Life gives you way more than your consciousness could even conceive! I never thought I would see reindeers ( yes with an ‘s, and herds of them) , so many that you start normalising them as sheep.
I never knew crossing the Artic circle and heading further north would ever be a feat achievable and getting the chance to see the midnight sun just around the summer solstice; experiencing how simple truths like day and night can be such a fallacy, when you wear the sunglasses against the midnight sun.
A few years back when I first visited Norway, it felt so calm, serene, jaw dropping and solitary - was an obvious instant favourite.
Staring at the cluster of cute and colourful huts in the secluded villages along the fjords made me wonder what life could feel like living in a place like that. While I cruised along through the water, I could not imagine living in such a picture perfect scenery would become a reality one day.
And yet it did - when we lived in a tiny white cottage by the lake, next to the ice capped Norwegian mountains, with a tiny island nearby, and not another soul in the vicinity.
We lived in the quiet, in the stationary. We witnessed the midnight sun revolve us through the 24 hours.
If only we could master the recipe for telling the universe all that you truly want, and what would make you ecstatic, so you could keep getting surprised likewise!
Often when I passed by hills and mountains, I wondered how fascinating it would be to get off the car, and start climbing up the hillside instead of driving through long winding roads. And yet this time, living along a Norwegian mountain, amidst the lakes and sea, as I wandered along the road on my solo walks, I did just that - hiked up random hills. It felt slightly unnerving to be completely solitary in such a pristine wilderness. I was closer to animals and birds - every visual, every movement and sound was so real. I sat on a hill and meditated. I kept searching for words that could do justice to all the emotions and feelings I experienced.
This very endeavour of capturing these thoughts in words is still the desperate attempt at holding on to those beautiful feelings and a rare hope that it all can be rekindled through words or through the numerous pictures attempted at capturing it all.
My mom once said, what’s the point of travelling so much if you don’t write it down! Memories fade.
That is probably both an upsetting and exciting thought - as it simultaneously makes you feel sad as you can’t remember, relive the feelings again and yet, it does fill with hope at the possibility of experiencing such unexpectedly beautiful emotions in future too.
71 degrees North! The midnight sun
