There is no way to cleanly process the tragedy and horror that happened on Friday here in Norway. So I will, as a friend suggests, just write it out. From the past, I do know that along with the horror, compassion and sadness we feel, a fear, suspicion and dread has entered the blood and soul, and and it will surge. Eventually, the feelings subside, but not entirely. We will be altered, closed down a small bit. Our hearts will be less open than they were before.
I look out the kitchen window here, on a farm just south of Olso, and study the woods beyond the field, trying to remember what those woods looked like on Thursday, when they didn't seem so ominous. I remind myself what that summer, before Friday at 3pm----that happy, boring, endless-day summer life------was like.
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I drove to the airport just north of Oslo yesterday to pick up my husband, who was flying in from New York. As we were returning, my husband's Sister called to say she was setting off to the airport now, to pick up their father, who was flying in from North Africa. An hour later, on the main thoroughfare to Oslo, we got a text from Sister. It said, "So you travel in coat and tie now?"
You see, in Norway, on the nation's major highway, just outside of its capital city, the speed limit is 80kph (50mph), and it is respected. There are two lanes in each direction, and though we were in the slow lane, Sister not only caught sight of her brother passing by, but could see in the car well enough to determinate that he was wearing a coat and tie.
It didn't strike my mother-in-law as odd when I told her. Ohh yes, she sang, and pretended to smile at my observation, and turned back to stirring the meatballs.
This is a small country.
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Who are you calling small? Sister said to the tv when the BBC anchorman referred to Norway as "a small country" on while reporting on the tragedy on Friday, and, probably by coincidence, the news has been on Norwegian channels ever since.
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Every summer we park the car at the RR station and walk up the steep path to the hytta (cottage) where my father-in-law lived until he was ten. The cottage is in ruins now, but he can still point out the outhouse, and the small creek where they used to get water still passes by. There's even a bicycle rusting against a wall. We pick berries and eat them. It's chilly in the middle of August, so surrounded by pines. The ground is soft. My father-in-law used to walk to school from the cottage, two miles down the hill and into town, even when the snow was this high. This wasn't so long ago, and we are just outside of Oslo. It was after the war, and things were hard for everyone, for a long time.
One night, he was walking home through the woods in the dark. He could hardly see arm's reach in front of him, when he passed another human. he felt the man passing by, neither thought to stop. When he got home, he told his mother about it, and they speculated for some time who the other person might have been. There was no fear at all. He's told the story several times over the years.
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Sunday evening. All the family is here now. M. has arrived safely from New York, the father from North Africa. Another Brother is here with his wife and children from Oslo, and Sister is here with her boyfriend. It's a zoo. We sit around the big table that was hand-made from a fallen tree at the last house. The house that we are in now was hand built too. The Norwegians are what I imagine the Americans were 150 years ago. BesteMama's meatballs, berries, potatoes, and beer. In an hour everyone will be upstairs again watching the news. But now, we are all coming and going from the table, sibling arguments are heating up, the children rush past----they are pirates with swords----and someone has changed the music to jazz.
Sunrise, Norway (July 7 2011)
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