Tidbits

I found b&w film to be a perfect medium to represent moments from this summer. It hasn't been colorful or cheerful, but somehow beautiful, nevertheless.

She has always done this

I look at this picture and realize how little has changed. My Mom takes a patch of land and transforms it into this lush, overabundant garden full of delicious things to eat. Like she always has done. 


I wonder if I'll ever be able to do the same magic.

A Reminder

Summer so far... well, it hasn't been anything like a summer at all. Except from yesterday, which was a wonderfully sunny day and from which I will soon post pictures. Yet another summer will soon have rushed by, and I've learned to see the beauty in misty forests, visited my second home and finished a painting.

A year ago today, close to 80 young people lost their live in massacre at a youth camp here in Norway. Today this reminds me to be thankful for life, being healthy and able to find beauty and happiness in whatever circumstances. The mere fact that we are being able to take part in life is so severely understated. If we all could only realize that, I'm certain that each and everyone of us could do what it takes to make ourselves happy. Sadly, expectations and past experiences too often determine our thoughts and choices, and thereby lead us away from the path we otherwise could have chosen. 

This is why I wonder sometimes. In your everyday life, do you sometimes take a minute off - just to feel how it's like to be?

Part two

A couple more photos from the gorgeousness at home. 

(The picture of me at the bottom would have turned out perfectly fine if I'd try to look a little less like Mr. Burns and my Mom had worn her glasses.)

Pressing ESC

These are some of the things I've been waiting so show you - photos from my last week at home. This was the first time I noticed that you can smell one of the rose bushes growing by the garage all the way to the porch. Marguerites had taken over the garden completely, which made it look mostly like a flower forest of some sort. We spend two days on pulling weeds, cutting roses and mostly relaxing on that porch with a cup of coffee, since Mom had just fell from a ladder and her ankle was badly hit.

Coming home has always been my ESC button. This time it made me forget completely about the tedious work that I am doing this summer (and that I'm not really any good at it), the fear I sometimes have of not knowing what I will end up doing one day and even Lisbon (which is something I mostly just look forward to, but sometimes I start to worry for nothing.)

I know these are only feelings I have occasionally, but it's so comforting to come back to a place like home, and knowing that this is the place I can go to that always resets me.

Patience

This day I've been all giddy, anticipating my next film roll to be ready at the lab. I'm not avoiding to become the incredibly annoying customer that returns to the shop a thousand times just to make sure that it's not ready yet. Through my summer job I've learned that it's just a human trait. Being as inpatient as I am, I visited the photo shop three time this week to check. Last time they told me (kindly, but firmly) that I'm too early and that I need to wait for the text with a notification.

I already knew that. Of course. So I'm still waiting for that text. I guess when my head hits the pillow tonight I'll check my inbox just to make sure I didn't miss it. I so badly want to share whats on that film roll with you!

(In this photo, my mom is number two from the left. I guess her customers during Soviet times were masters in patience. Just look at that lady in the back.)

Life Lately

Apologies for the random pictures. They were taken in May, but when I look at them I realize how little my life has changed. If I could describe it in one word, it would be "routine". This is good. This is something I've needed for a long time. To be either on my way to work, at work or not at work. Not all of the three at once, confused by which one of them I should pay the most attention to. 

Sometimes I quench my rainy-summer-day blues in cooking, like making yesterdays onion soup. It took me about three hours to finish it and left my hair, clothes and the entire apartment smelling with onion and butter. Sigurd loved it, and said that it would have been divine with the white wine that was intended with the recipe but which we didn't have. Anyways, it cured our sore throats.

I've really got the hang of my spotmatic. And to be honest I don't want to ever stop using it, even though I don't want to completely abandon its stepsister, the nikon, either. At the same time I'm trying to figure out how to post my analog photos with the delay that the development of film requires. Oh, how I wish that those mom-and-pop photo shops with the one-hour development services could come back.  

Library Musings

Gosh. I can't believe myself when I'm saying this, but here I go.

I am actually beginning to miss spending time at my favorite library. The one with the old, dark wooden walls, smelling of ancient books that are covered in golden ornaments. Books so old that they look like they are about to fall apart anytime and that have to be handled in a way that gems are handled, using soft microfiber gloves.

People, usually students like myself, go there to do their chores.When I glance over at their books I am surprised by the multitude of the subject being studied. ( It's everything form geology to theater studies). I wonder how on earth I came to choose my rather ordinary profession. I realize now that life is too short to learn everything I want to, not to mention that it's way too short to chase profits. 

On Sundays in Oslo...

I go fruit and vegetable shopping at Grønland, just to avoid the masses of people that are there on Saturdays for their affordable and fresh vegetables.

 We try to find the best places to have coffee and lunches in town.

When we're out of ideas (or sunny weather) we cuddle up in our tiny apartment and I look out at the rain. 

Mornings in Oslo

Each morning, when I walk out on my balcony, I sense the smell of burning coal. It reminds me of the small town Cieszyn in Poland where I was born and where my grandma lives. It makes me feel rooted here. 

I pass Lorry's each day on my way to work and walk through the park by the castle. It has become my morning ritual. I don't know how I always only end up taking pictures of light and leaves instead of sites and buildings. I think it must be my attraction to all things organic, rustic and romantic. 

the Island

On one sunny evening me and my friend Ragnhild spontaneously decided visit Hovedøya (the Main Island). It's only five minutes from the city center by boat, but it is so very different from everything you find on the mainland nearby. There are sheep in lush forests, small rocky beaches and an old monastery. Not much more than that. But just that keeps amazing me. I keep getting surprised by how easy it is to take a short boat/bus/bike ride and find places that look nothing like the Oslo I knew before. 

Turn Around

A colleague told me this week that he was so exhausted from working, that he felt like his body was "outside of him" sometimes. I've always appreciated silence, but even more so after the endless and exhausting phone chatting the last couple of weeks in my new job.

Sigurd is still asleep. We had a dinner party last night, and I'm a little hungover. The only thing to listen to is the gentle rain outside. I wonder what happened to that anticipated summer, and try to remind I myself that it's still not over. Sunday is just the day to turn around those kind of thoughts. 

Stan Getz - Here's that Rainy Day