10. First day of spring

Goooood morning Bruce! Are you up-and-about yet? That might be a bit too much to ask for as morning here probably means night where you are. Or perhaps you are still waltzing around under the oak tree? Or perhaps… you are dancing around somewhere else…I, on the other hand, has just danced my way out of my dreams, and I am still tucked under my duvet while my thoughts are performing a last pirouette as I am surrendering into a nice cup of coffee. I turned 40 yesterday. And I must say I am pretty pleased with myself for making it this far. Who would have thought? And not everyone makes it to 40, we all know that! I’ve decided I’d like to take another 40 rounds in the ring of life, but then again, that is probably not entirely up to me. For instance, yesterday it almost went really bad – again…

In fact, it’s been a while since I have felt the chill of death down my spine. Imagine that – the day before I turn 40! Now that would have been something… What makes it even spookier is that I had this really low feeling from the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning. I decided to not pay any attention to it, not to let it ruin my day as so many times before. So when I saddled up the horse and set off into that sunny day, I saw no dangers ahead. Until WHAM! – the horse suddenly panicked and threw me off – or at least try to do so. Just a small problem there – my foot was stuck in the stirrup. I was hanging there for a split second or two before the foot got loose, and I hit the ground. Talk about change! – one second I am happy as a clam and mastering the horse, the next I was a “super” in my own movie of life; short-films and memories raced through my mind but I soon snapped out of it. All I saw was the back of my horse running off like it had the devil on pursuit up the Breivoll-hills. Then it was my turn to run like crazy. A gentleman in a car pitied me, and offered me a ride. Normally an offer like that would have made me run even faster, but this time I threw myself into the car and the chase begun. Thoughts were racing through my head – thoughts not suitable for print I might add… Thankfully it came to a happy end. The horse gave up as it arrived at the bottom of the Aschehoug-hills. It had been running like a wind past a boat builder, streams and several other local spots without slowing down. I never thought I’d be grateful for those steep hills of Aschehoug, as I had a real hate-hate relationship with them in my youth. But this time around I felt nothing but gratitude for their steepness! You need a huge amount of motivation to climb those, and the horse (as I so many times before) just didn’t have that. Total surrender!

The speed of life… well, sometimes I feel we’re breaking the speed limit… Like at the church bench 11 years ago, when I faced the fact that I had not become the woman I planned to be… Sometimes we have to walk backward to be able to grasp the feeling of speed. From there to here in a snap. Looking ahead – at all those years folding out just waiting to be filled with laughter and memories it is easy to feel immortal, eternal, because…. yes!! Time is an endless stream of hours, minutes and seconds passing by as we fly our circles around the sun.  How naive! We know of course that life does come to an end, that nothing lasts forever and that no one … are immortal. I think it’s a good thing to acknowledge these facts as they make you appreciate life right now more. I strongly believe that anyone who has had a near-death experience just knows how to fill the rest of their life to the full. They are good at sorting out what’s important and what’s not – how to fill the remaining days of their life with things that matter, that gives positive energy and good memories. Most of us are just dancing in the twilight of ignorance… Even I do that – despite taco shell experiences, the fear of darkness, total strangers, sharks etc. I was never in any real danger, my life had until now for the most part been about avoiding danger; airplanes, boats, dentists, elevators, snakes, deep water – the list is long. And the irony of it all – the one time I got myself into a plane, there was a fire in one of the engines at 20,000 feet. Now we’re talking panic and prayers - and an offer to sit in cockpit despite the fact that I was 20 years old… And, of course, that one time when I was 2 years old and the world went starry white through the front screen of my dad’s Volvo PV as we were trying to get down from the Klimpen mountain at Tynset in Norway…

