Year One.

The first anniversary of my move north came and went, without much notice on my part. Last week however, some reoccurring, yearly sport event made me realize that by mid July I have indeed spend one year in my new home.

I can safely conclude that these have been the best twelve months of my life. At times I view my life as a combinations of assorted segments. Personal eras that start and end with defying events. Taken together they make me feel like I have already lived several lifetimes combined into one. Last year yet again another new era started and I am endlessly excited about the novel prospects that await in my future.

Most of all I am looking forward to move to a new house, a house that I will hopefully one day soon purchase together with my husband. The period of looking, searching and planning is endlessly exciting. My old white house has been taken off the market and I am becoming a landlord, renting it out until it can be sold at a good price in the future. Today it is a buyers marked and the sellers have to comply, thus I guess we better take advantage of this fact and become buyers instead.

Time is definitely occupying my thinking as of lately. Yet, the avenues have shifted slightly and I have found myself contemplating the subject of death.
I have never contemplated it to any deeper extend before. Of course, just like everyone else, I too am scared of dying, but the fear that recently enveloped me is not the fear of death and the pain of the event itself, more the fear of the finality that it brings.

I dread the end of my consciousness.
The end of experiences, excitement and adventures, of new possibilities and unforgettable moments. I love to be alive - despite the pain and suffering, there is also so much beauty and magic at every turn, so much new to be discovered every day. The termination of all this a horrid and appalling idea. At least, unless one is a believer, death definitely brings an end to life as we know it. I truly feel these have been some of the most haunting thoughts I have ever had. Perhaps they are born out of the surprising and overwhelming happiness that defines my life currently, forcing me to see the other end of the scale. Taking a peak into an abyss that I know awaits, one day. As always, we fear the unknown - and death is by far the most certainly occurring unknown there is.

It feels as if our summer has not really begun - due to the absolutely unseasonable weather we have had. Yet small signs here and there tell me undoubtedly that my favourite season has passed its peak.
I just noticed that our rowan is already displaying half ripen berries. Plants, bushes and trees are now big and lush, having attained that deep dark green, signifying that their growth is slowing down and ceasing.

Yet for the first time ever this does not bring sadness into my perception. On the contrary, slowly a joy starts to gain hold, an anticipation and excitement, similar to the one I used to experience as a little girl when Christmas was approaching. Soon a true countdown will begin, as I await the return of the man I love.
With about five weeks left of our separation, I have finally allowed myself to slowly visualize his homecoming in my mind. Thus at last I can glimpse the light at the end of the dark tunnel and the approaching fall season has never looked more appealing and never been more anticipated in my eyes than this year.

Ten Years.

Oddly enough I can not remember the exact date on which I boarded the SAS plane that took me back to Europe. Back for good. I know with certainty that it was in December 1999. And as as the number ten keeps coming up in my mind, I believe that today, the 10th Of December 2009, marks the ten years anniversary for my return back to the continent I call home.

If I am right, a decade ago today the plane touched down in Copenhagen airport and I was full of dreams and expectations.
With barely twenty days left to the turn of the century, I was excited about the prospect of a change ahead of me. I was anxious as well, but I expected that the future held a lot of promises and hopes for a new start. My arrival was a culmination of months of preparation. My apartment in North Carolina was filled with boxes in the many weeks prior to my departure. As I frantically got rid of furniture, send my cat Gypsy (on the pictures here) to my sister in Switzerland and reduced significantly my possessions, I was excited as well as mortified.

Today I look back a that time with a blend of a bittersweet nostalgia. None of what I expected happened after my return. In fact, I experienced one of the most difficult periods of my life. Yet today I know, that this was a vital process that was necessary in order for me to get where I am today. Which is a very good place to be, indeed.

Change is the only constant in life. If I have learned anything at all from my past experiences, it is that not all changes that feel good, turn out good in the long run. Similarly, not all changes that feel bad to begin with, turn out bad eventually. But, they are all inevitable and essential. We have to learn to accept the uncertainty that is connected to any changes we make. To alter our lives is at times a leap of faith and takes often a lot of effort and conviction, but it certainly brings our life into motion and makes us aware of new, exciting opportunities. It keeps our present dynamic and moves us relentlessly forward.

I rather take the wrong turns on the road of life, then remain standing still, missing out on the magic just behind the next bend. After all, I am a firm believer in one single fact; "The best is always yet to come..."

The Christmas Truce.

In my part of the world, the Remembrance/Veteran Day is not observed. Considering that I have made so many friends here that do commemorate this special day, it feels appropriate to dedicate a post to this subject.

