It should be mentioned that when I write, the few times I get warmed up and decent sentences find their way through my fingers, out on my keyboard and on to the screen, I feel at home. I actually do not think you will find me any happier. No. When I think of it, nothing in this world can measure up.

Whenever I can’t write, my mind strays off to the woods behind my childhood home. These woods are my imagination, my playground before the world got all its limits. The Pancake Meadow. Church Road. The Lake. The Ghost House. Places where the books I read blended with the life I lived. They are all over my writing. This is from a poem I wrote some years ago about my mother:

One day you were excited, telling us about a surprise you had made.
Late in the afternoon you brought us to a silvery meadow.
Out of the basket came pancakes and lemonade.
And as the sun went down I saw fairies dancing in the shadow.

The Pancake Meadow does not exist anymore. It was swallowed by huge sand mines feasting on my childhood. From another piece of writing:

«We have to turn on the radio,» I insisted. «The alarm!»
«No, Kristin. It’s not the airplanes. Look!»
My nanny pulled up her sleeve.
«It’s twelve o’clock. The men in the sand mines are having lunch. That’s what the alarm is all about.»
«Why do they need that ugly alarm?»
«Because the men can’t hear much inside their noisy trucks… Listen, every day at twelve o’clock that alarm will go off. There’s nothing to be scared of.»
But I knew she was wrong. There was something to be scared of. I had heard about a cold war. A war that could come to Norway anytime, from anywhere.

The sand mines are black holes in my imagination. When I was so young I can barely remember it, there was a little stable in our backyard with two horses. Sometimes I picked the forget-me-nots growing in the grass around it, and sometimes the older girls let me come with them for a horse ride in the carriage. We used to take Church Road, which lay on a long ridge dividing two mines, over to the church. When the road disappeared, I was haunted by nightmares. Not even the dead appeared to be safe from the abyss, its edge running far too close to the fence around the churchyard. Would they never stop digging?

My mother had nightmares too, to the extent that she conspired with our neighbours to tell on us when we kids walked to the end of our street. Our Sprucefield Street met Heatherhill Street, and down Heatherhill Street the big trucks came speeding from the sand mines. Whenever we were caught on Heatherhill Street, mom would simply go to her bedroom and stay there till she was normal again, our father scolding us for our misdeed.

Reading is a great remedy for writer’s block. It was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road which sparked off this blog post. In his novel I came across the word sedge. I took out my notebook, wrote down You read to remember!, and then turned on my Mac. I was back in the woods again.

The rhythmic gravel crusher, the bulldozers’ complaint. A faint soundtrack to summer days when school was out. My confrontational nature brought me through the woods, to the mines. I often found myself on the edge, staring into the biggest pit. Someone digging that much had to find something. By then my plans for the future had changed slightly, instead of a gardener I wanted to be an archaeologist. I still got to dig in the ground, only deeper. One of the dunes were not that steep, and more solid than the others. The miners had left it alone for some time. I took my chances and ran down. At the bottom of the enormous mine I was overwhelmed by the sight of all the sand everywhere, as if in the blink of an eye I had been teleported to a desert. But then something in one of the mine’s nooks caught my attention, something which seemed out of place. It was a tall weed with dark brown, velvety rolls on top. A kind of sedge I only thought existed in my picture books. And behind it I found a tiny lake. The miners had dug into an oasis in my traumatized imagination. They must have had lunch right there, because someone had left a jar of strawberry jam on a big rock. I sat down and ate some, thinking sweet thoughts of places far away.

If I could write a crime novel, I know where I would have hid the body. But the Ghost House I once was so scared of is out of reach now. I still remember coming up on that hill with my horse, I was a teenager then. The woods we had to ride through to get to the Ghost House were supposed to lie at our feet. But they had been chopped down, bulldozed over till there were only naked, white twigs left, resembling bones sticking up from the mud. A big wasteland soon to avalanche into one of the mines.

The sand mines lie in the Northern part of the woods behind my childhood home. I could have written many stories about the Western part as well, where I did a lot of the excavations myself. But those places still exist, I can go back there some other day. For now I want to linger by the places which were on loan to me at a time when the world and my imagination were one, when life had yet to lose its immediate epic qualities. The Pancake Meadow, Church Road, the Lake and the Ghost House have become fictional places I go to in search of a story to tell, my memories of them are constantly woven by an involuntary need to do so. A means for the homesick me to find her way back home. I guess that is why I have to write.

I am delighted that what I had thought would be a long and uneventful bus ride turns out to be a meaningful mission. An immediate need presents itself to share this unexpected turn of events with someone. I put the package dialogue with the stranger in my status update on Facebook. «TAKE THE PACKAGE! TAKE THE PACKAGE!» someone suggests. And I will admit that this was my initial thought. Not that I would keep the package for myself, but that I could have kept it. That this was quite a declaration of trust from a total stranger. There might be nothing of value in it. The package may contain only rubber bands or at most a cable to some electronic device. The package weighs almost nothing. But whatever it may contain, someone made the effort to come down to the bus terminal with it, and someone is waiting for it in Høydalsmo, and I have been made accountable. That, in it self, is serious. Even if thin air is what I transport, getting this thin air to Høydalsmo is imperative.

