shadowchild

We had a smooth landing. The air was hot and humid, the sun shone unintimidated and there were barely any clouds in the sky. From up above we saw the islands scattered in the aquamarine blue waters and the beaches smiled a turquoise shade at us. I don’t know why I did not rejoice at their sight, but I guess I must have not believed in their beauty, as if they were unreal, untouchable. I only later had a spontaneous moment of joy when the sea threw her amazing shades of blue and green at us through a deep and sandy pine grove.

We slowly dragged our little luggage through the steaming heat to a side parking area where the buses stationed. Google maps said that in half an hour we would be getting onto one of them and be heading towards the city. We chose to spend those waiting minutes drinking water and delightfully discovering the taste of a cold cafe crema inside the airport. What better things were there to do?

I struggled with my thoughts regarding my family through the entire short trip. I wanted to be small again, travelling with my mum, dad and sister, wishing that I could bring them somehow to these amazing places where we could be together again, away from everything that life served us. I wanted to take them away from death and sadness and to bring them into a loop of happy lazy days that most families enjoy when they go together on holiday.

Everywhere we looked we saw mediterranean vegetation, pine trees and oleanders and life grew upside down and inside out on sun-sunken terraces and balconies. I did not mind the imperfections, the crooked angles, the washed colors of the walls, since my eyes were fed with bright and playful watercolors that followed us around through the days. Once, we walked two kilometres through the orange evening at sunset through the Italian countryside, sea at our left, vineyards at our right. The air was cooler now, but its summery scents brought me back to childhood at my grandparents, when my world was little, protected, laid back. When my mom would not cry every time I talked to her on the phone. When the sound of desperation did not overwhelm my grandma’s voice. When the adults were strong and knew what to do.

The world looked and felt much like home those moments when we walked the road to the next bus station. Random faces smiled at us, talking in warm southern languages, looking tanned and healthy, as if they lived in a world far away from any problems. I had beauty on my side and not much to worry about, because the world would be there anyhow and life would still take me to familiar places no matter how far away from home. Beni read to me from Herman Hesse’s Aus Indien, a book about a trip through south-east Asia that Hesse took before the first world war errupted, as I was lying on the beach under the umbrella, sinking into the hot sand. In one passage on the boat trip to Myanmar, a comrade of Hesse and business man had told him that home is the place where the man finds the most relevant work and that fulfills him.

Home is the place where you find love, I would add, at the risk of sounding cheesy. It can be in so many forms, from love for another human being, to that for lovely friends or even for a working place, a business, one’s own family even, one’s kids. Home is where you make it look, sound and feel like it. Travelling along the Italian coast and speaking the few words I know in this incredibly musical language felt a lot like home to me. For some reason, it felt more like home than any other place in the world, because it gave me the safe space of knowing nobody, hearing nothing that I had heard before, a blank white space of so much unfulfilled potential for love. I have always found it easier to discover new spaces than to work my way in the same known places and find a way to live with myself right then and there. It takes an interesting form of courage to persist, to stay, to form roots. I am a plant with no roots. I am something of the world.

Yesterday was one of those days when I had a marvelous revelation. I am at this point in my life when many things happen at once and when I feel the pressure of deciding quickly and just right, if possible.

It was one of those evenings when people take their kids to the park and I was looking for some good and interesting, if not challenging, subjects to paint, but I did not want to enter the kids playground. And also, I needed a bench to sit on. And I did find it in a remote area of the park, but where there weren’t so many kids playing, that I could sketch on my paper and paint in watercolor eventually.

And so I just looked farther from where I sat. My first subjects were a grandfather and his little grandson driving his little toy Lamborghini.

Then came the girl who sat on a bench and did what looked like playing on her phone, although I could only guess she was holding her phone in her hand, from her position.

And then came my two little friends who carried a blanket with them and stretched it on the grass a just few meters away from me. They talked gently and quietly and they were both so nice and so serious. I tried to capture one position that they were lying on the blanket in, but they kept on moving.

