The Space I'm In

While I was in London, there was much ado about the Stone Roses reforming.  In my listening world, they were among several late 80s early 90s bands I loved, which also included the Candy Skins, who did a great version of "For What It's Worth" and had a minor hit with "Space I'm In."

Today I put on my headphones and started a mix I call "Pillar to Post," and the Candy Skins came up to make me smile and dance and, now, to think about the space I'm in.

Over the weekend, waterspots formed on the living room ceiling after I showered upstairs.  Bad.  Major bad.  Now, on Monday, I'm trying to figure out what part of my retirement savings to cash in to pay for a major bathroom repair.  I have a couch on the porch I haven't been able to find a home for, and baskets of books fill my hall since I committed to having no bookshelves in the living room. 

My house is overwhelming me.  Even more than usual.

But I kinda can't focus on the financial precipice I am on, because I am so consumed by the clearing out that must be done and maintained.   Obviously, I don't just mean boxes of stuff.  What is this space I have opened inside in the last few months, and how do I keep it from closing around the frustrations of everyday life, the slights and disappointments that inevitably are part of living in the world with, you know, OTHER PEOPLE?  How do I open to more and more newness in the midst of the dully familiar?

[now the La's are singing "There She Goes" in my happy little mix]

I did not leave the house yesterday, not for a minute.  I didn't read a book, I didn't clean off the Dining Room Table.  I didn't learn a new song on the guitar.  I took a nap on my new couch and I cleared some stuff from my DVR.  I played iPad games.  It was actually a pretty enjoyable day, but how many more days do I have to waste like this?  I don't want to open a space in my days only to fill them with more detritus.

[and now it is the Stone Roses "I Wanna Be Adored,"  but that would be another post entirely]

Why Norway. An attempt to explain myself.

Debbie said to me two months ago that because I was beginning my trip in kindness, it would be successful.  She also used the word "pilgrimage" to describe it, and I think that was fair, at least for the trip to Norway.

I hear some of you saying huh.  So I'm going to try to describe the Norway thing a bit, but for the full skinny, you will have to wait for my book.

It started with a picture in a social studies book in grade school of a fjord.  I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.  I love the word and its odd conjunction of an F and a J.  I had never heard of Norway before and didn't know anyone who was Norwegian (or so I thought).  I would turn back to that page in class and stare at it whenever I could.

I was lonely as a kid.  I didn't fit.  I think most of us feel that way, but that feeling went from embarrassment (which I could handle) to despair (which I could not).  As adolescence approached, I started to care less about being the smartest kid in the class (my compensation for loneliness in grade school), and began to actually worry about being alone.  This, even as I was, in fact, beginning to have more good friends, some of whom I still call my friends.  I became scared of the future, and I got more scared with the growing realization I wasn't straight.  I had a good family, parents who adored me, a pretty good mind, and, in high school, wonderful friends.  But the loneliness was deeper, and it was connected to knowing I would have to leave all of that if I wanted to find any happiness or fulfillment in the world.  And I didn't think I could do it.  All the yearnings I had to act and write, to find a place and people who could see me unmasked and love me, to figure out what I believed and not what I thought I should believe, to find love--they all spelled isolation and terror to me.

Then I read Fear of Flying.  While my friends and I giggled over the notion of a "zipless fuck," I started looking up some of the people quoted in the chapter headings in the book:  Colette, Sylvia Plath, Simone deBeauvoir.  I memorized poems by Plath, and one of my first published poems was an homage to her poem "Ariel."  Through my intellectual curiosity, I began to discover that wider world in terms I could control--through my intelligence and my imagination.

Then, somehow, Liv Ullmann came into my consciousness.  I suppose, to be honest, it was that "funny feeling" I got but knew I shouldn't talk about when I saw her photo on the cover of the script to Face to Face at B. Dalton Booksellers in the mall.  When her autobiography Changing came out I bought it.  I don't know where I got the money.  I don't know how, in a town without movie theatres and with a library that mostly stocked children's books and mystery novels I even recognized her name, but I bought the book and I found my lifeline.  The way she talked about the need to be recognized seared me, exposed me, and reassured me that the longings I felt weren't crazy, that loneliness was not to be feared, but to be incorporated as one aspect of learning to be at all, and that being different or, even "cast out" (as I began to feel about my relationship to my home) was an opportunity of unknown proportion, not a death sentence.  One could be sad, and find joy.  One could be unlike others, but still be worthwhile as a human.

I followed Liv Ullmann and my curiosity to Bergman, then Strindberg, then Ibsen.  I learned how to use the library at Valpo University.  I ordered books like Son of a Servant and Madman's Defense and Bergman on Bergman from interlibrary loan.  I'm pretty sure I saw every image from Persona that ever found print long before I saw the movie in college.  Burrowing into these Scandinavian cultural giants and my own insatiable intellect I believe quite literally saved my life.

I suppose the fact that Liv Ullmann was Norwegian was incidental, really, to what her words and following her career (especially her humanitarian work) meant to me in the ensuing years, but somehow her nationality enhanced the picture I had of Norway, which by then had become the land of my imagination.  In my small world, Norway was my secret destination, "Liv Ullmann" the promise that I could, indeed, someday find someone who would "recognize" me (I still love how Liv says that word!).  I held my imaginary country, my stranger-friend, close in my mind with my other secrets, and began to fear what was within me and where those feelings would lead me in the world less and less.

I could not explain to my friends why I had to go to Norway any more than I can explain why I am a lesbian.  I had to, and I am, and somehow knowing the one was out there made the other easier to embrace 30-odd years ago.  Of course, who I am is much more complicated than that one bit of my identity which loomed so large as an adolescent, but there is still much in me that is unsettled, "unrecognized."  I think often of the line from Housekeeping, "hers was a soul all unaccompanied, like his own."

I did find a peaceful spot in Flåm at the edge of fjord.  I expected to be hit with some lightning bolt revelation, and I was not.  Instead, I watched clouds move across a patch of sky and find their more vibrant reflection in the water.  I jumped out of bed in the morning, not because I had an appointment to make, but because I didn't want to miss a moment of the morning color.  I was unknown and alone in a red cabin in a tiny town, and every minute of every day was mine alone.

"You found your true home," Pauline said when she looked at the pictures I had taken from my window on the Aurlandsfjord.

Kindness glides about the house

In Trømso, I admired a Sammi-crafted bracelet in leather and sterling wire, but I had an attack of panic about the expenses ahead, and I left it in the case.  Later Ann presented me with the bracelet as a gift--totally bought the thing without my knowing it.  I've worn it every day since she got it for me.  In Trondheim, with her encouragement, I bought a scarf that has been part of my daily uniform too. Small changes to may daily uniform of a sports watch and a peace sign on a leather strip with some rings around it.