Someone on Facebook wonders if I may have turned myself into a smuggler now. That I may get in trouble because I was naïve enough to accept this delivery job. Maybe there are drugs in the package. Or a bomb. Or body parts. It dawns on me how easy it is to get into trouble. How little it takes before life as you know it is over, you are thrown in jail because of an idiotic impulse, and in jail you might be recruited, as the naïve nut you are, into a network of tragic fates you think you can save, but who ends up sucking out your decent soul. I sniff the package, I try to perceive it as best I can. It smells like cardboard. But what a potentially catastrophic thing to do! Just agree to this! What do I really know about the human being who gave me this mission? Nada! To be fair, he looked like someone working in my father’s office. He could be an engineer in the water supplies sector. On the other hand, I could have said that about the two Irish fellas I met in Dublin as well. They were so nice and father-like. Then one of them must have been a little loose-tongued about something I thought was a joke, that is how horrible what he said was, and then apparently it became necessary for the other one to show me his murder weapon, a pen of steel he carried in his pocket, and which according to the owner himself «goes straight through your skull». Three glasses of whiskey came and went before an alert friend of mine whispered in my ear that we had to go, I was letting no other than the IRA buy me drinks.

So the truth is that I know nothing about the man who asked me to bring the package to Høydalsmo. But I think I know something about Høydalsmo, this place which by and large consists of a bus stop. Not in my wildest dreams can I imagine Høydalsmo being a terror target. The possibility that the package sitting in the seat next to me should contain explosives seems just as foreign to me as someone’s wish to blow up the Nevada desert. Granted, a criminal network in Norway’s capital might have unsettled business with this Tor Anders, regardless of the disarming effect his thick Telemark dialect may have, but to send a bomb with a girl on the Haukeli Express? I like to think that criminal minds are wired somewhat differently. I like to think that criminal minds send a shabby Volvo into the County of Telemark if there was something they wanted to be said or done.

If the package contains drugs, the odds of me getting caught are miniscule. It must be a niggardly catch a suspecting police force will get their hands on if they were to wait somewhere along the road, considering the size and weight of the package. There are no control posts on the route. Tor Anders is probably waiting with excitement for the package, and has no reason to do me any harm. To the contrary, Tor Anders may be a handsome, nice guy who takes no interest in drugs whatsoever. As for age, he is perfect, and I already know that his rough Telemark dialect will make my knees weak. What a great story I could tell our children. Me climbing into the Haukeli Express with a package I do not know the least about, him waiting there at the bus stop, our hands touching as I give him the package. How natural it is that I say my name when he confirms that he is indeed Tor Anders.
-Imagine how much I’ve been wondering what’s inside that package. It could have been anything!
-If you want to, we can open it together, Tor Anders suggests.
And there is nothing I rather want, we open it, and it turns out to be a key ring. A beautifully engraved key ring. «To Tor Anders. From Dad.»
-I have inherited my father’s farm. It lies just up the hill here. Gorgeous view, surrounded by a silence so complete it almost makes an own sound. This probably seems quite strange to you, but I have been looking forward to this.
He picks up four separate keys from his pocket and attaches them to the special key ring.
-I sorta imagined a little ceremony when inserting the key in the door. But it’s just going to be me. Father just moved into a nursing home. Would you mind coming with me? A pot of lamb stew is waiting for us on the stove too.
Never in the world am I able to say no. Just like when I could not say no to the stranger who probably works in the water supplies sector, and who handed me the package for me to bring to Høydalsmo. Someone hit a string on Fortune’s harp, and the tone that followed will sing through the rest of my life.

There is still a certain chance that the package contains body parts. I shudder by the thought of it, pick up the package and give it a little shake. Not a sound. The fingers or toes or organs which might be inside the package are carefully wrapped, neither smell nor sound escapes. Are the body parts maybe a warning to Tor Anders? Blackmail? I worry about what Tor Anders may have gotten himself into. Whatever it is that he has done, such means can hardly be proportional to the mistake he has made. There is so much cruelty in this world. The human imagination is endless when it comes to vicious ideas. I become somewhat disillusioned right then, my gaze leaves the package and wanders out of the bus window instead, across the purple hills layered against the horizon. The bus drives through Notodden, the autumn leaves of the trees have set the hills around the lake on fire. A couple of swans with bent necks look like something out of this world in all their grace, their black silhouettes cut two long wounds into the still surface. The hills and the sky are mirrored in the water so shiny in the clear October air, the afternoon sun, it is hard to tell what side of the world is up, and what is down. In that moment I am convinced that there are no body parts in the package. The day is simply too beautiful, nature completely innocent in its obliviousness of all world’s evil.

I am aware of the fact that I make an erroneous inference. I infer from beauty to safety. Nothing justifies such an inference, other than blind faith. A blind faith in an innate goodness in the world, because for me to imagine something beautiful existing side by side with something grotesque is simply impossible. Once again I look at the package. Its label is terribly anonymous. A bar code and «To Tor Anders». This package communicates absolutely nothing. It is impossible to say what is inside those brown cardboard walls. Nor do I have any information about the sender, consindering how wrong I am about people. About the receiver I know that he is a man between 35 and 40 years of age, and his name is Tor Anders. But not even this information is very indicative. Tor Anders is a common name, so common that I have probably forgotten it on Sunday. And even though he is supposedly between 35 and 40, he can be significantly younger or older as well. This is the age when you have to count on genetics for real, and just hope that the years will treat you well. In other words; Tor Anders can be anyone. If I were to make an equation of my mission, the equation would look more or less like this: x sends y to z. To me that is an unsolvable equation.

