Re-Gathering.

These last few days with deadline and interviews were quite the thrill for me. Am still savoring the after-taste. Good thing I have B. He takes me on hikes and makes sure I gather myself and find balance... in the midst of it all. He's a master at that stuff:

He's fully present - be it observing...

... or running wild...

Nature knows the same secrets.

But B also believes in friends... even silly ones ;)

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So, what happened?

Well, I basically kicked a$$. For three days in a row.

I think I emphasized on here already that my application to the future refugee home was grand. I won't beat a dead horse.

I also did a mini-report on my Stockholm lunch (sushi, yay!) with the moose guy. That option could become everything I dream of. Why am I not up there yet? Maybe it's the nay-sayer within me... the part of me that has been hurt when I came here to find that I couldn't work with the people I had moved here for. Maybe it's fear of starting fresh and once more moving away from what has - in the meanwhile - become comfortable and treasured. It's also a little bit of hesitance about maybe ending up being professionally "attached" to one person. The moose guy has lots of connections. I wonder what would happen if "we" didn't work out and I was up there... in the pampa with some moose. And wolves. And bear. And mountains. And opportunities. OK, there came my dreams into the monologue again. I guess the best thing I can do right now is wait, and see if he follows through. And then head up there in January to check it out and feel the place out.

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Another thing is... I'm kinda in love with the process of exploring opportunities. It's a thrill for me to write incredible applications or suggested outlines to develop organizations, and I kinda wanna do that for a while. Silly...?

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And then, yesterday happened. I wrote on here that the ski guys had sent me an email to dampen my hopes (basically saying "yes, you can slave for us, but unfortunately there won't be money in return"). I also wrote that I would use the meeting to work on my skills of selling my skills. And, I gotta say: I impressed both them and myself. After a delicious lunch meeting at a noble restaurant (with me sitting there in my winter boots and my laid back clothing style and my disheveled hair... and my motivation brimming out of my eyes) the ski people are now infected with my dream of shaping their old school ski club hill into an alive and exciting environment for people to meet, learn new skills, and play. The environment is perfect: Of course there's the ski hill at the heart of the vision... and then there is a beautiful lake nearby and tons of forest (= undisturbed, unused open space). It's an ideal environment to teach people how to survive in the woods in the winter, avalanche awareness (even though rather unnecessary locally), wilderness first aid, etc. Due to it's location near a city it would be a perfect place to hold corporate events (team building stuff, snowshoeing tours with Gluehwein and Bonfire, etc., etc.). There is basically no limit. So, the ski guys listened to me and their eyes started to sparkle... Obviously they kept talking about the whole "we're a non-profit and can't pay anyone money"... but they realized that I may be their key to making their hill more sustainable which essentially is in the very core interest of their club. We finished the meeting with all of us glowing and my promising them I would send them an email to list what I could offer to them. They, in turn, were gonna share the goodness with the board. We'll see what happens. But for now, it feels very cool that I am capable to create job hope in places were there weren't even jobs before I moved into the picture. Feels really entrepreneur-y and cool.

After the meeting I visited two outdoor gear stores in town that just opened (they're the first ones of their kind - yay, progression in Southern Sweden!). I told the owners about my potential future work with Yxbacken and asked if they would be interested and willing to advertise for us. Both of them were eager and one of them immediately asked: "Can I come?" --- Call that what you want, but I call that success.

And, Yxbacken opens this Sunday. Guess who's going?

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All this being said: I really think Sweden will be my home for a while.