Home*

I'm staring out the window of another plane.  I can't see the landscape through the clouds but I know it's there, passing beneath me.  Or rather, existing beneath me while I pass over it.

I watch the clouds, imagine the land, and wonder where is home?  What is home?

I've never been terribly discriminatory about my use of that word.  'Home.'  I guess because I don't really consider home a place, or maybe that I don't consider it a singular place.  I'm too traveled, too 'miled' for that- far too old for the luxury of staidness.  The plane I'm on at the moment reminds me of this- it's flying me from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to Stavanger, Norway.  For the moment, it's flying me home.

Or is it?

Because home is Charlotte, North Carolina.  Home is Windsor, Vermont.  Home is the driver's side of a Jeep that will soon be sold to the highest bidder.  Yesterday home was an eighth floor apartment in Istanbul with a rooftop terrace and an evil washing machine.

There it is- home isn't a place.  It's a space.  It's a space that you carve out for whatever small or grand period of time for yourself.  Home is the space that you make yours.  If it's only for a day, cool- that bench is homier than any other around, or that bus seat or that plane seat on a long haul trip.  If it's for a week, even better.  Because at that point, at some point, you're walking along the streets of someplace theoretically foreign and you stop when you realize that you've bought coffee from the same hidden, hardworking vendor for the past four mornings in a row.  You're not home- but you have your own 'coffee shop on the corner.' And there it is again- you are home.

If it's even longer, then you're just lucky. New Jersey, North Carolina, Paris, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, China - all of these place have been my home.  And there are so many more.  There will be so many more.

It's not a place. My parents will move to Florida soon. And where they go, where they wind up, will not be the house I grew up in, but it will be home because of them. Vermont and New Hampshire will always be home because of the people I know there and the love I have known there.  Norway might not work out, I really don't know. But in a little while, I will be landing and making my way to an apartment with a warm, happy dog wanting to say hello…

And 'welcome home.'

And until next time… I'm home.

*I journaled this on a plane- typed it later on.

Istanblog

I literally made myself giggle with that title.  I know that I'm not really funny… but I like to tell myself that I am.

And without further adieu, the Photo Blog from Istanbul…

So far...

The Not-Obessions Confessions

Yes, this is really happening.  I haven't done an obsessions post in a while- not that I don't have a whole litany of music, books, stuff, that I could prattle on about.  But instead I'd like to take a wander through the things that I am currently not loving.  For serious, not loving.

Let's start with old Norwegian men on bikes.

Calm down and lemme 'splain.  My wee little dog has a problem with bikes.  Not that he hates them, he just wants to eat them.  And not that he wants to eat the persons pedaling, no- he wants to eat the bike itself.

So. When Henry and I go for walks around town- around a town where there are many many people on bikes- it's more of an exercise in mind-reading, anticipation, situational awareness, agility, and strength than an exercise in actual walking.  If I see a bike approaching, I can corral the dog to the side of the path and hush him, tell him no, generally try to control him. Which is not easy with a 50 pound blond fur bomb.

And that's when the magic happens, because the charming old Norwegian men, on their charming Norwegian bikes, will slow down.  Yep, they see me with this dog who could qualify as his own circus act, each of us struggling against the other… and they slow down.  To watch.  Yes. Yes, old Norwegian men, that is exactly what I want you to do- slow down to watch the madness that is my dog unfold and prolong his outrageous desperation to eat your vehicle.  Do that.  I really really dig it when you do.

Next up- old Norwegian men in bars.  Especially the super drunk ones. Especially the super drunk ones who think that it's okay to refer to my partner as my "daddy" while manhandling me, grabbing my arm and jerking me around to face him while he's breathing liquid death into my face.  Actually, guy, it's not okay.  And you know what else- that's MY ass that you're grabbing thankyouverymuch, and if you do it again you're going to find a tactically placed knee in your general groin area. Private forking property, buddy.

Or should I say Grandpa?

This book.  Sort of instills in me the simultaneous desire to vomit and weep.  How did this happen? How did the first three happen?!?

I definitely don't love the people who open doors while talking to, and looking at, the people behind them.  Look where you are going, folks, there might just be a girl with a dog… directly in your path.  If I had a dollar for the number of times I've been slammed into by a glass door- only to be given an affronted look by the person who slammed it into me- in the past several weeks, I wouldn't be considering a life of crime to solve my financial woes.

This song.  It was getting nonstop airtime when I left the States a little over a month ago.  It is now getting nonstop airtime in Norway.  I literally cannot escape it. (Also- note here that it's definitely part of the 50 Shades soundtrack).

I'd bring up the apparently never-ending winter, but I think that's pushing it.  I suppose I should have anticipated that when I decided to move to just shy of the Arctic Circle.  And I probably should have packed more warm clothing.  And fewer dresses.