In Bath Cheryl and I stopped in a shop that had loads of handmade jewelry, some scarves, and some tchotchkes.  I picked out some earrings in amber and in amethyst, and pointed to them for Cheryl's opinion.  Of course I was looking at the tinier, more delicate earrings, but Cheryl said absolutely not--bigger and bolder.

WTF, I bought the bigger and bolder earrings.  B&B then became my mantra for the rest of the trip.

I do love small and delicate things, but the truth is, I am neither small nor delicate.  I tend to buy jewelry to go unnoticed and clothes to hide behind. I realized when I took this photo of myself outside the store that Cheryl wasn't just telling me the bigger earrings look better, but that embracing B&B was psychologically the right move.

So the two pairs of pants and two shirts I have been wearing since Sept. 8 were at this point in Bath dressed up with a swell, but still modest, scarf from Trondheim, a messenger bag from Flåm, and these sterling and amethyst earrings from Bath.  A little bigger, a little bolder, but still well within hippy-dom.

I have already told you about the magic scarf I didn't know how to wear, but which brought me good things on Wednesday night.  I did not mention that there were other purchases before that of satin and silk jackets and a couple of other shiny scarves.  Fancier than my usual strictly Kmart or Flax wear, but still in browns and blacks.  Cheryl suggested some BIG necklaces to go with them, but I revolted.  Still clutching my peace sign on a leather strap, I did not want and could not imagine such a weight around my neck.

On Friday, I decided to return to the vendor in Covent Garden where I got the shiny stuff and get another jacket in a bolder color.  On my way, I came across a jewelry maker to whom I really took a liking.  He makes jewelry out of sterling silverware, and I was immediately struck by a bracelet from a fork in which the tines curled and spread across the wrist.  Before I was done, I purchased this wild bracelet, a pinky ring from a coffeespoon, and a really large ring for my middle finger made from a teaspoon.  Not like me at all, and especially not when worn all at once.  I kept the pinky ring and the bracelet on, but I put the other ring in a bag--it was going to take some time to get used to that one.  These things still may be a little funky, but we are drifting away from dime store hippy.

I left the shopping and went to Notes for a latte and a light supper and a some writing.  Once back at my hotel, I realized I had lost the big ring.  Panic.  And a bit of anger--why didn't I just wear the damned thing like all the rest of the jewelry?

The next day, happily, the same shop was open (they are not necessarily the same from day to day), and I reported the missing ring.  The jewelry maker had a butter knife from 1912 he was going to bend later, and he said if I wanted to come back, he'd give it to me for a substantially reduced price.  So I headed off for some breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee before coming back to find this most stunning ring waiting for me.  It was much cooler than the ring I had lost, and I would not have purchased it if I had not lost the other. 

New jewelry, pre-butter spreader

I have since realized that making jewelry from old silverware is kind of a thing, but these pieces are quite attractive, I think, they feel GREAT, they are definitely B&B.  When I wear them, I feel bolder.  I remember the fun of indulging myself in their purpose, and I think of the knife ring as the one I was supposed to have.  There is probably some magic left to be discovered in it too.

Today, my last full day on my reinvention tour, I got up for some breakfast, then wandered over to the Jubilee market, which I hadn't really investigated before.  There was a booth filled with the softest velvety scarves I had seen.  Muted colors, bold colors.  I reached, of course, for something brown and a gorgeous teal scarf, and the young becapped woman running the stall said hello and encouraged me to try on the scarves.  "You have to see them on to decide."  I just wanted to feel them, but okay.  She shook her head.  "With your beautiful eyes you have to wear something that brings them out" and she reached for a mossy green, then a brighter green."  I took them, oddly shy because this suddenly felt girly and she looked me so squarely in the face and it was no longer just about the material but about how *I* looked in the scarves.  At the moment I was becoming shy, she said "open your eyes and look at yourself" and moved me toward the mirror. 

I changed my mind 10 times, I bought bright scarves and muted ones, I bought scarves for Michelle and scarves for myself.  I laughed.  I took pictures.

I delivered my booty directly to my hotel room in order to avoid the mishap like the ring, and I took the tube to Tate Britain for my dose of Turner and Constable, with just a touch of Blake thrown in.  When I came back, I realized I still had about 20£ on my Oyster card, which I would surely misplace before I got back to Britain.  I went back to the scarf place where Kim was having a sandwich as she continued to fold and move scarves around.  I handed her the Oyster card, explaining I'd just taken my last ride, hadn't registered the card, so she still could.  "For your kindness this morning." 

Hallelujah

I rarely passed a busker on this trip to whom I did not contribute, from the guy with the piano in Dublin to the three piece band in Galway to the guitarist in Oslo.  But staying in Covent Garden in London emptied my pockets.

I admire the guts it takes to perform for the generally disinterested, and I figure anyone trying to earn some money from music is worthy of my small contribution, but in Covent Garden there were plenty of folks who had clearly spent years of classical training, and whatever their ultimate achievement, those years of lessons and recitals and practice time impress me.

When I was in New York a couple of years ago, I gave some cash to a guy in Stamford who told me some long story about losing his wallet.  I knew it was a scam, but, frankly, he entertained me.  It was a good story he told, with just the right amount of detail, not too much pathos.  My friend Debbie is still shaking her head at me, and this incident assured her I could not be left alone on the train or in the city.  But I was happy, I was seeing friends, and he made me smile.  Why not.  In the moment I had the thought "choose to be generous," so I opened my wallet.

There were musicians on this trip who genuinely delighted me, like the band in Galway.  There was one guy with a guitar who was pretty good in Covent Garden, mixing cover songs with original material.  For those of you following me on Facebook, it was he who was playing when I saw the little girls dancing.  I listened to him for a long time that day; his voice was okay, his guitar playing better than average, but there was such sweetness and a sincerity about him that I understood why the children wanted to dance around him.   One of my last evenings in London, I walked back through the plaza and he was there again, and through the sound of laughter around the knife throwing dude and the jugglers, I heard the strains of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" from the corner of the square by the Royal Opera.  It was my guy singing fully that powerful song, filled with the sorrow of it, but also with the joy of his voice going out into the night.

I thought of the candlelight concert in Iowa City when Laurie, Tess, and Barbara performed and invited me up on stage to sing "Passionate Kisses."  My home, my friends, my own little voice under the stars...and I thought of Tess singing "Geography," which has more or less been my theme song for this trip:

I left the heartland too old for the highway...

Unsure, uncertain but I don't regret it,

'Cause I've got my life in my hands.

Voices ringing out in the night.  Nothing better. 

 

Tell Me What Love Is

Wednesday 26 October

I went back for a second dose of The Marriage of Figaro at the London Coliseum tonight.  I haven't been able to get Cherubino's arias out of my head, and I wanted to see the show from the stalls where I could see the faces of the singers.  I had been in touch with one of the singers who had invited me to "come round" after the show on Friday, but it didn't seem a thing Cheryl would have enjoyed, and I wanted to talk with her after the show that first time around. I planned to go back to say hello tonight, but my mood at show's end didn't make room for that.

