It is a pull to use my love of words and writing as a creative process. Not always or only to convey a message or indulge in my own feelings; often those of frustration or powerlessness or anger. But just for the love of it. For the sake of my soul and isn’t that the only reason I need. I preach creativity while I forgot that my own creative process lies in exploring worlds within me and around me through the written words that come through even before I think it. This is where all my dreams they start and end. This is where I always feel home no matter where I go.

There used to be a time when I dreamt in English. I was living the life, I sucked out as much as I could from it, I was traveling and exploring cultures far from mine yet close to my heart. My working language was in English, all my day-to-day conversations in English, I wrote my diary, and the blog I used to have, in English and eventually I dreamt in English. I was, you could say, fluent in a language that wasn’t mine.

Life took a turn, as it does, and I wanted to settle down, fly less, have close relationships that didn’t shift because someone always had to leave. My inner world was unstable, and I needed my outer world to stabilize me, I wanted to feel the earth solid beneath my feet and a part of that journey was to let my mother tongue play a larger role. It felt good at that point to embrace my roots and accept that I didn’t actually want a life on the fly around the world, always pour my heart and soul into new people I was soon to say goodbye to. I wanted to build a home and a family, and I wanted to learn to not always want to live in solitude. I stopped wasting my time, I thought, and I made rational decisions about my life while that stability gave me the access to explore new sides of myself. I became a mother myself, again and again and again, and the tongue of The Mother has never been closer and further away at the same time.

I’ve noticed myself struggle when I speak English. I search to find the words in my mind, and they don’t roll as easy over my tongue as they used to. I’ve felt dumber and like I’ve lost a skill that once felt not like a skill but just like; me. Just a few days ago when I decided to move my writings to substack and I told my husband about it I heard myself argue that I still wanted to write in my mother tongue. Danish. And it wasn’t until I heard my words out loud, I noticed that I wasn’t speaking the truth. I spoke about something that had gone long overdue and I spoke words of a rational mind rather than those of my soul. It was a subtle notion and maybe I could have overheard it if it wasn’t for the signs that came to me from different angles since and if it wasn’t because I made myself a promise to do things because they feel right to me, and not because I can rationally explain why I do as I do.

And here I am, exploring the language that is not my mother tongue, but which have allowed me to explore the world and gain insights and lifelong relationships, and that has led me to experience deep love and deep despair.

This is my mother tongue. Not the language, but the way my inner connects with my outer world. This is where I feel safe and soft and strong. And I finally know, I do not have to understand or explain or indulge in any form of guilt for what I am here to create.