Life, with the garden
Location: Sandviksfjellet, Bergen, Norway • • • Visit: So many times, between February to October 2022
February 27
It’s been a while. I became a Doctor of Philosophy. I was exhausted, after the defense. I could not feel for weeks.
On New Year’s Eve, I got appendicitis. That, I could feel. Spending the last hours of 2021 in terrible pain in the emergency room, alone, seemed somehow fitting as an end to the year that I’ve had – or, even, the last two. The pain came in waves, on low tides I distracted myself with a replacement mitten for Frida.
And then in the first hours of 2022, my appendix started to heal itself. It is rare, but it happens, and so they decided not to operate.
Friends later joked to the resilience researcher: What a resilient body you have! I thought, hoping: This is what the new year will be. After a painful 2021, I will pick myself up and start something new. I have it in me.
February 28
And so, end of February: Moving to Bergen. Saying goodbye to the place where I have studied and worked for the past eight years. Saying goodbye to friends and family. Saying goodbye to my beautiful, lush, perfect apartment. Packing, chaos. Departure.
At Oslo airport, the connecting flight got delayed. Waiting, I sat by a large window, with the evening sun shining, bright, at an angle. I started a sleeve for Alvar’s jumper. Across from me, a young man, in an uniform that suggested he’s doing his military service, was solving a rubrics cube, its colors neon bright.
A moment of waiting. An existence in between.
March 2
Arriving. The weather feels temperamental. Today, I saw a rainbow against the white mountain side across the fjord from my new office window. I found a yarn store and couldn’t help myself: I will knit a pullover vest from yarn spun at a small family-run factory just north of Bergen, from the wool of an old traditional Norwegian sheep breed. My first Norwegian piece.
Otherwise: Strange, to think that I’m going to live here now. Between the snow-covered mountain tops. While other lives, previously so near, are lived elsewhere.
March 20
Three weeks in Bergen. I have not found anywhere to live yet, but have checked out several potential places. There are many cute old buildings here. I’m sure I’ll settle on one soon.
I’ve allowed work to have a slow start, reading up on the original project proposal, the other research conducted by the team I just joined, two field trips. The one this week was to help with some controlled burning on a heather heath at Lygra heathland center.
Fire is intoxicating.
Interesting, too, of course, to experience traditional management in practice and to learn about its benefits for the local ecosystem. And to meet sheep!
And finally: the vistas. Jeez. I went to the top of Ulriken, the highest of the seven mountains that surround Bergen today. Inspired by Josefin W, a knitter I follow on Instagram, I brought Alvar’s jumper-in-progress with me for some outdoor knitting. Feels unnecessary to say, but it was the most dramatic view I’ve ever had while knitting.
October 4
A year and seventeen days ago, I was interviewed for a postdoc in Bergen. With six days left to final thesis submission, I had very little time to prepare for the interview and I remember feeling a bit unhinged. I made some jokes. Said something about research. And afterwards, thought that at least I managed to speak in complete sentences.
The shock, when I was offered the job, three days before my defense.
Now I’ve lived in Bergen for half a year and hike up to the top of Sandviksfjellet behind my house to have my dinner on sunny evenings. Life has slowly started to be about other things than thesis and its aftermath.
Katja Malmborg 