Fjotoblog: Norway So Far...

Something about the Northern Europeans…  They seem
to get it right more often than they do wrong...

My adopted home in Stavanger.
What you cannot see in this photo
are the two Pavlovian Swans who
are nuts for an American bearing bread.

See above about Northern Europeans- when I was in
Iceland I posted a photo from Akureyri, where all of
the red stop lights are shaped as hearts… In Stavanger
they wear their hearts on their trees… or in them, rather. 

Lysefjord.  Yeah, I did that. 

Old Town Stavanger- a good walkabout to bring me
back to earth after the insane beauty of the fjords. 

Out near Sirdal.  I have, in all of my travels, never seen
anything as beautiful as this.  It's almost not worth posting
a photo because there's just no way to capture
what I saw.  Literally. 

You know I can't resist a close-up. 

Same Sirdal, a little later in the day.. what I noticed is that
white was never white here.  Instead it was arctic, icy,
pale blue.  And I'll be damned if it did not
wrench my heart in the most wonderful possible way. 

Nor…What The F@%K?

I have a lot of What The F@%K moments- A Lot.

They usually come when I am being jostled, elbowed, poked, provoked by a stranger standing behind me in the TSA line.  Or when I am taking in my hundredth breath of stale air that smells of exhaust, good and bad anxiousness, and cigarette smoke.  Or when I am lingering, alone at the baggage carousel wondering… but where's my bag?  (All of those, by the way, happened to me at some point over the last 20-24 hours.  I'm not complaining... I mean, I guess I am technically complaining, but I'm getting to a much less bratty point in time.  Oh and my bag did make it.)

Which is to say that many of my WTF moments (careful now- that W can stand for many words) come at the airport.  Especially in the big International halls of JFK, Logan, CDG… What the F@%K am I doing here??

I have had that moment stranded in the middle of Beijing Airport, having missed a connecting overseas flight.  I have had that moment waking up after passing out on a flight from Heathrow to Munich, unsure of where I was, what I was doing there and how exactly I was buckled into my seat (the rather…ummm... handsy-looking German man beside me may have had something to do with that but I can never be sure) after having not slept for the previous 48 hours.  I have had that moment staring at the flight delay getting longer and longer and my next connection getting shorter and shorter.  I have had that moment getting straight Pissy with Customs Agents who were getting straight Pissy with me.

What the F@%K, Why the F@%K?  In all of these instances I find myself wondering just how much of a glutton for punishment traveling has turned me into.   I find myself thinking… What the F@%K is my end game this time?

And every time, every single time, it hits me all at once- all at once it makes sense.  Right now I am sitting at the kitchen (there's a distinct possibility that it counts as a dining room table) table of a man who I have not yet met but who was kind enough to let me in, in a manner of speaking.  In between the tap-tap-tapping of these computer keys, I can hear the beating heart of the harbor.  I sit here and I listen to waves that wakes of ferries make when as they pass by below me.  I can- well I could before- hear birds yakking.  And that's not even what made it make sense (although… it certainly has helped), not even the first AHA! Moment.. no, that moment looked a little like this:

After only watching clouds beneath the wing of my final flight to Stavanger, the final descent into the city's small airport yielded a break in them.  The surreal blue of the high sky was laced with the gold of the too-early setting sun.  And suddenly I could see this enrapturing country that I will call home until the end of the month.  I could see the sea, the land rising from it, and the larger land rising from that.

I could see it all and it was breathtaking.

It is breathtaking.

That is What the F@%K I am doing here- it is what the F@%K I an doing every time I follow my wandering, lusty heart to another place- to meet another people, to see another side of it all.  I am stockpiling those AHA! Moments, adding them to my spirit.

I collect them so that I may be better.

And until next time…. so much Love from such a Lovely place.

Tonight, North Carolina… Tomorrow Nor..wait what??

My last blog post detailed a rather timely musical discovery: 'Ends of the Earth' from Lord Huron.  And I believe that his Lordship may have been in my head when he wrote it...