I send the package an irritated look. Its non-communicating being is getting on my nerves. In layman’s terms: I am struck by a problem of faith. I doubt whether the package exists at all. Because how can something exist which does not have any relation to anything else? Can something exist by virtue of itself? No, if it had not been for me, this package would have found itself in an existential vacuum. If I had not been sitting here in my seat and related to the package, made it temporarily mine so to speak, the package would mean nothing. And upon that thought I remember that I am not God, and that what I engage in is linguistic ludicrousness. Adam did not create the world when he named everything. If it were not for all the things God wanted him to name, Adam could just as well take a nap.

In an attempt to distract myself, I take a sip of Fanta Orange. Everytime I drink Fanta Orange, I think that it does not taste like orange. It tastes like a little overripe clementine. But the bubbles in this soda are quite pleasant. And while sitting there thinking a little more about Fanta Orange, I see the blue road sign welcomming me to Høydalsmo. I push the stop button. In a compact mirror I check that I do not have anything in my teeth, and I fetch a mint from my purse to freshen up my breath. Fanta Orange has not managed to quench the excitement I have felt throughout this journey. It has not succeeded in extinguishing the traces of the entire emotional registry I have gone through in these four hours that have passed since I sat down in my bus seat and now will exit in Høydalsmo. Tor Anders is waiting for me, and I have to say something. All these hours, he has to understand that I have not been completely indifferent to the trust I have been shown. That I have taken this mission very seriously. But that I have risked something too. All the thoughts I have had along the way flood into my mouth, they wriggle to get out. But I know that I will probably have to be brief, despite all the things I would have wanted to say to Tor Anders.

I climb down the steps from the bus, a pickup comes driving up to me, the driver and I get eye contact right away. I smile and hold up the package demonstrably. Yes, it is me. I have it, I signal to Tor Anders. He does not get out of the car, he just pulls down the window. I get nervous. He says hello and grabs the package. I refuse let go of it.
-I don’t know the man who gave me this package. I don’t know the content of this package, and I don’t know you. Anything could have happened!
He smiles this charming smile. It is a fact: Tor Anders is a handsome guy.
-I was just told that some girl was coming to deliver a package…. Thank you!
I have to let go. Does he not know what is inside the package either?
-Oh…
-Bye.
And then he drives off, before I get the chance to say something more. Before I get the chance to suggest that we open the package together so that he can attach his four keys to his beautiful key ring, and open the door to the farm and have lamb stew with me. He just drives off, and all this could just as well not have happened.

Det jeg altså hadde trodd skulle bli en lang og begivenhetsløs busstur viser seg til min fryd å være et meningsfylt oppdrag. Et umiddelbart behov melder seg for å dele denne uventede utviklingen med noen. Jeg legger pakkedialogen med den fremmede mannen ut i statusfeltet mitt på Facebook. «TA PAKKEN, TA PAKKEN!» er det noen som foreslår. Og jeg skal innrømme at det var det første jeg tenkte på. Ikke at jeg vil ta pakken selv, men at jeg kunne ha tatt pakken. At det var da litt av en tillitserklæring fra en vilt fremmed. Kan hende er det intet av verdi i den. Kan hende inneholder pakken bare gummistrikker eller i høyden en kabel til et eller annet elektrisk. Pakken veier nesten ingenting. Men uansett hva den måtte inneholde, har noen tatt seg bryderiet med å gå til bussterminalen med denne pakken, noen står og venter på den i Høydalsmo, og jeg er ansvarliggjort. Det i seg selv er alvorlig. Om det så er luft jeg transporterer, er det maktpåliggende for meg å få denne luften til Høydalsmo.

Noen på Facebook lurer på om jeg kanskje har gjort meg til smugler nå. At jeg kan havne i trøbbel fordi jeg var naiv nok til å takke ja til budjobben. Kanskje er det narkotika i pakken. Eller en bombe. Eller en kroppsdel. Det går opp for meg hvor fort gjort det er å havne i trøbbel. Hvor lite som skal til før livet slik du kjenner det er over, du ender i fengsel på grunn av et idiotisk innfall, og i fengselet blir du kanskje rekruttert, som det naive nautet du er, inn i et nettverk av tragiske skjebner du tror du kan redde, men som ender med å suge den skikkelige sjelen din ut av deg. Jeg lukter på pakken, forsøker å sanse den så godt jeg kan. Den lukter bare papp. Men for en potensielt katastrofal ting å gjøre! Bare gå med på dette! Hva vet jeg egentlig om mennesket som ga meg oppdraget? Null og niks! Han så riktignok ut som om han kunne ha jobbet på kontoret til faren min. Han kunne vært ingeniør i vann- og avløpssektoren. Det samme kunne jeg forresten sagt om de to irene jeg traff i Dublin. De var så godslige og farslige. Så ble visst en av dem litt løsmunnet om et eller annet som jeg trodde var en spøk, så horibelt var det han sa, og så ble det visst nødvendig for den andre å vise meg mordvåpenet sitt, en stålpenn han hadde på innerlommen, og som ifølge eieren «goes straight through your skull». Tre glass whiskey kom og gikk før den noe mer årvåkne kompisen min hvisket meg i øret at vi måtte gå, jeg lot jo selveste IRA spandere drinker på meg.

