there drifting off to sleep...
I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped straight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony
Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will heat the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change

kungsholms kyrka

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:34:08 GMT

skanegatan

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:08:54 GMT

watch until the very end.

i don't know if my heart can take this much beauty. is it really like this when you really, really want something? i feel like i'm not worthy. how can i fit into to something like that? how can i take it all in?

my best friend wants me to remember that they're not better than me. that i can make things as beautiful as they do. no matter where i am.

the kid dancing, with their music playing. is it even real? the sunlight, the parks, the streets. and am i the only one who sees wonder and magic in such things? it all just seems normal to them. perhaps that is the case when you are constantly surrounded (and grew up) with beauty.

it's so easy to make me happy. just give me that certain degree of sunshine, a strip of overcast sky, the perfect melody, a cobbled stone street.

be bold. dive in, and discover your strength to handle happiness. you have a big strong heart. don't be scared.

the words are written in the air / words can never make up for what you do

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:11:30 GMT

Having troubles telling how I feel
But I can dance, dance and dance
Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean
But I can dance, dance, dance
So when I trip on my feet
Look at the beat
The words are, written in the sand
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are, written in the air

Dance
I was a dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do

Easy conversations, there's no such thing
No I'm shy, shy, shy
My hips they lie 'cause in reality I'm shy, shy, shy
But when I trip on my feet
Look at the ground
The words are, written in the dust
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are written in the air

Dance
I was a dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do
Dance, dance, dance

I will try another 1,000 times!

Wed, 07 May 2008 02:28:49 GMT

Just because you'll always be
Miles ahead of me
I don't see why
I shouldn't try
To catch up with you

Cause in my mind a 1,000 times or more
I've been there before
There's nothing I can see
That will stop me, believe me

Our time will come
And I don't think I will let
Another chance
Pass me by

I don't want you to get bored
Like you have a 1,000 times before
Give me some time
Just to show that I am up to it

There's something that can be done
To bring us back together as one
There's something else I can do
That's why I'm sending this message to you
I will try another 1,000 times
To bring us back together as one
I will try another 1,000 times
Till you decide to change your mind

dreams

Tue, 06 May 2008 13:14:37 GMT

everyone said i looked beautiful today. there was something… something. it’s my hair.

but more importantly, i felt something today… i feel lighter, more me. my dreams, what i believe in, myself all came together and stayed inside of me and i had this energy that brought me from 5am until now and i was just giving out light the whole day. i had dinner at chocokiss with mom and everything just poured out of me - my dreams, my fears, my convictions and i was just crying and crying. and now, i just feel thankful because i have the best mother in the world, someone who understands why you do the things you do and who lets you - because they know that it makes and will make you HAPPY. my mother who said, “Magaling ka…” while looking far away and then in a couple seconds stares right into your eyes and reiterates, “MAGALING KA.” And you know, you can cross oceans and conquer worlds in a heartbeat, if you want to.

j

Tue, 06 May 2008 13:07:37 GMT

A: i miss you! does it make any sense? haha
J: haha, I don't know. but I'm here you know!

michael nyman - nadia

Mon, 05 May 2008 10:27:23 GMT

Sometimes you have to have faith in people.
- Lisa, Nine Songs

kitsie

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:30:25 GMT

This is my dearest friend Kitsie, while we were wandering around the Yu Yuan Gardens in Shanghai last November. The picture is just a placeholder until I find my missing Beijing Holga pictures of her! Kitsie asked me to write her graduation testimonial for her and this is what I wrote:

"Kitsie loves dogs and wild life (well who doesn’t in this room?). She lives in Middle Earth. She loves extra spicy food, traveling with a camera, underwater adventures, walking amidst old fairytale cities. She dreams all the time, awake or asleep. She loves Elefant, The Strokes, Rooney. She dreams of Pride and Prejudice – a sunrise love. She dreams of working with dolphins, a home by the sea, the life of Ariel. She loves, she dreams. Now she’s on her way to them."