Earlier in the day, I bought a silk shawl that had some magic in it I think.  It is soft and lush and quite a contrast to these clothes I have been wearing for seven weeks.  My jeans were clean, though the hems have become frayed from too much hiking, and my shirt I have only worn for two days, so I was about as spiffed up as I could manage so long away from home.

Of course I arrived at the Coliseum way too early, but I thought I would settle in with a drink and do some people watching.  My mistake.  Each area of the theatre has its own bar, creating a kind of class system in drinking.  Since I was sitting in the stalls tonight, I thought I would be in the coolest bar, but no, there are private bars beyond even the stall patrons' reach.  I went up to what I believed to be the appropriate bar and, noting there was no Bombay Sapphire on the shelf, asked for a Tangueray and tonic.  Blank stare.  I repeated myself.  Blink.  What? I repeated myself a third time and pointed to the green bottle.  The bartender's hand hovered over the bottles as he asked a fourth time.  I said "the green bottle right under your hand."  He: "why didn't you say a gin and tonic?" I had a brief moment of feeling stupid, but recovered surprisingly quickly and said "because Tangueray is better than most well gins."  He pours me--no kidding--about half a drink, takes my six or seven pounds, and says "really?   Is it better than Beefeaters?"  I don't know still if he was trying to recover from a bad moment himself, or if he was giving me the business, but by this time the seats around me were filled with people who were not alone and who actually looked like they belonged there, so I wandered over to another bar where no one was sitting.  Suddenly I was struck with panic that I was not allowed in this area (oh no, only people with tickets in the center section go here or something), so, like a child, I asked if this area was open to the likes of me or if it was reserved.  The (rather sexy) woman behind the bar spread her arms and her smile wide and said "It's all for you."

Wish I could have felt that way about the whole evening.

As I settled in for some people watching and eavesdropping on different accents, I was soon surrounded by about 8 American college students, like, you know, so, like wondering where they were going to, you know, party after the show.  I gulped the last of my half drink, forwent getting a second from the sexy bartender, and went to my seat.

One of the differences in theatre audiences in London is that they are very mixed in terms of ages.  I know ENO has great prices for young people, but even the Donmar and the other theatres I visited had lots of young people mixed in with the bluehairs.  Another thing that is striking to me is that there is considerably lower quotient of pinched and pulled women with older, disinterested men.  In my row was an elderly couple, a couple of people my age, and some folks I would say were in their late 20s.  All dressed better than I, but I touched my shawl periodically for reassurance (and because I had no idea how to wear such a thing and keep it on my shoulders).  I was on the end, and everytime someone wanted to enter or leave their seat, they apologized profusely.  This, in a country where I never once heard anyone say excuse me for bumping me on the street or pushing past me to exit the tube.

I love the time in the theatre before a show.   The place is buzzing with excitement, and you can feel the happiness in people all around you.  I like going to the theatre alone so I can just listen and absorb that.

I realized a few minutes before curtain that the director Fiona Shaw was in a box just a few feet away.  Fortunately it was just enough behind me that I couldn't stare, but occasionally I heard her voice or her laugh, so I allowed myself to think "I am about to watch an opera with Fiona Shaw" as I sat in my magic shawl.

From the stalls, the opera had a completely different effect on me.  The video projections, which were too dominant from the balcony, in their blurred slow motion provided relief to the business of the household and the sharp angles of the maze in which the characters were caught.  I think there were some problems with the revolve that night, but the singers moved through them with ease, and their voices were so clear and strong from that closer distance that their bodies just seemed to flow with them.  Kate Valentine as the Countess was glorious; I know to a singer it is the voice and the music that carry the fulness of expression, but for me, faces and movement and bodies in space matter too, and being able to see her face, the slowness of her step relative to those around her made me feel the character's sorrow in a way I had not a few nights earlier.  Opera works better for me if it knows it is theatre too.

The scenes that haunt me, though, are the ones involving Cherubino, who did not for a second convince me she was a boy, but, rather, seemed a tomboy, uncomfortable in dresses, but oddly mismatched to her boy's clothing too.  And when that voice rings out, any belief that she is male is obliterated anyway.  So.  The plaintive "tell me what love is," the pull of desire from one untouchable woman to the next hit rather close to home, and I found the scenes involving the Countess, Suzanna, and Cherubino the most compelling, and far richer than the stuff involving those goofy men trying to one up each other.

These ruminations put me in thoughtful mood, even as the music exhilerated me.  After the final curtain, I looked over at Fiona Shaw and gave her a thumbs up.  She thumbed back, and I walked on.  Out in the hall, I couldn't resist the desire to look her fully in the face, and I turned back to compliment her on the show.  She chuckled a bit, and we had nice chat for a minute or two.  I then, in a rare attack of self control, said my goodbyes without either fawning or demeaning myself or trying to make the moment last longer than it should, and walked in my ragged bottomed jeans and shiny magic shawl back to Covent Garden, past the jugglers and street musicians, to my tiny hotel room.  Alone in a big world.

Theatre in London and Trafalgar Square

par of the National Theatre at night

My primary wish in visiting London was to visit some museums and see some theatre, or, should I say, some theatres.  I knew I wanted to visit the National and the Donmar Warehouse, whatever was playing there, and it was a bonus that a new play, 13, with Geraldine James, was opening at the National Theatre and Douglas Hodge was in an Osborne play at the Donmar.  Since I missed Jerusalem in New York, I was happy to have the chance to see Mark Rylance in it in London, and I thought it was about time I saw War Horse, too.   Initially when I looked at my array of tickets, though, I was a little disappointed:  no Janet McTeer or Fiona Shaw, no Harriet Walter or Vanessa Redgrave, no Juliet Stevenson.  I could have seen VR in Driving Miss Daisy, but seeing that in NY in January was enough, though there were afternoons in London I was tempted to get a ticket just to bask in Redgravosity for 90 minutes, in spite of my general dislike of the play and production.  Fiona Shaw directed Marriage of Figaro, so, much as I wished I could have seen her on stage (preferably in Mother Courage), her attachment to the Mozart opera led me to a wonderful experience I probably would have otherwise passed by.

London Coliseum entrance

London theatre feels very different from NY theatre.  First, though many of the theatres are in the West End, they don't line the streets like they do in NYC, so you don't have that sense on the street that you are among theatre goers or that you might see a performer any time.  In fact, you are mostly around well dressed, but not completely upper end, shoppers.  So the excitement of going to the theatre doesn't start on the street the way it does in NY.  The audiences are quite different too--there are more young people, and it feels like people aren't looking around to make sure they are being seen in London as it can be in NY theatre.