Så sannheten er at jeg ikke vet det skapte grann om mannen som ba meg frakte pakken til Høydalsmo. Men jeg tror jeg vet noe om Høydalsmo, dette stedet som i all hovedsak består av en busslomme. Ikke i mine villeste fantasier kan jeg forestille meg at Høydalsmo skulle være et terrormål. Muligheten for at pakken som står der på bussetet ved siden av meg skal inneholde sprengstoff virker like fremmed som at noen skulle ønske å bombe Finnmarksvidda. Riktignok kan et kriminelt nettverk i hovedstaden ha noe uoppgjort med denne Tor Anders, uansett hvor avvæpnende den tjukke dialekten hans antakelig er, men å sende en bombe med ei jente på Haukeliekspressen? Jeg liker å tro at kriminelle ikke tenker i de baner. Jeg liker å tro at kriminelle sender en skrabbete Volvo innover i Telemark om det var noe de skulle ha sagt eller gjort.

Om pakken inneholder narkotika, er oddsene for at jeg blir knepet minimale. Det ville være et knuslete narkobeslag en mistenksom politipatrulje eventuelt skulle stå og vente på, pakkens størrelse og vekt tatt i betraktning. Det finnes ingen kontrollposter underveis, Tor Anders venter sikkert ivrig på pakken, og har intet motiv for å gjøre meg noe vondt. Tvert i mot kan det hende Tor Anders er en kjekk, trivelig kar som ikke interesserer seg for narkotika i det hele tatt. Aldersmessig er han perfekt, og jeg vet allerede at det grove telemarksmålet hans vil gjøre meg mo i knærne. For en fantastisk historie jeg kunne fortelle barna våre. Jeg inn på Haukeliekspressen med en pakke jeg ikke vet det minste om, han der i busslommen, hendene våre som berører hverandre idet jeg gir ham pakken. Det helt naturlige i at jeg sier navnet mitt når han bekrefter at han er Tor Anders.
-Du kan tro jeg har lurt på hva det er i den pakken. Det kunne jo være hva som helst!
-Hvis du vil, kan vi godt åpne den sammen, foreslår Tor Anders.
Og det er ingenting i hele verden jeg heller vil, vi åpner den, og det viser seg å være en nøkkelring. En vakkert gravert nøkkelring. «Til Tor Anders. Fra Far» står det på den.
-Jeg har arvet fars gård. Den ligger oppi lia her. Nydelig utsikt, og omgitt av en stillhet så karakteristisk at den nærmest blir en egen lyd. Det virker sikkert helt tullete, men jeg har gledet meg til dette.
Han fisker fire løse nøkler opp av lommen sin og hekter dem på den spesielle nøkkelringen.
-Jeg så liksom for meg en liten seremoni idet jeg setter nøkkelen i døra. Men det blir bare meg. Far er nettopp flyttet på heimen. Du vil ikke bli med da? En gryte med fårikål står og godgjør seg på komfyren også.
Det finnes ikke nei i min munn. På samme måte som det ikke fantes nei i min munn da den fremmede mannen som antakelig jobber i vann- og avløpssektoren rakte meg pakken og ba meg frakte den til Høydalsmo. Noen slo an en streng på skjebnens harpe, og tonen som fulgte vil synge for resten av mitt liv.

Det er fortsatt en viss mulighet for at pakken inneholder kroppsdeler. Jeg grøsser ved tanken, løfter pakken opp og rister litt på den. Ikke en lyd. De fingrene eller tærne eller organene som måtte befinne seg inne i pakken er polstret svært godt, hverken lukt eller lyd unnslipper. Er kroppsdelene kanskje en advarsel til Tor Anders? Utpressing? Jeg blir bekymret for hva Tor Anders kan ha viklet seg inn i. Hva nå enn det er han har gjort, kan slike virkemidler neppe stå i forhold til synden han har begått. Det er så mye grusomhet i verden. Menneskets fantasi er grenseløs når det kommer til ondskapsfulle påfunn. Jeg blir litt desillusjonert der jeg sitter, jeg slipper blikket av pakken og sender det ut av bussvinduet i stedet, over alle blånene som ligger lag på lag innover i horisonten. Bussen kjører gjennom Notodden, de høstfargede løvtrærne har satt åssidene rundt innsjøen i brann. Et par svaner med krumme nakker ser ut som overjordiske vesen i all sin ynde, de sorte silhuettene deres skjærer to lange kutt i den speilblanke sjøen. Åsene og himmelen speiler seg i vannet, så skinnende i den klare høstluften, den lave ettermiddagssolen, at det ikke er godt å si hva som er opp og ned på verden. I samme øyeblikk er jeg overbevist om at det ikke finnes kroppsdeler i pakken. Dagen er rett og slett for skjønn, naturen helt uskyldig i sin uvitenhet om all verdens ondskap.

Jeg er klar over at jeg begår en feilslutning. Jeg slutter fra skjønnhet til trygghet. Ingenting legitimerer en slik slutning, annet enn blind tro. En blind tro på at det finnes en iboende godhet i verden, fordi forestillingen om at noe skjønt kan eksistere side om side med noe grotesk simpelthen er umulig for meg. Jeg titter atter igjen ned på pakken. Etiketten den er merket med er skrekkelig anonym. En strekkode og «Til Tor Anders». Denne pakken kommuniserer absolutt ingenting. Det er umulig å si hva som finnes på innsiden av de brune pappveggene. Jeg har ingen opplysninger om avsender heller, så feil som jeg kan ta av folk. Om mottaker vet jeg at han er en kar i 35-40-årsalderen og heter Tor Anders. Men selv ikke denne informasjonen er særlig retningsgivende. Tor Anders er et vanlig navn, så vanlig at jeg antakelig har glemt det på søndag, og til tross for at han angivelig skal være et sted mellom 35 og 40 år, kan han være både betydelig yngre og betydelig eldre også. Det er i denne alderen man for alvor må begynne å sette sin lit til gener, og bare håpe på at årene farer godt med en. Med andre ord; Tor Anders kan være hvem som helst. Skulle jeg dermed lage en ligning av oppdraget mitt, ville ligningen se omtrent slik ut: x sender y til z. For meg er det en uløselig ligning.

