LA WOMAN

I can't believe how quickly time flies and how terribly unfaithful I have been to my blog. I have never had any intention of abandoning it or giving it up, but I must admit there is a 'bouchon', as the French say. A cork, literally translated - or a plug, a hold-up, a jam, in the context of traffic.

This bouchon - with all its meanings - is a blog post I wrote in January 2017, which I never published, but which is fine, good, easy to read, and quite funny in my eyes, but which I have some qualms about publishing and therefore can't seem to get around to doing it. I have heard of writer's block - without being so pretentious that I even think that this condition will ever relate to me - but this is something else. Consideration perhaps. Having got everyone curious and excited now, I promise it will be published.

Talking about 'le bouchon', my travels still go mainly to France, but I must admit I have fallen in love with a new city since the last time I was spreading my news in this space. Well, 'fallen in love' might be taking it a bit too far, or not far enough depending on how you look at it - mesmerized is probably a better word. Completely and utterly fascinated. Where else than the City of Angels - LA. I couldn't even bear to look at my bank statements afterwards without feeling nauseous, but wow, was it worth it! Crazy, unreal, fake, superficial, expensive, greedy, ugly, aggressive - especially the driving - but also friendly, genuine, decent, normal, compassionate, beautiful and not least incredibly colourful. If you think walking down 5th Avenue in NYC is like being in a movie, walking down any street in LA IS being in a movie.

View from our apartment in Downtown

I went to Los Angeles with my daughter Johanne and my two granddaughters Jelena and Mira. We rented an apartment in Downtown LA, which turned out to be ideal. Far from the madding crowd, but with a view of the Hollywood sign - and a private garage, because hey! You need a car in this city! Coming from Oslo - the most environmental city on this planet, and I appreciate it - I was a bit concerned at the start about where we would find parking spaces around town for our enormous rental SUV. But need I have worried? It dawned on me that the US is vehicle country no 1, and yes, of course - they're waving you in. There is even competition in this field! There are parking spaces everywhere, in the darkest little alleys, the most crowded avenues, on Sunset Strip, Hollywood Boulevard, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier. The Grove Shopping Mall is never ending with spaces. Universal Studios has an eternal multi storey car park with different choices of walking distances from your space! The only place you should not park perhaps, is on the street in front of neighbours Leonardo di Caprio and Keanu Reeves in Beverly Hills - but so what! You can just drive a couple of more kilometres up Mulholland Drive and park for free at Runyon Canyon and you might run into them anyway.

Our LA trip was partly a Christmas gift to the granddaughters, and so of course celebrity spotting was on the agenda. Celebrity Tour of all the Hills, but the only one we spotted was Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, who waved at us. I had to explain to the girls who he was. Not that ZZ Top is my favourite band either. But each of us spotted one or two celebrities on our way around LA - Youtube star and writer Lele Pons' Mum - we practically got friendly with her lining up at the till at Forever 21, the Mum that is - then Brody Jenner, and probably many more. They're all experts at disguise.

Billy Gibbons

Venice Beach

Champagne pool brunch at rental place - why not? Let's go all in.

Oreo doughnut dessert for one. First day and learning about American portions. (And I just noticed the writing on my lovely granddaughter's sweater...)

 

My LA trip will need more space - the USA CLAIMS more space! No way around it, I'm afraid.
So I'm back and blogging, and there's no stopping me now.

DESPACITO. SLOWLY. BACK AGAIN.

Returning to my blog today is like returning to an old and faithful friend - you know, one that you haven't caught up with lately, but one you can pick up with right away, exactly where you left off, maybe years ago - and like magic you connect immediately!

I have not checked my blog for ages, but I see from the stats that there have been readers all along, clicking into different blog posts, all over the world. This amazes me, pleases me and touches me no end. I love you all. I'm returning to you too, my friends!

Looking back, my last blog post was published on February 12. I wrote another one on March 16, which I never published, for several reasons. I will though, and it's perhaps appropriate that it comes after this one, because in a way it was a turning point for me. It was about my visit to Berlin at the end of February.

After my post-Christmas blog entry, about my stay in Australia, I felt changes coming. Slowly, slowly, but definitely something was moving in me. Or maybe not moving, but resting. Or both at the same time. This is still grief. Yes, I think so, this is yet another side of grief. Moving, resting, staying still, moving again. But gradually that rollercoaster is not so violent and desperate. Not so loud. Not so overwhelming.

I noticed I was sleeping better, even in Australia - and it wasn't just the jetlag. Obviously I was spending time with my family - all of them for once - and that is always a joy and a boost, but also I seemed to be more at peace with myself and my sorrow. Peace - yes. Tranquility. Acceptance.

