Savannah summer night

As you may have been expecting many of the stories I will be telling the next few weeks will involve men. So does the one for today. I would like to tell the tale of Robert William Winston IIII of Savannah, Georgia, USA. I met Bob, as I always called him, at a bar in the West Village in NYC. The bar I believe was an Irish Pub and I was there with my German friend to celebrate German Carnival. By the end of the night I, who had screamed from point one that I spoke no German whatsoever, was singing all the songs (yes in German) standing on top of tables.In short: I was 18, I was drunk, I was in NYC and I was having a really, really good time. The night itself was not very spectacular and I will not go into any more details about it, but around 3 o'clock I spotted Bob sitting at the other end of the bar. He was surprisingly sofisticated compared to the occasion and I was intrigued. So I went up to him. We had a couple of beers together and after about an hour decided to leave. He told me that we'd take a cab and that his place was close by. I never for a minute hesitated that this was a good idea and jumped in the cab waiving my friend goodbye. His house was a couple of blocks away, I think we couldn't have been sitting in the car for much more than 5 minutes. His apartment was on the third floor and although small very nice. He had a good amount of art, books and other collectables but not too much. His fridge was filled with many different beers and on his table was a box of cigars. His bed was by the balcony and we opened the doors and laid on his bed for the rest of the night, drinking the many different beers and smoking the cigars. Outside we could hear the city but also surprisingly enough see parts of the sky in between the many buildings surrounding us. The reason I always remember this particular experience is that Bob was much unlike my other lovers or man-friends. He was slightly old-fashioned and for the entire first night I spent with him, it did not at all feel like 2007 in NYC. It felt more like a warm damp summer night in 1955 in Georgia. Right away it was very clear that we were of very different backgrounds and so we had so many things to tell each other. The entire experience was exotic and exciting and new. The next morning he took me to a pub around the corner for breakfast. I was hung-over and could not take much more than a coffee and some toast, but he ordered Bloody Marys and a British breakfast complete with sausage and beans. We sat at the pub for some time and watched American football on the screen. The morning was much different from the night, but I was still enjoying myself. Outside the pub he hollered a cab for me and paid in advance sending me off, over the Brooklyn Bridge, to the place I then called home. Although we liked each other and met a couple times more, none of our meetings ever lived up to the first, magical night, that we spent in his bed with doors wide open laying naked into the NYC night but feeling completely disconnected from our surroundings. Years later I wrote him on facebook, sending him a little document (a story) about him quite similar to this exact one. I asked me if he remembered our little night and what he thought of my story. The only response I ever got was: ha-ha, yes I think so... It crushed my heart in small but definite ways and destroyed something that was, always, one of my favorite stories and memories.

Oh, glorious be pain at times

Its a painful moment in your life when you realise that all you thought you were depends on your following actions. That is to say that you have felt as it it were are right for you to be, have or do certain things, but then you wake up one day and notice after a while you sort of need to work in order to earn anything. I for one have always believed things to be true or a certain way until I finally learned that the truth is no longer true and that things may become lies with time. That is not to say that they never were true it just means that the truth is unreliable as it is, as most things are, changeable. It can be harsh but there is also power in the knowing and the believing less. It gives as sense of choice and control, I like to think, and takes away from things being the way they are and all of that. In the following essays or anecdotes or short stories (call them what you may) I will describes my many failings and successes and the lessons drawn from both. I will describe how dreams have both destroyed and made me. So if you feel like it, you may enjoy or may hate the experience of following my blog the next weeks.

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In my attempt to understand the world I find myself facing problems that I have no understanding of whatsoever.
It has become clear to me that some things are better left as they are, because trying to understand them
would be a waste of time, and time itself is so precious that I better keep it for better use.
These past weeks have been an interesting time in which I have learned and tried so many new things.
Conceptual thinking, emotional challenges. It feels good
to be more ahead and knowing, but in a way I miss the bliss of the oblivion.
Last week I made a self-portrait, in 3d, in which I tried to show the different layers of my soul, of my being.
I tried to explain in my work how I felt at that time, but also how that related to my general personality. I realized
how hard that is. We all think we know ourselves, we even kid ourselves in believing we know others, but as Nietzsche suggested, what do we really know?

The start

All beginnings are difficult, especially those that are new. New beginnings, they sound
so promising, so hopeful, but in fact they are the hardest. Mainly because you have to let go
of all the history, but need also to realize that looking foreword is not the answer.
It's important to try and live in the moment. That is the true meaning of a new beginning.

