Grand Slam

I watch boxing. And I watch tennis. Right now it's Wimbledon. These people practice for years, thousands and thousands of hours on the training court, in the gym, in front of the net or the hitting partner or the punching bag. They are bored most of the time, they are alone in their search for meaning of their efforts. The lack of motivation is the real opponent. The ever threatening question has to be matched: why am I doing this?
And then they enter Center Court. Or the ring in Madison Square Garden. They show themselves, they kick ass, their own and others.
I miss that climax in my work.
There are no Grand Slams for authors.
You can go for the Man Booker Prize, the Pulitzer, even The Nobel Prize in literature. But if you get there, it will be for a piece of work you finished long ago. You will receive a phone call in the middle of the dishwashing. And that's it.
An author peaks on the way. In silence, in secret.

Boredom

I remember my childhood's boredom. Endless weekends, the whole world away on exciting outings, gone to exotic summerhouses, the rain, the sky without a cloud because it was one big cloud, my fingers would play with the dust on the windowsill, slowly drawing figures of eight. And without noticing I would merge into a dream where boredom didn't exist and no Monday would ever appear.

Malin's cows

I met Malin today, haven't seen her for a year or two. She is a farmer, her husband is a farmer, the children are farmers' children. She came with a sack full of stale bread for the cows.
They saw her from far, or rather heard her car, they looked up, not too eager like they agreed to see what she got before they welcomed her and moved forward. It's a small herd, eight or ten cows. Two of them are from Småland, Malin told me, the red ones. The smallest was born in March, she has a twin but she is in another herd with a new mother who lost her own calf. It all went well and not one bull calf this year, only girls.
Malin called for them.
One of them set off into a kind of gallop.
- That's Lillian, she said. She loves bread.
I love Malin's smile. Cows make her happy, that's all.
I see her cows from the windows in my little house in Sweden. I look at them a lot, trying to understand, why a cow makes me feel good. Like I'm not quite ready to accept very basic things in life. It's fat stock. They will be slaughtered after all. I know. They don't.

Woman at the bus stop

She wears a red dress. Her hair is curled, not much, the cheekbones with rouge. Youth has passed a little while ago, I think she knows. She longs for the bus to come, she is going somewhere, she is expected. She has all the rights to stand there and wait and to go there. She is not impatient. She wouldn't have worn the red dress if she was not expected.