Heathland

Sletvik, Norway

May 28, 2008

The wind is howling its soul over the heathland. Between the evergreen vegetation, the heather’s small purple heads give the field its beloved pattern. This is home. Mine alone.

I’m writing these words, so the landscape does not become forgotten. Even though the shore is packed with tourists’ homes, the landscape is yet not overrun by them. Preserved by the nature’s breath, my little heaven is being kept under the clouds, white and fluffy, like sheep’s wool.

And just like a thick fur, I have to take care of my little preservation. So, I wrap the beauty my eyes perceive into these words.

Although, I’ve never written diary before. In school we did these small works where we wrote about our weekends. But I always felt drained having no idea what to write. I was home, strolling through the way too many rooms of our house, examining the hidden rooms under the stairs or listening to my father talking about the fish. Now, nothing of these things is left. No hidden rooms, since I know them all, no fish and no father.

Mora mi always told me as long as the heather is still blossoming, the world is the right place. But she says many things. Also, good boy, although I never really achieve something. And lately, she seems to get worse and worse. Not only that she pulled that guy into our house. Also, she started leaving me alone on weekends, going out at night and forgot our movie evenings at least thrice.

Just like nature, my life seems to change. But not every plant is made to withstand harsh conditions. There is the small lingonberry, with leaves thick enough to withstand the winter. Though, hardly distinguishable from the bunchberry, which dies down every winter and has to build up anew the next year. I don’t know yet which plant I am. Maybe I will never survive this winter of my life.

June 03, 2008

Steve is a fisherman. Have I told you this already? He’s going out every morning with his recognizable yellow bucket and the bag of all his stuff. His murder supplies, as I started to call them. Everybody knows he’s going out there to murder tons of fish. But still, mora loves him. She seems to be drawn to fishermen. Maybe their story will end just like hers and dads. I can’t wait for that day.

It was only today that my mora asked me to take his lunch he forgot at home. She stopped making me lunch when I made it to fifth grade. But seems like for Steve there are different rules. His boat was rested on the shore as I made it towards him. His whole bunch of supplies scattered on the ground. Steve was never any tidy. And there was this other guy helping him. Young, maybe my age. He was wearing a yellow rain coat although it was not raining at all.

“You must be Steve’s son.”, he greeted me. “I’m not.” Luckily. Imagine I was.

I handed him Steve’s food and so we stood there, saying nothing.

“Have you ever gone fishing?”, he asked me.

“I don’t want to kill fish.”

He kept talking about Allemannsretten, the right of everyone to have free access to nature. I told him that this should not be applied to other creatures’ lives.

This guy was just like Steve and father. I hate them. Still, I enjoyed talking to him more than I wanted to. And his algae-green eyes are still on my mind as I lay in bed.

June 09, 2008

The water was wonderfully warm today. Maybe this year we will have a proper summer. But then I thought of the winter my life is going through. Of mora, of Steve and how this summer will never feel like the summers I have been used to. There will be no waking up late to hike through the coastal land with mora. No late-night movie sessions and no discovering secret rooms of our already well-known house. Instead, I will feel lonely, annoyed by the weird guy mora brought home. I will have to run away from the stale smell of the fish and from Steve’s loud voice.

Suddenly, the water seems grey and muddy in my eyes. No way, this guy is not allowed to steal my happiness. Without undressing, I jumped into the ocean. Goosebumps climbed up my body, the water letting me in, hugging me with its liquid figure. The real world vanished above me as I sank deeper into the soft spot of nature and became one with it. The cold crept up my spine, made its way through my wet clothes, touching my skin.

As I made it out to suck in the sweet air, the sky already looked so much brighter, as if the sun decided to come back to me.

June 24, 2008

Mora has been busy for a few days. She’s been baking, cooking fish after fish or cleaning the living room with a precision I have yet not seen of her. As I discovered that there was no ice cream left in the freezer and that I saw Steve vanishing in their bedroom with the box, I finally confronted her.

Tomorrow, I’ll bike all the way to the supermarket, which is almost ten kilometres. So, obviously, the discussion didn’t go great. Not at all, honestly. At least, there was no crying involved. Mora told me I must not talk bad about Steve. He provides us with food all day. As if he was going out there killing fish because we asked him to. I don’t even eat fish, so Steve provides me nothing. He’s laughing about me when I refuse the salmon he’s brought. Mora cooks it really well, but there is no chance I’ll eat something a fisherman has brought home. Ever. 