Then, while I was concentrated on coloring their sketches, the older one observed what I was doing. And came by my bench, pretending to throw something in the trash can next to me. She looked at me and smiled. She had a beautiful face and a thin body and she was wearing glasses. I smiled back and she returned to the blanket. I could see and hear how she was whispering something to her little friend and I understood that they were talking about my painting.

At some point, the older girl got up and left the little one alone for a few moments. The little one stood up and waited for her friend, while I was hoping to get the sketch of her nice dress and her long pale legs.

When her friend returned, they both came by and looked at me painting. I immediately made friends with them. Their names were Carina and Maia. I invited them to paint and gave them my materials, while I just stood there and watched and asked them about their lives. Carina admired my work. She said my sketches look like the ones in the books written by Roald Dahl. My eyes filled with tears. I knew that she was talking about Quentin Blake’s sketches and I felt so happy and so strange. Because I love Quentin Blake’s work and because this girl knew!!! and made such a pertinent comparison. A ten year old knew more than anybody else who I know, and it just felt so strange and so beautiful at the same time.

Things come to us not just as a coincidence. I was there in the park at 8 p.m., talking to my two little new friends, watching them paint flowers and trees and bees, and I knew that I wanted to do this more often. Stay with kids. Stay around kids. Get inspired, get energy, get hope. Let them teach me. Let them show me how they see things. Let them put things in a new perspective.

We are at the airport first class lounge and Nash pulls up her macbook air from her prada purse. The rich bitch. I hate her and I love her at the same time. She is the better and the worse part of me, but I’ll never know which one more. I am sitting here in this laid back atmosphere and we are sipping on free espressos and lattes, thanks to Nash’s milesandmore platinum card.

We are flying back home and we still have two hours to kill before our connecting flight. German ground or not, it doesn’t feel anything like earth to me. From where I stand, this is a spaceship in the middle of nowhere with gates that lead us to machines that take us to a different planet. From where I stand, Nash has a hangover and her eyes are bloodshot and tired, but she is hypnotized by her laptop display, while mechanically sipping on her flat white. At least coffee tastes better here than what they serve out there in the airport shopping area.

I have a bitter-sweet relationship with airports. They feel nothing like home and, at the same time, nothing like anywhere else in the world. You are in between places, among races and different accents and languages, like on the above-mentioned platform to a spaceship where human nature coexists beyond sexual preferences, addictions, religions, races or political affiliation. Never mind the moms with babies and nappies and cups and potties that sit right in front of you, displaying the daily spectacle of motherhood and human reproduction in between places.

In airports, the ones I’ve hurriedly pit stopped in, everything suddenly makes sense. I envy the mother with three children who juggles the hundreds of little chores required by the little infants, their husbands dutifully sharing the parenting job. I watch people like I watch a show, while I pretend to read my favorite German magazine and sip on my tea or cappuccino. I pretend not to observe, but I extract every little color, nuance, accent, sound or pattern that is strange to me. Stuff that I do not see or experience or hear at home. This information sticks at the back of my head for days, weeks, months, until something in the daily life reminds me exactly of that. Airports inspire me.

Nash says that I am crazy to occupy my mind with such bshit, but she comes from a place where these trivialities are no part of the daily rituals. She haphazardly belongs to a family of wealthy industrialists and they talk mergers and buyouts at breakfast. The only normal thing Nash does is take her dog out for a poop once or twice a day. And that is only because she adores her labrador more than anything in this world.

There is a cool air out there, where I usually sit in the waiting lounge of a gate for one hour before we depart. Now I don’t get to see what I actually enjoy, because the business lounge is all about being business and lounging, voila, with a plate of free goodies and a free strong espresso in front of you, while the speakers discreetly play bakerman by laid back, but with no life around to watch. Welcome to not-having-anything-else-to-do-but-pull-your-smartphone-out-and-scroll-on-instagram kind of business. Thanks Nash, I am thinking, while I’m z-reading this article on why salmon meat can be dangerous for your health. Who cares.