Look carefully: Livonia?
---
This image comes from the Rand
McNally Imperial Atlas.  I found it in
my closet earlier this evening-
it has been ages since I've seen it.  I
stashed it away long ago in the annals
of my teenage years, not knowing
how significant the very idea of an
Atlas would later become. 

But here's the thing- there are no ends to this earth (unless you count the ends of maps, edges arbitrarily made to fit the cut of sheaths of paper.  Maps have merits, Atlases act like a bound North Star).  There are only horizons.  Horizons that push out constantly.  Tantalizingly.  Horizons on which the sun can set or into which the sea can endlessly flow.  Horizons marked by mountains, horizons made reachable in fracturingly fleeting moments.  

Tomorrow I set off to chase another horizon, to follow my heart (maybe a map?) toward another adventure.  From NC to NY to France to Norway… From Norway to Latvia, Lithuania and maybe Poland.  I have a fresh, new Passport, a packed bag and a puppy currently laying on top of my arm as I try to write this.  

Tomorrow I become a pilgrim for the umpteenth time.  By plane, train, and hopefully boat, I will roam flatlands, fjord-lands, the Far North, forests of people and forests primeval.  I will be far away from what I know- but at home with (or without?) that knowledge.  

Until next time… 

Which will be in Norwegian Time… 

Theme Song(s)

Both of my parents love music- and both know how to listen to it.  One of my greatest inheritances has to be this love and this knowledge that they passed on to me.  Without a doubt my taste wanders all over the place- old and new, soft and hard, classical and combative.  I do like to consider myself an equal opportunity listener...


Even though someone once accused me of having dramatic- or was it depressing?- taste in music.  He is not wrong.  Probably on either front.  But what I love most is music- lyric, songs, tunes, beats, whatever- that hits like battering ram.

Music- lyric, songs, tunes, beats, whatever- that is anthemic.

We all have theme songs (I must have tens of dozens of them on my own already),  if we allow ourselves to remember the moments they define- that song that summer; that song that played on the radio at that moment; that song that makes you cry every time; that song that you play in your mind when big things are or were happening.  Every theme song in my life has been something big and strong or wild or desperate.

I have had three songs playing to death over the past week and a half or two.  One I dig just because it is so bloody dramatic- big voice, big message, big moment.  And it is not a little depressing if you listen closely.  How could I not love it?!?

The other two are slowly becoming themes.  They are becoming big-time themes.

One, Ends of the Earth, is featured in a commercial for something- I'm not even sure what at this point.  It has a decently catchy chorus, nice hook.  But Hell, listen to the rest of it, and it is the theme for this blog- for what I am doing here… here on this earth, here in this blog.  Every single word I write, every trip I take, is in this song.  And yes, it is worth giving you the lyrics:

Oh there's a river that winds on forever

I'm gonna see where it leads

Oh, there's a mountain that no man has mounted

I'm gonna stand on the peak

Out there's a land that time don't command

Wanna be the first to arrive

No time for ponderin' why I'm a-wanderin' 

On while we're both still alive

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

If you won't, I must say my goodbyes to thee

Oh there's an island where all things are silent

I'm gonna whistle a tune

Oh there's a desert that size can't be measured

I'm gonna count all the dunes

Out there's a world that calls for me, girl

Headin' out into the unknown

Wayfaring strangers and all kinds of dangers

Please don't say I'm going alone

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see 

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

If you won't, I must say my goodbyes to thee

I was a-read to die for you, baby

Doesn't mean I'm ready to stay

What good is livin' a life you've been given

If all you do is stand in one place

I'm on a river that winds on forever

Follow 'til I get where I'm goin'

Maybe I'm headin' to die but I'm still gonna try

I guess I'm goin' alone.