I told Mora that, but she only shook her head. Told me that is my decision, but I cannot judge if someone else has a different perspective on it.

That was the first time I wanted to slap my mother, just the way father used to slap me sometimes. But that way around it does not seem to be appropriate.

June 25, 2008

Going to the supermarket could not have been worse. I was just standing at the candy aisle, filling up one of the paper bags with my favourite banana candy, as I spotted him. Wearing a polo shirt, which obviously identified him as a worker here. “Candy is a bad substitute for fish.”, he whispered as he recognized me.

“But you also seem to have enough of it.”, I said.

“Helping your father is only a hobby. This is my job. Need to pay for college somehow.” He’s going to college? It almost made him sympathetic for me. Maybe if he hadn’t called Steve my father again. I would love to go to college as well. Move away from that lonely house at the coast. Which other way is there for me? Becoming a fisherman? Never. Joining the military? Neither. But how can I leave that nature home of mine?

As he weighed my candy bag, I saw him lifting it up a little, saving me a few kroner. I promised him to greet Steve, which I won’t do. As I left the supermarket, my heart was beating with a rhythm that still has me afraid.

July 01, 2008

When I closed my eyes, all I could hear is the sea carefully licking the rocky shore. The sun was gleaming on my head, warming my eyelids. My body laid stretched out on the field, sinking into nature’s rhythm. The grass was soft as a pillow, making me a bed out of Avenella flexuosa, the short-cut wavy but especially soft hair-grass, where I could rest my head.

Sometimes you can feel little bugs climbing over your forehead. Using you as their private playground. The ground is always full of them. But, other than the plants, I have no idea of their names. I only know their leftovers. Bumpy, red skin. Small bites. Ticks on the soft skin between your legs or on your belly. Mora always used to pull them out with her tweezers, but nowadays I feel too grown-up to let her do something to my skin. I have my own skin care routine and so I can also look at my own bites. It shows how little I still feel connected to my home. Of course, I love that red wooden house of ours. Love the fireplace we used to gather in front of in cold winters. Love the big couch we used to watch movies on. The grand kitchen full of practical utensils. The cookie boxes where I hid my treasures I baked myself. Mora never knew I was actually tall enough to reach it, or maybe she knew but decided not to do anything against it. Oh, to be a child again.

The thought of leaving is still so present in my head, it feels hurtful not to think about it. I didn’t ask that guy where he was going. I don’t even know anything about him. But still, I can imagine following him to some city like Trondheim. Surrounded by supermarkets where we can share candy or where he can get another job. There must be that great vegetation in Trondheim as well. There must be.

July 03, 2008

Mora was surprised enough when I proposed to do the shopping this week. Told me there was no reason to bike that far when she could drive the car in a few minutes. So, there we were both going shopping. Nobody talked on the way. The content of our talks seemed to have dismissed to nothing. All there was on my mind is the blonde guy from the shop. And me leaving this place. Us leaving this place. In my visions one of us is wearing a yellow rain coat, the other a navy blue polo shirt.

“Are you with me?”, Mora asked when handing me the other half of the shopping list. I just nodded. The first item on the list was him.

Still, he was the last I could tick off. He was organizing cornflakes, wearing a cap hiding his curls. I tapped him on the shoulder and had to suppress a laugh when he almost dropped the boxes in his hands. The shock on his face turned into a smile the second he recognized me.

“Looking for fish?”, he asked me.

“Not necessary. Steve is providing for us.” I quote my mother. His smile seemed to fade when I mentioned Steve.

We talked until Mora, looking for me, found us in the aisle and I apologized to go with her.

“Find me at the dock.”, he whispered before I left.

In the car I thought about the stuff I got to knew about him. He planned to study in Trondheim, doing Marine Ecology. He used the work at Steve’s as his way to learn more about fish behaviour. And to get accustomed with fishing, with killing fish to use them for his project works. I could never do that. The fish part, I mean. Not the running away.

July 10, 2008

The sea was exceptionally still today. Small fish swam only a few centimetres under the surface, looking up at me, looking down on them. The shore was full of small shells from different animals today. Mussels, snails, tiny sea urchins in different colours, from brown to bright red. Jellyfish swam right under the sea’s surface, as if providing a way to jump over the ocean in tiny steps. Where would I land if I could walk over water?

