A little less time please...

13th of October 2007

I recently discovered that many of my lyrics were about time. Not just any time, but future. (No, you won’t have noticed, I’m not showing you close to half of what I write.)

I wasn’t too happy about this. If future is more important than present you might end up loosing the present in the future you dream of. Oh, knock it off if you think it sounds philosophical! It’s not. It’s quite down to earth and quite simple “skiers philosophy,” and that’s seldom too deep. Except for the snow. That’s hopefully deep!

I encourage people to dream, but maybe I should give up some of my own dreaming? Some of you go “yeah, you should!” We’re not talking about the same things and I wish you luck on your planet and don’t come here to visit! I said “some,” that indicates selection. Like picking weeds so the flowers can grow bigger.

I have felt several times over the recent years (past) that I’ve been stretched. I’ve seen new places and had to go on doing inevitable things when I’ve been too tired. I’ve gone places (not geographically) where I have not accepted myself to go before. I’ve seen new places (geographically). Many new places. You see, I think that brings back/ re-ignites (or whatever) the love for those old places where you return. Maybe you need more time (time), but if there was a love there it just won’t go anyway.

I drove an hour off course on one of the national highways up North the summer before this. I stressed like a mad! I needed to get to a certified Saab workshop before the weekend because it sounded like the infantry were training under my dad’s new and beautiful car and the turbo was obviously not happy. Later it turned out to be just a broken exhaust clamp –no big deal! Anyway, I never got to the workshop in time and every time I pushed the accelerator I was going to war. Or at least that’s what any bypassers must have thought.

I had never been this far North before. The mountains here were beautiful and I’m not used to such colossal structures with as relaxed shapes and slack slopes on the edge of the coast. It was like the mountains had more time here (Yeah!). No sudden changes, no sharp edges but relaxed lines interrupted by green valleys and occasional farms. I discovered I was off course and I wasn’t happy with it at all. Though I tried to see the bright side, had I not taken a wrong turn I would never have been there. More and more that relaxed me. I stopped to take a cigar by a rocky shore. The wind came in from the sea and everything around me just invited to… “adventure” you said? –or just beauty. A heavy backpack can be better than a boring chair in a city.
As I was driving I started getting this line in my head. “I am showing you the country.”

I thought of the old Kings and how they sailed out in their youth and returned stronger and wiser. They had been stretched too. –And seen the country they were about to serve when they them selves would assume the title as King.

This summer I did a two days drive in one day from up North and down to Trondheim. I remember the first time I drove for a whole hour. It was in driving school and I had a pounding headache afterwards and ice cream never tasted that good! This time I spent 17 ½ hours, not without breaks naturally, but it’s a bit longer anyway. –and no headache this time. I wonder how mom and dad coped with that same trip in two days when sis and me were so small that an hours drive was like an eternity. I’m being stretched; and that future I’m writing about in cloudy words (just as cloudy as my thoughts) is inevitably being prepared, even without my planning! You sit in the car (not a physical one) and you know where it’s going but you didn’t order the direction and you have no control over the wheel. It sounds scary doesn’t it? Just like being picked up by the mafia by force. You know they’re leading you to that abandoned factory where there’s no one around for miles and miles. You’re on the ride, but you have no control over the wheel. But it’s not like that. If it was I wouldn’t be shown the country (education), have to carry 40 kgs of gear around on Heathrow to take the tube to King’s Cross to take a train to Leeds to find a hotel in a city where I have never been before after five airports and hours I never counted and being so tired that you wonder if it is enough left before the limit on your Master Card to take a cab from London to Leeds and pay the mortgage for the rest of your life, and still getting there being happy (training), or shopping furniture on a Saturday at IKEA all alone to a brand new apartment that needs everything (patience), or walking a new city across in all directions to get the picture of where everything is (overview). It’s stretching. And although home is just a phone call away, there is no one there to help me. Ok, I’m getting help with lots of things over the phone, but I’m the only one that really keeps track of my days, lifting my furniture, washing my dishes, administrating my life. I used to hide my car as best as I could when I went off sometimes, so even if there was a chopper searching for me they’d have to work hard to find me. It’s kinda’ like that, though I live in a city. I’m being trained. And shown things. It’s good, and I’m not off to some dirty old factory. I’m off to new lands, brighter light and more wind in my hair.