I literally gush with understanding; I bleed from it, I burst with understanding; this song is my wanderlust set to music and a howling honesty that tears at my heart that I try so often to simultaneously expose and protect.  I want to sail that river and climb that mountain and be, without time, in that desert.  I want to trust someone else to come with me- to hold my hand, fingers linked as we approach the end of the earth- and put myself out in the vastness with a partner in crime… but….  I hear it and I unhinge myself long enough to be overwhelmed: he gets it.  Look at this big world.  Look at our small selves.  Why the hell wouldn't we wander all over the place, and see the sights, feel the feelings, interpret the expanse… and then write about the life that we are living out there?

And sometimes you find the right Huckleberry to be on your raft down the river with you- and sometimes you're goin' alone.

I get it all.  I live it all.  I'm unabashedly where he is, or where he is going.

Goddamn.

Next up we have Hozier's Work Song.  This has come to refine a definition of love that has long been kicking around my brain.   It's a song, as I stated a couple of posts ago, that I would dance to.  I have danced to it, alone, in my kitchen while I was packing my apartment up north.   So that's part one: the dancing part.

Part two is what he is actually saying (errrr…singing).  No, this time you won't get the whole song, just the chorus- although the whole song is forking amazing-

When 

my 

time comes around 

lay me gently in the cold 

dark earth

No grave can hold my body down-

I'll crawl home to her

And that is it- the love that I want but cannot have because it does not exist.   Yes, it is morbid and odd and not a little off-putting to consider a dead lover coming back to you, especially covered in his own grave.  But a love that defies death?  A love that repeats itself over lifetimes to fulfill the pull of two spirits which are supposed to be one?  A love that makes words real?  Now that is something else entirely.

That's a theme song.

And until next time, I do hope you find some of your own.

I Will Grind His Bones* (Redux)

*To 

Make

My 

Bread.. 

This afternoon I got my eighth tattoo.  And short of me explaining it verbatim, it makes no sense.  Not a lick of sense, not to a single soul but own.  And even with an explanation, I'm not entirely sure anyone else would understand the value in it.  So on that topic, I stay quiet. 

But it never works the way I anticipate, this brain of my mine; these explanations of mine.  Because as the needle bit into my skin, ink staining nearly to the bone, I began to think about the nature of the beast.  

I feel fairly confident that- unless you have never met me or have only just begun to read this blog- almost everyone knows that I hate my body.  I hate it.  It does not matter if it is too thin or not too thin, there's no middle ground on this battle ground.  I constantly and consummately hate it.  I would give it up in a merry heartbeat.  I would hand it over in a split second, without so much as a glance back.  

And on that artist's table, laying on my side, giggling as tattoo gun knicked into the fleshy part of my tummy… I thought more about the nature of things.  Because it's not my body.  It never has been. 

It's my brain.  

It's my brain that revolts; my brain that implodes, explodes; it's my brain that hauls my body along with it wherever it goes.  And- also not a shocker- my brain is messed up.  Maybe not as much as others', but maybe also more than many's.

I have a hurt head.   

I have a hurt heart, too.  

And my body bends to the will of both. 

And until it doesn't…

Until then. 

A Sort Of Two-Fer

The sort of twofer…

Thoughts on moving, Obsessions that help to quiet the thoughts on moving.

Tonight is my last night in New England for this season.  It is pissing down rain- and I am hauling boxes out of my apartment into my car, listening to my dog whine, yelp, and puppy-weep at the top of his puppy lungs.

And in the midst of all of this… I'm trying so hard not to think about what is actually happening.  Another move.  Another upheaval just as my little world settles down.  Another series of bags packed and then packed into the back of the Jeep- it's a good thing I'm something of a fiend for Tetris otherwise my life would never never never work.

I am trying hard not to think of all of the things I am leaving behind- again.  I am trying hard not to think of how this place, no matter how hard I try to resist, heals me every time.  Every single time I am sick to death with the world, with my world, I retreat to northern New England.  So that I can breathe; so that I can sit with the me that is not me or maybe me- but really the me that I am most unfamiliar with- the comfortable one.  (I am trying hard not to think of the grammatical issues with my previous sentence- some things can't be helped).

