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To forgive
To let go
Trust
Dare

Not hold onto the feeling of righteousness
To lay down one’s arms
Relinquish ammunition

Knowing one is taking a chance
Taking down the wall

Easier to say sorry
Than to forgive

This beautiful poem by my friend Heather first made me think of problems in relationships. I even wrote the first draft of this blog post contemplating my 20+ year long relationship with my wife Malin. But as Malin read the poem, she told me it made her think differently. She thought that the meaning of forgiveness is a deeper topic than what we have experienced together as a couple. Then she reminded me of the movie The Shack that we watched together some years ago. It rendered us to watched it again together last night. And perhaps she is right. Forgiveness goes deeper. At least for us. Not to say that this poem cannot relate to relationships problems, but perhaps it is a story for others to tell.

I can really recommend the movie The Shack if you have not seen it. It is a beautiful but tragic story about a father who lost his child and his long path to forgiving the man who caused it. I guess the quest to forgive someone does not become any more difficult than this. How can you possibly forgive someone who killed your child? I don’t have any children myself so I can only imagine that pain. The movie takes the Christian perspective with the New Testament central values of love and forgiveness. I won’t tell the full story of the movie if you want to watch it. Instead, I’d like to focus for the remainder of this blog on my own experiences, a much narrowed down scope compared to the extreme narrative of this movie. Forgiveness in the smallest of worldly details. But also, perhaps thoughts that more people can relate to. Also, the topic of forgiveness is such a wide topic so it’s hardly possible to cover all aspects of it in one tiny blog post.

I’d like to focus on the last two lines:

Easier to say sorry
Than to forgive

There are some very interesting aspects and possibly contradictions in these two lines if you start thinking about it. My immediate rational thought is that it is easy to go for the quick solution in a conflict scenario and only pretend that you are sorry. Even to yourself. But by doing so, there will be a lingering feeling of resentment and grudge that will come back to haunt you. And in the long run, the quick solution to a problem will turn out to be no solution at all. But it raises the interesting question of when it is best to try and solve the problem immediately (if possible). To take a stand for what you believe to be right, and when it is best to “turn the other cheek” so to speak. Obviously, it depends on the situation. Let me give you a simple example of the latter dating back to a teenage memory of mine:

In my youth, I was out partying with a friend one night. We were just out there on the dance floor dancing like everyone else around us. Then suddenly, two guys walked up to us and started to pick a fight. Where I grew up, it was not uncommon for some young people to want to get into a fight to prove whatever they thought needed to be proven. Testosterone syndrome. I tried to calm things down and then … WHAM! One of the guys suddenly gave me a headbutt. Luckily, he missed my eyebrow and any vital area, so it did not hurt at all. I must admit, despite the shock I felt, the surprise in his face that I was still standing was satisfying. Next they wanted us to step out from the dance floor to finish what they started. Luckily for us, it was quite easy to shout through the music: ‘No thanks. We’re just gonna keep on dancing here instead’. In the end, they gave up and took off leaving us alone. That was it. No harm, no fowl.

When analyzing this situation afterwards, there are two possible solutions to this scenario. The first one taking a stand and agreeing to the invited fight. A stupid choice I still think, but if we had been born with a Bruce Lee talent, which we were not, maybe winning such a fight would have convinced these people to not do this again. The true action movie hero scenario I’d say. Sadly though, I think in reality, them losing a fight would not solve the main issue these guys had. They would probably just train harder for the next occasion to have a higher likelihood of winning the fight they picked with some other innocent people. The other solution, that my friend and I picked, was the obvious solution. Not to give in to anger and adrenaline rush accepting the fight. Of course, we were lucky to be on a dance floor with lots of people around us, making it a possible solution. Still. If you are suddenly filled with anger from what could have been a rather painful headbutt, it may not have been the preferred option in the heat of the moment.

There is another scenario that I think is more difficult to handle: a verbal attack only. I think most people have had that experience that someone has lost his/hers temper and angrily yelled at you for something they believe you’ve done wrong. The situation has been rare for me, but when it happens, I usually become quite shocked and most often lack words to defend myself. And if I do manage to defend myself, in the case I felt I was innocent, I usually don’t have much of a thought through response then and there. Afterwards, it has always left me with a lingering feeling of resentment and mental pain. Both in terms of not being able to think fast enough to come up with a good response, replaying the scenario in my head giving a “proper answer”, but also of course the analysis of what went wrong that gave rise to the situation. Often, I felt afterwards that I would have preferred to take a stand for what I believed was right in the moment. If you are lucky however, you know the person, and you can hopefully sort it out afterwards when feelings have calmed down. But if you don’t. It is an unknown person off the street? You’ll most likely never meet him again. Well, then it’s best to just put it behind you and try to be better prepared for it if it ever happens again. But if you felt you did not wrong, do you forgive the person who attacked you verbally? Can you let it go?

