Visitors from the Netherlands
It’s a warm and sultry summer in the early 70s,
when a befriended family from the Netherlands are to spend their
holidays in Norway with us. I’m in an extremely gloomy mood (even more so than the regular gloomy) because the day before
– in an utter state of bewilderment - I decided to have my hairdo changed: from long blonde
locks to an extremely short bob – with fringes.
No idea what came over me and caused me to walk into the Kongsberg hairdressers. But reality hit me as soon as I found myself sitting in the chair in front of the mirror, a photo of the Cosmopolitan model on my lap, amid an awkward silence. The bewildered hairdresser did his utmost to entice me to exchange a few words, unaware of the fact that he was dealing with one of my greatly anti-social moods. So the poor guy just did his job in silence – throwing me a glance and a tentative smile now and again.
No idea what came over me and caused me to walk into the Kongsberg hairdressers. But reality hit me as soon as I found myself sitting in the chair in front of the mirror, a photo of the Cosmopolitan model on my lap, amid an awkward silence. The bewildered hairdresser did his utmost to entice me to exchange a few words, unaware of the fact that he was dealing with one of my greatly anti-social moods. So the poor guy just did his job in silence – throwing me a glance and a tentative smile now and again.
A thick blanket
My adolescent years are covered by a thick,
heavy blanket. A blanket with a suffocating impact. The blanket suppresses my
feelings, makes me sombre, gloomy, melancholic, shy, insecure and causes awful mood
swings. I’m insecure about everything and especially about my own appearance.
I’m convinced that I’m ugly: my teeth, my nose, my length ... and not to
mention my hair. It has a natural wave that I do not want; I want it to be
straight, straighter, straightest. And oh yes, then there are my hands; the
fingers are not long enough and I always hide my small thumbs.
The Cosmopolitan is my style bible and every time I see the perfect models, my imperfections are emphasized all the more. When I look at photos from myself at that time, I see a child still, a woman in the making, the long blonde hair and the typically Scandinavian face staring gloomily into the camera. Not such pleasant company, obviously 😏
The Cosmopolitan is my style bible and every time I see the perfect models, my imperfections are emphasized all the more. When I look at photos from myself at that time, I see a child still, a woman in the making, the long blonde hair and the typically Scandinavian face staring gloomily into the camera. Not such pleasant company, obviously 😏
I love being on my own and undisturbed. My days are filled with day dreaming - and drawing, endless drawing; the inevitable tall girls with the long straight hair, obviously, but fairy tales in particular. Fairy tales in which the Norwegian forest, trolls and animals play a leading role, inspired by the John Bauer drawings.
Time for some adventure
If a few days later the blanket and the gloominess
feel less heavy, it is time for some action. And when I say action, I usually mean adventure. While our parents are away to Kongsberg, shopping for the day, we –
or rather I - decide that Store Ble
should be climbed. And so the kilometres-long journey begins. Directly behind the house the sandy path starts
slowly meandering uphill, further and further into the forest. There we are, a
group of six children, talking and laughing, walking, running and skipping; my
best friend and I, both with our younger siblings.
A good hour and a half later, the sandy path, which has become more and more rocky, comes to a halt and the serious climbing starts. The top of the Store Ble is no longer visible from that point, making it all the more difficult to locate our position and our course. The journey is getting heavier. The dense and green forest has given way to rocks and half-dead, thinned trees and shrubs that we use to pull ourselves up. The younger sisters are agile and clamber behind us with determination. The 9 year’ old brothers have to be helped and pulled up again and again, but they are enjoying every minute of their adventure. Under a man-high overhanging rock we find a good number of scattered bones - clearly remnants of smaller animals; obviously this is the home of a lynx.
It is warm, suffocatingly warm and the climb
takes us hours. Bare arms and legs are full of scratches, scrapes and insect
bites. Going back is not an option. Ble
toppen must and will be reached and conquered. Time and again we fill our field
bottles with water from the countless streams and when we finally reach the
summit - after hours of hard work - we cannot help but look around us in awe and
let the imposing view and the cooling breeze work on us. All hardships are
nullified as we are taking it all in. Even the boys are dead silent. Then all
of a sudden, we die a thousand deaths when one of the sisters suddenly jumps
down from the edge. Only joking, she says, reappearing from a lower edge, a broad
smile on her smudgy face.
Clouds building up
We have to go back. The weather is changing.
From my dad I had learned that thunderstorms can strike from one minute to the other,
even when the sky is completely clear and clouds seem far away. We begin our
journey back, climbing down. Carefully at first, from rock to branch and from
branch to rock - but as the thunderstorm approaches and the clouds are building up, we
go faster and faster, until we cross the few flat familiar plateaus on our way
down.
With the sandy path in sight, we reach the last
rocky plateau on our way, stumbling over our own feet. Then, with a deafening
blow as of a steel plate, lightning bombards the rock right behind us. The
ground is thumping beneath our feet and an intense smell of sulphur is spreading.
We don't dare to look back and keep on running and stumbling downhill, on and on, dragging the screaming brothers
along. Finally we reach the sandy path and only when it is starts to rain, fear
slowly gives way to a cautious form of relief and dare we look behind us.
Strong stories
It is 6 pm and dusky when the hytte finally comes into sight. Soaked and exhausted we stumble
up the porch stairs. When later that evening our parents arrive home from their
shopping spree and find all six of us sitting reading on the couch in PJ’s -
there is absolutely nothing - apart from tangled hair, battered limbs and faces
- that betrays our adventure and absolutely nobody who takes the strong stories
of the brothers seriously.
