Still Life. Stopping before Cezanne's painting, I see exactly what there is to see. A rough-hewn table. Burnished fruits rolling off a solid white plate. The shining curve of a wine glass, empty. Curtains folded back into a thick darkness. A window or wall. And a pitcher painted with flowers.…
Høst: Min Favorittårstid
This is my first fall in Oslo. I have no idea what to expect. When I arrived here in mid-April I was treated to a beautiful spring, lots of daylight, lots of yellow flowers, signs in every window reading God Påske! (Happy Easter!). I was prepared for chilly wind and…
Finding my Bearings
I've decided that my blog should also be a place to record and analyze and chart my process as a writer. Right now I just throw stuff up here the way I pitch spaghetti noodles at the kitchen wall, hoping that they'll stick. But a writing life is often more…
Running. A goal.
Today I went out to watch other people run the Oslo Marathon . It's a big event. In 2010 it attracted 16,000 runners, more than half of them women. People came from all over the world. It's a beautiful course, winding along the edge of the Oslofjord and then up…
The Imperatives of Travel
Jonathan and I travel because we want to see the whole world together, but we have our individual interests, too. He wants to climb every mountain. I want to see all the people. The farther I go, the more people I see and meet, the more convinced I am that…
Shot After Shot: A Craft Annotation
In college I studied Shooting an Elephant (1936), an essay included in this collection, which recounts George Orwell's time as a young British police officer in Burma. The essay has haunted me in the years since. It was the brutality that stuck with me, the killing scene, one which goes…
Oslomarka
Karl Johans Gate runs straight downhill from the gates of Oslo's royal palace to the parliamentary buildings (Stortinget), and continues down to the city's main train station (Oslo Sentralstasjon). From the palace hill one can see the tops of buildings and trees, red flags, neon signs, streetlamps. But beyond all…
Circle Window
Our rooftop flat has a circle window. On clear evenings, it catches all the fire of the western sky as the sun makes its slow, summer descent. The light beams through the porthole like a spotlight and, over the course of an hour or so, tracks along our back wall.…