We came back mid May.
We reveled in being home. We stayed in. We ate sushi. We walked around the neighborhood, marveling about the blooming trees and the fragrant jasmine bushes.
It felt so good to be home.
We went to the mountains for our yearly trip. We stayed in a cabin in the clouds. The fog was thick as it rolled in at a speed I didn’t think possible. It looked sped up. I got a surreal feeling that maybe we are miniature people in a miniature world, and a giant is smoking right into the diorama that we call L I F E.
It was a great weekend. The perfect mixture of relaxation/boredom/creative recharge.
And now we’re once again back home and it’s So Good.

LA feels right. I can’t describe it any other way.
Sometimes I think that I shouldn’t like it here. I’m not supposed to love this strange city. But I do.
It’s not something I can, or would want to, change.
I’m just a bit surprised, is all.

Things are brewing, I have my toes in the water, getting used to the heat.
Soon I’ll dip my entire body in there.

I figured out an important part of my personality last week.
Maybe I’ve known it longer than that, but sometimes realizations really has to smack you, to reach all the way inside you. I needed three very specific events to understand.

I’ve been feeling creatively passive lately. Under-inspired. Moving through slush to find ideas. It’s not surprising when you think about it, I’m alone most days and I don’t have too much to do. One could say I have too little to do. I’m saying that. I have too little to do.
After a while it becomes normal life, and you (I mean “I”) start to think “maybe I’m just not a creative person anymore”.
But that doesn’t feel right either.

I talk with one of the best people I know. She has said in the past that talking with me makes her feel inspired to be creative. This time she’s the one to trigger those feelings in me. I say to her, I think I need creative people around me to find creativeness.
When we hang up I have more ideas than I had two hours earlier (yes, we talked for almost two hours).
That’s how I’ve always known myself, a person who never struggles to get great ideas.
So where have I been?

The weekend comes and David and I go to see a movie. It’s the most confusing mix of a fantastic movie and a terrible movie. I get pulled out of the experience more than once because of bad directing, bad acting from wonderful actors, strange editing that makes me feel the film making, and not the emotions.
We discuss it on our way home, and David, who loved the movie, hadn’t seen all those things. When I bring them up he understands me though, and we walk home through the streets of Toronto and talk about making movies, and how we each have our own angle into creativity. He through the technical, me through the emotional.
I feel a current rushing in. It’s flowing trough me with a realization that some day in the future I’m going to direct something and it’s going to happen. I’ve never been sure of that before, but that evening I just know it. And it makes me giggle because it’s almost like I don’t have a choice.

On Sunday I meet up with a new friend who in many ways are like me, but better at realizing all her ideas. She has creativity in every nerve. And she talks about me like I do too. While we’re talking (and eating sushi) I feel a surge pass through me. It’s not like one of those animated lightbulb moments, it’s more a feeling of listening in on the conversation from the outside.

And this is where I think “Oh. I have creativity again”.

Like I was out of it, and now it’s filled up. To the brim.

I remember what I said to my dear friend earlier in the week, and to David the day before, and I realize that yes, I have the key now.
It’s like I’ve found myself again in a sea of forgotten creativity.

I have few words today.
I remember at university, every time I was writing essays I always felt like I didn't use big enough words, but then every time I got it back I was told I used words so well. The professor even used me as a good example of how to write so that it’s easily understandable while still being proper. I’m not saying this to brag. I’m telling you this because Every Single Time after this when I turned in a paper I thought “THIS time they are going to realize that I’m out of words.” Like I had used up all of them and everybody was going to understand that soon enough.
It never happened though. They kept thinking it was great, and I kept being surprised. After a while (we’re talking years) I had to make friends with the idea that I might actually be good with words.
Now I write in a different language than my own, and that struggle comes back tenfold. I mean, I literally have less words in English than I do in Swedish.
So here I am, sitting at cafe’s writing things every day, hoping that the words will feel like a perfect amount soon.
I know it’s all in my head (I’m a little bit of a word perfectionist) and that it’s me creating the fear. No one else is doing it for me.
The fact that I’m writing this is probably a good sign. I’m telling myself it is.
It’s called imposter syndrome, by the way. “They are going to realize I’m not good at this”. I like the name because Imposter is a big word and I understand that word, and maybe that means I’m not an imposter.

Sometimes I read about successful and famous people struggling with imposter syndrome, and I imagine us being in the same club. Imposters Unite. We could have t-shirts. But nobody would wear them because we would all be thinking “some day they will realize I’m not a real imposter”.

/Lotta

One week into Toronto, and I start to realize things I’ve missed.
Living in a city where I can walk everywhere.
Feeling my cheeks turn rosy the moment I step inside after being outdoors for more than ten minutes.
Breathing smoke into the air.
Eating soup and feeling the hot broth warm me up from inside.
Passing by houses with history and trees that lose leaves.

I’m reminded of the things I used to love back in Sweden, and it makes me feel nostalgic and more than a bit sentimental.
I smile to myself a lot.
At the same time this is a lonely time for me.
LA was lonely too, but slowly and surely I got to know people, surroundings, day to day routines.
Here all is new again.
I feel much stronger than I did back then when I had to conquer loneliness in Los Angeles, and it’s in those realizations that I feel myself growing. Or, I’m strong enough to realize that I’ve grown. I can’t say in what order things happen, but sometimes I do get struck by it all.
It might look like I’ve done a lot these past few years, while I could feel that I have done nothing, and the truth is probably somewhere in between.
My best work has been done inside my brain.
My professor at university told me my favorite words of wisdom one day when I complained to her about not getting enough words on the paper, feeling like I got nothing done. She said “Your brain is working on this around the clock, one day it will be ready to be written down and then you will realize you have done all of it already, in your head.”
And it happened.
Now I live by that; I’m not doing nothing, my brain is working.