I was in the front row at War Horse bawling my eyes out, only to glance from side to side and see nary a tear on the faces of my fellow audience members.  Standing ovations, which have become de rigeur in NY, don't seem to happen with such regularity.  The only one I experienced was at Jerusalem, and how anyone could stay in their seat after seeing Mark Rylance's performance I couldn't imagine anyway.  Truly, I do not expect to see a more complete, brilliant, energized performance in my lifetime.  I was at a matinee, and I think the audience would have clapped until the evening curtain if they had been allowed.  And it was deserved.  Wow.

I did get to my feet for Douglas Hodge, though the Osborne play was hard to take, as Hodge plays a character bent on self destruction who becomes painful to watch as the play progresses.  His was such a difficult task, I felt it needed honoring, but only a smattering of people stood.

As for the theatres I was so anxious to see, the National Theatre is really quite unattractive--big concrete building that is lit at night, whether to add interest or hide looming blocky ugliness I don't know, to its benefit, but during the day it almost looks like a warehouse.  Comfortable seats with good sightlines though.  The Donmar was thrilling.  I had read it was a tiny space, but I had NO IDEA.  It is a very small theatre with a thrust stage, and the audience seats are benches with cushions.  I really felt like there should be kneelers.  I was so very excited to see the photos of The McTeer from Mary Stuart, Eddie Redmayne, Derek Jacobi---all of these remnants from shows that have come over and wowed Broadway.   Man, I would have killed to see Mary Stuart in that space.  How extraordinary to see world class theatre in a space smaller than the old Allen Theatre here at ISU!

The McTeer as The Stuart

At the end of Inadmissible Evidence, Hodge's character is utterly devastated.  There is no curtain on set, so Hodge must go from lights out to applause, and you could see on his face the discomfort of the transition. 

When I am in NY, I always go into Times Square after a show.  The odd light, the city sounds, the press of people adapts either to my sense of contemplative loneliness after a show or my exuberance.  I missed that in London, especially after Jerusalem when I wanted to jump and scream and run from the thrill of such a performance.  So Trafalgar became my centering stone.  Busy, peopled, and a place I could actually FIND and get back from, when I needed a pause that was not the loneliness of the hotel, that is where I would go.  I took some obligatory photos of the Dude Nelson, but those soon became the start of a whole series of photos of the changing skies over the Dude's head. A rather different series from my Times Square photos, as you can imagine.

Stonehenge and Bath and Being a Tourist

Cheryl and I have spent two days floating in baths in Bath.   We have been laughing outrageously, I have been coughing obnoxiously, and we have both been indulging ourselves ostentatiously.  This is great.

But let me back up.  I wanted to see Stonehenge, so we made a stop there on the way from Heathrow to Bath.  I learned a lot (good) I saw many many fellow gawkers (bad).  I felt embarrassed there.  I felt ridiculous and naive that I thought I would feel something there that I hadn't felt before.

Unlike the Dolmans and Faerie circles and standing stones we saw in Ireland, all of which just sit in fields with sheep and stone fences and rocky hills, Stonehenge is bordered with an asphalt path, has a souvenir shop, has a major highway running to it, and is blanketed with tourists, many of them teenage gigglers.  As an experience, it was more splash of the cold water of commerce and commercialization, and of mass media creation of a destination.  As an amazing artifact of unclear origin or purpose, I did learn quite a bit from our guide, Nick, and our drive through the area about the various features of a henge, the hillocks and the ditches, that provided enough historical mystery for the day.

But how to see these famous places without feeling like a cruiser through the experience?  I think the time ahead in England is going to be a lot of this, with museums and historical landmarks ahead.  In Norway I had little interest in seeing specific things, rather, I had a keen desire for the landscape, the sky, and the sound of the language.  I could take a thousand photos, and chances are my photos for the most part would NOT be like everyone else's, because they were more about a way I saw things than the things themselves.  When I held up my camera to Stonehenge, I felt ridiculous.  Buy a postcard.  How will it be standing before St. Paul's, Big Ben, the Tower of London, or in the museums?  I am not EVEN going to go see Westminster Palace....

We arrived in Bath at the golden hour, and Nick took us to a park overlooking the city.  He earned his pay with that one stop.  Bath is, quite simply, gorgeous.  Most of the buildings are made of the buttery colored local limestone, and the city from that vantage point seems to ripple into the hills in waves of buildings, with a river (or canal; I couldn't keep them straight) winding through the heart of things. To get to the park we drove through narrow streets named after poets, and I had my first experience of "Milton may well have brought his failing eyes here.  Wordsworth may indeed have taken a cure here on his way to Tintern Abbey," and it was thrilling seeing those streetsigns for those possibilities.  Much is made of Jane Austen's connection to Bath, but it was a destination for those who were able for centuries.

Then Nick pointed out Solisbury Hill, and I couldn't get the damned Peter Gabriel song out of my head for days:

I did not believe the information
I just had to trust imagination
my heart going boom, boom, boom

We wandered around Bath much of the next day before our appointment at the spa.  Yes, Shari spent many hours at the spa, in an fing swimsuit, her hairy legs out for the world to see.  And stare they did, I might add.  The water was delicious.  I don't mean I drank it, but it had a kind of lightness to it.  It seemed it was easier to float than in a lake or a regular pool, and it was pleasantly warm.  The spa also has saunas spewing heat and different essences, and that humidity gave my cough considerable relief.  But it was floating in the water for a couple of hours that seemed to just even me out.

I also had a treatment at the spa called watsu.  Ok, no kidding.  You get in a bath and a woman swishes you around in the water, performing shiatsu while you are in the water.  Yep, I get it.  Back to the womb.  Now I understand why all the Freudians think that's where we all want to get to.  If that's what the womb was like, it was GOOD, my friends. 


Of course I coughed terribly three times and had to stop the treatment to catch my breath.


The spa was so good, we went back for more today.  We spent about four hours floating around, then had a hot dumpling massage.  Cheryl's was great, but mine was pleasant because of the scents and the sensations, but as a massage or as a therapy is was pretty perfunctory.  I could almost see the script in front of my therapist--now we say this, now we plop this dumpling down, now we plop this one, now we ring the bell, now we sell stuff.  I was not exactly upset by this; it was a pleasant experience, but it had the feel of a gimmick.

Unlike the shiatsu in the water with floaties on my legs, of course.

Trondheim and Oslo, I cough therefore I am

Sick sick sick.  If I didn't know antibiotics are winging their way to me from the US on Sunday I would have to find an ER.  Coughing like crazy, asthma out of control.  I have spent way too much of these last days in Norway in hotel room beds clutching my inhaler.

