How do you make things normal?
Jul 26, 2011 by Sushi Bird
It is hard. It is hard to start blogging after what happened in Norway. It seems pointless, unimportant almost, to write about my week, what I ate, post pictures from cute neighborhoods and tell you that I drank good drinks with my friends and ate sushi 3 times just because I could. At the same time, I realize that the world can not stop forever, but right now I am not sure when it will feel ok to blog about regular, mundane, every day things again. I am sure there are many people in Norway (and the rest of the world) that feels some kind of confusion or guilt right now. Am I reacting the right way? Should I cry about this even though nobody I knew was directly involved in this? Am I a bad person if I don’t cry? Can I laugh and smile and drink wine with my friends, and yet feel bad about what happened? I do believe that the answer to this is: yes. Yes you can. However you react right now, and what feelings might stir up inside you, it is the right feeling. (It doesn’t mean you should necessarily act on those feelings if they are destructive, but feeling them is not wrong.) It is what you are suppose to feel. No matter if it is anger, bitterness, sadness, numbness, chattiness or silence, happiness over everything you have or sadness over those who lost someone near to them, this is what you are suppose to feel right now. Don’t feel embarrassed about feeling too much or not feeling enough. We all react differently, and it is ok. This is what I have been doing this weekend to try to make things better, take my mind of things:
- I had a wonderful side-walk date. It is a little tradition we have. We buy a bottle of the worst cheap sparkling wine there is, and we sit down next to an intersection or a busy area and watch all the people passing while we talk about life and the future and small birds and other things that makes us happy.
- We took the train to a whole new part of the city where I have never been before, and just walked around looking at all the strange shops and finding new little restaurants.
- I found a mall in Nakano which can best be described as being a very particular mall for the specially interested. 4 floors filled with otaku-collectors-stuff, everything from Lolita fashion to cosplay and figurines and doll shops. It was strange, it felt like an instant holiday, 6 minutes away by train. The whole place felt like China, and walking around there, studying all the little tidbits made me completely forget the rest of the world for a little while.
- I ate what I like the best. Sushi, sushi and more sushi. If you can, eat something which will really cheer you up. Some people have chocolate and macaroons. For me it is eating sushi, lovely salmon that melts in your mouth.
- Hugs. Lots of them. Laying next to someone, smell their skin, be quiet together and listen to hearts beating in unison.
- Stayed busy, held a lecture, working on some illustrations I have to get done in a couple of days. Drawing and messing around with watercolor paint while the music is on full blast from the speakers. I tried to avoid the most melancholic tunes and put on Billie Holiday and Röyksopp. It worked.
Obviously, what we do to deal with this should not be about avoiding the horrible truth and ignoring the awful things that happened, but it is about taking care of ourselves in the middle of all this, and be grateful for all the beautiful things which are still here, both around us and in us. ♥
♥ + a hug + a tune:
http://twitter.com/mariamena_no/status/95463464004366336
Thank you! I saw that song, I am trying to avoid anything sad for a while now, but I had to listen to it once, at least. Hope you are doing ok, not long until I can have a coffee with you now!
It’s so important to live a little in the middle of all this. 🙂
Absolutely. I hope everyone is doing something good for themselves.
I feel like an total ass, mostly because all of my friends are so “involved” in this tragedy, even if it didn’t affect them directly. Meanwhile I’m sitting here and thinking to myself “should I cry? Am I an ass for not crying? I don’t feel like crying..”.
I’m think it’s a very sad happening and a tragedy for Norway, but since it’s not affecting me personally I don’t feel that attachment to it. I feel like such a bad person, but on the other hand, I can’t really help it, can I?
I don’t think are even half of an ass. I actually think it is really cool to be honest about it. I have mixed emotions about everything myself. I feel bad for Norway and I feel bad for the people involved in this tragedy. I feel the uneasiness people seem to feel just by logging onto the internet, reading fb-posts and blog-posts, newspaper articles and etc. Yet, I do not feel that I feel as bad/sad as quite a few of my friends, if that makes sense. I don’t think this is bad of me, I think it is a very human reaction (or lack of reaction). Also, as someone close to me put it – “A lot of these (young) Norwegians have not had trauma in their personal lives, they have never lost anyone close to them, and this is the worst thing they have ever experienced. Of course they will feel awful about this. It is the worst thing that has happened to them so far. Yet other people who have experienced more pain and suffering on a personal level might not feel so strongly about this particular incident, no matter what a horrible national tragedy it is”.
Er så enig! Likte spesielt de to første punktene på listen, høres fantastisk ut.
Har følt veldig med dere som er så langt unna når dette skjedde, snakket med en venninne som er i Japan og hun har hatt det veldig vanskelig fordi hun ikke har hatt noen å snakke med og ingen helt forstår hvordan det føles. Håper det går bra. <3
Ja, det er ikke akkurat noen å snakke med om det her, men heldigvis finnes jo internettet, så da fikk jeg mer enn nok påfyll. Er veldig takknemlig til bl.a. NRK som gjorde direktesendingene tilgjengelig fra utlandet, flott gjort. Når det gjelder å snakke med folk, så er det fint med facebook, det er vanskelig å forklare dette i Japan til folk bare noen måneder etter jordskjelv og tsunami, følte nesten det ble litt feil. 2011 er et rart år, det har skjedd så mye vondt, men så mange fine ting også.
I had a really similar feeling of distress this week after seeing videos of Utoya. It has been bothering me the most at night, keeping me from sleeping. Last night I wrote a poem about my feelings surrounding it, which seemed to help as some form of release. I think, to speak my mind, that all we are left to do now is to pay respect to the lives that were lost and to appreciate the preciousness of our own lives, to understand where this world is right now and try to better our small part of it.