Congratulations to my best friend in the whole wide world! You're on your way! Go dreams!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

j.m. anzalone

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:15:36 GMT

this is my friend jon. and this picture is clearly the highlight of my day! haha he took this picture himself, he said he is a "three kings bearing gifts of myrrh." brilliant!

he is a beautiful person (and a very strange one at that! :) he lives in new york but most of the time i feel that he is just here, sitting beside me. and why would i wait until saturday to greet this wonderful, wonderful person a happy birthday when i can do it NOW. haha! happy birthday dearest jon, my love satellite, my hawk! here's to more transylvanian adventures, 30-year old undeveloped films waiting in forgotten cameras, loves the kind we're dreaming of and saudades turning inside out. cheeeeeers!

april 20, lundagatan.

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:57:25 GMT

johan sent this picture to me to show how spring has finally come to stockholm.

indeed it has! and in manila too, and all over the world!

my biggest exclamation point

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:02:03 GMT

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'll tell more later. but for now, there are just no words. :)

already there.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:11:12 GMT

"Will you come?" said the Sun.
"Soon," said the Moon.
"How far?" said the Star.
"I'm there," said the Air.

--- A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems For Innocent and Experienced Travelers, Nancy Williard

I'm there.

my suitcases, my fondest hopes/ grew small and pale as envelopes

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:56:32 GMT

today, pook messaged me on ym and said that it's songkran today in thailand! for a split second i felt like i was really there, my heart bursting with excitement! elbowing my way in khao sarn, seizing the new year with water guns and white powder, running, wild shrieks of joy, pale faces of strangers, brave hearts.

i get these intense visions/feelings all the time. sometimes, of memories that happened - a wiff of something floral, or a striking word written in an article, or a particular color of the sky and i will be back in phra artit park drinking strawberry shakes, or sitting in the bts at noon watching life go by, or walking alone in sukhumvit at 11pm searching for you, or a shadow of you. a particular night in madrid, looking outside from the 2nd floor hostel room, wet asphalt, late night city lights. paris, 6am, cold spring air, walking up the grands boulevards metro stairs, passing a boy with a black messenger bag. (i hope i never lose these memories. five-second video clips in my head. if i play them over and over in my mind, will i keep them forever?)

but the more intense ones are the memories that are yet to happen. these are like seizures, they grab me full force, slapping me with snippets of cold winter air, streaks of yellow night lights, a taste of snow. i see a silhouette of a boy standing outside centralstationen, hands in his pockets, waiting for me. i see myself getting off a train and walking up to him, trudging my suitcase in the snow. i see myself sitting on steps facing a big square, early morning, a Brämhults juice bottle in my hand, waiting. i see a small room with a boy typing something on his mac, a bed on the left side. he looks up, smiles and beckons, come here. a cafeteria, buzzing of life. a cottage in the woods, the smell of something cooking, a red rug. a living room, beer cans, laughter. a train. a vast field of tall grass, me running across it, almost sunset. i can almost hear my own ecstatic cries of happiness.

i read in a lonely planet book that one of the best things in stockholm is its QUALITY OF LIGHT. imagine that... a kind of light so exceptional it is worth mentioning. LIGHT! while other cities only boast of friendly locals, good transportation systems, amazing food, there you will get... magic. the simple magic of light.

it's one of the things that i think about all the time - the sun light there. in my head, i see it in gamla stan: a faint soft light, playing with your hair, skimming across your outstretched fingers. a warm yellow glow bathing everything - the lake, the cobbled stone streets, the old buildings, the lamp post in the corner - whispering, "You are exactly where you are meant to be."

enough talking, enough writing. just go.