Even so, I saw enough of Trondheim to believe I could live there quite happily.  I felt completely comfortable there as soon as we arrived.  We were met by a rainbow outside our hotel window, which at this point I realize is more a testament to these rainy countries I am visiting than to any special magic, but they still make me smile and expect something surprising and wonderful from the day.  Our hotel is right next to Flower bridge, and pedestrian bridge bordered with boxes full of petunias.  They are a bit faded from when we first say Trondheim about 10 days ago, but they still push some summer color into the fall cool.

We are also a short walk from the Nideros Cathedral, which has spectacular stained glass windows and impressive architecture.  There were few people in the Cathedral when Ann and I visited, which allowed us free movement within, though I mostly just sat and listened to the hushed voices and gazed at the light coming through the glass.  The guides in the Cathedral are all blond women in long scarlet robes, which I'm afraid adds a whole Handmaid's Tale creepiness to the experience that I could not shake.  We had lafsa and coffee in the cafe adjacent to the Cathedral before heading back to our hotel for a nap before dinner with Pauline, who was also spending a couple of days in Trondheim before heading off to her adventure in the south of France.

Dinner was great.  Between coughing spells, I laughed and laughed and drank too much.  Our waiters were more of these adorable skinny Norwegian hippy hunks we have been seeing everywhere, though our main waiter was also very sardonic, which made me chuckle even more.   After dinner, I stood on the bridge and could hear dancing music coming from a bar across the water, but I just didn't have the lung capacity to venture over.

Day two in Trondheim, Ann went looking for Malvik church, and I was on my own to walk around Liv's hometown.  I found a paper store and bought a nice notebook.  On the way out, I mentioned fountain pens, and the woman said she had some, but generally people were not interested so she didn't have them out.  Turns out they were nothing special, some Lamys, but I liked her, liked the shop, and liked the idea of having a pen and notebook from Norway so I bought a red Safari. It is actually a great writer, I may send it off to Richard for customizing when I get home.

After securing a good notebook and a new pen, I decided to head back to the cafe by the Cathedral to flirt with the waitress, and as I walked up I met Pauline, so we went to the cafe together and had a good talk.  I stayed on to write after Pauline left, but I let the flirting go.  Hard to be charming when you are coughing up a lung.  By the time I got to the hotel, I was done for the night, and slept through dinner while Ann and Pauline went out for Thai food.

I suppose I was set up to love Trondheim knowing it is where Liv Ullmann grew up.  At 16 I wrote her a letter addressed only "Liv Ullmann/Trondheim, Norway" and the letter reached her--I got a response about 6 months later.  Still have that letter from her.  But everyone I met was so friendly and looked so relaxed that I really felt welcomed there.  Of course, there was still that element of young professional dressed for success stylishness that I find so alien in the cities of this country, but the town also felt alive and easy.  Bergen had a depth and richness that I think really won Ann over, but Trondheim had that in-betweenness that I love in American college towns.  Not urban, but not without space to be anonymous either.

Oslo has a completely different vibe.  I rode the train with Pauline here from Trondheim, and the snowy landscape between the two cities was as beautiful as anything else I have seen on this trip.  We went by a lake that went on for miles, ringed by ski slopes and green villages, farms a bit larger than what I have seen before, and gorgeous fall trees still peeking up from the snow.

We parted yesterday with a plan to get together this morning for a walk around the Oslo Opera and a bit of lunch before Pauline's plane leaves.  I met her at her hotel and we spent about an hour or more exploring the spectacular Oslo Opera House.  There is a dance festival going on now, and some dancers were rehearsing on one of the long slopes of the building.  I would have loved to have seem some of Kim's choreography here, as the piece these folks were doing did not really take advantage of that spectacular space, unfortunately.  Still, it was a pleasure to see the place alive.

After lunch Pauline wanted to buy me a glass of wine--turns out she wanted to have a talk with me.  Before we parted, I knew fully that I had met someone the memory of whom would be a touchstone for me for a very long time, and whom I probably would not see again.  I don't do well with letting go and letting things be what they are in their own place and time.  I am getting some good practice with this here in Norway.

On the way back to the hotel I came across some protestors gathering outside the legislature as part of a worldwide set of events in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protest.  I talked with a woman of about 65 who translated some of the signs for me and with whom we expressed a common hope that we are seeing the beginnings of a new movement.  "Actually a continuation of one" she reminded me.

Oslo is very much a hip, high achieving city.  People are dressed to the nines, whether dashing off to drinks with friends or to shop at one of the many pricey clothes shops here.  Heels and boots everywhere.  Everyone has some fresh geometric haircut, without a hair out of place.  I have also run into some carefully gender ambiguous people here--what I mean is, I have seen several people who have clearly dressed and styled themselves to make their gender indeterminate.  Oddly, it reads like a fashion, not an identity statement.  And yes, I know the two are intertwined, but I'm saying there was a clear feeling of performing gender ambiguity, not of expressing some inner state, not a kind of naturalization of a border consciousness.

After a nap and a great bowl of spicy Tom Yum soup, my cough and I are going to retire for the night, in spite of the ticket I bought for Woyzeck at the Opera House today.  I'm afraid I am missing Oslo, but if I don't rest, I am going to miss Bath and London too.

Running out of hard drive space

I knew it would happen. I got a message on my MacAir today that I was running out of hd space. Good metaphor for how full my head is too.

I could delete some pictures and music, but I don't want to.




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Location:Oslo, Europa cafe

Good On You

I think it is time I devoted more space to Pauline, whose presence has dotted this blog for the last few entries, and whose spirit will be with me long after this trip.

We met the first night on the ship, as she was to be one of our table partners for the trip. Table 19. I'd say the three of us hit it off pretty immediately, and we laughed and laughed at that dinner and many meals hence. I felt immediately like Pauline "got" me, and when she said "good on you" about something I had done, I felt enormously pleased.  As the week went on, I was delighted by a couple of more "good on yous" from this extraordinary woman.

Pauline is Australian, in her late 60s (though I would have pegged her a good deal younger), and on her way to spend a few months in Nice painting. She has traveled, literally, all over the world. Antarctica is the only continent she has not visited, and that is still on her agenda. Before the week was out we heard of many of her amazing experiences, most notably those in India, which I believe really laid claim to her heart when she was there. She chose on that trip, as she has on many others, not to go first class or to claim the comfort of a Australian traveler with a bit of money, but to ride the trains with the poor and visit the places usually hidden from tourists.

Hers is not a political or do gooder agenda, though she has definite ideas about things and a fury against injustice, but it is more an insatiability about seeing and understanding the world and its people unadorned and not performing, "as they really are" is how she puts it. I have, quite simply, never met anyone with this kind of restless craving for life and more life. She has children and grandchildren, most of whom wish she would just stay home, but it is not in her to stay put, though she did stay in difficult circumstances for many years to raise her children. Now she is a wanderer, but clearly grounded in that identity; open and ready, not aimless nor, certainly, lost.

