Less than three weeks ago, a crew of movers came to our Oslo apartment, and in a frighteningly fast and efficient process, completely dismantled the life we'd spent four years constructing there. That night we slept in our curtainless new bedroom in the creaky, airy new home in Holmestrand. The weeks since that day have been chaotic but productive, with people coming to inspect and deliver, welcome us to the neighborhood, and meet our new home. We've had wood brought into our spacious wood shed to hopefully last the whole winter, we've had people come to inspect the room upstairs where a kitchen was installed postwar, where we hope to build a bathroom. We've had friends and family come to see our new home and taste homemade fruit tart (our own berries!), and new neighbors arrive with welcoming plants and cookies.
It's hard to describe just how much this place feels like where I was supposed to be all these years in Oslo. It's a lovely city and I've enjoyed getting to know it, but I missed the smell of grass being mown, the drone of a lawnmower being the loudest sound coming from my open window. I have become the family's number one fan of laundry because hanging it is such a treat with the sea view, the arc of blue skies above, and the scent of an unknown but viscerally familiar plant crushed beneath my feet. The sheets then flap in the sea breezes and come inside smelling of oxygen and energy, and my children do what all children have done since clotheslines were invented, racing through the hanging sheets as I chide them for pulling them askew.
And the view.. I cannot say enough about how much it has changed the shape and enjoyment of our lives to have this gigantic sweep of sky and strip of fjord so visible from the house. This region seems to be prone to brief rain squalls, which ruins my laundry drying but makes the clouds all the more interesting, and we have the best seat in town to enjoy them all. We look out on the major shipping channel going from Oslo, so the days have begun to be punctuated by the passing of the ferries to Germany and Denmark. Every morning as we eat breakfast during the week, we watch for the Kiel ferry arriving, and when I see it pass on the way out of Oslo in the afternoon, I know it's time to go pick the kids up.
We've become familiar with the moods of the water here, waking to the silver sheen of morning light that makes the islands look like navy blue whales dreaming in the water. In the afternoon the fjord is a brilliant teal striped with white as small boats race in and out of the local harbor, and then as we eat dinner, it turns a luminous turquoise when the sun swings around the back of our house. And now as I write this, the sky is a dull periwinkle striped with pink clouds, and the matte grey of the water lies placid in the darkening light.
Earlier today while the kids had their usual Friday dose of TV time, I slipped outside to the long low light striping across our newly mown grass and just lay there listening to the quiet hum of the in-between time. Too early for the evening crowd to be out, too late for kids to be playing outside, the only sound I could hear was the distant thrum of a ventilation fan somewhere, and some magpies conversing in the next yard. As I lay there I had this sudden realization that this piece of ground I lay on was mine. My first time actually owning property and it is this slice of magic, surrounded by rose bushes and apple trees, and guarded by an elegant old oak tree. Dripping with black currants and bursting with rhubarb, buzzing with bees and butterflies this time of year, and scented of manure, flowers, sea, and grass. My home.