---

what i was supposed to say (in so many words) is that today i found three cosmic books. on my way to take the train (i didn't even know why i wanted to take the train today), at the SM kids books sale section i found:

Astrid Lindgren's The Tomten
Ursula le Guin's A Ride on the Red Mare's Back
Nancy Williard's A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems For Innocent and Experienced Travelers

i couldn't believe i found a Lindgren book! i was looking for Pippi Longstocking books but i got this which is ten thousand times better! a picture book about "the Tomten's nocturnal visits to the residents of a wintry Swedish countryside, reminding children of the promise of Spring". and then i saw a Le Guin (one of my favorite authors) picture book, with a dala horse on the cover! whaaat! "She was inspired to write this story by a little red wooden horse that was a parting gift from a friend in Sweden." and then the Blake book... wow.

they made me so happy. signs, signs. sometimes because they are so many i now tend to belittle them, but my god. it is more exciting and more meaningful to just believe. if i didn't come across them, i'll still be there. but i DID come across them, and yes! i'll still be there! so just embrace all the signs and gooo!

saudade

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:01:38 GMT

In his book In Portugal of 1912, A.F.G Bell writes:
“The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

Saudade is different from nostalgia (the English word, that is). In nostalgia, one has a mixed happy and sad feeling, a memory of happiness but a sadness for its impossible return and sole existence in the past. Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present. One might make a strong analogy with nostalgia as a feeling one has for a loved one who has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one who has disappeared or is simply currently absent. Nostalgia is located in the past and is somewhat conformist while saudade is very present, anguishing, anxious and extends into the future.

Although it relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of things/people/days gone by, it can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or substituting what is lost by something that will either fill in the void or provide consolation.

From your favorite source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

---

how do you love someone who has disappeared?

i miss you. there are no other words. there is no moving on or moving back, there is just this emptiness. and when it is just me and my stark room, pale curtains, yellow sunlight, flat bed--- the only one i want to talk to is you. you will understand. i miss your presence, and how whenever i talk to you, whenever i talk to you, whenever i talk to you, there is light. now i just lay flat on my back and stare at the ceiling and i know you'll say, "don't be stupid, you don't need me, you don't need anyone, you are too bright, smart, lovely to be sad. you are who you are, even without me." but why do i feel this way? i am not a superhero. maybe someday, i will laugh at all this and yes, maybe i don't need anyone or maybe someday, "something that will either fill in the void or provide consolation" will come. but now, now, my god. your name is the only name i know.

some days i feel so positive! when i talk to my friends about you, i smile. i will find you, somehow. yesterday on hbo i saw jennifer garner get on a car and drive herself to california to win back the heart of the man she loves, with deathcab for cutie's soul meets body playing on the background. i thought, that's me! i will win you back, i'll find a way! i'm going to where you are. i have a plan, i have a map. but some days, i have nothing but this crushing feeling of defeat. a pet grief, like the radio dept's album. but there is always, always this dull pain of missing you. and always, always your name. during sunsets, i sit outside my room, face the north and whisper your name. can you hear me?

a mystery.

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:25:11 GMT

René Magritte. The Empire of Light, II. 1950.

"My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."

morning after

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 04:54:42 GMT

waking up after the young folks' party last december.

or

waking up to sweden.

dream

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:41:15 GMT

last night i dreamt that i was waiting for a taxi. a white taxi with DENMARK written on its side stopped in front of me. i was about to step in when someone spoke to me, "don't just hop in to the first thing that comes to you". so i stepped aside and waited. the second taxi was white as well and on its side: SWEDEN.

beautiful sadness

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:32:10 GMT

I think that is a very relevant question. It is clear to me that there is a certain kind of melancholy present in a lot of Scandinavian music, a sort of blue tone. It would be an easy way out to just blame the long dark winters but in turn we do have the long Indian summer evenings. I could never live in a place that doesn't have seasons. I need the cold to appreciate the warmth. The children's tales of H.C.Andersen are full of beautiful sadness. In my mind there is something reliable about sadness, it's always there, always available. Whereas happiness is a fleeting feeling, something that can easily be torn apart and usually only persists for a limited time. The reason why I prefer melancholic music is that even though the sadness gets inside of me, I also feel like it's an outlet and I feel like it recognizes something inside of me. That ultimately makes me feel better than happy music does.

-Jonas Bjerre.
http://www.junkmedia.org/index.php?i=1862