I have a hard time doing this because I'm over analytical and try to find connections in life. Sometimes
there are no connections, or hidden meanings. Sometimes things just are the way they are. And it doesn't
always have to be so mystical and meaningful. I think it's a valuable lesson to learn to appreciate things as they are.
To appreciate the beauty in things without thinking of the (possible) counter-sides.

So new beginnings are hard, but the good thing about them though is that everything is open. Everything
can be, in a way it has never been before. All you can do is hope that you get to enjoy them as much as you can,
before they are not new beginnings anymore, just things that are. Because even though we might a little scared of the unknown
it also excites us.

Home again

About a week now I have been back in a place I call my home, my base. Its strange to realize how such a familiar place can all of the sudden feel so foreign.
I've come to realize that people that see each other daily might actually have more to discuss then when it's been months, because nobody's interested in a summary of your life for the past few months. Bits and pieces slowly connect and with that the connection returns.

A friend told me not to see myself as a victim, but to pick myself up and continue as I had been going for a while now. Before I came back home I was very productive and full of new ideas, what is it about being here that makes it go away?
I guess he was right, and part of it is feeling sorry for myself.

I guess what I'm really starting to learn are the boundaries of me. I'm starting to see more and more clearly that I am a one and not a particle of a unit. I can not function in that way, and must not want to, cause it will only frustrate me.

It's not all bad. The weather is wonderful and for the most part people around me seem happy. For now I'm just in a constant mode of transformation, which I'm sure will have some positive outcome...

Pennsylvania, West-Virginia, Ohio

After a stressfull last two weeks of school I've finally made my way into the fun months of this year. I have nothing to do, no worries on my mind and will soon be returning home, so it's time for me to really enjoy everything around me.
There was graduation, a couple of parties and then monday I took of to go visit my aunt Mary in Pennsylvania.

The bus left at 11pm, and after dinner at a friends house I left rainy NY. I ended up sleeping on the bus, not even noticing the storm that suposivly went on that night. At 6.15 am,45 min early, we arrived in downtown Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was a change coming from NY. Hills filled with greenes surrounding the city and friendly people working at the coffee shop.
She even gave me directions, allowing me to meet up with Steve(Mary's son) and Hallie to drive down to Georgetown.

We had breakfast on the way and after about 1 hour we arrived at the house. Gosh it was nice, birds singing, the smell of grass, I could see some farms around.
Mary and I talked and I got to know more about them.
I played a little with Katie, the little girl and later on in the afternoon Ciara came home. We had a bbq dinner and then Mary and I went back to her home, downstairs, and I ended up falling a sleep at 7 pm sleeping allthrough the night waking up at 10 am. I guess I really needed some rest.

Mary and I had breakfast and we drove to West-Virginia to see the graveyard where the Nutters are burried. I saw the graves, that lay up on a hill overlooking the westvirginian farmland. To get up there you had to drive up this old country road. On our way back, we crossed the river, over to Ohio. She showed me west-liverpool where she had grown up.

I'm really seeing a whole other side to the US by beeing here. People are nice and the pace is slow. The grass is green and the sky is blue and all you can hear for miles is dogs barking and birds singing.

End in sight

I stand at the point of what it will all come down to. The final weeks of my exchange, my last goodbyes to U.S.A. Questions cloud my mind, distracting me from finals, papers and all sorts of other stuff I should be doing.

Questions about fulfilling my hopes and expectations of this trip. Questions about what growth I have gone through being away. Questions what it will be like coming home again. It may be the slight hangover talking but it's a strange place to find yourself in. Don't get me wrong, it'll be great to be home again, seeing friends and family, being where you know it well. But I will miss the individual life I had. It was me in this place and nothing else, I brought nothing with me from home(I mean mentally). There was no burden of responsibilities towards people, no answers that I had to give about any particular thing and going back will mean people will have certain expectations.

These expectations can be good, but after 4 months of doing exactly what I wanted whenever I wanted I will have to get used to being a part of something greater then myself.

I guess what it has all come down to, is that I have realized more then ever who I am and wish to be, realizing that somethings need to be let go off in order to move forward, and that may be the hardest thing to do when I get back home.
Cutting off what I no longer need or want.

But in every end, there's a beginning, and that is what I'm seeing.