This day in history, the 11th of November, marked the end of the first World War in 1918. Growing up in Eastern Bloc, the facts and traces of both World Wars were ever so present through out my childhood. In fact, my grandfather -my fathers father- witnessed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, an event that started the WWI.

Wars are filled with horrors and unimaginable atrocities, showing mankind from it's worst side. However, in parallel, they also produce unsung heroes and bring out the best in people, often highlighting that ultimately we are all the same. Thus raising the irony in the whole purpose of the battles.
I have always felt strong empathy for the ordinary people involved in wars. Those nameless soldiers, that no one knows about. That no one ever writes about. In every war, there is immense suffering of the common man - from any country, on any side - that only does his duty and knows nothing of politics and the struggle for power and land, that is the elusive cause of the war he is fighting.

In history of the first world war, the notion of a particular event has effected me deeply; the occurrence of the so called Christmas Truce. The term describes brief unofficial cease of fights, taking place on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day between German and British or French troops in World War I, particularly that between British and German troops stationed along the Western Front during Christmas 1914.

As quoted from the Wikipedia:

"The truce began on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium, for Christmas. They began by placing candles on trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols, most notably Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The British troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols.

The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the "No Man's Land" where small gifts were exchanged — whiskey, jam, cigars, chocolate, and the like. The soldiers exchanged gifts, sometimes addresses, and drank together. The artillery in the region fell silent that night. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects.

The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and there are many stories of football matches between the opposing forces.

In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but in some areas, it continued until New Year's Day."

The Beginning Of The End.

When we (my family) found ourselves as political refugees in Sweden in 1980, we assumed never to set foot in the former East Bloc again. Never. This was it. We escaped and considered ourselves lucky to be free and the idea of ever returning home was absurd and unreal. The years that followed were the years that any refugee or immigrant would understand. The consuming feeling of never to belong anywhere. Never to feel home anywhere again and yet being home everywhere to a certain degree. While something, somewhere deep inside, would never be complete again.

Therefore the chain of events that unraveled later that decade and brought eventually the end of the Cold War holds a very important place in my heart and soul.
Today is the official twenty years anniversary of the fall of The Berlin Wall. I think we all can remember November 1989, when our television screens were filled with images of joyful Germans, climbing over the Berlin Wall and rushing through the open borders to celebrate freedom. And some would finally be reunited with family members they might have not seen for what must have felt like eternity.
This force to end the decades of oppression spread through out the eastern Europe, even into Czechoslovakia where the Velvet Revolution saw the overthrow of the Communist government later that same year.

And so that, which once seemed impossible, came to pass.
In the spring of 1990, only months after the fall of communism, my family drove into Czech republic for the first time since our escape. I can still recall the chills running down my spine as we crossed the borders. As the guards at the checkpoints required our passports, the look in their eyes and the way they scrutinized our faces brought back memories of times, when these borders used to confine us. Later, I often used to wonder what they really did think of us and people like us; did they think us to be traitors or did they think us to be brave (stupid) enough to venture back? The guard handed us the passports at one point in a aloof manner, confusing my parents. As my father asked is we could continue across the border, the man in the uniform gave us one last look, waving his hand, uttering with a sting of nonchalance "If you really wish..." For a split second, as the gates closed behind us, an eerie feeling enveloped my heart and as we drove quietly onto the soil of my former home, an absurd thought of fear crossed my mind, instigating the feel of being trapped once again...

However, when we reached Prague, the onset of freedom was palpable in every corner of the city. To this day this first visit home was the most significant visit of them all. It was bittersweet in every way and reinforced the fact that one can go home, but one can never ever go back.

Later that summer we drove back to Prague again. We took the night ferry from Sweden and arrived in West Germany on an early summer morning, watching the sun rise as we disembarked the ship. Our plan was to visit Berlin on our way down and gaze at the remains of the Berlin Wall. I recall the drive very vividly. Barely a year after the fall of the wall, the signs of the old regime could still be perceived as we passed the empty border controls at one of the checkpoints that led the autobahn through a sort of no-man zone into the city. The deserted border buildings stood as silent witnesses to an era that has ended, yet was still very much present. On the pictures below that I took out of the car, one can still see the old Trabants, the undying symbols of the former DDR, driving ahead of us on the highway. Seeing one today is considered a rarity.
As we arrived in Berlin early on a Sunday morning, the city was still asleep. We reached the Brandenburg Gate which was empty, completely devoid of people or animals, cars or any kind of sound. I think what I recall the most was the unusual feeling of the place. It was filled with a sense of nostalgia and even a certain sadness. I felt as if we were walking through a deserted city. As we strolled around for almost an hour in complete silence and without meeting a soul, we passed the Reichstag Building and finally reached the wall. This was the first time that I stood face to face with this important structure in our history. I remember touching it and trying to envision the years of oppression and the shed of blood and tears that it symbolized. My parents can be seen on the pictures I post here. My mother stands at the lonely wall in one of them, while my father is seen walking. I wonder to this day what my parents were thinking. Their body language and their silence is maybe an answer in itself. The solitude and the melancholy of the pictures is hauntingly symbolic of what these are all about...