She has a full laugh and an exceptional graciousness. Her attentive kindness to those around her makes me feel downright selfish and oblivious. It has been inspiring to spend time with her on many levels, and I am sure meeting her was no accident.

Pauline is at work on a book about her experiences. I can't wait to read it. Makes my wish to write of my limited experiences feel very silly, but I hope that my small book will some day earn another "good on you" from this new, and dear, friend.

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Location:On the train to Oslo

Snow makes people warmer

It seems like there has been a transformation in the ship since we spotted some snowy peaks. People who have been circling around each other warily for over a week are now smiling and saying hello and asking cordial questions of each other.

I still find I am less interested in other humans than I am in the landscape and the general relationship of humans to it. I am sitting in the 8th deck observing area--"the cinema" as I call it--and have been editing some of the dozens of photos I took this morning. One of the bridge players said hello and we exchanged general information about each other.




It was a fantastic crisp morning, but I missed the sunrise, which was apparently spectacular peaking over the snowy mountains. I still managed to take 134 photos before the morning was over. About 20 of them were an attempt to catch a Skarv in flight, but by the time I cropped the images I got pixelation that made them undesirable. I need to practice the rapid shutter stuff some more.

I find myself especially moved by the landscape today. The wind in my face is stinging and strong, exhausting to face but exhilarating too. The mountains near and far and the changing sky is endlessly fascinating. I am not where I have been.












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Aurora and Falling Stars

So earlier today I was talking to my new friend Pauline, an incredible Australian woman who has been everywhere and has opened herself up to places and experiences in remarkable ways, about the disappointments of this cruise: no snow, no whales, few excursions. She has never been in snow, though she has, of course, seen it in mountains. Then mid afternoon I looked out the window and realized as we moved southward we were going by incredible mountains covered in fresh snow. I got Pauline, and we went up to the top deck, where some flakes of snow were flying about. It was wicked cold, but the mountains were incredible against the gray, then, blue, then green, then gray waves. This Norway I wanted to see. This Norway I was missing.




I took about a hundred photos and haven't yet had time to go through them. The above is indicative of the sights, but not necessarily the best image I got--just what I got on my iPad for posting here.

After some delightful coastline sights, Pauline and I had a wonderful talk, some drinks, and then Ann joined us for more great conversation and another glass of wine. Fabulous afternoon.

Dinner continued the pleasurable day, though we all hate that our dinner time is 8:30, which is way to late for any of us to eat. The moon made an appearance--the first I have seen it in this country, so I said I was going up on the top deck to look at its reflection in the water while the others went off to bed or to crochet.





WELL. Can I just say aurora f**ing borealis??!! Incredible, cold night sky. Shimmers and streaks of light shifting everywhere. The moon at a bit over 3/4, reflected light in the waves and clouds moving in and out to be defined by the moonlight. I called Pauline and texted Ann and took a zillion pix, even though I have no idea how to operate my camera to get good night shots.














Again, I haven't had a chance to edit these photos, so they still show the overexposure my camera's auto settings chose to capture the night sky, I had no tripod, and I didn't know what the f I was doing, but you get the idea it was a spectacular evening. The camera captures more of the green than I could see with my eyes unaided, but the night was spectacular in its shifting and surprising spots of shimmering light.

AND I saw 6--yes, S I X --shooting stars. I saw two in Flåm last week. And I did make wishes on every one.

A fabulous experience was this day. Oddly, I found myself quoting Sylvia Plath all day. Lines like

"stasis in darkness
then the substance less blue
pour of tor and distances"

Or
"the moon has nothing to be sad about
staring from her hood of bone"

or that bit about the "freakish Atlantic" from "Daddy."

It was, indeed, a poet's day.




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Where the hell am I

I'm lost. I don't know what sea we are in, I don't know what day of the week it is, all the names of these coastal towns are running together--I'm feeling the pull of my work, and I am resisting, so I am between engaged and at liberty, I'm caught up in my imagination, and I'm sailing past the landscape that has been home to that imagination for 35 years.

All in all, the cruise has been a disappointment. Yes, we have seen incredible landscape, the ship is comfortable and not too fancy for my sensibilities, and I have traveled to parts of Norway I would not otherwise have seen. But it all is out there--across waves and distances I cannot gauge. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets, but I can't take walks or stare at a singular mountain until it is mine. Flåm is what I needed, what I craved, what I want more of. Have I seen more beautiful places on this cruise? Yeah, most would say so, but what I crave is being, not just seeing.



That said, traveling with Ann is great, and I am delighted to have met Pauline, who has traveled the world and still craves more experience more places. I love the mix of languages and the stretches of time looking out the window, but I could be looking out the window at any beautiful landscape anywhere, I think.



So I find I am still craving Norway, even as I sail along her coast.

I read today that Liv Ullmann will be acting in a new German-Norwegian co-production that will be filming in Bergen and in Germany.



Last night I helped a French man get on the internet, and today a man from Florida asked me some questions. I am becoming the international geek at hand. Hurtigruten should hire me.

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The Far North

We are docked at Kirkenes, the easternmost city in Norway, just a few miles from the Russian border in the Arctic. It is a rainy crappy day, and the excursions consist of getting on vehicles and going to look at the Russian border. Now, one of those vehicles is an ATV, so I would have liked to drive that, but perhaps not in the rain and cold and for $200.

So I will sit in one of the various cozy rooms on ship, look at the view, and concentrate on writing today. Internet access continues to be spotty, so actual communication with the rest of the world may continue to be on hold until we are back in Trondheim.



I am currently in the Knut Hamsun room on deck 8. I thought I would prefer one of the forward rooms on this trip where you can see three sides, but I find this room and its parallel on the other side of the ship are where I sit most often. They are quieter and less populated. Usually there are a couple of groups of people playing cards, though I have yet to invite myself to join them. There is a German threesome playing something that I'm just sure would be a better game if they had a fourth, and some older folks have been playing bridge. I finally chatted with the bridge players last night and would love to swing an offer from them to continue teaching me how to play, as Dad was doing before he died. Those folks are Australian, so I can at least bid in the same language.

I am finding my understanding of German has improved since my first couple of days here, and I utter a phrase or two where I can. English is so pervasive, though, that it is really my own drive to speak something other than English and not necessity that creates opportunities.

Last night our dinner companion, Pauline, opened up to us about her many years of travel and some of the adventures she has had in India, China, and dozens of other places. She is from Australia, and has been on every continent except Antarctica, which, at 70, she may do yet. Pauline is really amazing, having chosen at every turn to opt for adventure rather than certainty, and for learning how people really live rather than comfort. I felt very small in her presence, though she carries these experiences without hubris or grandeur, but simply as a privilege she has enjoyed and by which she has been humbled.