And for now, until next time, that's all dear ones.  Be good on this Summer (laughable) Solstice and this Father's Day.

The View from Across

There is this one view, outside of the apartment.  This one view that... no matter how many times I glance at it, no matter how long I stare at it, I still can't quite believe in it.

I can't capture it on film (believe me I have tried), I can't photo document it (see below for a pathetic attempt), I can't begin to describe it even with all of the words at my disposal- because I just don't believe that it's actually, truly, terrifyingly there.

I don't get how it exists.  My eyes tell me it exists, but I don't understand it and I think my eyes might be lying.

The view?

On good days- days like today that are clear and sunny and the sky is such a bright blue that it's almost white- you can look across the water and see the mountains that bolster either side of our harbor.  But then, it's not just seeing the mountains that has me baffled and dumbstruck. Oh no, you look across that water and it's like you witness the passage of time in that view, in this view.  It is literally like watching billions of years- eons, eras, moments, monuments, minutes- happen in an instant.  The effect of every thrust of the earth's plates and every carving, fluid push of the ocean's waves- right there, right in front of you, me.

It's an impossible thing to take in, and yet I do almost every day.

On foggy, slightly evil and rainy days- every other day other than today- that view is still there, just hiding.  Those mountains are still present behind the clouds, ominous in a way that God or the Devil might be to those who believe.  Those mountains are hiding, but they are very much self-aware and very much alive in the cloudy ether.  Not hiding, perhaps, so much as waiting or biding.  They are steady, so still, yet pull at the marrow of my bones with such a wrenching force that even though I stand there captivated and somewhat subdued, I am utterly overcome with the desire to move toward them.  To be a part of them.

The mountains roll back against the sky for… ever.  One leads to another leads to another and they just don't stop, they never stop…

I think that's what really gets to me- the immensity and endlessness of the mountains- becoming increasingly more blue and shadowed until they match that sky I mentioned earlier and then slowly begin to fade into it.

It is. Unbelievable.

You've just got to trust me on this one, dear hearts.

On (In)Dependence

There are any number of things at which I suck.  In fact, my failures, misdeeds, malfunctions far outnumber my talents.

Like, light years far...

It's actually a little disconcerting.

At any rate, lately I've been counting my fatal flaws, my faults, my issues- the things that make me, much to my chagrin, me.  It is very hard NOT to self-examine and try to relocate yourself within yourself when you've just made a major life change.  In fact it sort of makes sense.  You've done this thing, you've made this monumental decision, and you've followed through even in the face of fear and ad nauseum worry.  Of course you take the time to sit back, take stock, and sort it out- which is considerably headier after the fact rather than when you are in the thick of it, running around making phone calls to the USDA and trying to track down tape-worm treatments and trying to slip in a phone call to foreign authorities every few days.

It's hard not to self-examine when you are essentially existing at the whim of the aforementioned foreign authorities.

I find myself now talking to new people, making small talk.  Hell, I find myself talking to myself, or my dog for that matter, making small talk.  But I hear myself say things like… 'I suck at being sick' (which I do).  'I suck at sitting still' (which I definitely do).  'I really suck at asking for help' (which I really really do).

I don't know if it's a flaw, a fault, a fissure waiting to crack into a canyon- but I'm not a dependent person.  Not even a little.  See all of the above?  All of those 'sucks' stem from the fact that I SUCK at depending on people, on anyone but myself.  Of course there is a lot of psychology behind that statement- but it's about as base and true as I can get.  I literally make contingency plans for everything because I'm so convinced and so sure that I will have to hack out whatever situation on my own. (This, by the way, has nothing to do with a weird or unloving childhood.  My parents are rocks, they are the strongest, most challenging and cherished people in my life.  They are about the only ones who can manage to take care of me when I really need it).

When I'm sick I don't act like it because that would entail me actually letting someone else take my reins for a moment while I collapse.  When I am still I am maddeningly fidgety because I'm not doing things.  I'm not accomplishing things.  I'm not making things happen.  I'm wasting… myself.  Asking for help?  That necessitates relying on someone else to step up and, indeed, help.  Which is when my jacked-up, hard-wired-to-be-hard, brain misfires.  I can't do it.  I can't do it.  I can't do it.

Not to mention that asking for help, sitting still, getting sick- all of those things, to me, means forfeit.  They mean defeat- they mean that I am letting someone else come in and clean my house- my house that I made into a mad one- my house that I built, my bed that I made.  How can I do that?  How can I ever let go of the mistakes, the misfortunes, the bad decisions that I made and let someone else… share them?

So here I am, 30 years and tens of thousand of miles later.  Still ferociously, feverishly, frustratingly independent but having to swallow that ferocity and fever and frustration for maybe the first, most significant time- so that I can make my decisions and my passions and my hopes work.  I have dropped the mantle of stubborn solitude and reached out.