Perhaps it all boils down to maturity. When someone is doing something to you that you believe is wrong. Well, let them. And don’t take it personally. It’s their problem, not yours. If possible, sort the problem out afterwards, but if not, just let it go. In retrospect, I guess this is one way to forgive.

This song originally sprung to creation with a request from my friend Daniel to add some voice harmonies to one of his guitar-based published compositions A Summer Day. I started experimenting with his song, but rather soon realized that a poem by my friend Heather would fit it like a glove. So I set a melody to the poem below with Daniels music, recorded it and … checked with Daniel if he was ok with the result. Which he was. Phew! It will probably take some time before the song is published, but meanwhile, here is Heathers beautiful poem:

A space for love to grow
A space with thorns and disappointments
Small scars and wounds that get revealed
Every time one brushes against a thorn
A space of forgiveness

Love
Insight
Intention
In this space
We link hands
We pray
And we love
We forgive
Ourselves
We learn
We grow

On our own
Together
We forgive
Ourselves
And our love is a blanket
Against the harshness of the world
And a refuge to come back to when we get lost
I love you
And every day I will remember that
With each other and alone

In these blogs of mine, I usually give my own perspective of the songs and especially how it relates to the text in the lyrics. In some ways, perhaps this is a bit unfair, since poems is in the eyes of the beholder. We can all interpret and relate to poems and art in our own way. It is a beautiful thing that art can set our mind free and liberate us to fill in the gaps with our own imagination that an artist intentionally but perhaps subconsciously gave to us in some sort of framework. But with my narrative in these blogs, hopefully I’m just giving my story and thoughts that won’t empede others to have their own mind wondering off to their own truths.

However, this poem by Heather I’d like to leave as it is without any additional thoughts of mine. So I let it speak for it self this time. And you will be able to hear the song interpretation in an upcoming release.

The station is free
So lay the tracks
Plan the hows and whens
The variables

Its the way its done in the grown-up world
Apparently
Except
Grown ups lose their muse
Their belief in magic

The station is empty
Just go?
Lay them with each step
Stumble and correct
Ask for help
Encounter chaos
And grace
And unexpected delights
And more chaos

Frustration
And damn it the stress
And maybe you’ll even end up in a different station
One you wouldn’t want to miss
Hopefully
Probably
Its ok

Lay each track in front of your feet as you walk
Its your way and its been quite a ride so far
Grateful for every step
Almost every step

When I was young, I tried living abroad for longer periods. France, Florida, Texas, and Hawaii in the US. Also back packing through Austria and Asia. It was always an enjoyment and memories from these longer trips are still, two decades later, vivid in my memory. At one point I even contemplated moving to France. I love the French language and culture so it was a strong temptation.  But I remained in Sweden. What would have happened in my life if I had taken that decision? I’ll never know.

But. I think the choice I made back then boiled down to the old Sanskrit saying I learnt in school many years before this: Tat tvam asi. I was told it basically meant something like “Know thyself”. It is a difficult challenge to have when you are young to make important decisions in life about where to live and what to do with your life. And yet we must. As for me, taking this decision of not migrating to France, it boiled down to a decision based on previous experiences from longer stays abroad. To put it simply: I would be homesick. I had had previous experience of this and I relied on this gut feeling taking this decision.

When I was young, I was a foreign exchange student in Texas and I think it was the time where I mostly pondered on this feeling about being homesick. I remember my analysis then landed in the conclusion that my home sickness, off course, mostly was due to missing familly and friends. But there is another spice. It is also about all the small things in the surrounding environment. I am a quite sensitive person and I think the unfamiliar environment subconsciously accumulated and become overwhelming after a few months. It could be small things. Like there is a yellow line on the road instead of all white, or that small towns in Texas don’t have many sidewalks, or that houses have no fences separating the lawn from the road, or … Well, the list went on. It’s funny, but maybe there is a bit of Sheldon from the The Big Bang Theory also in me, reacting poorly to changes. And yet I do still long for it.

The one question in all this that still evades me is whether these feelings would have subsided if I had stayed for many years? A lifetime even? Would I feel like I belonged in this new country or would I still have felt like a stranger. I do not know.