Jeg glor olmt på pakken. Dens ikke-kommuniserende vesen begynner virkelig å plage meg. For å si det som det er: jeg blir rammet av et trosproblem. Jeg tviler i det hele tatt på om pakken faktisk eksisterer. For hvordan kan noe eksistere som ikke har noen som helst relasjon til noe annet? Kan noe være noe helt og holdent i kraft av seg selv? Nei, hadde det ikke vært for meg, ville denne pakken ha befunnet seg i et eksistensielt vakuum. Hadde ikke jeg sittet her på setet mitt og forholdt meg aktivt til pakken, så å si gjort den til midlertidig min, kunne det være det samme med pakken. I det øyeblikk jeg tenker denne tanken, husker jeg at jeg ikke er Gud, og at jeg bedriver språklig sprøyt. Adam skapte ikke verden da han navnga alt. Adam kunne bare ha gått og lagt seg om ikke det hadde vært for alt det Gud hadde gitt ham i oppdrag å navngi.

I et forsøk på å avlede meg selv tar jeg en slurk Fanta Orange. Hver gang jeg drikker Fanta Orange, tenker jeg at den ikke smaker som appelsin. Den smaker som litt overmoden klementin. Men boblene er ganske behagelige i denne brusen. Og der jeg sitter og tenker litt mer på Fanta Orange, får jeg øye på det blå skiltet som ønsker meg velkommen til Høydalsmo. Jeg trykker på stoppknappen. I et lommespeil sjekker jeg at jeg ikke har noe mellom tennene, og jeg fisker opp en pastilleske fra vesken for å friske opp pusten. Fanta Orange har ikke klart å kvele spenningen jeg har følt hele bussturen. Den har ikke maktet å utslette sporene etter hele det emosjonelle registeret jeg har gått igjennom på de fire timene det har tatt fra jeg satte meg i setet til jeg nå skal stige av i Høydalsmo. Tor Anders venter på meg, og jeg er nødt til å si noe. Alle disse timene, han må forstå at jeg ikke har vært totalt likegyldig til tilliten jeg er blitt vist. At jeg har tatt oppdraget svært alvorlig. Men at jeg også risikerte noe. Alle tankene jeg har gjort meg underveis flommer inn i munnen min, de blir sprelske ord som vil ut. Men jeg vet jeg antakelig blir nødt til å fatte meg i korthet, selv om det er så mye jeg ville ha sagt Tor Anders.

Jeg går ned trinnene fra bussen, en pickup kommer kjørende fram til meg, sjåføren og jeg får øyekontakt straks. Jeg smiler og holder demonstrativt opp pakken. Det er meg, ja. Jeg har den, signaliserer jeg til Tor Anders. Han kommer ikke ut av bilen, han bare sveiver ned vinduet. Jeg blir nervøs. Han hilser og griper tak i pakken. Jeg slipper den ikke.
-Jeg kjenner ikke mannen som ga meg denne pakken. Jeg kjenner ikke innholdet av pakken, og jeg kjenner ikke deg. Hva som helst kunne ha skjedd!
Han smiler et sjarmerende smil. Det er en kjennsgjerning: Tor Anders er en kjekk kar.
-Jeg fikk bare beskjed om at det kom ei jente med pakke til meg…. Tusen takk!
Jeg blir nødt til å slippe taket. Vet han ikke hva som er i pakken, han heller?
-Å ja…
-Hadet.
Og så kjører han sin vei før jeg rekker å si noe mer. Før jeg rekker å foreslå at vi skal åpne pakken sammen så han kan feste de fire nøklene til den vakre nøkkelringen sin, og låse opp døra til gården og spise fårikål med meg. Han barer kjører av sted, og alt dette kunne like gjerne ikke ha skjedd.

Seven, they say, in a lifetime. Seven shakes of the heart. Seven flips of the stomach. Seven spins of the head. Seven times of being scared. Seven times of feeling young… I thought I had used mine up. And here I am. Shaking, flipping, spinning, scared. And feeling young.