Because one of the things that I do do well… is learn from my mistakes.

And until Next Time…

Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, here we come.

The Sound and The Fury

… And The Salmon (because she does it by tempting my tastebuds at every turn).

It took some time.  It took about a week- maybe a little more- of absorbing, of realizing, of making amends.

When I moved to New England for the first time- when I was, what? 21?- I realized that I was a mountain girl.  There was nothing so soothing to my soul as the sight of land in motion- mountains raising out of the earth, caressing the sky, stopping time.  The mountains feel like a gift to me.  They feel like a part of my soul given back to me after a long absence.  They feel like completion.

And I am now again in a place of mountains- of mountains and earth and sky and time.

But I am also, now, in a place of water.

And the water, the sea, the violent commotion of rain, hail and fog has made herself known to me.  She has recalled herself to me.

For a long time I was an ocean girl, like my mother and her father before her.  I loved the liquid expanse that faded eventually into the horizon- literally.  The sea becomes the sky becomes the same thing.  I grew up taking trips to the beach, swimming, sunning, building sandcastles and baking 'sand'wiches.

The mountains have my heart but the sea has my history.

And here, here the sea is constantly reminding me of that.  She does it in ferocious ways, in the rollicking wakes of boats, in the rolling waves that hit against the side of our building.  She does it in her raining, her hailing, her furious noise-making which rattles our windows and pounds against the skylights.  She does it by her fury.

She does it in gentility, too.  She does it in the purple-pink-lavender of the sunset that I am right now watching.  She does it in the shadows that play on our dining-room wall- the one that faces the open balcony doors- the light and shadows reflected in soft ripples against the harbor water.  She does it by her sound.

The sea is reminding me of herself.

And so far, I am okay with her.

It's a tenuous moment we are having, a tenuous reintroduction.  But she is so much in this place that I cannot ignore her any more than I can ignore the scent of salt water and cool air.

Until next time, Dearests…

Good Morning

I spent some time, this morning, laying in bed and absorbing my room- the one in my parents house where I retreat to when I am off-season or ailing.   It is the room that is cluttered with books, kitsch, photographs, prints and paintings.  It is the room that proved to be a sanctuary over the twenty or so years that in which I have inhabited it- off and on.  The outside reflection of the inside me.

The room from my childhood (actually I had to trade rooms with my brother at some point in the distant past) has cool lilac colored walls and only one window so the mornings are generally a gentle greeting to the day.  This morning was no different, even Henry seemed slightly gentler when he hopped onto the bed for his morning snuggles.  I pet him, stared out the window, and watch the gold spring sunshine begin to creep up the wall, through the shades.

I got a bit misty eyed- but there's really too much to do today to dwell on that.

This morning will be the last of the 'lazy' ones in that room, in that bed- where I can enjoy that view, that parade of light and wonder, only half awake with a puppy tucked in beside me.

Tomorrow will be my last in general in that room and that bed.  At least for a little while, until I either return auspiciously or get the boot out of Norway.

Until then...

I need to pack.

:)

Third-Person to First- Then Back Again

When you live your life carving out a certain path and when, more potently, you make a concerted effort to maintain that carved lifestyle, you grow accustomed to a certain set of questions, comments… conversations.

You smile on your end.  And you give the answer that your audience wants- after a while, after all, it is entirely to easy to read most people: what they are looking for in a response, what will make them feel good.  You can anticipate both the question and the answer in demand.  So color me surprised today when a coworker asked not 'why' or 'what for' when he remembered that I am leaving in about a week to move to Norway.  Not 'why' or 'what for' but 'you running to something or away from something?'

Are you running to something or away from something?

Am I running to something or away from something?

How prescient of this man who hardly knows me; who hardly knows that there really has never been a 'to' or 'from' for me.  It is just running.

I am just running.

Because it is what I do, how I roll- I run.  I have made a life out of running- out of burning, moving on, moving around, making a mockery of traditional life-paths.  And yes, this is all absolutely something I have written about before- on more than one occasion.  But it is, once again, and for obvious reasons, on my mind.

Hello Nomadism (Nomadisme [lame] in Norwegian)- it's nice to be acquainted again… and facing the running realities again.  The go-go-go until you can't go anymore and then you sleep before waking to run again.

When you live your life in a certain style, you accept that certain- no fundamental- human or social experiences will be absent from your own individual, personal experience (even as much as you accept all the questions, comments and conversations).  Maybe you even resign yourself to this fact- it's your life that you're living, your experiences that you're cataloging, your own world that you are shaping: what is or is not included in those things… well that's on you, right?

Right?

You are your own alienator.  You are the one who pulls people in or pushes them aside.  You are the one who retreats, recedes.  You (I) are (am) the one who makes (made) a life for your(my)self in which you (I) are (am) infinitely forgettable, replaceable, running.