I wish I could have my sketching pad here. I would then sketch Nash mechanically answering her VERY IMPORTANT emails, her face dull and crumpled, that she would later on find obnoxious and ask me, whaat, do I really look like that. I hate the business lounge, I have to admit. There is no subject here to observe. Maybe just the business guy in the armani suit, no tie, first shirt top buttons undone, as if to say: hey, i am somebody out there, but right now I am this cool guy just sitting here, being all approachable and fun. He looks good though, I have to stop staring.

I like the universal smell of airports, somewhere in between cheaper expensive duty free stuff that you don’t really need, douglas perfumes and controlled freedom. Blurry faces, lives and destinies pass by and that is probably the largest amount of faces that you can take in, but that you will never ever see again. And if you, by chance, see them again, you will not remember them really. They are just tangent to your life.

Enough, says Nash. What the fuck are you thinking of, again? One of your daydreams, she sardonically answers her own question, while rolling her eyes so hard that I can hear them turning inside her skull. She is right. The hot guy in the armani suit checks her out as she stands up and stretches, as if she has just gotten out of bed. Let’s get some good whisky, she says and heads to the bar.

From Full-Time to Freelancing

It’s like the ground is shaking and you have nothing to hold on to. Suddenly, you find yourself in a quiet place, where the only thing that counts is how you move your leg next. Or your hand.

It’s been quite easy walking through the tunnel for the past years, your hands being able to hold steady, since the walls are so close to your body. You rely on others’ decisions; there is a strange comfort in not being required to decide for oneself. You are crammed in a world that looks like a tunnel. Like one of those underground parties where you get so stuck in the mob that you can’t seem to get out of. You don’t need to stand on your own two feet. You rely on the masses of people that surround you. You let go.

And as you walk through the tunnel, some sort of sudden pressure, like a kick in the ass, propels you towards the end of it, where there is light and air and there is no cramming. Welcome to the world of the big dreams, air and space. The freelancers. The independent ones. The walk-aloners. A world of entrepreneurs, from small to big, from successful to still-searching, from hungry low-pay dreamers to well-seen CEOs.

It’s sunny here. And somehow quiet. Now that you are one step into this unknown space, there is a world of opportunities to grasp at. Things to do, ideas to accomplish, words to write, drawings to finish. And all you need to do is move. You look at your hands, down at your legs, and you are stuck. Whereto next? This is where you have joyfully come to: a minimal space, designed and trimmed to your own desires and dreams, where travelling and working from any place on earth is possible. Where working from home all the time is no longer on your wish list. Where sleeping late and taking one or two days off whenever you like (or even a sabbatical if you fancy) are some of the advantages.

What is Freelancing really about?

You are on your own. This is the world of freelancing. You know you belong to it. Your mind has been telling you this for a very long time now. Or at least that is what you think for now. A voice in your head says that building your own path, connecting, being awake and taking advantage of every little opportunity is a way to propel you further into that something that you are looking for.

Freelancing is not easy. Of course, there are many forms of working as a freelancer. You can already be so good at what you do, that you already have customers from everywhere asking for your services. You may have quit your day job, because you can’t freelance part-time anymore, since there is more and more freelance work to do. Or maybe you are willing to work on more projects, with more companies at once. And maybe for some of you it still feels like being in the tunnel (aka still employed, still sustained by the invisible hands, still in a steady environment with steady work) but you are on your way to being more and more independent and outspoken.

It means that you should start thinking like a business person. Not because you finally have a reason to suit-up and attend fancy parties, but because it is time to take responsibility. The pressure is higher now, because your skills are all you have. You can no longer hide behind a monitor, a laptop or whatever you are working on in a day job, full-time employment and blame it on the boss. You have to go out there and build networks. You have to go and meet new people and make deals that will help you get the next project and so on.

Beginnings are hard. Expect to feel confusion, fear of the unknown, anxiety and stress. But the kind of stress, that, if you are cut for freelancing, will help you get on to work. It will motivate you to fight, to search for the right kind of people, for the right kind of job.

You will learn to deal with your fear of never having enough money to get by. You will have to learn to save money and think in advance. Cover your ass with amounts of cash that will get you through the hard days of no activity or prospects. Learn to think long-term . You will be forced out of your day dream, because there is no such thing in successful freelancing. This is it, whatever you do, whatever success you might have depends on you in a large amount.