I should have walked these streets days ago, I think to myself, passing the church and entering a network of narrow pathways. Stairs up and down, lizzards rattling in the few dry leaves fallen from an ivy roof, shabby shrines with plastic flowers and dirty light bulbs. In a particularly sunny street I find an old barber shop. The barber himself has spotted me already. Like a genie in a bottle he is right there in my way, speaking to me in German.
-Hello! Where are you from?
-Norway.
-Norway? Lovely! What are you doing here?
-I’m on vacation.
My German is pretty rusty, but I find the few nouns and verbs necessary to make myself understood.
-Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee?
Before I know it the old barber has shuffled me inside the barber shop and is pouring espresso into a tiny cup.
-My wife made this. She’s upstairs.
He points toward the ceiling, the barber shop is part of their house. Such a small world here, the supermarket just around the corner. I’m charmed by his hospitality, and since I don’t have any particular plans for the day – other than waiting – I accept his friendly invitation and sit down in one of the old barber’s chairs for a chat.
-So where did you learn to speak German?
-In the navy! he exclaims proudly. – I was in the Italian navy, of course, but I met many Germans on our adventures! I worked on a boat like this!
He fetches a calendar hanging on the wall. It has posters with modern military ships.
-Of course the boats didn’t look like that back then. You see, this was fourty years ago, when I was still a young man…
I sip my espresso, which is heavily sugared. The barber shop is quiet, no customers, no phone calls. As if the old barber reads my mind, he says:
-I have a group of customers who just called and said they would be thirty minutes late, so I have time… Norway is a beautiful country. Midnight sun!
-Yes, that’s right… But there’s no midnight sun in Oslo, where I live.
-No? You live in Oslo? What do you do for a living?
-I work in publishing. I’m a literary agent.
-Good! My daughter… I have a daughter who’s… older than you. She’s a doctor. She lives in Rome…
A sudden sadness in his eyes. I wonder if my own father is just as sad because I left my childhood city.
-You wish she lived here.
-Yes. But she has her family there. Too far to commute… She comes to visit us some weekends, though. Sometimes she stays from Thursday to Sunday…
Silence. Then:
-But Norway is a beautiful country! Send me a postcard!
-I guess I could…
The next second he’s on his feet, walks over to a cupboard, where he picks up a card.
-My name is Giorgio. You have my address there. Send me a postcard from Norway! You can write in Norwegian, English, German! It doesn’t matter which language you use.
-Sure. I could do that. I’ll try to scribble something in German…
I put his card in my wallet. A sleepy fly is crashing against the glass door, the buzz a chainsaw in this quiet. The five empty, worn-down barber’s chairs look small and sad. Grooming products lined up against the mirror are grey with dust. I’m shaking again, a restlessness urges me on.
-I guess I better be going now.
-No, don’t go…
-Yes, I have to.
-But you’ll come back, right?
I feel my own resistance as a piercing reflex. I guess I’m not grand enough to sacrifice more time on this old stranger. But he disregards the obvious answer on my face.
-When are you leaving?
-Uhmmm…. On Monday.
-Monday? That’s… that’s four days! …Four days! Are you saying you have no time at all to come back for a coffee?
I lie. I tell the old man a lie.
-My friends and I have plans… Listen, I have to go now.
-No, don’t go!
The insisting tone of voice confuses me. What is it with this man?
-Yes, I have to. I need to go to the supermarket.
-It’s closed down.
-No, it’s not!
-Yes, it is! I should know, my brother used to run it.
I don’t know what to say. Gone is his friendly hospitality.
-You will come back, he says, slowly advancing towards me.
-I…
-You have such beautiful blue eyes…
He takes my face between his hands. I freeze in panic when his grip tightens. He kisses me. A wild look on his face as he kisses me passionately on my mouth. Not once, but twice.

His hands drop. I leave the old barber without saying a word. One thought in my head: the supermarket. But he was right. It’s closed. I feel sick to my stomach. And yet I can’t shake the bad conscience as I pull out a wet towel from my purse and wipe my face.

-Den har stått her i minst to år. Jeg har ventet på den rette anledningen til å åpne den. Det er en flaske Cristal. Har du hørt om Cristal-champagne?
Vi tar på oss scooter-hjelmene, og han rekker meg en bøtte med isbiter. To nydelige glass er pakket forsiktig inn i håndklær i sekken min. Jeg har hørt om Cristal. Aldri smakt den, men hørt om den – ja. Jeg smiler. Han er så god. Jeg er så heldig. Jeg vet ikke hvordan jeg skal få sagt skikkelig takk.

Takk. Der er det igjen. Jeg har sagt «takk» mye i det siste. Jeg sa takk da han delte flasken med 1999 Cristal med meg på balkongen min. Jeg sa takk til barndomsvenninnen min Marthe, som var her på Amalfikysten i seks dager sammen med meg, og som gjorde så godt hun kunne for å muntre meg opp. Jeg sa takk da jeg passerte den nydelige katedralen i Ravello her om dagen, og hørte den umiskjennelige Bach strømme ut av de høye, gotiske vinduene. Jeg var på vei til et annet sted, men snudde, gikk inn i kirken, dekket skuldrene mine med et sjal og tente et lys for morfar.

Morfar døde i forrige uke. Jeg var her i Italia, jeg ville aldri ha rukket hjem, og mamma og pappa insisterte på at jeg skulle bli her og kose meg i ferien fram til begravelsen. Morfar ville ikke ha godtatt noe annet. Han fornyet sertifikatet sitt på mandag. På tirsdag fikk han et kraftig hjerteinfarkt. Onsdag natt døde han uten smerter. To dager senere ville han ha fylt 94 år. Den siste gangen jeg så ham var ti dager før han døde, i min brors bryllup. Det var en nydelig, liten begivenhet. Mormor og morfar var så glade for at de fikk det med seg.

Organisten løfter Bach til livsbejaende høyder. Jeg tenker på hvor nådeløst livet er, som ikke lar noen komme levende fra det. Og jeg tenker på hvor mirakuløst det er, hvor mye skjønnhet det viser oss, og hvor verdig slutten kan være. En gammel mann som vinker farvel fra sykesengen sin til hver og en av familiemedlemmene i rommet, fordi sykdommen har tatt fra ham talen. Og evnen til å skrive en siste hilsen. Men morfar var jo heller en mann som lyttet. Pennen hans var den merkelige, flate snekkerblyanten, og historiene hans er skåret inn i de vakre møblene han laget.

