Petra Pan

As I threw the remains of my second bed in the dumpster, I gulped up some of my dinner by the thought of not having a bed to come home to anymore. At the same time, goosebumps of excitement spread through my arms and legs by the idea of being free again. 

Who will I become this time? What parts of me will glow and what will keep hiding in the dark depths? My silent dreams live a life of their own at the back of last decade's notebooks. Still alive. Pulsating. Vibrating. But resting in peace until their time comes.

In Norway I let the Jägermeister girl roam freely through big and small clubs across the country. Shortly after, I locked her down at University of Oslo's library for two years. Just enough time to get a BA to fly me off as quickly as possible to the promised land of California to study consciousness.

My new identity as Student fulfilled a previously dreaded longing for introversion. In fact, I needed the inwards journey so much I ventured into the world of yoga and became a certified instructor. Both in 2010 and 2015 I answered the inner call to delve deep and did 200 and 300 hour trainings. 

Of course, all this inwardness disturbed my extroverted self, which found new and old avenues of expression through: bartending, working as a career center coordinator, teaching, and performing a 20 minute skit about my traumatic life at a San Francisco theater.

California introduced me to new ways of living and more than a dozen amazing souls. In this hub of Peter Pan's we flew together through layers of bliss and dust and dirt, attempting to uncover more of what we already are. Where will my wings take me next? I'm sure I'll be as surprised as anyone of my fellow wanderers...

Photo by: Judy Rukat

Birthing a Butterfly

Almost a month ago I reluctantly entered the final year of my twenties.

Instead of welcoming the times ahead, I regressed to infantile ignorance and drowned my despair in forgotten sins. I grabbed the bottle and merely erased my older self in search of careless days that drifted away long ago.

Turning 29 feels like attempting to give birth to a 60 kg baby. I am birthing myself all over through the womb of my memories. Attempting to assimilate all significant events into a new form.

But it’s so fucking hard. I lie awake at night questioning all the choices I make. Each choice puts me on a different path. How will I ever know what’s the right move and what I lose by choosing one over the other?

All I want is to dance, sing, paint, and create. But instead I dig a deeper, darker hole of dissatisfaction.

What is missing in my life? Why does it not feel like a worthy life for a twenty-nine year old woman?

Is it because I don’t own a home? Or because I haven’t had a steady boyfriend in about ten years? Or maybe it’s because I realized I might prefer to create art over following one of my previous career paths?

I even want to do modelling. And god only knows how beyond old I am for that. I am practically a fossil. And this body...well it sure didn’t slim down on the other side of twenty-five.

In spite of all the self-judgment accompanying twenty-nine, a newfound appreciation for me in my many forms arose.

I am me in my multitude of forms and no number, whether it’s on the scale or on candles digged into a cake will change that. And thank the universe I got another year left to manifest those many me’s before the big three-o. Maybe I’ve grown those luminous rainbow wings and painted my existence with a more suitable palette by the next transition?  

Welcome to India

Arrived at the airport after 31 hours of traveling and immediately put on my bitchy, 'I got this figured out all by my self, thank you very much’ face and wandered out into the street as a blonde backpack sandwich thinking I knew shit. I didn’t.

Even though I’d been told the hotel was right across the street from the airport, it was a ridiculously big airport and an insanely big street filled with enormous amounts of screaming, sweaty, honking people. I walked half a mile in my instantly two sizes smaller Nike’s before I faced reality. Mission abort.

I turned around with my tail between my legs (those sticky MC Hammer pants that makes me look like Mayladdin) and walked right back past all those people I told a taxi was the last thing I needed in the world.

Back at the airport I persuaded the entrance guard to let me re-enter and exchanged money for a ridiculous rate in order to take a Norwegian priced taxi to the hotel right around the corner. Well now, it was a pretty ginormous corner filled with thousands of Indians on scooters, tuktuks, taxis, cars, and buses all fighting to fit into one lane simultaneously.

Welcome to India!

Full circles and new beginnings

Two years flew by since I snuck in, grabbed a bagel, poured a cup of coffee while spilling half on my pants, and tried to silently merge with the group of over 100 fresh faces by sliding onto one of the last unoccupied chairs in the back row.

This year I was one of the first to arrive. I set up  tables. Strategically placed signs across the building. And was one of the first to get hold of a bagel which I hid strategically under the welcoming table, and attempted to inhale quickly when I thought no one saw me. Of course that is when the largest clusters of people emerged from the elevator to get my “welcome, please make a nametag” with a voice served freshly from beneath half-chewed bagel hamster-cheeks.

