trading war stories...

... in the middle of Hollywood Blvd, the walk of fame.
Only a little crackling campfire inbetween the three of us is missing. but it feels definitely cosy and the sense of adventure is not missing. Here we are, exchanging extremely important information. Passersby would never guess... It is known though, I think, that the modern warriors always walk in disguise.
"It always works" proceed I, "and it makes me laugh. Just thinking about how funny it must look like from an outsiders perspective, you know? But slamming your head against a wall, or your knuckles, or tearing your hair out, it really helps. It's as if externalising the pain is the only thing that is going to tell you that you are still alive..."

"Well" says the Swedish Firedancer with genuine concern, "it helps but at some point you have to find different ways of relating to your pain."

He lifts his shirt up "here, there and here". Scars. A big one right over his left nipple, a couple just randomly across his chest and on his arms, scars from knives, from cigarettes, from je-ne-sais-quoi.

"...one day, I lost it. I went into the workshop of our commune back in Sweden and started sawing my arm. It was absolutely idiotic, somebody took the saw away from me. Believe me. You can't go there all the way. I was about to poke one of those big kitchen knives into my left eye. I could feel the cold steel touching my contacts. I stood there for a couple of minutes and then snapped back into reality and put the knive back on the table." It does look extreme and crazy and stupid but you gotta believe this man when he says that. It's not about exaggerating it is about the essence of the story. It is about survival.

The French girl stares into nowhere while he is talking. She looks into the direction of the pizza place where her husband usually works. It is difficult to be with someone when both of you still are growing up. She is only 21 years old. Her eyes fill up with tears. Her still-husband, drunk, coked out of his mind came to see her yesterday night. She paid the hotel, they had horrible sex, in the morning he killed her verbally. Manipulation I call that. "What can I do to show you I love you?" she cried. "You have to change. Now". How we mistake changing from developing and growing. Painful realisations.
Cutting it clean, cutting it quickly. She has to cut. And she is standing there, ready to cut and her heart screams and pleads and begs her to just love. Oh, but how love can be tough. How love can change its face. How love can require you to cut sometimes in order to be sustained and not to be tainted.

The Swedish Firedancer is full of stories. He should be, he is already 32 or 33. His eyes sparkle and shine lively. He, too, had a woman in his life who was strong enough to make him leave so he could find himself. Reminds me of Iron Alice and I still bow and pull my hat off. To Alice, to Karlyna and whatever their names are.
It is an illusion to think that being with the person you love is all you should want. You should want to be yourself in order to give yourself entirely. And if this takes a leave of absence, you gotta be courageous and strong enough to do this. The desert women know this secret and we have a lot to learn from them.

However, there is no way around pain. We all have to deal with it. And it's not unnecessary. It is unnecessary to go back, however, in order to escape the pain. Separation naturally triggers pain. You have to go through it. That's all that there is to it. And it doesn't mean that you can't ever get back together with the person you love but it means that you do have to go through the whole process of pain first, in order to find yourself. There are no shortcuts. His wife, well his ex-wife was strong enough to kick him out. Afterwards, when he was gone, she collapsed. Was sick for a year. Neck problems, couldn't hold anything in her hands. The stress came out of her system and still they didn't get back together. Makes you wonder what people go through and you think you have it difficult....
I bend my head a little to catch the smell of his deoderant that I put on earlier to be reminded of him. Smells trigger feelings, memories, sweet the sting, oh so painful and oh so comforting though. I had been in a shaking crying fit, seemingly unable to get out of it. The first in weeks, actually, out of the blue. You can't compare pain, but it makes me so much stronger to just KNOW about these amazing women...

"One day I couldn't get up for hours," he continues. "I knew that nothing was wrong with my body, but I couldn't move. I was paralysed. It was the strangest sensation ever. It was like being buried alive"

Oh yes, I think to myself. I know this feeling. I have wished many times, to actually be buried alive under an enormous mountain just to make sure that it is for a reason that I feel this pressure on my chest. And just to be locked away, forever.

"I started to work against that by doing this extremely strenuous excercise every morning. My body revolted but it was exactly what I needed." We all need to be warriors. And there we are, on our way, trading war stories. It helps. Sometimes I am embarrassed and say, "I don't even know why I am saying this!" but it helps oh so much to hear those stories from other strong women and men. From battles fought and lost. From the ways other people fight. Their techniques, tricks, experiences. We help each other on our ways. This is why we met in the middle of the night, coincidentally, in the middle of Hollywood, the most unlikely place on this earth for me to grow like this. And see, how it works. I straighten my shoulders simultaneously with the French Girl.

"I will be fine" she says and her eyes blister and shimmer like boiling water.