I was not well last night, less because of the rocky voyage and more because of the excess of food I have been consuming. I got up about 1 and decided to look for the Northern Lights (I did see a touch of them). I came up to the 8th deck and the forward lounge, which was dark and empty. I swear I was the only one awake on the ship. I was too creeped out to go outside, but it felt edge of the world enough in that big room looking out at the dark sea. Soon we approached a small town at which we docked for about 15 minutes. It was really cool to see the lights of the harbor appear out of the darkness and the searchlight from the ship scan the harbor and dock to assure a clear path to docking. I was texting back and forth with Eric a bit during this time, which made me feel connected and very alone at the same time. In the end, the quiet of the ship was hypnotic, and I may make another late night excursion to the upper decks tonight.

I realized in Ireland that I am not good at seeing things for a bit and moving on, so I am not hot to get out and explore the towns where we dock when we only have a couple of hours to do so (though I really liked Tromso). Being on the ship drinking coffee and watching this incredible landscape as we go by is more moving to me than the rush through a couple of streets of a town and a bit of shopping frenzy. The host of languages around me on ship is stimulating, and I continue to be amazed that the human race has spread to these remote shores and inhabited the tiniest coves for centuries in search of fish and a scrap of flatland. Now, of course, some of these areas are growing for the oil that is making Norway so rich in the world market, but I still find great inspiration and fascination at what spirit must have guided people in the most strenuous of circumstances to follow the reindeer or sail dark seas in wooden boats to populate the edges of the mountains and seas.




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Location:Kirkenes, Norway

Rain in the Arctic

Now this is the weather I was expecting for this trip.




Rainy and gray as we cross the Arctic Circle. We crossed a bit earlier than expected, so I missed the moment, but I don't think whales and polar bears jump up to greet you anyway, so I'll be happy for that extra half hour of snoozing. The landscape of the next day or so has been unusually barren, but we will then come across a tiny village or a lonely house that demonstrate the incredible will to populate and eke out a living from the fish of this area. We have also passed a number of fish farms that have inserted their nets and their technologies into this crazy place that shouldn't belong to humans at all.

I've kept the telephoto lens in the cabin, so I've missed photos of some of the interesting things along the shore, such as one red cottage out on a lonely peninsula that had rock walls built up on two sides and it's back against the rocky hill/mountain behind it to protect it from the weather. There is also a small town--starts with an O, I'll have to check a map--where the townspeople come out every day to wave to the Hurtigruten ships as they go by. I watched a car snake its way across the shore and through the small town, only to see it parked at the dock and (presumably) its driver waving as we went by.

I assume this is an old tradition, perhaps born of the fact that the Hurtigruten line is not a cruise line strictly speaking. It is a cargo and mail line that also takes tourists. So we stop in many ports where we only stay for a half hour or so, and we load and unload cargo and people on short commutes. Actually, it's pretty cool to be on a working ship. When my friends Cheryl and Tara traveled north with the Hurtigruten last winter the boat was mostly filled with oilmen going to the rigs up in the arctic.

Ann commented yesterday on how cool it is to hear the mix of languages on the ship, and she's right. All announcements are in Norwegian, English, and German, and indeed, those languages dominate around us (though there might be some Swedish mixed in, but my ear isn't well enough attuned to the differences to know for sure). I am able to understand at least the gist of most of what I hear in German. There is a kind of iciness in the faces of many of the people on ship that is curious to me, and may come from everyone's sense of linguistic isolation. Silly me, I expect people would respond to that with gestures such as a smile and nod of the head when passing a stranger, but this is more of a glaring staring thing.

I can't find my brush, so maybe it is just my hair.
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Location:near Bøde

Cruising

It is around noon on the third day on the ship Midnatsol in the Hurtigruten line. We are in the harbor at Trondheim and departing shortly. I am loving this ship, except the internet access is really really bad, so I'm afraid I have gotten behind in my blogging. I've now rescued the iPad keyboard from my stowed suitcase, so I can at least compose offline to upload to Blogspot when we hit a good place. Photos are on the phone and the computer however, so I may have to add media later. I have been doing some videos on Facebook, so for the five or six of you following my adventures via the blog, you might want to check FB as well.

Our cabin on the ship is much bigger than I expected. I'm not saying it is roomy, but at least we don't have to climb over each other to get in and out, and the shelves were adequate for our stuff. Only two electrical outlets in the room, though, and Ann and I both are electronics queens. Since the electric in the room is off when there is no room key in the slot, we have to trade off recharging of phones and iPads at bedtime. Fortunately I got an iGo adapter, which pretty quickly charges two USB devices at once. I just realized this is interesting to no one but me. Oops. Anyway, cabin good, gadget preparation great, onboard gadget support not so good.

We left Bergen at night, and it was just beautiful. I was too exhausted and chilly to stay on the top deck all the way out of the harbor, and I haven't got the settings down for night shots on my camera, but it really was fun slipping out into the night. I did make the mistake of looking over the side of the boat once, and Stan will understand what I mean if I say I have not made that mistake again. Because we are following the Norwegian coast, we are in sheltered waters for most of the trip, and when we do turn to open sea, we get a warning, but all we've had is what I would call a gentle rocking at those times. For the most part, I can't even tell we are moving.

The food is great, but it is a crazed feeding frenzy when it is an open seating buffet. I'm not keen on the forced congeniality of the assigned seating meals, but I must confess they go more smoothly. Last night I had my first taste of clipfisk--I loved it--and I didn't even know I was eating fish. Our table companions seem very nice, so I look forward to more enjoyable dinners. That Ann bought a bottle of yummy wine for us isn't so bad either.  

Our first full day, Sunday 2 October, I got up early to see the sunrise on the deck. We were moored at Ålesund, where we had planned an architectural excursion. I was so taken with the sky and the sea and the views from the deck that I skipped the walk into town and stayed on the boat writing and looking out to sea. And snapping several dozen photos. Most of the passengers were in town, so it was great to be on the top deck with only a couple of other people. The weather was warm and bright--very unusual for Norway at this time of year, and that sunny warmth has continued today, Monday. Sunset was equally spectacular, so the Canon got a lot of use then too. I'm going to try to make sunrise and sunset on the top deck most mornings. Sunrise is not too early, and as we move north it will get later. I realize I can't depend on this extraordinary weather lasting, but I will enjoy it as much as possible while I can.

This is a very different part of my trip. It is still Norway, but it is Norway at a distance. Norway as a travelogue, as a set of pretty pictures. Jumping off the ship to walk around a town for a couple of hours is not appealing to me, though we did it today in Trondheim (I'll write about Trondheim at length later, as I am spending three days there at the end of the cruise). We could be walking anywhere, in any cute village along any pretty street. We are surrounded by tourists from our ship, and there is never more than a couple of hours before loading up for the next thing. But the ride itself is extraordinary. Norway's coastal beauty is unbelievably exciting. I know people come here to chase the midnight sun in summer, but the changing leaves and the sea and sky of fall--realizing we have exceptional weather right now--is another kind of fabulous I am glad to experience. We have passed hundreds of islands already, from ones that are merely rocks to small fishing villages. Sadly, we are too late in the season for the small boat tour to the Lofoten Islands up north; I really wanted to do that.