This album helps heaps.  I downloaded it today, on a whim.  Andrew Hozier-Byrne has nailed what I like the call 'The Suzannah.'  It's straight blues and sex and wonder.  Homeskillet is an Irishman who sings like he's been through it.  Considering it feels like I've been through it lately… (Listen to 'Sedated' and 'Work Song' back to back.  Brilliant, bold, the series of songs that you dance to- sometimes with yourself, sometimes with someone else- in the kitchen, barefoot).

This song helps for sure.  It erupts with poignancy, sadness, and just a tiny frail inch of resignation.  Open Hands, indeed.

I am, of course, using the trusty MacBook Pro Chooks to watch all manner of horrid television on Hulu.

I am thinking of my next tattoo, of what it will only ever mean to me.

I am thinking of tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Until Then-

Go on and drift away..

Don't Look Down

Lately I've been thinking about bridges.

And mistakes.

And hearts.

These lines of thought will come together, I swear.  Okay, they might not on paper or in this post, but they will at some point completely come together.

I frequently refer to myself as an idiot, as idiotic.  I have a litany of quotes about idiots- what it means to be one, how to act as one.  But I always circle back to the notion that an idiot repeats his or her mistakes- egregiously.  (Einstein's is more on insanity but works as well: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.)  Like an Escher drawing constantly looping back on itself, the idiot goes up and down and winds around and around the same mistake over and over and over, thinking that that mistake will lead to different outcomes.

Escher may have well been drawing my idiotic mug.

Lately I've been thinking about the mistakes that I make with my heart.  There are one or two mistakes that I try valiantly to avoid- but seem to waltz myself right into each and every time I put my heart out there.  Maybe the first mistake is putting my heart out there?  Exposing the beating base of my existence to begin with?  But that is a different post for a different time.

This is about bridges.  And mistakes… and hearts and stuff.

It seems like I've been standing on one side of a very deep chasm for a while now.  Let's call my side… Hope.  Then there's the chasm (very deep).  Then, on the other side, there's… well… The Other Side.  It's not hopelessness per say- The Other Side is not the opposite of this side, it's just the other side.  The side over there.  I have stayed on this side.  Not because I'm fearful of The Other Side, but because I'm caught up in a web of mistakes on this side.  And because I'm afraid of the chasm- the free fall to the bottom of bad.  And because I am an idiot, because I keep hoping that this side, Hope, is going to work out.  (It's another one of the mistakes I keep making.)

But lately a new addition has appeared between this side and that side- a bridge.  A bridge called Resignation.  And this bridge is a bitch.

Because it simultaneously strengthens and weakens with each and every mistake that I make.  When I make a mistake- poof, it gets a little weaker, a little less, err, supported.  When I realize that mistake- imagine that! it's suddenly stronger, suddenly wider and seems so much closer.  There are times that I want to bolt across it, one foot in front of the other just to get across.  (Why did the Kate cross the bridge?  To get to The Other Side.)  Then there are times, times when I am still tethered to Hope, when I can barely set one foot on that damned bridge before vertigo sets in.  I shake and shiver and think to myself, this side is so safe, solid ground is so much safer.  And then I think, HOLD ON, you can do this, just don't look down.

Don't look down.

Down just gets you to the bottom of the bloody chasm.  Look ahead, look straight ahead.  One foot in front of the other, and maybe this bridge wasn't built by Escher.  One foot in front of the other, look so straight ahead.  Leave the same old mistakes with Hope, on this side.  One foot in front of the other, each step across Resignation is a step closer to realization.  One foot in front of the other and then you are on The Other Side.

And who knows what the Hell kind of mistakes exist on that side?

Until then,

With Hope and Love always and Idiocy.

Wings

I hate flying.  (Says the girl with the travel blog).

For all the miles I have logged airborne, for all the miles I have yet to log, I hate flying.  There is something essentially discomforting about surrendering your will, body, and freedom to another- someone else who will only take that will, body, and freedom and attempt to keep them all intact- at 35,000 feet in the air, going somewhere between 400 and 500 miles per hour.