My turning point - well, is there one? All through my period of grief since my husband died I have believed that things will mellow, that time will heal. Change comes gradually. Because I am basically a lighthearted and positive person - and I am also human - I have experienced bouts of happiness and laughter and joy in between all the sadness, but definitely the sorrow and pain painted a thick layer on it all.

My memories of my husband, my associations with our experiences and our life together, have triggered a lot of emotions in me during the months and years after he died in April 2015. So when I went on a trip to Berlin at the end of February this year I was expecting to feel his presence again - not because we had been there together a lot, maybe only once in fact, a long time ago - but because I knew he had been there several times before we even met and that he loved this city very much.

I went to Berlin with my daughter Johanne and my two granddaughters. It poured with rain the whole time, the wind came in strong gusts through the streets, the subways and the big open squares, and our newly acquired colourful umbrellas turned inside out.

Still - our four day Berlin trip was simply fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I felt confident and convinced that my husband would have loved it too. But this time I was on my own, with his and my daughter and granddaughters. His presence was there. And then again not there all the time.

Suddenly I felt ready to meet spring and not least the second anniversary of my husband's death - April 6. I definitely knew that it couldn't possibly be as bad as that same day in 2016, when I thought every milestone was met, every special day experienced once. And unexpectedly it all collapsed on me. I reached the bottom then, the darkest place, the pit. I realised that all those days would come around again, and it took some time to crawl out of that desperate knowledge.

And then - almost unnoticed by me - something started swirling in and out of me, like a white feather, like a soft curtain swaying in a summer breeze. My soul began to change, ever so gently, ever so slowly. Everything became lighter, brighter, easier - gradually. I was emerging. In January I was introduced at a party to a man who wanted to meet me again, but no. For me there was no emotional or physical connection, no chemistry, nothing. Probably I was not even ready then, but at least it was food for thought. Could IT happen to me again?

And then, suddenly, at the end of March, a new man appeared in my life - out of the blue. I did not expect it, I did not see it coming, I did not even want to be falling and feeling mad and reckless like a carefree teenager. Which is what I was when I first met him.

But I did fall. I'm still falling.

This man is on my wavelength, after all these years. I am fifteen going on sixty-three.

MY RESTLESS EXISTENCE

I am in France again, in my house in the village of Thuir beneath the Pyrenees. I am here for several reasons - not that I really need to present any - the main one once again being a wish to get away from my hometown Oslo. My restlessness knows no boundaries, and as long as I merely exist at the best of times, I might as well be here instead of there.

View from my house - snowcapped Mt Canigou in the Pyrenees

There have been snowfalls in Oslo recently, and as anyone who knows me will verify, I'm no fan of the white stuff. When I return in a few days I will have to dig out the car at the airport car park, which reminds me that I have no shovel in the boot. That might be a huge problem.

My husband - who always loved skiing, both cross country and downhill, who played bandy when he was a young boy - gradually became tired of the winter months in Norway too. The cold, the ice, the snow, the slippery roads and not least the perpetual darkness. We had agreed that we'd spend more of those dark winter months here in France, where all of a sudden you might wake up to a day with promises of bright sunshine and warmth.

But last Sunday as I was landing at Barcelona Airport I could feel the forceful greeting of Marcel the Storm. The turbulence was indeed the worst I've been in for a while. As I neared the Pyrenees, on the plain after Girona, my little hire car had trouble staying on the road. Winds at up to 150 kilometres per hour really threaten to throw cars off the road, or overturn them. Very often roads are closed when these gusts are going on. Off the motorway and driving the 10 kilometres up to my village I had to dodge fallen branches all the way and a tree trunk here and there. Thinking about it now I could have stopped and gathered free firewood, but then again - not. This stretch of road has earned me two speeding tickets in three months - only a few lines over the limit, mind you - so in fact the fallen stuff blocking the road at intervals was good for me.

Our favourite summer restaurant La Flotille closed, abandoned, deserted

The storm died down gradually, but of course it's winter here too. I had an urge to walk along the beach today - just to feel the elements tear at me. The wind and the rain were powerful enough without lashing out at 150 kph.

And the rain hid my tears. Yes, my tears - that are still coming. I found that my stay in Australia over Christmas and the New Year helped numb me and keep the constant sorrow padded, for the obvious reason that there was such a lot going on all the time. There were people around constantly, it was so busy that I sometimes had to ask for a little bit of "alone"-time to pick myself up. I am after all an elderly woman.

It was as if my brain and my emotions had a time-out while I was in Oz. It was as if they too were on holiday. The numbness was nice in the way that it kept my emotional exhaustion at bay, the one that comes with all the grief and all the crying. I was able to discern some of my old energy again. The weather was warm, the sky was blue, my closest family members were once again gathered all around me.

