Category: Life (Page 3 of 3)

The Norwegians I know who have been to Australia, even lived in Australia, say one of the things they missed the most was a sense of the seasons changing, something they felt was demonstrably absent from their time down south. Being from the south of Australia, I never really understood this claim; it’s only way up north that they talk about “The Wet” and “The Dry” as opposed to the four seasons. But after nine years here in Norway, I begin to see the difference with greater clarity, and it is not really about four seasons at all, it’s about at least eight.

Now, in early March, there is often still snow and ice about, and not only that, there is frost that reaches deep into the soil, reminding the dormant seeds and bulbs to go back to sleep; it’s not yet dawn. This year, however, almost all the ice and snow has melted after an unusually warm February, with a lot of rain and—very unusual for this part of Norway—wind. But, spring has not come yet. Spring, as I describe it to my almost-five-year-old daughter, is when the trees get their leaves back, the birds and animals bear the results of winter snuggling, and colour returns to the earth in a confetti-like spray of flowers and fresh, green leaves. This is not what we have now. We are in between, balancing, waiting . . .

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I lead a double life. One life, the one I was born to, exists in the heat and dust; the other, the one I chose, stands knee-deep in snow. Once every two years, I forsake one for the other, give up my knee-high, wool-lined boots for sandals, and expose my pale, vitamin-D deficient skin to a sun that is as ferocious as it is glorious.

The flight, thanks to new routes, is now down to a minuscule twenty-two hours, but those twenty-two hours are spent in the sort of limbo that separates one life from the other as surely as sleep is separated from waking; whenever I am in one place, the other is like a dream I can’t imagine was ever real.

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