Fare well

It is time to leave Nueva York. Tonight this heart is flying to Guatemala and the unknown. Leaving is always an intense experience. Like ending a chapter of your life to begin a new one. Being reminded of what you have gathered, what you will bring and the value of what you leave.

New York has been a rollercoaster of wonderful experiences and tough challenges. Of work, friendship, love and leisure. Of extremes. And I am thankful for all of it but the time has come to leave and to end this blog. Thank you all for reading. I have been flattered by the interest you have showed for my journey through this city. All the best for whereever you travel- far väl.

Grace resting outside Prospect Par

These streets we wal

Lex Alexa- champagne, strawberries and sunshine

The Battle over our Bodies

Yesterday I was at a deeply disturbing informationsession about female genital mutilation/cutting. And there it dawned upon me once again how much of my work here at the UN that has been concerned with the control of female sexuality. It is like an absurd obsession. As if the battle ground has become the female body.

In the debates of rape being used as a tactic of war in Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. Where controlling the bodies of women becomes a way to demoralise and humiliate your enemy. 

Or in the fact that the issue above others that keep diplomats awake throughout the night batteling over wordings is whether or not a woman should have the right to control her own childbearing.

Womens and their sexuality is described as something vulnerable that need protection under layers of clothing or as something threatening that needs to be tamed. Even so threatening that people put knifes in little girls and cut away their possibility to ever enjoy thier own sexuality.

A short note on trust

Trust seems to be the most important aspect of human relations yet such a fragile phenomenon. My friend and source of wisdom, Rose-Marie, ones said that a close relationsship is like a room with several unlocked doors that you may never open because if you do you can never close them again. And trust is daring to leave the doors unlocked. So trust is a fragile yet precious thing and when broken it  seems unmendable. Like Jens Lekman sings “what is broken can always be fixed, but what is fixed will always be broken.” But maybe sometimes what is mended can even be stronger.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issue

The last two weeks I have been preoccupied by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. This is a forum in which the concerns of indigenous peoples around the world are debated and people from the north of Greenland to the Arizonas to the desert of Central Africa come to make their voices heard. As a formal UN meeting the forum is rather unusal. For 14 days the norm of grey suits and monotonous voices is replaced by costumes in all colours and statements with references to spirits, ancestors and Mother Earth. The experiece is sometimes perplexing but in a good way and I have been told that it is strengthening for the grassroots organisations from around the world to have a forum to discover the similiarities of the problems they face despite the diversity in traditions and origins.

At the crossroads

Time is slipping through my fingers. It is soon time to leave New York and the decisions of what to make of the future are like a constant and distracting humming in the back of my head. As from two weeks what to come is a void of uncertainty and I have strings pulling me in all sorts of directions. In a way I love finding myself at these crossroads. They are defining moments. A point in time when it becomes apparent that you choose a path and decide in which direction to walk. Of course every step of the way along that path will also be a choice even if we tend to forget. So for a short while I awaken to the fact that the choice I make will define the life I am to lead from here on. And that it terrifying.

In need for guidance I have spent the weekend with Alexa. As my sorcerous she has helped me look for answers at the bottom of the wineglass and for peace amidst the madness of Coney Island. And in her wisdom she would of course never tell me where to go but simply packs my bags. She gives me hapiness as a compass and honesty as my guidebook and says- “If you know to follow these, whereever you go will be the exact right place to be”.