Changes

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Strange things happen when you travel like this – months without a home, without a schedule to speak of, without direction. Interestingly, your senses sharpen – mentally you become clearer, quicker. Your vision and hearing become more acute, picking up on things you would normally never see or hear. Your sense of smell too; everything smells stronger, crisper, clearer – including, unfortunately, the mold on the shower curtain. The most fascinating change however is the time warp. At three months time slowed perceptibly. Slowed to a pace I recognized – the pace I remember as a child. Days passed like weeks. Weeks like months. I have long said ‘time is a construct’. Intellectually, spiritually I understand it is a linear pattern around which this experience we call life is organized. But it doesn’t exist in the absolute terms that we tend to perceive it. It fluctuates, like waves. The patterns are likely in our control though it is difficult for us to see in what ways until we break the patterns we are in for, I would guess, about three months. While I understood the concept intellectually, it was an entirely different thing to experience it so concretely. We’ve all had a sense of time flying or time dragging but this was different, time was palpably changed. It was an entirely different experience of time; at least as I’ve known it since I was about seven.

It was deliriously delightful to live in this slowed down version of time. To not feel pressured by deadlines in my head, lists in my mind of the places I needed to see, write about, things I needed to do, accomplish. Suddenly there was time to linger, to stop for a coffee and sit down instead of hoping they had a to-go cup. You would think someone who had given up house and home, who had relinquished a career, material possessions, financial obligations would have felt this instantly, but I didn’t. The first two months I lived with the same constant pressure that fills our American lives and certainly has always filled mine. My head continued to be filled with cries “You are not doing enough, you must see more, do more, write more, write better, read the damn instruction manual for the camera….” Yada, yada, yada….

When time slowed to a snail’s pace so did the chattering in my head; the voice I call the “nag,” full of criticisms about how much I haven’t done, how much I need to do. I began to move more easily without a constant sense I was missing something, or should be doing something other than what I was doing. An interesting thing happened in this space for me. I learned what Serena, the lithe little Italian fairy I had met at the Couchsurfing Collective in Vienna, had told me all those months ago – It is not about the places you see, it is about the people you meet. Again, I ‘intellectually’ understood the words she spoke but when conversations didn’t arise to a certain level of significance, to some life changing exchange or potential ongoing friendship, I always felt guilty that I hadn’t done something else with the time. It was easier to travel on my own schedule, squeeze in every site, every monument, every museum; then at least I was checking off the list as I went - showing progress, proof for my efforts. A night spent talking with someone about nothing of consequence was a missed checkmark on the list.

By the time I reached Oslo, the list didn’t seem to matter anymore. The nag was quietly scolding in the back of my mind that I hadn’t written a word in the two weeks in Norway but she had been banned to some recessed corner of my mind. Without her in the foreground, the lists melted away. I spent five days in Oslo with Haavard and one of his best friends, Christian. I have always enjoyed being the girl who could hang with the guys – joke constantly about sex and girls and the incomprehensibility of the female race. Christian had slept in late after another of the five best friends’ wedding the night before. Haavard was in the kitchen making breakfast and I was heading out to get us all lattes. I teased Christian when he still hadn’t gotten out of bed. “Damn, Christian, you have Haavard cooking breakfast and me fetching coffee what more do you want?” He responded without hesitation, “A hot shower and a blow job would be nice.” I quipped, “I’ll start the water, Haavard you take the blow job.“ We were bonded.

We spent the next several days just hanging out – chatting over breakfast, sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes, laughing while Haavard flirted on messenger. We made our way one evening to the Vigeland Park – an astonishing sight to see with over two hundred sculptures ranging in style and medium all done by one man. Another night we just sat and watched a movie. I never had time or could be bothered with dumb comedy movies. I felt as if I had lost two hours of my life that I could never get back when I watched a “Dumb and Dumber” or even Austin Powers. We sat in the black modern living room and watched “Dodgeball”, on a projector screen no less. I laughed my ass off. I’m sure not because it was more or less funny than other movies of its genre, but because I didn’t have the weight of guilt for time wasted. I was in the experience, completely, and for this reason, perhaps for this reason only, loved it.

I did explore Oslo a bit - the shopping district, the newly reconstructed harbor area (very well done, by the way), the incredibly well maintained and untouted fortress that sits high on the hill above the water. I made my way one afternoon to the National Museum to see the second of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ – the first that was stolen two years ago was returned the week I was there but had not yet been put back on exhibit. I loved his painting ‘The Morning After.’ A lady lies prostrate on the bed in her underclothes and boots where she passed out after what was obviously a fun night – a scene I’ve experienced oh, at least once or twice in my life… Of the little I saw, Vigeland Park was undoubtedly the highlight – the pictures are worth taking a look at. His work is incredible.

I saw little of the city, relatively speaking, did little while I was there, yet the experience of it is full and rich and the memory imprinted on my heart for the easy time I spent with these two handsome, enjoyable men and for the peace I found inside as I wandered the streets lost to times demands. Interestingly, it was on the streets of Oslo that the first tendrils of the book concept came to me, bright like the sun rising before me. Perhaps it is in these places of rest that our soul is the most active.