7. Cover me

The first record of you, that I heard – came out right before my life bursted, and the ice found it’s way through the roof. I will never forget the time I LISTENED to your music.  That day it was more than distand music on the radio.  We had a party, celebrating the end of elementary school, and the start of high school, the year was 1985.  Breivoll is a fantastic public area/beach just by the feet of the steep hills of Nordby.  Summer was in the air, and the sun was shining.  Breivolls rich grass plains ran to meet the blue ocean and the forest behind us forming arms stretching against us. It was a celebration… High School was in front of us and soon, youth was to enter us… In between, a burning hot summer.

I did not celebrate.  I was there just because that was expected from me.  I would rather be miles away, on the back of my horse in the direct opposite direction.  I would go to Mars, Jupiter or (preferably) Pluto, right there – if I could.  Out there, in outer space I could have lowered my shoulders and made stardust from the pain behind my ribs. But I was stuck and earthbound, standing outside the sisterhood forming several groups of people on the grass.  I would so much like to fit in, but always fell between chairs.  In one day, out the next one.  Always that insecure feeling as the week closed in on the weekend… In, or out? That day at Breivoll: Out. So, no reason to dance.

I was not good to see the signs, or to play by the unwritten rules. The art of manipulation was not strong with me, but I could recognize it from miles ahead.  I had seen to many people pulling the puppet strings and THAT was something I didn’t like.  I didn’t wanted to be harnessed, bound to follow.  It was my own small steps that was supposed to get me where I wanted.  I was deeply independent, but strived at the same time for the sense of belonging.  A place I could just be me.  Without looking over my shoulder. Always on watch, always a quick beating heart – with a hope that one day, everything was to be ok.  I looked for hints of change every day – but the day for changes did not come then.  Maybe I have to grow up, I thought? Maybe we have learned then? How to carry friendship with dignity and confidence. That IN means IN, not soon out.  That friendship is not power, but fellowship and equality.

As an adult it is easy to see that the sisterhood game is about positioning, power and control. And that slandering, scorn and insults is about making the others smaller, and their selves bigger.  I was then, like now, not ready to be a part of making people smaller og being made small myself. Still it bothered me so much… It made me unfree and seeking.  Luckily I had spaces that made me free. The stables and my horse and the marching band.  And the time with the boys.  They were straight forward and honest. Loyal and secure, and they talked a language I understood.  Boys that allayed and balanced.  Friends like that I had been blessed with as my friends since kindergarten, probably because I was a tomboy.  High and low, cowboy and Indian, soccer-playing and adventurer. Out doing pranks, without doing anything wrong.  My consciousness was to big for that. I was just very properly.  I had my things… Some lessons is to be learned during life, and they… seldom is to be learned if you do everything by the book.

So there I was at Breivoll, not thinking about lessons learned or to be learned – that what’s the night is for.  The only thing on my mind was the nauseating feeling stuck in my throat. My look over the ocean, away – away – away. Over the waves, to Oslo, up the steep hills of Holmenkollen, into the deep woods to “goneaway-land” and Pluto. But then, out of nowhere, you came.  Someone had brought a beast of a ghetto blaster, powered by 8 huge A-batteries squeezed out The E-Street band, so you could hear it all the way over to the other side of the fjord. There you found me, and by a firm grip – you brought me back. You sang “Cover me”. And was it something I was screaming for then and there – it was cover.  You sang like my own soul had written that lyrics. Damn, it felt better stamping my feet against the smooth hot rocks of June.  I wasn’t alone about the need for cover.  Even The Boss had felt need for cover.  The waves brought the night in and your words were like an extra layer of skin on me, covering my exposed inner. And just then, I just didn’t give a damn about anything. The “shit” that were running in the sisterhood being 13. My mum and dad, in the always present death.  I stood there with both my feet IN the music and I just… was. You were strong and safe, and just that tough one can get being born in the USA. With my humble “Born in Norway” I felt your strength pulsate in every nerve-fiber in my body. Yes, it was rough times – and it was to be even rougher. But if no one could cover me from the outside, I would certainly make sure to cover from the inside.  It was the time to meet – no more running away.

