Archives
2018 has been a year of preparation—for 2019 when I join the ranks of the old-old (although that doesn’t officially happen until I cannot make it up Black Mountain). However it is year’s end and here I am—still unprepared. I’ve tried. I have really tried. Climbing up and down the side of that schooner in heavy gear and walking the 10K in the Duke City Marathon. Allotting the reading of history as… Read More
It has been nearly a month since I left Norway. It’s been a difficult adjustment in some ways. Not because I’m on death’s door like returning from India but because I do love Norway and there won’t be so very many more visits to what feels like my ‘homeland.’ And returning to US politics is like falling falling falling into an honest-to-god cesspool. There’s no sign of the swamp Sleazy T. wanted… Read More
Of course Oslo, the capital of Norway and its largest city, is not perfect. No place of human habitation could be—humans being the most imperfect of all things alive. Oslo may be as close to perfect, in terms of livability, as an urban conglomerate can come however. I’ve spent a few days here and there around the city over the years and I choose to declare it perfect…with a few exceptions. Oslo… Read More
I’ve been back in Albuquerque three weeks. I didn’t sleep enough last night so, before coming to theater-sit this afternoon, a nap seemed in order. As I dozed, trying to sleep, my king-size, ever-so comfortable bed in New Mexico wanted to morph into beds at Neset, on board the Linden and the Finnmarken, in Trondheim, in Stavanger and all those other Norwegian beds—wide and narrow, hard and soft, rolling and still. Sleep… Read More
You are not in Norway anymore, Marjorie. You are home…home where Republicans roam with their guns and their gods at play. But this fall is heard an encouraging word…and the skies are not cloudy all day…. And where tomorrow evening I will be back home on the range…because Albuquerque is out west and on the range and I love that about it. Okay enough with the bad cliches and parodies. Right this… Read More
A maritime expression having to do with discarded or useless things. Seemed appropriate for a grouping of photos that don’t really fit anywhere but I can’t quite ignore because I … love them. I guess they’re just about being in Norway at a beautiful campsite that is very dear to me. You’ll like them if you’re an aficionado of rabbits and not too tired of scenic lake shots. The Rabbit Series. The… Read More
One or two or three or four ‘letters’ from Norway to go. Let’s see, there’s this one about Lyme disease and walking in the rain. Then one about butter accompanied by animal pictures (and no, the animals in question are not being braised, sautéed or fried in that deliciously golden salty Setesdal Valley butter). And then there’s saying goodbye to Neset, and Olav and Solveig, and a quick look from the window… Read More
Saturday was crisp and sunny, the perfect day for a stroll along the periphery of Neset Camping, taking in the everyday landscape of the little boy Svein who would grow up to be my dad. Neset means small peninsula or outcropping in Norwegian and that describes this scenic spot of land sticking out into Byglandsfjord. Olav Neset and his ancestors have owned this land for a long time, building it into one… Read More
Sunday, September 16, 2018. Just as I prefer my Sundays to be…it’s a grey rainy day and I have too little to do. I should explain. I have been working somewhat diligently on book organizing ever since arriving at Neset Camping on Tuesday. The book that has emerged in bits and pieces over the last years. The book that has potential, people say. That book, which if I do not write… Read More
Tuesday Evening. Neset Camping. Have I said ‘…perfect day’ too often? At this moment I’m in a lovely cabin which is pleasantly familiar because I’ve stayed in it before (miss you, Lace) and it’s cold and windy outside on my private bit of lakeshore and warm and cozily-lit inside (as all the world should be…). Branches of the big fir tree out front are waving vigorously about and the moss-splotched boulder (where… Read More