A Roll in the Universe

I think I’ve mentioned Daily Om before, a website that offers life affirming essays and online courses. I’m currently taking a course on clearing. On any other website, it would be called decluttering, but it’s not just getting rid of stuff. It’s the why we hang on to things and how it feels to have them or let go of them. Not quite Marie Kondo, either, this. But rather a supplement to firm tossing and saying thank you to stuff. The course starts with exploring one’s attitude to things and to clearing them. It’s slow going, which I like. I really do not understand “housework”. I’m not good with routines. I’ve followed other flaky people and their systems and have learned something from each of them. Still, I hunt for The One Method that will get me decluttering and cleaning and all that. So why is this different? Maybe because it starts from the inside and you make the outside happen according to that. For example, one lesson was about movement. About how we get stuck in an attitude...

This year I seem to be more aware of budding trees. At this point in the season, where nights are still cold, although days are warmer, growth is slow, careful. I woke up to frost this morning, but now, as we approach sunset, my balcony is baking at a whole 26C/78F in the sun! Won’t be long until leaves are bigger, blooms show better, branches are less naked. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the magic of the slow awakening. Beech The beech tree is next to my balcony. This is the first year I’ve noticed flowers on it. It was planted about 25 years ago and barely reached up to my balcony then. Now it’s reached up to my upstairs neighbor’s balcony. One of things that happens when I blog, is that I end up doing a little research on behalf of my reader(s). The pink flowers mean that this is a copper or purple beech, a native of Europe. I did not know I had a purple beech! Rosehip The rosehip bush is right below my living room window. I’ve watched its progress through the ...

The charm of Bergen is its old streets and equally old houses. The classic tourist photos look something like this: An old residential street So I thought I'd show you the less charming, more modern side. The side of the city I usually see. Honestly, I like this part, too. It's just not the most photographed. Bergen is a constantly growing city. The population has doubled to 250 000 in the last 40 years. As for most cities, at some point you can't expand out; you have to start expanding up. So we've been seeing more and more taller buildings, although not in the city center itself (regulation rules and stuff). I live in one of the suburbs, Fyllingsdalen, a mere 10-20 minute bus ride into town, depending on time and route. It's a trip I take a lot because I love going to "the city". Mt Løvstakken, watching over Fyllingsdalen, one morning. In front, the local mall on the left and an apartment building on the right. This is what I see ...

If you follow me on Instagram, you will recognize some of these photos. Leaving the good stuff only to IG isn't fair to my blog only readers, so here you go! First up is from earlier this fall, in the neighborhood of our university, at Øysteins gate. I think Øystein was a king. We have a bunch of king names in this neighborhood, like Sigurd and Sverre and Magnus Barfot (Magnus Barefoot; apparently, he wore shorts).   Next is from two months later, i.e. last night. Another street named for a king: Olav Kyrre, who was the founder of Bergen, Norway, in 1070. The street now is a main transit hub in town. (Weirdly, our bus station isn't.) I was waiting for my bus after my annual lutefisk dinner. (It was delicious.) I need to go back because the Christmas lights in the city park (Byparken) are new this year.   And finally, one of those rare moments when everything just comes together. Right place, right time kind of thing. Last week, we were covered i...

The spring of 1969, I traveled across country with my grandma and grandpa. Just before leaving California, I had heard The Beatles song "Help!". The movie had been showing on TV one evening at my mother's. I liked the song and I remember singing it in Maine, where we'd stopped off at Grandma's son's place and I got to meet my cousins. Only days after that visit, we were on our way to Norway. In trying to understand where my anxiety comes from, I've tried a number of different meditations (I've shopped here a lot lately). In the latest one that I tried, I was to name my anxieties. I had only one: Helplessness. Moments from my childhood made me feel helpless. I fended for myself on Saturday mornings when my parents slept in. I didn't actually like that. (To this day, waking up to the sounds of voices or activity in the kitchen is hugely pleasing to me.) I would rather a grown-up helped me because I was a clumsy child. Moments from an imagined old ...

I have seen the plans for the light rail station coming to my bit of the 'burbs. I know that the footbridge I have crossed to and from work since 1986 will become history and I'll get a new bridge about 50 meters to the west. "My" footbridge as seen on the way home It may happen sooner rather than later. At some point, the slope this bridge connects me to, where the trees are, is going to be dug into and reshaped. A new path to a new bridge will appear, forever changing my walk to work. It may happen sooner than I realize. Barely two weeks ago, I noticed neon streaks on the pavement. I'd seen them before and knew the construction crew had left them. Today I saw why: Aha! A hole! They're still moving pipes and stuff around underground. But I see more paint streaks. I wonder how much longer I'll get to enjoy the sight of this tree: More digging to come!

I am in love with the city light rail in Bergen, Norway, called "bybanen" (BEE-bah-nen). It took five years after it was built for me to actually ride the darned thing, but after that, it has become my most popular modern addition to this old medieval town. And now they're building a line to my neck of the woods! I am excited about getting the light rail in 2022! Yeah, that is a long way off. They started digging in February of this year. I walk past the construction site for the station in Fyllingsdalen (the suburb where I live and work) nearly daily. I've been trying to document (sort of) the changes construction is creating in my neighborhood. The start of construction of "bybanen" in Fyllingsdalen, March 2018 5 months later and all those pipes on first picture are underground Bergen being Bergen, there are strong opinions for and against the light rail. A lot of people think it's a waste of space and money, inferior to better bus route...