I have this overwhelming feeling sometimes as I look at the coast from the upper deck that I want to run to shore and hug a mountain. Literally, I have a desire to hug the land--to put my arms around it and squeeze.


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Location:Trondheim, Norway

The World is Too Much with Us

When I was in graduate school, I took a lot of shit for my love of the Romantic poets.  "Reactionary."  "Bourgeois."  Etc.  There are some things that could not be shamed out of me though, and the way Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats touch me is among them.  Yes, I love other, more hip or even more PC poets, but these guys still ring deep in my heart.

I remember when Ernst Bernhardt, who taught my class on Romanticism in my last year as an undergrad at Indiana University, began our study of Faust by saying as a boy in Switzerland he would roam the countryside with a copy of Goethe's epic in his pocket.  He showed us a slide show from his visit to the Lake country when we started the English Romantics, and he was giddy when discussing Wordsworth's Prelude.  Prof. Bernhardt, as I recall, did most of his scholarly work on Robert Southey, but we didn't read a single thing by Southey in that class.  Bernhardt's love was Wordsworth, but making a mark on Wordsworth scholarship and earning tenure, etc. would have been too difficult, so he, like so many scholars, chose a subject smaller, with less abundant scholarship already in place, upon which to focus his writing.

Let me pause here in my memory and allow a moment to reflect how completely fucked up my profession is.

When I began to put this trip together, the image of that boy Ernst was with me constantly as I imagined myself in Wordsworth's England, rereading The Prelude, and reciting Keats to myself.  Sitting here at the edge of this fjord with my guitar or my fountain pen is all part of that same spirit of giving myself up to this incredible natural world and a romantic yearning to get back a deeper, earlier connection to life, to poetry, to a more creative self.  But the giving over to it is not easy; worries about money, about things not getting done, about being a crappy writer and an even crappier guitar player intrude constantly.  Some asthma hit me in the middle of the night--my inhaler took care of the issue and I'm clear this am--but I lay in bed imagining what if I get sick like last year?  Where would I find a doctor?  How would I pay?  Would Ann or Cheryl be able to sleep with me coughing in the room?  Would I have to fly home?  How many puffs do I have left on my inhaler?  Why didn't I bring a backup Advair inhaler?  Is it too late to ask Ann to bring one with her?  Wordsworth had me nailed.

Shutting my thinking off and opening my mind--as in Wordsworth's "our minds shall drink at every pore," where the "mind" is suffused throughout the body and absorbs nature unfettered by thought or language or duty--is incredibly difficult.

So I was up early thinking about these things, and out the window the sun was rising on the other side of the mountain. Though I could not see the sun, I could experience the subtle changes it exerted on the sky and that sky reflected in the water in front of me.  I went up on the top deck and watched the morphing sky and water until time for the day among people to begin.

Mysteries

It's Monday morning here, and I am watching two men in a small boat check on some nets they laid last night.  I haven't seen any fish come up, or any netting for that matter, but last night I watched as they put out netting halfway across the fjord about 50 yards from my cottage.  They are creeping along, so I assume they are checking on other nets or traps they have laid.  I had planned to take my little boat out this morning, but I don't know how far down the nets are, and getting tangled in one would be ugly.  They were able to get around the net I watched them lay by starting on the other side of it; if it is all where I think it is, it's cutting me off from the rest of the fjord.

Yesterday's big adventure was a trip to a smorgasbord.  A cruise ship landed again, The Albatros, so the town was teeming with tourists for a few hours.  Flåm has only 300 inhabitants, but in high season there can be 20,000 visitors in a day.  That seems hard to comprehend, as there are only a few souvenir shops and a handful of restaurants here, but I have seen photos of swarms of people.  In any event, the restaurant was hopping in this otherwise sleepy place, so I gave it a try.

I like salmon, but I'm done with it.  Pickled, smoked, sliced, chunked, grilled.  Herring (no thanks).  Some kind of fish thing that was kinda spongy; I wonder if it was stockfish that had been reconstituted.  A common Norwegian export is whitefish, usually cod, that is air dried (in some places, still on rocks or on racks on cliffsides) for weeks, then soaked or boiled later for use.  It can be the main ingredient in Italian baccala, and sometimes baccala is (mis) used as a generic term for this dried fish.  Clipfish is another form of dried fish, more often used in baccala actually, but clipfish is salt-cured, and stockfish is not (cold adapted parasites are involved but I prefer not to think about that).  I learned this, by the way, from Andreas Viestad on New Scandinavian Cooking.  Love him.
Whatever it was, it was nasty.   There were some other meats on offer that looked like rather ordinary meat patties, but when I launched into one, there was another spongey texture thing that did not appeal.  I may just go right off of meat and fish here. 

On the other table were various pasta based salads that generally had some surprise seafood element hidden within.  Beets, and of course, a couple varieties of potatoes were part of the action too.  On the dessert side were hunks of jello, flan, and some Sara Lee-ish little squares of pastry.  No cloudberries.  The desserts were uninteresting, save for some creamlike substance in pitchers to be poured over them.  This wasn't cream, wasn't whipped cream, wasn't creme freche.  It was thick but still pourable--about the consistency of runny pancake batter--, slightly yellow, and really delicious.  I had several nasty cakes just to be able to pour this stuff over them.  Coffee was fair.  At least it was strong, but strong also seems to mean bitter here.  All for 239NOK, or about 50 bucks.

I came home from lunch and found my little duck friend waiting for me.  She came up within about 4 feet of me, and seemed quite unafraid when I moved closer to her.  Later in the evening she brought a friend, so I threw out some bread to them.  A good sized branch washed up to the shore, and I thought it about the right size for a walking stick.  As I whittled off some of the bark, my feathered friend seemed hopeful that what I was dropping was more bread.  I felt guilty and got her another slice.

I think I miss my pets.

I played a little guitar, messed around with the recorder Pammy got me in Ireland, wrote a couple of postcards, then watched The Graham Norton Show on the BBC.  I did some checking around on the web to see if audience tickets would be available when I am in London, but the TV show doesn't seem to be in production at the moment (this was an old show I watched).  I've never had much interest in that kind of audience experience before, but he's crazy funny  (and did a great interview with Fiona Shaw on the radio this weekend that was excerpted in his podcast--so sorry I couldn't hear the whole thing.  They were fun together). It seems I have settled into something like a normal life here.

The snow that was on the mountains a few days ago has melted, and the tops are just being kissed with light, though the sky is mostly filled with dark and dramatic clouds.  Dramatic.  That's the word that best describes this landscape for me.