And Until Next Time, Dearests...

The Birthday Blog

For the past four years or so, I've made an effort to blog on my father's birthday.

Today is that Day.  Each time I try to outdo my first birthday post.  Last year I think I got sort of close even though it was far more sentimental than it was humorous.  This year, I got The Bob a rather large machete as a gift.*

So let's see about this post, hey?

First of all, I'd like to, on behalf of The Bob, apologize to all of the men in my life.  Get over it…. You are never going to be him.  You are never going to inhabit the space in my heart and soul that he does.  You will never take up the amount of space in my heart and soul that he does.  I will likely never consider any of you as even half the man that he is.

Oops- his bad.

Next up I'd like to go through a wee bit of a photographic rundown- or what I'd like to call 'Evidence the The Bob Can Never Deny Paternity of TheBobsDottir.'

The next apology I will make on behalf of my father is the fact that I am tirelessly challenging and unapologetically (note the irony there) untethered (and note the irony there, too).  I am challenging because he challenged me to be so.  I am untethered because of the freedom gifted to me by my parents (yes both- even though this is The Bob's Birthday Blog, Mom is a pretty formidable counterpart with an equal  - who constantly pushed me to realize the world…. 

That's it. 

They pushed me to realize the world.  

On my beloved father's birthday, instead of wishing him happiness- which I ceaselessly do- I'd instead like to thank him.  I'd like to thank him for my happiness.  I'd like to thank him for my childhood, for my adulthood.  I'd like to thank him for my standards.  I'd like to thank him for the hand he had, and still has, in raising me and shaping who I am- the person I am becoming, the person that I will be, the person into which I am constantly evolving.  

I'd like to thank my father for me.  

And wish him another Most Happy Birthday.  

I love you, Daddy, 

And Until Next Time… 

*I told my boss, who scoffed at the machete idea, that everyone else will get him fantastically awesome gifts (of this I am sure)- meanwhile I am the slightly iconoclastic nutter who he counts on for the ridiculous gifts.  Hence- the machete.

April Showers-

-Lead to entirely too much time to obsess.

I am late in this one.  I know, I know, I know.  But Holy Bananas, I cannot get enough of The Walking Dead.  And Netflix has made this obsession exceptionally easy to dwell on- that's right, they have the first three seasons streaming.  To be totally honest, I talk a big game BUT… I can only binge on a few episodes a time before I start having auditory hallucinations- so there's that (No Kate, that's not a Zombie- that's just someone snoring in the other room).  I mean, I started watching it in order to stop the unnecessary goading from a certain someone (yes, I am a pansy- get over it!)  But yeah… now I totally get it.  I also get the Daryl obsession floating around the interblogs.  Hellooooo, Norman Reedus- you are getting added to the short list.

I should have included these guys in my last obsessions post.  I discovered them when I was last in Norway (I think everyone else knew them, I think, from this most recent World Cup- some sort of theme song thingy).  X Ambassadors are pretty much on constant repeat on my iPod.  Especially having downloaded their second EP.  This song makes me simultaneously happy and sad.  There is an honesty and rawness to his voice that makes it both ultra-masculine and ultra-appealing.  Brother does the same thing to me, the happy and the sad.  It's one of those songs with wrenching lyrics couched in a  pretty harmony.

Goodness, enough of that.

This website has become an endless time suck- as well as an inspiration for some *ahem* potential artwork.

Since beginning to work at REI, I have formed an unhealthy attachment to a certain fixture- one which houses all manner of fitness tracking devices: FitBits, Jawbones, Suunto watches.  In particular, the side that is closest to my line of vision has the display for  the Garmin line of trackers.  And boy howdy, have I talked myself into and out of a Garmin Vivo Fit2 (or VivoSmart) about a thousand times.  And here's the thing… on the list of things that I need to get together before moving to Norway- Garmin ranks cavernously low- far below the numbers one and two: extra contact lenses and meds for Henry.  Not to mention that I don't actually need any extra incentive for watching what I eat and how much I move- yeah. Right.  I'm a fairly accomplished anorexic, let's be honest, I do just fine on my own.

This website is messing with my head (see above).

I'm going to put this out there- judge me if you want- but I like the new Mumford and Sons single.  There, I said it.  Continuity be damned, shake it up!

BOLO for a blog on The Bob's birthday- which makes the obsessions list only because I try to top myself every year.  Not that every year is better than the last, only that one year in particular still makes me happy to have written- yes, I'm obsessed with my own writing- let it go, I'm otherwise utterly without ego.  The Birthday Blog, thanks to an unaware auntie, has become on of my yearly favorites and it's about time to start obsessing and a-typing.

And Until the 22nd.  Happy Obsessing.