When I read that Bergen was getting ready to celebrate 950 years in 2020, I suddenly felt old. I remember when this plaque was new: Stones from all the counties of Norway were used to create this commemorative plaque for Bergen's 900th anniversary in 1970. The caption reads "1070 Bergen City 1970 / Norway's cities lay down these stones". (The number of cities has increased a lot since 1970.)

Living in Norway means living with all kinds of traditions, some ancient, like bonfires on Midsummer's Eve, and some much newer, like Valentine's Day. Here in Bergen, the joke is that if you do something twice, you've created a tradition. Celebrating Halloween is becoming a tradition, one for the 21st century, and has been supplanting Norway's original trick-or-treating done on Christmas Eve. At Christmas, many Norwegians decorate their trees with tiny Norwegian flags. I thought the flag tradition was as old as the flag, but it started right after WWII. After being denied anything that looked like the flag colors of red, white and blue, Norwegians got a little carried away their first Christmas after the liberation. It's a tradition that's dying out, though. I haven't seen the tiny flags on trees in recent years. I think that when we think of traditions, we think of something that has survived the generations and is still appreciated. We don't always re...

Ole Bull, violinist and considered Norway's first "rock star", had quite the flare for the dramatic and the mysterious. This last was why he was drawn to the island of Lysøen, where he built his last home. Portrait of a more mature Ole Bull next to flag gift from USA How famous was Ole Bull in his day? Well, the hotel manager in Bergen would save Bull's bath water, bottle it and sell it to Bull's female fans, and Bull didn't mind, as he absolutely loved any attention. He was constantly touring internationally, and knew how to promote himself before and during shows. He had a bottle of smelling salts, and when women would swoon at his concerts, he'd go to the prettiest ones and revived them, something considered a great honor among the female fans. Ole Bull also composed some amazing music, incorporating Norwegian folk music into his melodies. He started Norway's first Norwegian-language theater in Bergen in 1850, since Norwegian theater was ...

I mentioned a new sign (piece of art, actually) that will greet travelers when they exit our new airport terminal that's opening in August: Art at Bergen Airport I also promised the view from Landås . I deliver thusly: Different angle: Bergen as seen from Landås And a bonus because you're here: A child having fun skipping on stones while Ole Bull seems to be playing for her. Ole Bull statue and fountain. Children like to play around the fountain.

Bergen just broke a weather record from 1952: The number of consecutive days with precipitation in June. In 1952 it was 24. This year it was 26; we had rain every day from June 1 through June 26. I pity those who will go through breaking this year's record because clouds and wet every single day gets really dreary and old. So, the record-breaking weather wrapped up with heavy squalls during the night. I woke up early on the 27th, certain it was morning (as in, time to get up). It wasn't. It was only 4 am. Granted, we have very short nights this time of year, but we hadn't noticed because it was  cloudy  all the time. Clouds are like curtains and when they finally disappeared, the night was suddenly too bright to sleep in. I couldn't go back to sleep and read in bed until it was the "correct" time to get up. Outside my kitchen window was a rare sight: Bright spots of sunlight on the lawn, created by the morning sun reflecting off the uppermost windows of...

I was asked by a foreign-looking gentleman today, who spoke broken Norwegian, if I knew the area. And I do. He wondered if any of the buses at the bus stop we were at went to the bus station. Perhaps oddly, they don't. It used to be that all buses eventually ended up at the bus station, but that hasn't been the case in decades. The priority is for most buses to go through the central downtown area, which the bus station is not a part of, being across the city pond from the main shopping streets. I pointed to what used to be the main road into town, back when farmers would ride a horse and wagon in on a Saturday to sell their weekly produce, and get enticed into spending their money on their way home later in one of the many bars that lined up just past the old city gate. "Go straight down that street, keep going straight, till you see a gray, stone building. That's the train station. The bus station is to the right of that." And off he went. I didn't ...

Corroding metal siding

Youngstorget, Oslo When I first moved to Norway in 1969, politics here were so left-leaning that they were approaching extremism. Yesterday, in local elections, the Norwegian Labor party (Arbeiderpartiet) once again became Norway's most powerful party, and had its biggest win in Bergen since 1967. A fact that makes me happy now, but which was my bane as a child. So what's changed? The anti-US sentiments of the 1960's and early 1970's that permeated a lot of Europe (partly due to the Vietnam war) eased by the 1980's. The anti-American sentiments I heard as a child, were virtually gone when I came back to Norway in 1981. Since then, Arbeiderpartiet's close ties to Norway's largest union, LO, have loosened, making the party more accessible to those who don't like LO. More importantly, I've changed. I'm going against Winston Churchill's advice: “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative...

So I got my own domain something like four years ago, and the stuff I have here is still in limbo. It's like moving house: Taking everything I have in the old home, and trying to make it fit and function in the new one. Some things look fine, some don't fit, some have no purpose in the new place. And some things end up in new configurations that bring new joy and discovery. I'm hoping very much for that last. I have this website/blog*, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now Flickr (because I discovered I'd better have an extra back-up of my photos). In trying to post something everywhere, I'm feeling scattered. I like short tweets. I like instantly posting a photo. But I also like having complete control over my own stuff and waxing on about it, offering far more than 140 characters at a time and why not a handful photos, too? The one thing that bugs me the most is Facebook. It's like a bar that you hate, but all your friends love it so that's where you...