We all took a piece of the wall. I do no longer have mine, as it has disappeared through all the relocating that took place in my life over the years. But it doesn't matter. It was just a piece of concrete. The most important souvenir is the one that I carried away from this place in my mind. The idea that nothing is written in stone. Nothing is ever final and that history, although brutal and cruel in most parts also carries moments of monumental victories.

(Please click the below to enlarge).

One Year Old.

I have a reason to be slightly contemplative on this day, as a year ago exactly today I sat down to write my very first post.

In March 2008, I was searching the web for information about a painting that has managed to entice me and captivate me, like no other artwork. Called "The Meeting On Turret Stairs", it was painted by Sir Fredrick William Burton in 1864. The search brought me to a wonderful blog, written by the lovely Blog Princess G. Upon her encouragement and suggestion, I took a decision to write my first post some months later.

The experience to write a daily blog has turned out quiet differently from what I though it would be. I did not expect much, in fact, I expected nothing. Just a year ago I knew what a blog was, however I thought it would take a professional to write such a journal online. The few blogs I have read by then were either written by freelance journalists or novelists or other kind of professionals with a schooling in writing. I was neither. The idea or a notion of me writing down my ideas, my private thoughts and personal opinions and then sharing them with complete strangers appeared completely absurd to me then.

But I have been enjoying it incredibly.

A whole new world has emerged in front of my eyes, filled with talented people, from all across the world. Every day, they allow me the privilege to have an insight into their every day lives, sharing moments of happiness and sadness, trouble and joy.
At all times, the far corners of the globe lie at my finger tips and a few key strokes have taken me to places I could never have visited physically. It is an incredible experience to read about the reality of people, who live ordinary lives, yet make them seem so very extraordinary at all times, with eloquence of words and beauty of pictures.

I would very much like to thank ALL of you, too many to mention, who have found it worth your while to pay me your visits; whether it is once or regularly; they are all appreciated. Even if writing in itself is an absolute pleasure for me, no matter if my words are read by others or not, it makes it so much more rewarding having someone to take notice of the little things I have to say. I find incredible satisfaction in the feeling of having strung a chord with something that I have written or with the pictures that I have posted. Simply finding a kindred spirit once in while in opinions and in taste can make my day. If only one post has spoken to someone out there, even if for just a moment in time, then this year of writing has not been in vain.

Finally, I have decided to alter slightly the name of my blog. When I started, I had no idea what it would turn out to be. I gave it title without much contemplation and feel that now perhaps it is time for a change.

I write mainly about my life, and the way I see, perceive and experience it and have in the past, with all its magic, natural splendor and the beauty of simple pleasures.
I feel "Life Through Reflections" is a title better suited for this blog and what it has become over the year.

Welcome to another year with my "Life Through Reflections".

Apollo 11.

I guess I am one of many out there that will dedicate a post the Apollo 11 mission today. Forty years ago, the world sat mesmerized in front of the TV sets, watching with fascination as a man took the first steps across the lunar surface. That famous sentence; "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind", was uttered by Neil Armstrong, as he performed the first moon walk ever.

This moon landing was part of the Apollo Program, more precisely Apollo 11. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.

On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.

I am completely in awe of this achievement. I think this mostly due to the fact that it was an incredible operation performed with detailed precision, with absolutely moderate technology. So many steps and all of them had to work, yet with very primitive instruments, at least seen through the eyes of modern technology. In fact, the Apollo rocket is considered so successful, that a new spacecraft is being developed by NASA, based on this technology. Called Orion, it is under development and is destined for a new moon landing within the next 20 years, most likely with the goal to colonize the Moon.
This means that the Space Shuttles Program (Space Transportation System (STS)) is about to retire. The reusable spacecrafts have proven far less economical than originally assumed and will hereby fly on their last mission next year.