Morfar trodde på Gud, og nå er han i Himmelen. Jeg klarer ikke tro på Gud. Likevel opplever jeg Himmelen fra tid til annen. Jeg går gjennom hagen til Cimbrone-villaen, ytterst på klippen Ravello hviler på. I denne hagen, anlagt av Ernest William Beckett, en mann som var knust av konens dødsfall, kommer Himmelen nærmere. Beckett ville muntre seg selv opp ved å gjøre Cimbrone til «det fineste stedet i verden», en Himmel på jord. Og virkelig, Cimbrones utsikt over Middelhavet tar pusten fra meg. Den friske luften er parfymert av de utallige blomstene. Imponerende kunstverk står spredt blant romantiske stier og svalende grøntområder. Selv i den verste turistsesongen er det fredelig i denne hagen.

Entrance to the Cimbrone garden.

Peace

Air

Det sies at Helvete er gjentagelse. En god venn av meg spurte meg en gang hva slags matrett jeg ville valgt om jeg måtte spise det samme måltidet for all evighet. Svaret var enkelt: Pasta Pomodori. Det ligger et spektakulært hotell i Ravello, på motsatt side av Cimbrone, som heter Palazzo Sasso. Der, på balkongen deres, spiser jeg Pasta Pomodori og drikker et glass lokal hvitvin. Og Helvete kunne ikke vært lenger unna.

Pasta Pomodori at Palazzo Sasso.

Tilbake i Praiano, den lille fiskerlandsbyen jeg bor i, hører jeg klokkene i San Lucca-kirken. Siden det er søndag, er gaten under balkongen min full av kirkegjengere. Jeg skulle ønske jeg var en av dem. Og jeg skulle ønske jeg hørte hjemme i Praiano, byen med så mange omtenksomme mennesker. Luigi som ringer kelneren i restauranten hvor jeg sitter og gråter over middagen min, og bestiller en Limoncello-likør til meg. Ivan, som ankommer leiligheten min tre minutter etter min noe hysteriske telefon til ham om en maurinvasjon, han synes det er leit at jeg må dra hjem en uke før tiden. Piccoletto, som reserverer en solseng til meg hver dag, på første rekke ved sjøen, og som klyper meg i kinnene, stirrer meg inn i øynene og sier: «Nå må du ikke gråte mer!»

Jeg er både lei meg og redd disse dagene. Lei meg for at jeg aldri vil se morfar igjen, og for at jeg ikke fikk sagt hadet til ham. Og redd for at mannen på balkongen min og jeg er som boblene i champagnen vi delte; sårbare – og ikke som gullet jeg hadde i tankene da jeg stirret ned i det glitrende glasset; et edelmetall som motsetter seg all ytre påkjenning.

Likevel finner jeg mer trøst enn grunn til sorg.

-I’ve kept it for at least two years, waiting for the right occasion to open it. It’s a bottle of Cristal. Have you heard about Cristal Champagne?
We put on the scooter helmets and he hands over a bucket of ice. Two beautiful glasses are carefully wrapped in towles in my backpack. I have heard about Cristal. Never tasted it, but heard of it – yes.
I smile. He is so good. I am so lucky. I do not know how to express a sufficient thank you.

Thank you. There it is again. I have been saying «Thank you» a lot these days. I said thank you when he shared that bottle of 1999 Cristal on my balcony with me. I said thank you to my childhood friend Marthe for spending six splendid days with me down here on the Amalfi Coast, and for her attempts at cheering me up. I said thank you as I walked past the magnificent cathedral of Ravello the other day, and heard the unmistakable Bach flowing out of the tall, gothic windows. I was on my way to somewhere else, but turned, entered the church, covered my shoulders with a shawl and lit a candle for my grandfather.

My grandfather passed away last week. I was here in Italy, I would never have made it home in time, and mom and dad insisted that I should stay here and enjoy my vacation until the funeral. Grandfather would not have accepted anything else. He got his driver’s licence renewed on Monday. On Tuesday he suffered an acute heart attack. On Wednesday he died without feeling any pain. Two days later he would have turned 94 years old. The last time I saw him was ten days prior to his passing, in my brother’s wedding. It was a small, personal event. My grandparents were so happy to have been there.

The organist is lifting Bach’s work to rejoicing heights. I think of how merciless life is, never letting anyone escape alive. And I think of how miraculous it is, how much beauty it shows us, and how worthy its ending can be. An old man waving goodbye from his hospital bed to each and every family member present in the room, because illness has stolen his ability to speak. His ability to write a last note. Then again, my grandfather was first and foremost a listener. His pen was the strangely flat carpenter pencil, and his stories are carved into the beautiful furniture he made.

Grandfather believed in God, and is in Heaven now. I fail to believe in God. Still, I experience Heaven from time to time. I walk through the garden of the Cimbrone Villa, at the tip of the cliff on which Ravello rests. In this garden, created by Ernest William Beckett, a man devastated by the loss of his wife, Heaven comes closer. Beckett wanted to cheer himself up, to make Cimbrone «the finest place in the world». A Heaven on Earth. Indeed, Cimbrone has a breath-taking view over the Mediterranean Sea, fresh air scented by the numerous flowers, impressive works of art spread out in between romantic pathways and soothing greenery. Even during the most touristy season the garden is peaceful.

Entrance to the Cimbrone garden.

Peace

Air

They say that Hell is repetition. A good friend of mine asked me what kind of food I would pick if I had to eat the same dish for all eternity. My answer was simple: Pasta Pomodori. There is a spectacular hotel in Ravello, on the opposite side of Cimbrone, called Palazzo Sasso. There, at their balcony, I enjoy Pasta Pomodori and a glass of local wine. And Hell cannot be farther away.