Many years later I saw a long poem by a friend, Heather, that moved me a lot. It was on the topic of home sickness and I felt I could relate to it. She posted the poem on her Facebook wall and I read and reread it several times. I became fascinated by this lovely poem, not only because of the beautiful colors it portrayed, but also since it awoke this long-forgotten question of mine: how would it have been to live abroad all these years? For me, this was in the beginning of my musical endeavor of creating music and finding melodies that worked for my voice. So, I asked Heather if I could make an attempt to portray her poem in a song. She said yes. And there it was. The song is complete and will be published eventually. But meanwhile, here is Heathers beautiful poem that I, with her permission, end this post with:

Nessa.
Your house.
With the sun filtering in to wake me.
Your tiles both cold and warm under bare feet.
Bare feet without them freezing…
Your dogs following me around adoringly knowing
I will sneak them coconut oil and other treats.
Your cat giving me her worst bitchy stare.
You getting charmingly defensive that she is not a bitch,
really. She is just the queen.

Your hospitality that makes me, us,
feel like the most loved and welcome people in the world.
You don’t do hospitality the traditional way.
It’s hand painted individual welcome cards in oils
with carefully and lovingly chosen gifts collected over the past year,
rather than a cooked meal. But who cares? (I only want Jonnys cooking anyway).

I want Colin to burst in with his huge smile.
Mommy with her endless scarves and bags.
Big Safra to waft in with her hippi aura and camera.

I want to hear you say, the way you always do,
that we need to go to Blouberg,
because you know I haven’t landed in Cape Town
Until I have felt the rocks in Blouberg almost cutting into my feet.
Until I’ve felt the warm wind almost push me off the rocks.
Until the sound of the roaring Atlantic
becomes part of my bloodstream again.
Then I’m home again. In Cape Town.

The place my heart settles.
Where I can breathe a little freer.
Where December is just December,
not a collective Christmas story that I don’t feel remotely a part of.
The country that I love so passionately and deeply,
but also tears my heart apart and scares me.
Somehow the sky is higher there.

But you know what?
I would give thanks just to sit and drink tea (or whisky)
with you, anywhere, right now.
I’ll even go wild for you and dump the rooibos
– make it black tea.
(Daddy would say Im a MIF)

Daddy.
So strange to be as close to him in Sweden
as I would be in Cape Town.

Life Neeesa.
It’s a mixed bag.
So much to be thankful for.
But every now and then,
self-indulgence takes over.
And right now, tonight,
that is ok.

Tobi. That’s me.

There are two reasons for this name.

First: it is short for my name Tobias. I sometimes use it as a sort of private joke of mine signed my name with Tobi. Ending with a dot! In my weird sense of logical humor, I love it since I only omit one sign having 5 signs instead of 6. In my line of work, continued optimization is such a ubiquituos golden rule. Hilarious, no?

Second: It’s an historic reference and memory of mine. In my long gone years of youth, a Spanish friend Samuel used to call me Tobi with a very charming Spanish accent to it. So in a way, it’s a revival of a long gone nick name from my past.

The artist name Tobi. or Not is of course a humoristic reference to the famous Hamlet quote “To be or not to be, that is the question”. Tobi. as I’ve previously written, being my Spanish friend Samuel’s nick name for me from my long gone years of youth. But Tobi. or Not has an additional meaning to it as I see it. It’s associated with the lyrics for the melodies I create in my songs. Each song text portrays either a character and/or some pondering thoughts of some sort. As such there is always an interpretation associated with these words. For me, the challenge is to make this character, or thoughts, come alive as truthfully and honest as possible. I feel it is impossible to not mix in spices of my own experiences and feelings into the song. Thus, my songs reflect me. And they do Not. Where that border is crossed, what is me and what is just an invented character, even I don’t know sometimes.

Many years ago, when I was highly dedicated to opera singing, a singing colleague of mine suddenly complained during lunch that actors were “always” the ones that got to be interviewed in television talk shows. He was fed up with it, I could tell. He asked “why”, in a slightly derogatory tone of voice. I did not at the time come up with a challenging response to his question. But the question lingered with me for years and I believe I found an answer. Perhaps an obvious one, but here it is: actors get to impersonate other people. And as such, to do it well, they need to ponder on questions about who the impersonated character really is and why. But most likely, I believe, they also subconsciously mix in some of their own experiences and characteristics into the character. I think this is inevitable. So, simply put, they are forced to seek answers to questions like how, why, when etc. with regards to our human nature. Why are people different? I think that qualifies the interests in an actor’s human exploration in interviews. Having reached this conclusion, I so wish I would have delivered this witty response during that lunch. But sometimes my analytical mind is just too slow.

As for me, I would not label myself as an actor. Nor do I probably drill down to the same depths as actors with regards to the characters or thoughts I portray in my songs. And perhaps that makes the interpretation more Tobi. than Not. I do not know. But I do know that this wonderful challenge in portraying a personality with the assistance of the words, the music, and what I can achieve with my voice certainly is there. As I travel down this road of creating these songs, I always enjoy this process of trying to make the text come alive with the interpreted values I subconsciously or consciously decide upon. And I am certainly deeply grateful for the collaborative approach of friends and colleages that makes this process possible.