 The times are tough now, just getting tougher 
This old world is rough, it's just getting rougher 
Cover me, come on baby, cover me 
Well I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me 
Promise me baby you won't let them find us 
Hold me in your arms, let's let our love blind us 
Cover me, shut the door and cover me 
Well I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me 

Outside's the rain, the driving snow 
I can hear the wild wind blowing 
Turn out the light, bolt the door 
I ain't going out there no more 

This whole world is out there just trying to score 
I've seen enough I don't want to see any more, 
Cover me, come on and cover me 
I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me 
Looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me

With these words, I went stronger into summer. THAT was good, because I had a rough fall waiting for me.  I owe you a great Thank You, Bruce.  You saved me that day. You gave me cover, when I could not provide cover myself.  I have walked a long distance since that summer, and in 2012 I have ploughed what can be ploughed.  I wouldn’t be anything near what I am today, if I didn’t fight so much that I have fought on the way.  And the best thing I have learned on this journey, is to cover me!

Once again, the night strikes – and the starts shoots their way against Pluto. This time I’m in it for the ride.  I was done running away for years ago. Good night Bruce, see you when I get there.

Rikke.
Posted in Norwegian February 11. 2012

6. Walk of life

The years at Nesset went by- The exhaust-coated house of ours did get more and more skewed.  At slow speed it sunk down into the soaked “Everglade-like” foundation, while on the inside… was a storm heading our way.  Like a glacier, the mood of the house and it inhabitants went from warm to cold. Like an old guitar not being tuned, the mistuning became a part of every room in the house.  It was like the invisible glacier spread inside the walls, growing hard – through the kitchen floor spreading to the second floor, making frost roses on the windows.  A painful silence was established, like a thin layer of ice – all the way up to the attic, where my grandfather lived.  Sorrow was silently added to both adulthood and childhood.  It took the dance away from our feet, laughter out of the heart and joy out of life.

Not that we noticed it in the beginning.  Me and my brother had as much fun as before.  I had a horse, riding through the everyday life in full gallop.  And I marched, with the marching band, and my clarinet to the beat of the drums, and I played soccer with the girl team. The last with any trace of coordination or talent (but I put my soul into it).  Besides, I was blessed with a grandfather on the attic buffering everything that was unpleasant.  Grandfather in the attic, the world’s most caring man, with bushy eye-brows and groomed hair.  With his strong arms, after many years as a longshoreman at the docks in Oslo.  Plumber, with a past as banana-boat loss boy, but he also had worked as a dentists assistant during the second world war. I’m not sure this was before or after he received his certificate as plumber, but the point is that he did not – under any circumstances – have any education to justify his work as a dentist’s assistant.  During the war, he pulled out all the teeth of a German patient.  And nobody cared, except from the patient maybe…

My grandfather’s fingers were yellow from excessive smoking, and he always had a curled up pouch of tobacco in his chest pocket.  The beer was not exactly out of reach either.  Green glass bottles were lying dew-cold in his bag. Always. Within arm’s reach.  My grandfather drank. Periodically.  Some periods longer than others, but I didn’t mind at all.  My dad probably thought otherwise, but for me he was the nicest, most caring granddad. Granddad who always had porridge ready during the winter, when we came home from school, and the snow was blowing round our ears. Rice Porridge, semolina porridge, butter porridge.  Nobody could make butter porridge the way he did.  To this day, I have never experienced butter porridge like that, I haven’t really eaten it since… But IF I had, it wouldn’t even be close.  Granddad that always listened carefully to what we had to tell about that days events, and willingly sharing his own events  - from the times that consisted of more than drinking buddies at the docks. He was mild, warm and THERE.  Loving, honest and caring,  in the middle of the moist.  When the storms between mum and dad raised – he was walls, roof, house and home.  The anchor.  That never let go. My rock, in everything floating.

