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Showing posts from June, 2017

Under the surface

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The night is long and endless and despite the eternal light up here in the north, its dark and it is lonely for me. At first it is easier to shake of the pain carefully crawling towards me from every corner of the room. But it won’t leave and it won’t go until it gets its way, until it takes me over. And I don’t want to let go and I can’t give up, but the tons of misery are weighing heavy on my heart and it’s only a miracle that it still remains in its place under all that weight. The hours pass and there is nowhere to hide. No comfort, no safe haven to run to. As I desperately try to hold on to anything good and positive, reminding myself that the sun is always up there in the sky no matter how cloudy it seems to be at the moment. Taking deeper breaths is not enough as every next one seems like the last. Too smart, too brave, too strong and too MAN to ask for help. And who would be the doctor of my soul? Who can feel my misery and understand that nameless sorrow and that nu...

Operation Argo (translation from a local newspaper)

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He was just supposed to help a friend, but ended up in a wheelchair after a fall from 6 meters. The only think he wishes now, is to walk again. Original text by: TORE ISAKSEN SEEBERG  Translation: ARGO LEETMAA  Photos: RUNE NILSEN It is 16. december 2015. Father of 4, Argo Leetmaa from Estonia finds himself in an old barn in Saltstraumen. He is there to help a friend to move some furniture which was stored there. It’s dark and the flashlight from his mobile, doesn’t work.  Suddenly, he is weightless. During the 6 meters free fall, he instinctively turns himself in the air. He lands on his back. The following minutes, he sees his own body from outside, while its lying helplessly on the floor, heavily beaten, bleeding from the head. – I felt at once, that I had lost the contact with my legs, but was most worried about the head injury, says Argo today. – I knew there was this hole in the floor out there, but it was dark and I was tired...

Communities and the damage control

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My first school wasn’t much of a community. Or if it was, I didn’t fit in there. I had 4 friends in that school and I only have close contact with one of them today. So, I went to the interviews of the first and only private school at the time in this sweet hometown of mine and apparently demonstrated some early skill and got accepted. It cost about 5 to 6 euros a month for my single, working mother and it was not a small penny in the beginning of 90s in a small town. This became my first community. The teachers, the activities, the friends, the parties. I also joined the boy scouts which allowed me to expand my network covering my entire home country and reaching to Sweden. I wrote letters (yes with paper and pen and envelops and stamps and all) to some girls I had met and stood in the phonebooth to call the guys. I had workout buddies from the track and field and different ones from the karate group. I was 15 years old. Then I changed school again. To a different place. A boar...

What matters?

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I like having music around me when I go about my things at home. There is almost always something playing in the background when I am at home. My favourite movies and TV series are the ones with good music in them. So, last night, after returning from a long trip to far-far away, to almost as up north one can travel in Norway, I put on some random music of my taste. As I was in the bathroom, I heard an old song playing in the living room. I recognized the starting melodies and the opening chords. No way – I was thinking. Is it possible that this song just randomly came up to my playlist? I sharpened my ears again and again. Yes! That’s the one, no doubt about it. As I exited the bathroom, the song changed into something completely different - far from the song I thought it was. Weird… But the song was calling me, and I quickly found it. It instantly took me back to my careless youth when I was 18 years old and the internet was just about to become interesting despite the slow ...