lovenotes
the blog (me. through stories and pictures and videos and poems) |
i turn to music to get out of my head. i turn to storytelling and pictures and videos. with a camera in my hand, an instrument, an idea, a story, i'm alright for a while.
it's also a way to connect to people. i've always had trouble with this. my experience with society is rubbing people the wrong way or being a wallflower. i have a habit of saying the wrong thing at the right time, especially in big groups of people. or i'm the wall flower; sometimes awkwardly waiting for my chance to leave, sometimes eagerly consuming people's lives like daytime television. i tell stories about what i see and feel and experience as a way to feel closer, understand better, connect... creating stories for myself is one thing. an amazing gift from the universe i hope to never take for granted. but stories i tell with other people in mind, for other people, is a different kind of gift. i get to share in their joy, to send a wish, a message, to experience the best of people's experiences, and then make a song about it, tell a story. my greatest wish, from my soul to the universe, is to have the means the time and the energy to create endlessly. there are so many stories to tell. and i don't need anything to tell them, or rather i have everything i need with me now: my ideas, my thoughts, my observations, my instruments: guitar, ukulele, voice, camera, laptop, microphone, soundbox... but man, being grown up sucks quite a bit; bills, and relationships, and being a mom, and immigration, and racism, and loneliness... oh to be isolated from the shit of the world again. then again, experiences are what create art, and being a mom is my greatest joy and achievement, and relationships in my experience suuuuuuck, but i'm stronger for all the pits of horror and betrayal i've experienced, and migrating to a country in the middle of a pandemic was not the best plan but i'm here and writing this, with a level of consistency that is more than it was before. and i'm in a small town, and the town is tiny, and a little bit racist (ha!) but i've made my own little pocket of friends here, wallflowers like me. so maybe what i should ask the universe is peace of mind, and serenity. the capacity to accept the things i cannot change with grace, and face 2020 and the shit storm that it is with courage. things get lonely sometimes sure. and where is the end in sight, we all wonder. and when i can, write some songs for other people, get out of my head sometimes, and be part of somebody else's stories for a little while. Ondi 22.12.2020
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i wrote the chorus for this song riding on my bicycle from the city centre in pori to my house. it happens almost every time i don't have headphones in with music or something. sometimes it's just humming, or a melody with no words that gets jammed in there for the ten minute ride but this time i was shouting (singing) at the top of my lungs: 'all i ever wanted, was the sun to make me shine!'
i don't know what love is but it feels like falling, like vertigo and butterflies, like stage fright and sweaty palms and jittery fingers, like standing still on a track waiting for the train to hit you, wishing you had the presence of mind to stay off the lines. but you don't, and you won't.
i don't know what love is but it looks like a bubble, of hands held and shared stories and secret knowledge like pet peeves, and whose feet are always cold, and sides of the bed, and birthday parties, and crying on shoulders, and favourite wine. i don't know what love is, but it feels like an ending. a sign post marked 'stop here,' because here ends the i, and begins the we, and the you and me, and the us together. i don't know what love is but it doesn't divide, and it doesn't shame, it does not subscribe to man-made tales of he and she. the love that made you, is the love that made me, and my god is love so i let go of shame, i let go of heaven, and let go of hell, because to the love i feel they are both the same. i don't know what love is, bit it has betrayed me, at times, it has left me broken, left me hurting, left me frail. but it also gave me music, and friendship, and a home when all else fails. maybe it wasn't love that betrayed me, after all, i betrayed myself, and i let down people, and people let me down thinking love was the cure, the anaesthesia, the religion that would save us. but it didn't, and it won't. i don't know what love is but i think, i feel, it is the nectar that makes everything that much sweeter, that much better, that much more. and i am sore, with all these love feelings, like goosebumps up my back, down my arms, round my legs; like pins and needles that go on too long, like a hangover that won't go away; like white washed walls that still feel stained; like staying inside, alone, wandering empty halls, in the grandest house, on the most verdant hill, on the most beautiful day. i don't know what love is but i am fine with all these feelings, not sure of their meanings, but happy spending forever searching for mine. ondi-1.11.20 #lovenoteforthesadgirlinthejeancoat It’s 8am in the morning. I haven’t been up this early in a while. Covid 19 is a bitch but it has done wonders for pushing my waking hours. I saw the sun come up. And he took his bike and I took mine. We haven’t been separated to strangers, I think ever.