The Only Constant in your Life is Change

And then there is the social part. As freelancer, you will not always work with the same people and sometimes you will be completely on your own. There will not always be a team of professionals to grow accustomed to or work together with. And sometimes you will work with wonderful people and you will want to prolong that. But it won’t always be possible.

With freelancing, the hard fact that the only constant in your life is change, will be your everyday motto. You will learn to live with constant change, because this is what actually life is all about. Your senses will sharpen, your emotional intelligence will rise and you will get stronger at knowing people, understanding behavior, making decisions faster. You will have little time for useless chatter or bullshit. That part is fun, too, but in freelancing it will bring you nowhere. You will learn to cut the crap, so to speak. And maybe that is one of the best things about going on your own and becoming your own boss. One thing is for sure: the world of entrepreneurs, however little or big, is definitely an interesting world to be part of.

I am a girl of many passions. One of them is driving in my little bug of a car, taking it to the point where she is nearly taking off the highway. At 160 km/h only, you know, normal tea-sipping speed for some really good cars, mine gets off the road like it’s about to turn into a little aeronca chief and hit the clouds. She roars, shakes, grumbles, puffs until I get used to her and at some point she becomes a little ferrari. My little passport to freedom.

My hands are freezing, all baggage is crammed on the backseats or in the little non-indulging trunk and the GPS app is set. By the time it finally gets cosy on the inside, and my fingers can touch normal warm air, we are in between somewhere and nowhere, big cities passing by, their spread tangled neighborhoods and rivers underneath us.

It’s warm inside the next pit-stop at a gas station, where it smells like fresh coffee and freedom. I switch old cappuccino-to-go with a new hot one and life feels good. It usually feels better on the road, where everything moves, nothing lingers too long, nothing requires thoughtful consideration. I snap the doors, I fill the tank, I let the trunk door flap back with a klang, eyes dry, my hands frozen again from refueling.

In Austria it feels like holidays already, as I watch 40-year-old’s with kids driving in and out into the mountains or something. My sister wipes the windshield clean and the hot water in the bucket sends clouds of hot steam into the atmosphere. It is almost romantic here, our nostrils frozen and dry, and it kinda feels like home. Hallo, entschuldigung, ja, nein, bitte, haha, schön, grüßgott, tschüss und tschao. I love it.

Sometimes you fall in love with someone and they prove to be wrong for you. But then, you are only twenty something and stupid and you have no idea about self respect, not to mention the respect that you should get from others. You let them treat you badly, like you deserve it and you don’t even flinch. It’s all part of a new experiment, the experiment of life and love and pain and it looks like a human catastrophe. You freeze, you die a bit inside and it takes years to really regenerate. The bastards of love. How can they not know you are to be adored, fully, inside out, completely. Because your cells are so perfectly aligned and filled with human beauty.

Sometimes you fall in love with the person who is good for you at the time, who looks like your dream come true, who challenges the things that you want and you need and they throw your world upside down. You are still very young, and you don’t really know that you will change, that your perspective will change, that the person you know now will be a totally different person after years and years of knowing them. Like onion layers, you strip them one foil at a time and what you are left with is the bare core that makes your eyes sting. You’re not crying because you’re hurt, your’re crying because of the damn syn-propanethial-S-oxide (aka what’s in that onion juice).

It happens at times that people fall for you for various reasons. They see something in you that nobody else sees. You look hot tonight. Or they are very very drunk. Or both. You know how they feel or you have no idea, but it still feels like uh oh, this one’s gonna be tough. You are so stupid, you don’t know that finding someone who truly loves you is fucking damn hard. So you just stroll along, careless, flying, wrapped up in your stupid daydream about some random someone who has no idea about your existence and who couldn’t care less, because it takes a special person to know a special person. Love goes and you turn your back on it, because your fairy tale books say that you need to be super-duper in love to get to that awesome fairy tale story your cute dumb head is waiting for.