First real day at school and I feel strangely lost. Is this what I am doing with my life? Singing teacher? why? Will it make me happy? Is it what I have longed for? (Yes!) Is it what I long for today? And if not, why this sudden change? What has happened during this winter month?

I am sure it is something that will pass, but it is scary nevertheless. This is a scary place, you have to fight your way here, and if you don't make friends, if you are not popular, you will have no oppurtunity to sing ... I cannot doubt myself, if I do, I will be left behind.

I am in doubt.

So. It wasn't just the filter of my camera that's broken. It's the whole damn objective lens (I think that's what it's called in English, I looked it up). And it will cost me 2000 to get a new one (only slightly more than it would cost to have it mended, and that would take between six and eight weeks).

That's money that I just don't have right now. I don't know what else to say about this.

In school I'm suffering from a serious down- ... down what? A serious down? It's not so much that things aren't working, than that I believe that things aren't working - which is a huge difference. I'm still working with my self-confidence, and things have gotten A LOT better these past few years, but well ... I have a long way to go!

I guess the stress of these past months have eaten all my energy, so that there's been nothing left to keep me believing in my own musicality - which certainly does take a lot of energy, some days ... When the music is working and I feel like I could sing anything, it's easy. But when my voice is tired and I sing out of tune and all that, it's almost impossible, but still necessary: I need to know that my very own personal style and musicality is there, underneath, in me, all the time, and that it will show itself another time, another day, when I have slept better or feel lighter or feel safer (or whatever it is that bothers me without me knowing it. It could be the smallest of things, that makes singing more difficult. It could also be the smallest of things that makes it easier again, but I tend to forget that).

I need to believe that I am capable of doing everything we are supposed to do at school, and what's more, I need to feel that my efforts are enough. That I can't do more than what I already do. Why shouldn't my work be enough when everyone else is? Why must I always require more from me, always more and more and more? I do my best. I need to believe that it is good enough.

I also need to believe that I'm a good and loveable person even on my bad music days. That I have a value also without the music.

I just don't know how that's done, right now.

Here's a poem by Maya Stein (who has written many other wonderful things, for example a poem that is so soothing and inspiring that I have printed it and taped it onto the inside of my door, so that I can read a random line from it every time I walk out in the world - but more on that another time), a poem that so seems to fit this day, this struggling week of mine.

scrubbing the pots or a lesson in courage

What did E. Roosevelt say? "You must do the thing
you think you cannot do"? This morning, it seemed impossible
to meet the deadline of the garbage truck, or avoid the dogs,
or clean the kitchen of its tomatoey detritus, or figure out
the words for a poem I had promised.

Of course, Eleanor meant something a little grander
than hauling recycling to the curb or relieving the pets.
I don’t think she was talking about scrubbing the pots, or poetry.
Still, what better initiation into courage than the small miracle of a finished task,
clearing a space where life is waiting to be seized and shaken.

It struck me today that I'm probably sick now for a reason. I had it all planned out, you know, what I should do with these days to be super perfectly prepared for school; maybe what I need is to not prepare at all, maybe what I need is just go there in two weeks and sing, with my own voice, like I always do, and enjoy it, like I always do (but in different ways).

That felt good. This summer didn't turn out quite as I had planned ... but not in a bad way. It never does, does it?

I'm listening to Tides by Nitin Sawhney. So soothing, always. I waste my time (because I need to use it up somehow) by surfing internet pages that are all about looks: collage art (of course), but also what to wear, how to live, and I keep thinking that that's all just fine, but there is nothing like music. You will have to forgive me this. I can see a marvellous compostion, colors that make me feel like I want to lay down and die right now because they are so perfect, but it will never be like singing.

And I haven't even been able to sing, or play, for two weeks, it's killing me.

Not that I don't enjoy collaging anymore. (Actually, I haven't enjoyed it as much as of late, but more on that another time. And also, note to self, do write something about how I've been feeling like a lousy photographer wannabe lately.) But it's like - collaging, and color, and beautiful clothing, it will just have to come secondly. Collage is what I do to describe my life, express it, in a way; music is it, it is the core. I think that's what have made it so easy for lindy to take over the time and emotion I used to put in art journaling. I have to struggle to make my collages look like music, but it is not hard at all to make dancing look like music. If it doesn't show the music, it is not dancing.

Photo taken at a camp with my friends, 1999, and scanned for facebook photo albums.

Maybe what I need do to is combine acrylics and collage and put it in a book.

I need a small book, Moleskine-sized or a little bit wider, with not to many, but sturdy and nicely smelling pages. A small photo book maybe? Yes, I think that's what I need.

Collage from early January 2007; I think this is one of the last I made while I still had that urge to keep going - that need to create. Dear, is it that long ago? Apart from a burst of inspiration in April (and then I had to force it to get started, really force it), I haven't made anything worth to mention since January. Something really must be done.

This collage is my most popular one on Flickr. Before I started thinking about it, that fact was a mystery to me. I've made several collages that I've been more happy with ... Collages that I thought people would like more. But out of the 129 collages I've put on Flickr, this one is what people like the most. But it's really nothing, I thought, it's just a list of things I love (go to the flickr page to read the notes), and some squares of color. And then I thought that that might be it: It doesn't get better than what happens when I let anything happen.

In a spontaneous comment on the collage's flickr page, I wrote this: "I am so amazed that there are so many of you liking this and adding it to your favorites. It is my most random collage, my most spontaneous and unplanned, I had no intention whatsoever to make anything beautiful. Now it is my most popular one, and it seems to be inspiring, too. I think there's a lesson concerning my worries and efforts about 'making something beautiful' for me there."

Just wanted to put that here too. That lesson is one I should think about more often. Hm ... I have a feeling there will be more on this subject later on, once I've found the cure for this collage drought of mine. Or maybe thinking about that would work as a cure?