I understand the concept of the empty nest better now. But how much worse would it be when I’m not just releasing him to highly highly qualified people for a few hours, a five minute bike ride away, but to the WORLD, which we all know is at least fifty per cent asshole and perverts, and fifty percent depressive social media addicts. I’m getting ahead of myself. He is five minutes away. I watched a movie when i got home as I thought about this post, because there’s no way I can sleep now. The movie made me cry in a good way. The punch line was something like ‘find your voice and use it, if you dare.’ I have two hours left of me time. I don’t if I remember a time before corona, but I do remember counting down the time I had to myself, it’s precious. I should turn my attention to my adulthood responsibilities, but man they’re draining my soul. Immigration is a tedious road filled with the dull, monotonous and repetitive sounds of form filling, scanning and printing, mailing and waiting. Add corona to that tasty treat and you have headaches close to the gut that don’t go. That’s before I’ve thought about the dishes I have to do, and the laundry that needs folding and putting away. (Notice I didn’t say iron. I never bought an iron because life is tedious enough thank you very much.) I should turn my attention to all that, and maybe I will (probably not.) Or I could finish this post and go get a cover picture of the road on the way to his new school. I wonder if it still looks as great as it did in earlier. Maybe take a video. Work on that montage of bike riding that is such a huge and awesome part about living in Finland. I also started working on a song on the piano. I transcribed it for the guitar but it doesn’t sound as good. Then I played it on an organ, and damn… My point… I’m sure there’s one… Something about the four-year-old has starting school today and waking up early, and how I know he’s fine, probably made friends already. And I miss him, but I’m also so excited. Life can be messy and people complicated, and time and space seems limited and constrained, but music… and words, and images, and art and sounds and videos… they’re not so complicated. And they’re infinite. And they can’t be bad because or unworthy because here I am. And I started a bit lost and melancholic then here are words, and there’s my camera (thank you stella!) and hello there guitar. A short bike ride away I’ll find an organ (AN ORGAN) and if I want to I can work on that song. i made this song on my birthday this year (our birthday) it's for my sisters mainly, and their significant others (i threaten them...nicely.) but really for all sisters. sometimes i feel like the world isn't really on the woman's side. but we can be there for each other. i have such a rich group of sisters who love and support and encourage and listen. it's a gift i hope never to take for granted. the video is a selection of videos i made while travelling from spoleto, italy, to pori, finland, on busses, and planes, and trains through windows. putting the video together was a great of properly beginning a creative journey here in pori. hope it sticks. -ondi i finally fixed my camera. and i'm looking at my reflection and thinking hey, hey there, there you are. and at the same time i'm thinking hey, who are you, where have you been? are you coming back? and at the same time i'm thinking i like how i'm surprised each time i open the cabinet and my reflection is refracted for a moment. i like the discomfort because it's a safe discomfort, enjoyable even. and then i think you can't do a video where you cry in the mirror again. and then i think i can if i want. i can if i want. italy was dream-like. the way everything to do with covid seems a dream. the first two weeks were grey because we were quarantined (the four year old and i.) we weren't locked in but i felt caged. once we were free i felt green. green like freedom, and relief, and nature and trees. so i took my camera and selected selective colour and i picked green and these are some of the pictures i took. i took some videos too. those are in a video. -ondi |
ondi is a musician, artist, writer, teacher, lawyer mother, filmmaker, photographer and general creative soul. she loves sharing and exploring creative expression. |