Monday 19 March 2001

Pic of the day: I know I'm on the west coast when I look out the train window and see a landscape like this.

Arrival

OK, I was wrong about people not smoking in the dark of the night. Why they don't sleep instead is beyond me. If they have nothing better to do than smoking, I'd recommend sleep.

But before that, we came to Drammen station and I was unsteady and weak. I thought perhaps I was brewing a fever. After a while I got a headache too. But my one hour wait was lightened by a group of young boys and girls who were waiting for another train. I watched them with curiosity, for they were somehow different. They looked healthy, the girls were well fed, and they smiled a lot. They moved about each other in a playful and carefree way, none of them cursing out loud, and not a one of them wielded a mobile phone. I concluded that they must be religious.

Once I entered the smoking compartment on the train, the atmosphere was quite different. Not just the physical atmosphere, witch was filled with the bitter fumes of tobacco. But there was a hardness and callousness in the eyes of some I saw there. As can be expected from people who care so little that they pay to commit a slow suicide.

***

Despite the smoke and my growing headache, I eventually fell asleep and slept for perhaps 3 hours. This is always interesting, because you never know what embarassing situations or positions I wake up in. This time was not the most impressive - I was sleeping spoon-in-spoon with a rather harmless looking young male. But I'm quite tired now from my lack of real sleep.

Also I woke up with the symptoms of a full sinusitis. The dull headache, the more acute pain between my right eye and my upper jaw, the tenderness of palate and soreness of gums where the inflammation reaches the roots of the teeth. I felt rather apprehensive, thinking that the bacteria had jumped on me at the most inconvenient time. But in Bergen, after half an hour of reasonably fresh air, I felt much better. And for the rest of the day I hardly gave it any thought at all.

I had about an hour to get from the train station to the boat, and spent far less than that, walking. It would have been much harder if I had not studied in Bergen for two winters and passed through sometimes else too. I know the route quite well. I could find the way in the dark of night - in fact, I have in the past.

The weather was beautiful on the sea from Bergen to Askvoll. It was pretty much ideal, sun glittering on small wavelets while the big threatening waves were absent. I was writing on Cassie, which was a bit hard on the stylus hand eventually. Apart from that, it was sheer pleasure. The packet of Kim's potato fries that I had bought in Drammen was easily enough for the whole trip. They don't taste too good, but they do fill the stomach pretty fast. I still have just a little left.

***

We arrived in Askvoll perhaps 5 minutes early, and I was walking along the road when I thought I recognized the bearded face in a meeting car. I went back, and it was my earthly father, come to pick me up from the boat. That's kind of nice ... I don't remember exactly how long a walk it is, but I think it's about 15 kilometer or 10 imperial miles. I know I've walked that distance in the past, but it's always nice to get a lift.

We stopped at the graveyard in Holmedal and looked for a good spot for a final resting place for my mother's body. We found one close to where many of her relatives are buried, both on her father's and mother's side. My father also reserved a place for himself. He is not overly concerned about such details: If the ocean will give up its dead to resurrection, surely any burial spot on dry ground will be good enough. I fully agree with him on that. But for the relatives who may later come and want to visit the grave, it can be practical to have it near others of the family. Of course, he is not likely to have a grave near any of his relatives ... Then again, he truly left father and mother and stayed with his wife, as the Scripture commands. (Me, I've only done the first half. Oh well. I never claimed to be a saint, I hope.)

After leaving the churchyard, we spent some time talking while looking at a most wondrous sight: The tiny waves were angled just so, and the afternoon sun was reflected briefly in one and then another of them as if the sea was casually strewn with diamonds; only the diamonds were shining with a brilliance that no earthly jewel could match. I have seen the sun reflected on the sea many a time before, but never quite like this.

My brother and his wife also welcomed me most heartily, as if I were a long lost brother or something. Heh. They generally tell me to feel like I'm home; this is not very hard, since in a way I am. This is where I grew up, except the house was a bit smaller then. The bed that right now calls for me is about 10 cm from the one I spent much of my childhood in.

But now there is another set of parents and another gaggle of children filling the house. This is the way life works, normally. I don't really see it as worse, only different.