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Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

Book by Charlotte Eriksson · 5 quotes · Life, Love, Prose

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Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving Quotes

“There are days when I feel like I’ve seen enough, done enough, felt enough. When I call my wandering days over and slowly accept the quiet life from here on. When the dreams of making waves are a vague memory and the songs I meant to sing feel more like a finished painting, something to just observe and hang on the wall from now on, to those who wish to observe it. But then the night falls and the morning rise and horizons are calling once again and I’m on my way. Forests fresh and pastures new. And most of the time I’m fine with this. I’m learning to be fine with this. So maybe that’s what settling into this world means. To simply, and as hard as it is, just settle into your own way of living—your own pace, your own rhythm—and not think too much about it. Just wake up and let your legs wander where they need to wander no matter where that may lead and just simply trust your path. There is a difference between what you want and what you wish to want. What you’d like to do and what you wish you’d like to do. I’m learning to not wish, but just do.”

“I turned myself into an artist because then my life would be about creating meaning out of ugliness and that would be my life, and it was noble. It was the beginning of a journey, the creating of the world every single day and I was not bored. I was ecstasy and creation and nothingness turned into melodies and I was dancing with the spirits.”

“I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrow for I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspired but empty and weary from drinking too much at all times and I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speak for I don’t speak much at all and my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too much or not at all and never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am not a poem but an elegy at my best but unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that, but others are not.”

“... and I realise the only way to tell the others is through the way my voice can take these broken words and turn it into music. Turn it into poetry. And I sing to make myself come alive, but also for you, because I’d like this to mean something. To not disappear with the dark I will enter one day and so now I will tell. If not for you, then for my own heart, because it tells me to, and I'm learning to listen.”

“I was free with every road as my home. No limitations and no commitments. But then summer passed and winter came and I fell short for safety. I fell for its spell, slowly humming me to sleep, because I was tired and small, too weak to take or handle those opinions and views, attacking me from every angle. Against my art, against my self, against my very way of living. I collected my thoughts, my few possessions and built isolated walls around my values and character. I protected my own definition of beauty and success like a treasure at the bottom of the sea, for no one saw what I saw, or felt the same as I did, and so I wanted to keep to myself. You hide to protect yourself.”