Essentially.  Discomforting.

No thank you.  I will happily give you the turbulence, air pockets, steep banking, and hours on end of nerve wracking wondering 'is that noise normal?'  'WAIT. IS IT?!?!'

No thank you, I will take wings.

I thought about this last night after the frustration and out and out heartache of lost opportunity, lost chance, loss set in.  Wave after wave of 'what ifs' hit me like sledge-hammers or tsunamis to the solar plexus.  And in the middle of all that, I thought about wings (I must confess that I was listening to Birdy's 'Wings'- which was fitting for that moment).  I thought about big, wrapping, beating wings.  Ancient wings.  Wings like Renaissance Angels, dripping with feathers and strength and magician-like power.

I thought, I will take those wings.

There is a question asked amongst a group of friends I have- what major or minor superpower would you have.  Major for me has always been easy- telekinesis.  Moving things with your mind?  Making things happen because you will them to?  Duh.  Easy.

But minor superpower- that always trips me up.  Because what is minor?  I'd like to be able to speak and understand every spoken language, read and understand every written language.  But that's kind of big; all encompassing.  I'd like put my hand in my pocket and pull out anything I need (usually keys I have locked somewhere); pretty minor.

Lately, though, what I wouldn't give for a set of wings.  Pay days, play dates, lines, lists, moneytimeplace- none of it would matter because I could fly.  My minor superpower?  I will take wings.  It is not the same as having the power of flight, but I would certainly use them to fly.  Then distance would not matter, space would not matter.  I could get wherever I wanted to be, needed to be, when I wanted or needed to be there.

I could see the people I love.  Whenever the hell I wanted to see them.  Or love them.  Or be near them at all.

I will take wings that I want.

But until then I'll take the wings I can get.

And Until Next Time…

But seriously… is that noise normal?

Freedom of Speech

There is a blog post that has been kicking around my (sub)conscious for a long time, now.  And despite the fact that I habitually embrace the no-holds-barred style of confessional writing and openness, the post remains unwritten.

I have hesitated.

Every time I go to begin the post, every single time the black keys illuminate the white-slight blue letters which indicate MacBook awakeness, my fingers still.  Forefingers in place on the J and F, thumbs at the ready on the space bar, nothing happening.  Nothing at all.  The silence of the keyboard slowly becomes deafening.  My fingers still, I hesitate, largely because the post I want to write, the confession I want to make, will hurt someone else.

Not directly- there would be no names named or called.  Not obviously- there would be only vague descriptions of circumstances.  Not specifically- and never intentionally.  But it would hurt one person immensely- provided that person had the inkling to read it and the wherewithal to put two and two together.  It would hurt someone significant to me.

And that is beyond even me.  It is too much to ask of myself despite my desire for visceral, brutal, sometimes hateful honesty.

Which, lately, made me stop to think.

Where do I draw the line?

I believe, above every other fundamental freedom, in my freedom of speech.  I live and die by the freedom to speak my mind.  To write my mind.  To whit: I want to write that (unwritten) post.  I believe in what I am saying and in my right (write?) to say it.  I want the moment from that post.  But I cannot have it, nor will I take it.

I have written a lot, I write a lot.  I write things that terrify me to reveal.  I write things that terrify others to read.  I have judged myself in what I write; I have allowed other to judge me in my writing.  My chopping block, my personal guillotine is called qwerty.

I write and I write and I write- I have diaries, journals, blogs, Theses, articles, papers, promises, notes, comments, cards, messages, texts, emails- millions and millions of words have spilled out of me.  So where do I draw the line?  I have used my freedom to put out that I have an eating disorder, a disease.  I have made very clear, with free will and my freedom, that my brain is a bruised, fragile, skittish creature.  I have torn apart my own life, with words, innumerable times, under the guise and protection of freedom.  I have confessed to love.  I have confessed to loss.  I have confessed to every damned thing that has driven me to this keyboard.  Knowing that I could write, knowing that I would write.