The next step came by taking the first steps up on stage. Somehow I went from hiding in the darkest row to presenting in the light up front. It surprised me how comfortable it felt to be up there. I reflected on how I came in as an outsider, slowly made my way into the community on campus, and now stood there ready to speak to all new students about the center for career and community engagement which I now work for. Sounds like a pretty full circle to me.

A new chapter has arrived. Finally, I am stepping out of the eternal student role and entering fully into two new positions: one as a worker and the other as a dissertation proposal writer. I guess I am finally growing up. Add one dash of work and two teaspoons of dissertation and there you go: instant adult. 

Teaching and Callgirls

My yearning to teach struck me while reading the book callgirl.

Now why on earth would a book about being an escort fully ignite the passion for teaching in me?

Because this callgirl was extraordinary, she combined an academic life with the life of a luxury prostitute. And she almost succeed. Until her less acceptable professional persona slowly seeped into her societally approved one, and fused together into a class on prostitution. Actually, even then she excelled and the class became the most popular new topic that semester.

Through this, I learned the importance of picking a subject of deep personal interest. Something igniting a passion for teaching in you, and the desire to know more in your students.  When you pick a topic you have personal experience with, you are in a position to deliver the most intriguing material.  

Sometimes it’s the most random sources that give us the final nudge in the right direction. Towards what we crave, what seeks us out, and ultimately what fills our hearts with joy and life with vibrancy.

Curiously, my desire to teach emerged through reading the words of an escort. But not just any escort, a professor and an escort. Not only did the book open my eyes to teaching, but to the ability to combine two utterly different professions and ways of being. I take it as an invite to be all I am: perhaps I can be a teacher, writer, community engagement assistant, artist, bartender, and coach if I so desire? 

Belong Here. You Deserve It.

On a particularly cloudy Oakland morning, I wandered down the street enmeshed in my net of thoughts on “should I stay or should I go.” My introverted bubble burst once the black writing on the white wall next to me proclaiming “Belong here, you deserve it” grabbed my undivided attention. It all happened in the same split second as I thought “I’m probably overstaying my welcome.”

Maybe Oakland holds space for us all? A plethora of nationalities, ethnicities, and spiritual inclinations. People who were born and raised, and the forever young who migrates. Smelly hippies, thugs, techheads, burners, nutty professors, hipsters, yogis and artists all co-creating a hub to call home.

After four years I feel like a true Bay Aerian. At the same time my rootless nature pokes me with bursts of restlessness as never before. Maybe that’s part of it as well. Perhaps this is my Shangri-la and I need search no more?

Home is where the heart is according to the saying. What happens to the divided heart who equally resides amongst a Norwegian winter’s first snowflakes and the Golden Gate Bridge? The lesson I take from the writings on the wall is to practice feeling like I belong wherever I am, inside and out. Because I deserve it, and so do you regardless of where you’re from and where you reside!   

Women's World?

For the first time in history it’s pretty ok to be a woman. Well at least in Western countries. Most of them anyways. And if you dig deeper into ancient history it’s probably not the first time either, but forget that for a moment. Point is: women now can mostly do what we want. Travel alone, work, get higher education, and decide when or if we want to get married and have children. Freedom rushes through our veins. Along with profound responsibility and a dash of loneliness.

The more choices, the higher burden rests on us making right ones. Women are so lucky we can now become mechanical engineers, software developers and firefighters and if we are extra productive all of the above. That simple fact should make us jump for joy. But, what if some of us want to be taken care of? Should we look at those women with eyes tainted by disgust, and judge them as weak, old fashioned, and a disgrace to modern women? Males’ feminine counterparts who should now ideally love running down Manhattan making a deal on the cell phone for one of her businesses, while the other rings profusely in her pocket. 

I’m not saying I want to be a housewife or have anyone needing to take care of me, god no. But what if I one day want to have children (or child) and spend some extra time taking care of them for a year or two, do I then fail at being a modern woman?

When it comes to equality, no one can put their hand on the bible and make a truthful claim that women really make the same money as men in the same positions or that we are judged by the same parameters. If they do, they probably think racism is dead too.

Truth is many (but not all) women have more opportunities now than ever before known to mankind. In fact, we have so many that one of us can sit at work and reflect on all her opportunities and almost make it sound negative. How ridiculous! After a thorough reflection on my capability to even reflect on such matters, I have to conclude these are all signs we are living in damn good times!