Sometimes I think that if I am aware that I take things for granted, it’s okay. But is that true? Two things there:
- Am I really taking things for granted if I know I am? That necessitates I know their worth.
- If it’s possible to knowingly take things for granted, does it even help if you’re aware that you’re doing it?
This weekend I had a guest visiting me for the first time. It was also the most materially perfect Bergen weekend in 2025 so far. “Most perfect” is a weird phrase. It was perfect. It was Bergen’s first perfect days all year. Two perfect days that coincidentally landed on a weekend, Friday through Sunday. And coincidentally took place just when my guest was here, and was overtaken by the rain and the dullness as soon as I got on the tram back from the airport on Monday.
My guest is from the digital realm. It’s funny to know someone online and then be in each others IRL, all of a sudden. It was fun and amusing, sometimes uncomfortable, and other times oddly familiar. Sometimes Guest said things I had never heard before, and sometimes I was reminded so much of people and scenarios that I never thought I’d experience again.
The coolest thing we did was take a daytrip to Stanghelle. Here are a few pictures from there:
Guest is very taken by Norway. Having a lot of international friends in Bergen (and from my UWC-days), I am lucky to many times have experienced of seeing my city and country through outsiders eyes. It puts things in perspecitve. It makes you grateful/realize how ungrateful you can be.
But I’m very taken by the place Guest is from. It’s funny how Guest and I are maybe, possibly, hopefully, making a temporary a switcheroo. So I listen with great interest, and some level of apprehension, when Guest tells me why it’s hard to feel good about their homeplace. It’s scary to have your dreams challenged. But it also feels like a lucky thing, like Guest and I got to serve multiple purposes for each other over one weekend, and one of theirs was to give me these insights that I didn’t want but maybe needed.
Stanghelle could not have been more perfectperfectperfect. Everything was right, I felt God’s presence in the air and in my body which was young and moved smoothly and skillfullly over the terrain. On the way back to Bergen, Guest suggested I get away like this more often. I wondered then if feeling stuck is a choice. Wandering the Stanghelle penninsula, our destination, I tried to think about concerns from my Bergen life and had a hard time remembering any. Maybe a possibility for the future is a simpler, serene life, in a place like there. I have no doubt most days are not like this weekend, jeg har vært ute en Vestlandet-vinternatt før. But with a meaningful job and adequate spare time to let my mind be free, who knows. And a permanent guest to do it all with.
Maja's Musings 