Norway-6

My last two weeks in Norway were surreal in every sense of the word. The intense winter weather finally gave way to the budding flowers and the blazing sun the result of which was two full weeks of a complete pseudo-summer. Bergen is a completely different city when the sun is shining: the fish market expands to capacity, boats flood the port, tourists appear, outdoor cafes are packed, and best of all there are people (happy people) everywhere. The whole town becomes a bustling hub of activity with throngs of people packing into places that, just days before, had been completely neglected and deserted. At one point I had to ask Helene if there was some kind of festival or fair happening in town because there were so many people roaming the streets almost shoulder-to-shoulder. We enjoyed the sunshine to the very fullest. We did a few beautiful hikes including a hike down Floyen after taking the tram up, had BBQ’s and our famous homemade guacamole, sunbathed on the deck, and went on plenty of sunset runs. The time in the evening when I’d return home from a long run to find all the neighbors outside chatting and the kids all playing and running around became my absolute favorite. My happiness in the last two weeks was contagious; the kind where you can’t stop smiling and everything seems to be perfect.
As my time in Norway quickly came to a close I truly felt I had exceeded all my expectation for my stay, there were just a few loose ends left to tie up. I was finally able to take the two hour trip out to Stranvik to visit my Grandmother and the experience became the inspiration behind the entire two week-long theme of ‘surreal.’ To see this house I had only known in pictures; to see the town and the sea the way my mom had seen it for so many summers of her childhood was absolutely priceless. I found myself walking around the house and the garden trying to see it through my mom’s eyes and trying to find something of myself in all of it, something I would look at and immediately recognize. Despite my efforts, aside from seeing the house from a distance, a few flowers in the garden, one or two family portraits in the living room, and the two gold bracelets both my mom and Grandmother wear on their right wrists, I couldn’t seem to find myself or my family in any of it. The feeling I get when I immediately recognize myself in a picture of my mom when she was young, that’s the feeling I was looking for. In the little three-bedroom house, out in the tiny side yard, even in my Grandmother’s face, I just didn’t see it. I also found myself unprepared for the state my Grandmother was in. The last time I saw her she was walking fine and was still quite sharp; this time she could barely walk, she had a hard time remembering the names of my cousins and my brothers and sister, and the entire time I was there she asked me only two questions and because about ten minutes into the visit she switched to Norwegian with me the extent of our communication was very limited. Helene and her son Nicholas had accompanied me on the trip and I didn’t realize until after we had driven away just how grateful I was that they had been there with me. Helene was so kind, she did most of the talking; just small talk for a while about who tends to the garden and checks in on my Grandmother, the neighbors, and the house, and then Helene started to talk about my family and me like she had known me forever. She said how great everyone was doing and told her about my travels and schooling and how proud of me she was, I actually saw and felt more family in Helene then I did anything else that day. I took a few pictures of the house and the view, tried to patch up the emptiness I could feel from my Grandmother with lots of smiles and hugs, helped her with a few household chores, told her she was very loved, and tried to leave at that. The leaving was the hardest part; my whole stay I got the feeling we were kind of disrupting her space but as soon as we tried to leave she made every attempt to get me to stay. There were buses I could take home, she explained, I could even take her car if I wanted. Being so far out and unprepared felt like too much to me so we left anyway, but I couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt or sadness, neither of which I could completely understand. The whole drive home both Helene and I tried to distract ourselves with other things but inevitably our conversation always fell back to what we had just experienced. Surreal.
Then the days of ‘lasts’ came. I had my last day at work, where they had all signed a card for me and gave me sweet little going away gifts. I went in for my last day at Megafon and was surprised with my own mini-photshoot and an invitation to send in any stories from my travels at any time (this time with the added benefit of a little pay) as well as the opportunity to attend this year’s Street Papers Convention in Scotland. Then came my ‘lasts’ with the families: the last big family dinner with all the kids, my last trip to town, and my last movie night. We exchanged gifts and open invitations to visit each other (they also threw in the lure of a free place to stay on the water, complete with a Google earth image and everything), I packed up my little room, waved goodbye to ‘home’ and tried to muster up excitement about my next stop. All very surreal.
My hope, and I’ve made this pretty clear to Janne and Helene, is that they both get knocked up at the same time so I can come back to see and take care of the little additions to the ‘Mad Family.’ Even without that, I know these people will be in my life forever. They are the reason this trip was as amazing as it was and I am truly blessed to have come to know them as well as I have.
Next stop: Paris, France!