I have upset so many people with my words, with what I write; I have angered them.  People have hurt, have been hurt by the things I write.

Where do I draw the line of what should or should not be written?

The simple answer is that I usually don't.  I don't toe a line or tow a line.  I don't draw one.  I have no use for lines.  I don't play along or color in them.  But here- in this moment, in this post- I draw the line at hurt, intentional hurt.

There will be no hurt, not on purpose.  Not from me.  Not by my words.  Not by the things I freely and wantonly write.

Until next time, and hopefully never after-

I will do no harm.  

And I sure as Hell won't publish that post.

October Obsessions

I skipped September.  And I skipped for a very specific reason-

I wanted to lead with this.


Mom came to visit in mid-September and brought me a goodie bag of deliciousness.  Yes- as a matter of fact I do occasionally exhibit the spectacularly advanced palate of a 5 year old.  I love these.  Pure sugar, in fun little Happy Fall! shapes.  (An aside?  When Brachs added the pumpkins, and then later the little flying witches, I very nearly died and went to Happy Cavity! Heaven).  But there is a part of me (probably the same juvenile one with the obscene sweet tooth) that cannot bring myself to even look longingly at them before October.

Remember, mom gave them to me in September- helloooooo loophole.

Apparently my obsessive side, at least musically, has decided to revisit my college years.  The early 2000s are making an epic comeback on my iPod.  Even though I own all of their work and like it all well enough, these two albums played a huge role in my undergraduate career.

I used to nap (back when I actually could) to Rush of Blood.  It became Pavlovian, and still sort of is.  I cannot listen to it if I want to be at all cogent, aware, engaged (read awake).  I can listen to it on long plane trips- it will be one of the 'Soundtrack to Flights to Norway' albums.  Not to mention the fact that Rush of Blood to the Head (the song) functions as one of those weird, dark definitions of love for me.  If you are going to start a war for me, game on.

X&Y is a different story altogether.  I was a senior in college- or maybe getting ready to enter my senior year- when the album was released.   Three songs in particular endlessly stand out: Swallowed in the Sea (oh what good is it to live with nothing left to give?…. are the streets you're walking on/a thousand houses long/well that's where I belong/and you belong with me), Till Kingdom Come (for you I've waited all these years… just say you'll come/and set me free/just say you'll wait- you'll wait for me), and Fix You.

Fix you in particular… one night I sat and cried my eyes out to that song.  I put it on repeat and let it fly.  A friend of mine once told me that there were days when all she wanted to was fix me.  I told her I was better broken.  You can see how this song might be poignant.  You can maybe see how, on a dark night, when all I wanted was a magic carpet ride home and a hug, this song might make let me cry and release all of this pent-up blueness.

The Blacklist.  Judge me- I don't care.  James Spader has never been finer than as bald, post-middle aged badass Red Reddington.  And he delivers lines which could define one-liners.  I just rewatched the first season in an epic Netflix binge (Bless You, The Bob, for giving me that password).  The new season is on and rolling.  Yum.

My friend Liz.  Yes, I putting my friend on my obsession list this month- no you don't get a photo or a link.  The thing about Liz is that she has wisdom beyond wisdom- she has intuition and strength.  And every single time I don't expect it, she blows me out of the water with it.   Her quote from today?  "It's a grand mystery, the whole goddamned thing."

The wind, in New England, in the fall.  If there is an embodiment of the fall for me, it's not the leaves, which are admittedly beautiful.  It is the wind.  The howling, tearing, wrenching wind.  The uncontrolled, untamed, wild wild wind.  It is cold and brutal and unforgiving.  It speaks when it sails through the mountains, trees and barely opened windows.  It fractures my soul into a thousand pieces that then go sailing with it.  I want to be this wind.

That's all for now.

(In two weeks this wind will have frozen me to near-death and I will be singing a different tune… But until then, dear ones..)