Pasta Pomodori at Palazzo Sasso.

Back in Praiano, the small fisher village I live in, I hear the bells of the San Lucca church. Since it is Sunday, the street beneath my balcony is filled with church-goers. I wish I was one of them. And I wish I belonged in Praiano, this community of good people. Luigi who calls the waiter in the restaurant where I sit and cry over dinner, to order a Limoncello for me. Ivan, who arrives at the door three minutes after I give him a frantic call about an ant invasion in my apartment, and who is sad about me having to leave a week too early. Piccoletto, who reserves a sun bed for me every day in the front row of the beach, who pinches my cheeks gently, looks into my eyes and says: «No more tears!»

I am both sad and scared these days. Sad because I will never see Grandfather again, and I did not get the chance to say goodbye to him. And I am scared that the man on my balcony and I are like the bubbles in the champagne we shared; fragile – and not like the gold I thought of when looking into my sparkling drink; a precious metal resisting all external influence.

And yet I find more comfort than reason for sorrow.

]]> http://kristinweholt.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/the-amalfi-coast-a-comfort/feed/ 0 Kristin IMG_3089 IMG_3093 IMG_3094_2 IMG_3113 http://kristinweholt.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/my-written-life/ http://kristinweholt.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/my-written-life/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:50:49 +0000 Kristin http://kristinweholt.wordpress.com/?p=624 ]]> Every day I write. Yesterday was a Friday. Then I wrote 26 emails, which is less than average, because I was just at work for five hours. I wrote seven text messages on my iPhone and five Facebook comments, including one status update. Some days I write down stuff in meetings. I sometimes blog. I may write down random scentences in a notebook. And although I enjoy writing and go through periods where I write more than others, I do not consider my daily life more written than the average person. I think the average person writes a lot, and more now than ever before. Here are some observations:

• More and more of my life is channelled into my iPhone, and yet I actually talk to people on the phone less and less.
• When the use of a phone was so expensive and rare I had to ask for permission, I knew the numbers of my family, my friends – even my foes! – by heart. Now my phone is one of my vital organs, and yet I do not even remember my mother’s cell phone number.
• I interact with a surprisingly large number of people every week, and yet a week may have gone by without me uttering a single word, let alone leaving the house.
• Although more and more of my life is happening in writing and thus reading – two quiet activities – my life feels exceedingly noisy and I have developed an allergy against radio, tv, and sometimes people.
• I have always felt the need to write, and kept a diary from I was twelve till I was 22. Then I got a proper cell phone, emails became part of my daily life, and I have not written a single diary entry since.
• More and more of my life happens online for a gruelling amount of people to read. I feel like I am able to keep more friends now than ever, and yet that gruelling amount of people makes sure that what I leave of my life out there for them to read is so general, my written life could have been lived by anyone.

Granted, my interest in the written word is not just average, and due to my reclusive-social nature, I may splurge in these so-called social, written environments more than others. I am also single, most of my friends are settled and busy with kids, and I live alone. And yet I cannot free myself from the thought that my experience of having more and more of my life written down instead of told – God forbid, lived! – is far from unique. A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that oral traditions are lost in modern society. These oral traditions usually referring to the publicly organized storytelling of historical facts and myths which took place prior to the written word and literacy, and on which a sense of collective memory and identity depended. But what about the very necessary storytelling of an ordinary life? The small exchanges which do not qualify for the grand epics of a culture? What happens to our memories – and our ability to remember – when our individual lives are written down instead of told? What does this mean on an individual level?

I know, to a certain extent, what it means to me. I am a person with literary ambitions. I want to write, and so I have a vast amount of material to pick from – at least if I want to write non-fiction. But will it make for good literature? All these out of context messages, often limited by a fixed number of characters? When you never make an effort to remember experiences because you write them down, will you, when you trace back this writing (if possible!), remember what the experience actually felt like, presupposing you did not make a diary entry out of it? Will all my experiences be like those phone numbers I once remembered, but which I now never remember because my iPhone contact list renders it unnecessary? Unfair comparison, would you say? What’s a phone number compared to an experience?

A phone number is a simple code we need in order to access a fairly complex technological process. We never actually have to deal with this complex technological process because the phone number deals with it for us. Being a living human can be looked at as that complex process. Let’s call that process identity. Memory is the code we need in order to access our identity. If modern society with its written word means the end of oral tradition, and thus the end of collective memory and identity, the survival of our individual identity depends on our individual ability to remember. But our written lives are not remembered. History has taught us that writing down means forgetting. Our identities then depend on our personal writing. Will I have to read up on myself to know myself? What kind of reading experience will it be? Not good literature, I can assure you that. Stories so public and general, anyone could have lived that life. What difference is there between a phone number and a Facebook update: «Kristin is at work.»

Our memory’s place in the human experience and what makes us remember is to a large extent still in the dark. In my university studies, I have focused on these themes. Then I also concerned myself with the body and its ability to remember. The body, our beautiful source of true wisdom, has not been part of my thoughts above, and I know it should have been. I could have written something on the slow activitity and the lost craft which is the penmanship. I could have written something about living life instead of describing it. All this is beyond the scope and format of this blog post, not to mention beyond my competence. But I do consider myself a competent user of the written word; in emails, in text messages, and in social media. Who does that make me?

The backside of a beautiful, old typewriter I photographed through an antique shop window.