It was Easter and freezing cold. Unmanageable roads twirled icy and steep through the landscape. At one side of the road the world plunged several hundred feet down into what looked like eternity, on the other side – steep cliffs. This, Bruce, is my first memory in life. My family and I with our feet up and heads down, and inch away from death as we slid into the snowdrift on the other side of the road. The wheels spinning as the car tried to take off to heaven. The winter past by our windows like glittering sparks before it all went silent and it felt like it whispered “welcome back” behind the screen. My brother was just a few weeks, sleeping like an angel at the hat rack in the rear window when the world suddenly when backwards and upside down and he was nowhere to be found… My parents were terrified – there were no signs of him and not a sound. A couple of minutes later he was found underneath a pile of luggage – smiling and giggling! Yes – that was fun, one more time please! The smiling and giggling soon stopped after my dad – with shaking hands – handed him to some helping hands standing there. He slipped out of their hands, hit the ground – and screamd so high the snow blew away from the mountain tops.  There was no doubt!  He was alive. And kicking. Same goes for the rest of us. Perhaps it was this day it all begun. The life where I constantly felt I was starring death in the white of the eye. I somehow felt I had played all my cards at one hand, and the next time around…. I would loose.

38 years later, and full of experience, here I am. Underneath my duvet, thinking  about the days of my life… I’ve decided to defy all fears and phobias, and live my life to its full for all the time I have left.  And that, Bruce, is a promise.  All this has a reason – and that is…. why you are heading my way. How all this is connected??  I’ll tell you another time. Right now I need to seize the day. I’ll saddle my horse and ride far, far away under the beautiful, pale wither sun, until my fear melts and the calm surrender my heart. I will ride until I feel the first day of spring grow strong. I will ride until the end of the world, and return with my pack full of new decks of cards, ready to play another few rounds of life. I might even keep the jokers… The uncertain and unpredictable is indeed part of the game of life. Because in the middle of all this, anything and everything comes alive…. and possible!

Catch you later!

Rikke

Published in Norwegian 21.february 2012

PS. The song I’ve linked up this time is one I hope you’ll take the time to listen, really listen to. I know you will not understand the lyrics, but if you truly listen I believe you will still grasp the meaning. This is one of my major favorites right now, and it fits like a glove.

9. Yes Sir! I can boogie!!

I keep dancing, both in the light and in the dark. But most of all I dance around my kitchen on a slow February morning, when the pale winter sun is beaming through my windows. I sometimes dance instead of walking down the street – especially if my headphones fill my ears with groovy tunes. My body is definitely not made for walking straight if there is some boogie inside. And despite stormy weather there has been plenty of boogie, believe me. If this was the day to measure up, and boogie was to go on the scale together with melancholy, boogie would hit the ground. There’s plenty of melancholy inside still, but too much of anything brings nothing good. It’s all about balance, nuances’ and experiences that in the end leads to emerging thoughts and progress, and right out of this; a new horizon. The scale has tipped a bit back and forth over the years. I reckon that is how it should be. Happiness and boogie gives strength, energy and the feeling of being blessed. It gives fuel to your engine and guts, but rarely wisdom, progress and enlightenment. However, you’ll get plenty of that when life beats you up, when you’re pushed to the ground and grief and sorrow rides your body. It takes one to know one – it easy to recognize and acknowledge others pain when you’ve been there yourself… That is precious knowledge not to be mismanaged. We all need someone. Someone who understand, who stumbled and fell – and got back on their feet. Someone who have fought their way through what seem to be an endless and lonesome journey. Out of this grows generosity, empathy and support to those that are struggling. Daring to share experiences about your life-journey through all kinds of terrains forces the darkness to yield to the light. Honesty in combination with love is a powerful gift to give – to others and to you.

Boogie came into my life long before it started to be hurtful. We are talking about the 70s when Yes Sir! I can boogie filled the air everywhere you turned. Baccara swept into our small apartment in a skyscraper in Oslo. My mother on the floor, desperately trying to zip-up her pants. Skin-tight really meant exactly that those days. I could feel the dance growing inside me, and I took my first steps on the parquet floor of a dancing academy. After a while I felt like a dancing queen, swirling around the floor in waltz, cha-cha and samba. Dedicated and concentrated I memorized each step. I had talent, and after a short while I advanced and got to dance with the elder. I was soooo proud. And each year there was a ball. And each year my mom and I took the bus to the city center of Oslo to buy dancing shoes. The shop we went to was no ordinary shop. You could hardly spot it from the street; it was through a gate, into the courtyard, up some stairs, and there… hidden behind the gray front of an old building was an almost secret shoe store – for the initiated only, with the sweetest personnel ever. I became a princess the moment my foot hit the top step of the stairs and I entered the shop. They treated us like royalty, and it felt like there was no one else in the shop but us. It was if the world had seized to exist and we were the only one left. It was magic, a perfect fairytale and Christmas Eve - all in one.

