Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

How do you master pain?

 

I sat out on the cabin terrace early one morning. With a cup of tea, a glass of orange juice and two pieces of bread  one with brown cheese, one with father in law's raspberry jam. Breakfast time and life felt good. Then all of a sudden my tongue started to feel along the back of my teeth, continuing along the lower molars. Back and forth. Was there a small rapsberry seed somewhere, or what? After breakfast I brushed my teeth and realised that part of a molar was missing. No pains, but what remained of the molar felt like tiny spikes, no good place for the tongue to rest.

Well, the tongue had no other way to go, no free holiday house anywhere, and during the following hours it was scratched raw. Pain became part of my day, it was difficult to eat, difficult to talk. How easy it is to let pain fill your whole life!

The first thing I did Monday morning, when I was back home, was to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. A nice female voice met me at the other side of the line; "sorry, the dentist is ill, hopefully he is back next week and you can come then."

Next week!!!!! But what about my pain!!!

Lucky for me, Marta had a temporary solution. Because of her braces she has some wax to put on where the wires scrach the skin raw. Now my half molar is covered in wax and the pain is to live with.

 

I have been thinking alot about pains these last days. Some people have to live with pains always. How is that possible? Pain can be physical or emotional, pain can take over your life, draining all its colours, or you can take the lead, show the pain who is the master. Some people live quietly with their pain, others climb mountains to cry out their pain to the world.

I am just an apprentice and no good at master pain when it comes on a visit.

 

How do you master pain?

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Photos from The  Blue Garden

The book I am working on

 

In December I applied for a special grant from my labour organisation, Det Norske Diakonforbund. They have one grant of scolarship every year where they give a person five weeks payed to work on a diaconal project. In January I got the message that I was given the five weeks this year. Three weeks were spent in Italy and Austria in May/June, I am in the middle of the remaining two weeks right now.

During these five weeks (and for weeks and months to come) I've been working on the script for a new book. I have already written one book, "40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse"which were printed by IKO-forlaget in December 2007. This new book is written as a kind of sequel. In "40 dager" I wrote about the celebration of Lent, historical and up to date, and also new ideas on how to celebrate. In one chapter I mention the tradition of lental tapestries, and I continue to knit on this in the new book. In 40 short chapters I share stories of life, reflections, living as a christian in the middle of God's creation. The book will be personal but hopefully written in a way which will help the readers to reflect on their own lives, their walks as pilgrims through the world.

My dream is to have the book printed as a sequel to the first one, in a series (I have more ideas). I have been in contact with the publisher and they "might be" interested. But I have no written agreement.........and therefore will not know in a long time yet if the book really will be published.

 

The book will be in Norwegian.

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Here you can flip through 40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse

Photos: the full moon last week, from cabin terrace.

Top of the world

 

A cabin summer is going towards its end. Today we are driving home, to electricity, to showers, to running water, to a flashing toilet, and to everyday life. Yesterday had to be enjoyed to its better end.....a mountain hike with good friends was the solution.

 

The weather was perfect. Just enough sun to get tanned, just enough clouds to feel comfortable, just enough wind to keep most of the bugs and moscitos away.

Terje is fit as a fiddle, Marta climbs the mountains as a goat, our friends are fit, fit, fit......I realized during our hike that I am not trained as I once was. Somewhere, before the top climb, I had to force myself. You will make it! Of course you will"........I did! And it felt wonderful.

 

Now when I come back to The House in the Woods and to working days I have a goal - I'll keep on walking. I'll keep on hiking.......

 

Yesterdays hike ended with dinner with our friends, in their cabin........until late, late, late.

 

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Facts: we climbed Bjørnskardliknubben at Skardsøya, 390 meters over sea level.

Menu: califlowersoup made by chef Aasmund, pancakes with blueberries for dessert

And then the bikers came

 

First a week in total loneliness. Then the roller skiers came and my silence was broken. The next thing - the bikers, a kind of Tour d'Aure :-)

 

We knew they would pass close to our cabin, so we were up early, together with the local farmers to watch and to cheer. Marta decided to stay in bed sleeping. Summer never goes together with early mornings!

 

A helicopter had been hired by a Norwegian national television company to follow the ride. When it passed low over us, the cows were frightened and ran deep into the forest.  As and the helicopter had passed the farmer needed a long time to sooth the cows down.

 

We did remember the Norwegian flag when we cheered at Giro d'Italia. This time we had no flag, but cheered the best we could anyway.

 

The "week of sports" finished at Aure last night and peace and silence is again coming to the village and our cabin. We sat out on the terrace till late, late last night. Just when we finished eating our barbeque meal, a fantastic thunder storm started. We sat out watching while I read from my upcoming book to Terje. He is a good listener.

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While I write this it is Saturday morning. Another bright sunny day. Later today we'll meet up with good friends and hike a mountain together.......and if we are lucky, there will be some midnight fishing out on the Atlantic Sea.

And this place uses to be SO quiet!

The village not far from our cabin, Aure, is usually a very quiet place. Untill yesterday and today. Now it is wonderfully busy with World Cup on roller skiing. Teams from several counries. 

 

I walked from the cabin to the village after lunch and there I met Terje and Marta, they were coming from Trondheim.

My days alone are over, I love my company!

