The journey - the adventure on the road - is probably my favorite kind of story. Heck, I'm writing a novel on the subject! There is just something special about leaving the "real" world around and exploring the wilderness and all the other worlds that are out there waiting. And you never know what will happen on the road. Speaking of the road, I tried to read "On the Road" a few years back. I say try because it was a school assignment and I am afraid it is the only book I never finished, I cheated, thank you wikipedia, sorry Ann-Christine. I just couldn't bear with the non-existent plot. It's awesome to finish your book in three weeks - heck, I've NaNo:ed, I know what I'm talking about - but you should maybe go through some editing before publishing it. Jack Kerouac was probably amazing, but he was probably stoned as well. I don't even want to see what kind of horror they came up with for that movie...
Anyhoo, the journey in itself is something very mystical and scary and at the same time desirable and free. I have always wanted to go on a road trip - route 66, cabriolet, some retro music soaring out into the desert - you know - just like that The Cardigan's video. Or the forest and the water, I dreamed of running away when I was a child, and I might have done it by accident a few times. My village was surrounded by forest and lakes, just at the end of our garden was a whole new world. There are some places that just breaths freedom and where you want to get lost forever. Öland, Brännö, Yngsjö. All these places from my childhood. (no one seems to want to take photos of the forest next to the beach in Yngsjö, so bad since it's magical)
Maybe I like these stories because I am too scared to go on the road myself - to scared to leave without a map - without a goal. But maybe the goal is not the importance. Frodo had a goal, but we sit through 12 hours of walking and half of the time we don't even see Frodo, and damn it that is a good story!
Sending a character out on a journey makes the emotional journey a lot more tangible. It is easier to see the changes in someone who isn't in the same place. It is easier to introduce conflict on the road than on the sofa. But even if - as an artist - it is the easy way out, there is something very human about leaving. We all want to leave sometimes, just get up and go, no goodbyes, no what ifs. Just leave. I kind of did, even if I didn't plan it, when I left Sweden two and a half years ago. And I had no idea that I was going to end up in the coolest school in the world. With the most amazing people in the world. On the journey of a life time.
There might be another journey project coming up for me. A "partir ensemble" project so to say. And when I say project I mean a lot of writing and hopefully turning it into a film one day. I think I have found someone who I work really well with and who would like to work with me. I'm hoping this is the beginning of not just a beautiful friendship but also some beautiful projects.
I am in a good place. Not just geographically speaking, but philosophically and cinematographically speaking as well.
Love you all.
Photos by me.
Oh and by the way, speaking of nothing. Jostein Gaarder, the author of one of the most wonderful and complex books ever - Sofie's World is one of my classmates uncle. It's a small world after all.
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