BUT. There is a big but. Almost every time we gathered - for instance when we sat down for a meal, I found myself counting a chair for my husband, a plate, a glass. I feel his absence so physically that it's as if he's there too. His absence is a presence. This became very apparent during a family trip like the Australia visit because in a way it's completely unthinkable that I should've done something like that without him. He SHOULD have been there.

And he was there. So strong and clear. But my loneliness is excrutiatingly apparent too in these settings.

I know a wise old man, and I met him at a dinner party a few weeks back. A widower, he lost his wife five years ago. He's lovely and entertaining and great at including everyone in conversation - what you would call a perfect gentleman. Across the table from me he associated a piece of the conversation topic with sorrow, looked at me and said "I bet your grief still dominates your life - all you do and all you feel. It will take at least three years. Then you might begin to live a little again, to laugh a little, and your heart will be in it."

Sunset over Mornington Peninsula, Australia - Christmas 2016

And do you know what? This is also one of the reasons I'm here in my house in France - to grieve in peace. My numbness didn't last. I should have known it - it's impossible to force yourself to go numb and devoid of emotions. They will surface eventually.

I pull out a chair for my husband here too.

He should have been here.

THE LONG HAUL DOWN UNDER

I have neglected my blog for nearly three months - or put it on hold, so to speak. I have no intention of wrapping it up, on the contrary, but my life has been filled with exciting travels.

My daughter Julie is married to Josh and they live in Melbourne, Australia, and I hadn't seen them since my husband's funeral in April 2015. A rendez-vous was long overdue! My youngest daughter Sophie is living there as well, for six months, so it was time to gather the family and regroup. What better occasion than Christmas!

So we - the four of us still living in Norway - set off on December 20 - on the horrifically extensive travel from Oslo to Melbourne. I had chosen the quickest route, via Dubai, but it's still a mind-blowing distance - 24 hours approximately and the crazy jetlag to boot. As the air steward said as he was serving the meal a couple of hours before arrival in Melbourne: "Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever. Here's you breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever." (It was 9 pm local time, 11 am our left-behind time). Knowing you're going to be cooped up in a very limited space for that long means having to place yourself in a sort of Zen mode - and tell yourself this is something you just can't do anything about - there's no escape - and you have to forget all about claustrophobia and all other types of anxiety. Alcohol helps, especially a Bloody Mary or two, and so does a pill. For me at least. We all have our different survival methods.

I couldn't believe our luck when Julie told me she'd managed to get hold of a rental flat next to her and Josh's place, in the same building, in the beautiful suburb of Toorak. This made everything so easy for us while staying in Melbourne. The proximity, the leafy flowery walkway between the entrances, the huge sun deck and the Christmas tree made us feel we were at home, and the long travel and the ten-hour time difference were suddenly peanuts! For the time being anyway, until I woke up on Christmas Eve with the mother of all colds. And I am never ill, so I felt it was very unfair that this should happen now! I was very anxious about it being a three-week type of flu, but with the aid of paracetamol and rest I was back on my feet again in less than a week. Yes, I know I tend to exaggerate my pains and woes when I get ill, and I become exceedingly grumpy, but imagine my worry at being bed-ridden for weeks in Oz - definitely not a fun option. 

Possums started circling our Melbourne rental flat as soon as dusk descended, and remembering Dame Edna Everage's cheerful and endearing greeting to all her guests and audience - "Hello possums!" - I had thought this was a cute animal. No way. The growling, the wheezing, their presence everywhere - especially in the tree you just walked under - it's all quite disturbing. And some of them are huge! 

Gradually I learnt that the most dangerous animals in the world live in Australia. The reptiles. The insects. I lived in Africa as a child and thought I was pretty confident about all creatures great and small, but some phobias definitely found their way into my head Down Under. Especially when the shark alerts suddenly became a daily occurrence as we moved down to the coast after Christmas. 

Hairy beast!

Hairy beast II. No no, this is not a possum! This is Julie and Josh's sweet cat - Miko - but she likes to sit in the trees at the entrance, just like the possums. 

Shark alert in Anglesea. The helicopters indicate a circle round the area where they spot the shark. Many spottings this holiday, and several beaches closed. As if the Australians care…. 

Friendly guys? Not always, it seems. They are very strong. 

Once again I'm reading the great travel writer Bill Bryson, whom I recommend as a must for everyone who loves travelling and becoming acquainted with a country from the inside. He's very witty and capable of noticing some of the less appealing sides to a country and its people, and elegantly ironic about it he is too. All interspersed with descriptions of easily attainable historic events. I'm glad I picked up this book when my Oz stay was actually coming to an end, because by then I had so many references and observations of my own and laughed out loud at the recognitions. 

This is a little excerpt of Bill Bryson going boogie boarding with his friends Deirdre and Glenn, an aquatic pastime that my granddaughter did several times: 

"'What about sharks,' I asked uneasily. 