I almost slipped stepping on a rather huge jellyfish on the shore. Probably a lion’s mane jellyfish, whose stings are quite dangerous. Its dead body faded in with the brown rocky underground.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”, someone said. Of course, it was him. I don’t even need to think, so quick do I recognize his voice.

“I was waiting for you to come to the dock.” He brushed through his hair, looking somewhat nervous.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to meet Steve more than necessary.”

“I’m sorry, dude.” And he looked like it. But I must be sorry. For putting my needs first. He’s been waiting for me. While I was looking for jellyfish, hiding in nature.

“I found this.” In his hand there was a bone. Some cervical vertebra, probably from a seagull. “I’ve got two of them. Let’s attach a rope, so we can both wear one around the neck.”

“That’s so kind of you.” I felt to grateful, I didn’t know what else I could say.

“What are you doing here?”, he asked.

“Looking at jellyfish. Listening to the wind.”

“I can’t hear no wind today.”

“Then close your eyes.”

As he stood there with his lids closed, I dared coming closer, examining his face, the weather-rough skin of his, the small hairs his body has produced around his lips. As if just for me. 

As I kissed him, his face melted, capturing mine. Our bodies moved as one, living off the other. I wanted to pull him in, get all of him there is, while he slowly consumed me.

We tore apart as I heard the clapping. Steve’s hands, heavy and rough from work. He said nothing, only pulled at my guy’s collar from behind, yanking him away from me. The expression on his face blended into hurt as all I could do is freeze, as Steve finally murmured a back to work.

July 13, 2008

It’s the third day the guy’s not with Steve at work. I’ve been sitting behind the Salix shrubs every day from the morning on. Mora must be questioning where I am, but I know she’s got no time to look for me. I know Steve is with the guy every morning, so what has happened? I might play dumb asking that question, since honestly, I know that Steve fired him. I saw his expression when seeing us at the shore. And I also saw the guy’s expression when I mentioned Steve before. I heard mother’s screams sometimes when everyone thought I was asleep already. Nobody can tell me I didn’t know about Steve.

My legs hurt after biking the whole way again. But what should I do? Forget the taste his lips left on mine?

Turned out he’s not at the supermarket either.

July 14, 2008

Steve asked me if I knew what I wanted to do after school today. It’s quite sad that he was the one asking and not Mora. I haven’t talked to her in days, I think.

This morning, I’ve been to both the dock and the supermarket, but there was no trace of him.

So, I told Steve I don’t know yet.

When dinner was ready, I prepared for being confronted by silence again. But instead, Steve began talking. Telling us about the contacts he made in the navy. How they need more people for the military, how the station is so near. How it will be the perfect opportunity.

For me. Of course. Mora’s excitement hurt like a dagger through my heart. I felt my body shivering, suppressing the tears as if it was lifting a heavy weight, so exhausting it was.

I needed to hide in my room to finally let the tears find their way into my pillow. But as I lay down, they didn’t want to come at all.

July 15, 2008

I stand on the highest point I can reach without equipment. The wind here is so much colder than downhill. The way up alone was so exhausting, it was like climbing up a straight wall, only with no grips to hold on to. I slipped a few times, so now my knees have beautiful pattern of bruises, that started to make its way through to my skin.

After that walk up, the cold air feels like a reward. The wind is blowing with such a strong intensity, you feel as if it wants to knock you down. I open my jacket, hold out my arms and let the wind give me wings, granting the heaven consensus to touch me.

Cold crawls on my skin, giving me goosebumps through the thin fabric, its tiny fingers caress my hair, blowing it in all directions. This is where I am free. This is where my mind belongs me alone. I let the wind take me. Fill up my soul with his, letting my mind be freed. This is where I belong. In the nature. Where the wind is mine. Where I am his to claim. I give in to him, fall to my knees. I am your sacrifice. Take me to the heavens. To a place full of void, where I can vanish into my own little spirit.

The plane is the last thing I hear. It makes it way over the ocean, coming straight from the military base. The only sign of civilisation and the worst as well. The motor is louder than the wind in my ears as it slides above me. Right before my body, slender and malnourished from only eating the sides of all the fishy dishes Mora mi made, becomes the wind’s plaything. And down there, where the ocean licks over the shore, spitting out small shells while taking in tiny plants, right there, where nature becomes a tit for tat, I surrender into becoming one with this earth.