 

Alone, though not lonely

 No Marta is playing in the forest around the cabin, no Terje is chopping woods. I am all alone. I miss my dear ones, but never a minute have I felt lonely. I have my words, my thoughts and my books. I have my knitting, my walks and my cooking. I have my silence.

Everybody should experience time away from time to time.

Marta and Terje will come today. Oh my, I am looking forward to have them around. To love and be loved!

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Note: I am sorry I don't write you back for a few days. My laptop's battery is charged on a solar/sun cell battery, and it is too low for a my use........but I will be fully back.....soon

By the way, the new Trondheim through all seasons is updated daily, even though I am not in Trondheim right now.

Exporing the countryside

 

Being all alone at the cabin for a week, means that I do alot of "new" things. I am here to work on my book, and for hours every day I sit down to write. But this book needs alot of reflecting, and the best way to reflect is to walk.

We have only one car, and the car is needed back in Trondheim, so while we often drive to a starting point for our hikes when we are here with the car, this time all I have are my two feet.

 

The other day my afternoon walk took me in a new (to me) direction, and suddenly I found myself in a fairy tale, in a secret garden. There must have been a farm here once, but now there were no tracks of the old farmhouse, nor of the barn. But the orchard was still there. Alot of old, old fruit trees, heavy with fruits. Apples and plums. And a few shrubs with berries.

  

I sat down on the old stone wall for a long time, my mind wandering back to once upon a time.......

 

The raspberries were almost overripe, falling down. I ate alot and decided to come back the next day to pick some for jam.

The next day came, and with a backpack with a thermos and some sandwiches I walked back to my fairytale. There I met the local farmer and I asked him very carefully: "Is it okay to pick the raspberries, they are falling down anyway?" Well, unfortunately it was not okay. The very nice farmer told me that they belonged to some cabin people, and they might come this week-end to pick them. "But enjoy this place" he went on "walk down to the sea, fish if you want to, and have your coffee"

 

Coffee from a thermos flask, two pieces of whole grain bread with butter and brown cheese, a bottle of water..........no restaurant could have served me any better lunch.

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Some of you are asking about the cherry tree. I posted a photo of it in My Year in the Worldthe other day.

Dead heading.

 

I've been dead heading the cabin roses. In spite of a dry summer the roses at the cabin are overflowing us with scent and beauty, and by removing all the dead heads the remaining ones, and the ones yet to come, will keep on blooming for weeks. We might not be here, but the beauty wil still be.

 

It might be time for some dead heading in my life as well. Days and nights all alone, with all the time in the world for thinking and reflecting........I am looking at my life, the way I live, the way God wants me to live........and I know that there are still alot of new roses to bloom.....several old ones to dead head.

 

With great care, with God's love, I try not to cut away the new buds. And I try to hold on to old beauty.

A Place where Inspiration Flows.

 

One Easter day in 1994 I sat on the cabin terrace with my mind wandering. I had brough a huge box of fabric scraps out to the cabin and wondered what to do with all the beautiful pieces of fabric. It was a lovely sunny day with alot of boats out on the fjord, and suddenly I knew. I would make a boat quilt.

 

In an old quilt magazine I had seen a pieced boat, so I found a pencil and a piece of paper to draw one in a size suitable for my quilt. Then it was time to draw the pattern in the back side of the small fabric scraps, to cut and to sew. The whole quilt is handsewn.

I finished the quilt 15 months later and named it "Min båt er så liten" (My boat is very small) - from apopular Sunday School song.

 

 

The cabin terracce is for me a place made for creating. It is where I meet my muse, it is where I run with wolves, dance with angels.

I am spending a week alone at the cabin. Writing. The words, which have been impossible to find ever since I left Venezia, are here waiting for me. They flow through my heart, keep on to my fingertips and find their way out to be braided together as sentences, as tales. Hopefuly eventyally the braids kan be knitted together to a book.

 

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Sorry I totally forgot to tell you about the postcards from the Festival. The young boy was not to be seen anymore, so I have only two cards. They will be mailed to Anne and Beverly. Will you please email me your addresses.

I believe I've forgotten to tell.....

 

I've never showed you very much of my quilts and my quilting, have I? I know there are a few posts, but considering the number of quilts I have (hundreds?), you deserve more :-). Well, deserve.....I don't mean to brag, but.......you know what I mean.

 

I discovered quiting back in 1980. Terje and I were on our honeymoon in England, and like now almost 30 years later, I coudn't resist bookstores. In one I found my very first book about patchwork, quilting and applique. Coming home I started looking for good quality cotton fabric, suitable for quilting. A task which turned out to be extremey difficult the first years. I did buy some silk like Liberty cotton in London, and when Torgeir was born two years ater, I had made him a small cathedral window quilt, and also a hexagon quilt for his pram.

 

Many years later I met Kathy in USA through an article in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (from Kathy's home). It took us exactly two letters to become friends, one from me to her, one from her back to me. Kathy told me she was working on a diamond scrap quilt, and soon I followed her steps. The goal was to use only different fabrics.

I worked on the quilt for many years, handpiecing with tiny little stiches, and the quilt grew and grew and grew........ Then, many years ago, I stopped quilting, or rather gave quilting a break. And now the diamond scrap quilt is hibernating in a basket at our cabin. I know I should go back to it to finish it eventually, or at least take it out of its basket and use it for decorating............but.....

 

For years and years I used dozens of quilts in my decorating the House in the Woods and the cabin. Now most of my quilts are stored away. A real pity, isn't it?