'Oh, there's hardly any sharks here. Glenn, how long has it been since someone was killed by a shark?' 'Oh, ages,' Glenn said, considering. 'Couple of months at least.' 

'Couple of months,' I squeaked. 

'At least. Sharks are way overrated as a danger,' Glenn added. 'Way overrated. It's the rips that'll most likely get yer.'…. 

'Rips?' 

'Underwater currents that run at an angle to the shore and sometimes carry people out to sea,' Deirdre explained. 'But don't worry. That won't happen to you.' 

'Why?' 

'Because we're here to look after you.'"

We happened to have the exact same conversation with our new Australian family. 

I'm full of admiration for the brave Aussies and very happy they're now part of my life and can lead me through all perils, known or unknown.

OBLIVION

I may seem to be doing all right, but it's really only on the outside. When people ask me how I am I usually reply "fine," which of course pleases everyone. Nobody likes to see people unhappy, because it disturbs their world.

I have changed.

Recently one of my friends told me she was glad I was getting back to my old self. I will never get back to my old self - whatever that was, I guess it was a more cheerful person - but I find I'm sick and tired of telling people I'm far from "fine." I need to pretend everything is going better, both for their and my own sake.

One friend wrote to me about something and by the way said he hoped I was doing well. I nearly started crying. Of course I am not doing well, how could he even think that? Maybe I'm getting good at pretending - or maybe he genuinely believed I was no longer grieving. That I'd "moved on."

You're expected to be moving on after a certain period of grief. At least I think that's what's expected. Therefore I move on. On the outside. On the inside my life is still turmoil, sadness and not least excruciating loneliness. I deal with this in several ways - all survival techniques:

Oblivion: Sleep. Even with crazy disturbing dreams sleep is often better than staying awake. Meeting the day and facing ordinary everyday duties are such enormous hurdles for me that the oblivion of sleep is constantly longed for. Procrastination is my middle name these days - I can't seem to focus on anything that involves the slightest challenge. And my deep sadness is kept at bay by sleep.

Some days I hardly get out of bed - I call them my "non-days."

Distraction: I read, I watch TV, I knit. I have read an enormous amount of books these past nineteen months after my husband died - I practically plough through them. I get absorbed by them and they give me a welcome break from my churning thoughts and racing mind. The repetitive act of knitting relaxes my exhausted brain.

Beuatiful, haunting and frightening novel covering several themes, among them the massacres in Bosnia in the nineties. Highly recommended.

"Marius"-jumper no 8

"Marius"-jumper no 9, in the making

Isolation: I have always been good at keeping in touch with friends. Now I'm not. Well, that's not quite right - I kept inviting people round for meals and managed to do this for quite a while after my husband died, although now I haven't for some time. But friendships need to be nurtured, and I find I have much less energy for this than I had before, because this kind of activity demands a certain amount of happiness and positivity. For the time being that involves too much pretence on my part.  

Travel: I keep receiving comments about my travelling - mostly good though - and I feel I shouldn't have to defend myself against the more ironic ones. My travelling springs out of restlessness and a wish to escape from a life that is more or less just an existence. It's an attempt to go somewhere other than into that oblivion.

I get up some days - my eyes puffy and swollen with sleep and weeping - wondering if there's any point in putting on nice clothes and a pair of my beautiful shoes. To be honest I have often wondered these nineteen months if there's a point to anything at all.

I never actually believe that I'm depressed though - not now. I was certainly depressed this winter and spring, but it lifted after I sold the apartment in June. I am just NOT happy. Will I ever be happy again, that's the question. I think that if happiness is bestowed on me again it will be a gradual process.

Looking out at the autumn colours does not help. The vivid oranges, yellows and reds only remind me of that October and November three years ago, when my husband was diagnosed with brain tumour and underwent surgery. On November 1st 2013 we were told that the tumour was the most malignant - grade four - and that his illness was terminal, his prognosis death within fifteen months. He managed eighteen. I still can't get my head around the way he coped and how brave he was.

In many ways my blog post today goes against what I usually preach: We must care for each other as if we were living our last days. We never know what tomorrow brings, and our love for our nearest and dearest ones is essential and should outweigh everything else. At least my husband's illness taught me that, and as I've said many times before, I have very little patience now for petty quarrels and fruitless bickering.

One person said to me - be careful you don't worship your grief. Worship! I don't even understand the phrase. How can one worship something so exhausting? All I wish now is for it to lift, to release me, to turn into something bearable. I never asked for this life, this grief. I never wanted it, no - I wanted my life to stay the way it was.

I'm so tired of feeling low. I'm exhausted with the crying. All this sadness drains me. I use every last bit of my energy on trying to come across as "feeling better."

But I find peace in tending my husband's grave. I talk to him, and it's a comfort.