Of course we could have bought the shoes at Grændsen skotøimagazin, like everyone else did. Grændsen skotøimagazin – the shoe store in Oslo – 3 floors filled with all the shoes your heart desire. Stairs. Polished handrails, shining elevators for busy shoppers with busy feet. Where you live, Bruce, I bet this place would appear like a corner shop – but here in Norway we have next to none tradition for anything large. We tend to not approve of things we feel grow out of proportions and above our head. And we certainly don’t approve of anyone trying to fit into shoes that are not theirs – so to speak. If you try to outgrow your own shoes or grow taller than those around you, you are soon pushed down. Who do you think you are?? However – we are keen on watching over small sprouts as they peek out of the soil and into the air, but we don’t ask twice before cutting them down when they are outgrown. Heeelllooooo!? I thought we were supposed to grow and develop throughout our lives…  We have a “syndrome” here in Norway – kind of a principle of 'just who do you think you are'. I will try to explain it to you and give you a couple of examples. We call it Jante. Perhaps you have heard of it…

1.       You are not allowed to think you are someone.

2.       You are not allowed to think you are just as valuable as the rest of us

3.       You are not allowed to think you are wiser than us

4.       … and so on and so on.

Some claim this is the worst of all unwritten rules. I guess they are right, but there is something thats worse. Because if you change the focus in those principals from outward to inward, you will see that in the end you’ll be your own worst enemy… “you are not allowed to think you are any wiser than the others”. Powerful trick when you want to hurt yourself, and the mechanisms to tackle those principals just do not exist, do they?! When you repeat to yourself over and over again that you are not as valuable as the rest – after a while you start to believe in it – despite the fact that deep, deep down you know that it’s not true. It`s not so dangerous when people starts to "Jante" you.  It`s dangerous... when you start to  "Jante" yourself.  

It was not because of Jante my mom and I didn’t choose Grændsen skotøimagazin. According to my mom it was a question of cost and value. To me it was a question of being the princess in the fairytale or not....and the secret shoe-store-shop up those stairs gave us the full package – value for money, and the feeling of being Cinderella on her way to the royal ball! After my mom had paid for the shoes, the lady handed me a roll of smiley-faced stickers. However, the smiley face on the other side of the counter was not stuck on anywhere – it was genuine. It was real –and warm. An angel among shoes who had helped me pick out my ballroom shoes; silvery shining and perfect. I would glow like a princess – at least along the floor… All that was missing now was a ballroom dress – one with an ample skirt. How I wanted a dress like that – like the other girls at the dancing academy. Pink, lilac or icy blue sparkling and twirling skies at the parquet floor… My own beige, velvet dress was soft as… yes, velvet – but with absolutely no sparks or bristle. When at last my mom said I could have a dress like the other girls, the dressmaker was out fabrics in the right colour. However – she had plenty of acid-green fabric… How fair is that?! Well, it was either beige velvet or acid green tulle, so I chose the latter. Neon ballerina – not easily missed at the ball...glowing all the way to the moon.

At the age of 8, my skyscraper life ended, and so did ample skirts and a newborn career as dancing queen. The result being I’m best when I’m dancing alone; in the kitchen in the beaming sunlight, along the road under the stars. The reason for all this solo-dance, is that there is not a living soul out there able to lead me on the dance floor. I appear to be a person hard to lead. One thing is my mind – but my body to. So don’t even think about it Bruce. However much I love the stage performance and Dancing in the dark – I do not recommend you ask me up for a dance. However, in the middle of the night – there is always a perfect moment, right there underneath the oak. Just look for a twirling, acid-green ballerina…

Until then… caramba!

Rikke
Published in Norwegian 19. february 2012