In 1985, the ice hit the roof, punching a big hole – and mum and dad divorced and split up. That would say, my mom stayed, and my dad went to the end of the world… I sent him there.  I was angry and unforgiving.  An attacking warrior on horse.  Attacking was the best defense. Total rejection.  The tears found their way like a flooding river, and the house unnoticeably continued it’s journey down in the “everglade”, together with, mum, my brother and myself. Everything real became unreal.  I did not recognize the world.  The paradise of childhood slammed the doors at me and I dived into a ocean of anger, sorrow and bottomless despair.  I desperately cut bonds, then tried desperately to tie them back together. I was 13 years old, and what was I to belive in, when the one’s creating me did no longer exist?   My landscape was torn to bits and pieces, it was the end of the world and a new world war at the same time. Catastrophe and chaos. Pain and darkness. There was moments where even the heartbeats froze to ice, I was numb and empty.

After a while, my mum packed the remaining of the past into boxes.  She locked the doors of ice and proclaimed it was time for a new life. She put on her skates and kickstarted life again, while listening to Dire Straits. Walk of life pulled the days, and blew gently a warm breeze on the black ice.  She refused to stay “knocked”. So we stood up, mum, my brother and myself – led by Mark Knopfler and his brilliant guitar.  Slowly the winter turned into spring. I had to grow up, before I could understand how hard that journey was for my mother.  What a strong mum I have, she never quit walking.   She always got up.  At the time I was to busy with my own sorrow.  The anger I had towards my dad was raging inside me. How could he leave us? His family.  That was the first hard lesson in life for me.  Nothing lasts forever, not even those emotions – thank god for that.

I don’t remember to much from that time.  I cannot even remember the day we moved, and my grandfather had to find himself a new attic.  I don’t remember if I went down to the creek to say goodbye to my beloved sticklebacks, who now could live a life free from worries of me and my brother.  I don’t remember if we said goodbye, or had a farewell party in the fields. Probably, we grew from that, too fast.  It didn’t really matter – it was the end to the fairytale.  We left the highway behind us, and let the house live it’s own life – as the Atlantis feat. The Everglades.  It was the end to a hell of a way, to get to school. 2 kilometers a day, straight up… Or down, dependning on what end of the day we are talking about. Some hills, you don’t need to conquer them every day.  Even followed by the “Walk of Life”. When I think back, it would have been great if it was one of your songs that carried my mum through this.   Maybe you would have listened a little more carefully then… For let’s face it, so far, I haven’t spoken a word about YOU.  Maybe you are getting impatient, but I cannot ADD details that are not correct, not a part of the truth.  I am not building this project on a lie, it’s a little like: Take it, or leave it.  You will soon enter the story, first as a guest visit, a small one.  I just hope that you are still reading.  I hope you are just not skimming the story, that would be a bad sign, luckily I’m not looking over your shoulder to see if that is what happens.

Now, in 2012 lies a beautiful February-day out there. February, my month.  Quite ironically actually, since I freeze my butt of just getting the mail. In a few days time, I will turn 40… And I can’t wait ‘til spring. When everything comes to life, when life springs from the crust of the earth. When life itself comes to life, and warms the cold souls so that dreams and new roads are let free. Can’t be long, I heard the spring birds sing yesterday.  That makes the wait shorter. I am working the night shift today, finally having time for you on the other end of the day.  Usually I have to stay up all night, but today I have had the sunlight with me – and the cold outside.  And I can promise you, that it is much better to have the cold outside, than on the inside.  This is the hardest chapter of this journey so far.  I have been over this over and over again, also with my dad.  Because he has his story, just like my mum, and my brother.  And when all this is brought together, you get the truth about the past.  But remember, you only hear my voice in this story.  Mum and dad is backing me up every step on this road.  I hope I am worthy that trust.  It’s for their honor I am able to take this journey.

I wish you a great day, Bruce. Where ever you are. Talk to you soon.

Rikke.
Posted in Norwegian February 10. 2012