The second scariest night of my life happened.
It was naive to park at the edge of a cliff with nothing between the open sea and GlenVanBen.
It was the most mesmerising view of a lifetime.
Welcome back, my beloved souls!
Thank you for your interest and let me tell you that it is going to get really intense today. Both in the most fantastic and in the most tragic way.
Let’s take a walk:
It started upon our arrival on Havøya, an island as so many other -øyas in Norway, and yet very much different. For one there is less traffic because there are less caravans here. And for another, every one of those islands has quite a different feel to it. To me, Havøya felt otherworldly, as though removed a bit from humanity as a civilisation. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few little villages here, and there is a town, Havøyasund, quite lively with about 1000 inhabitants, and a supermarket as well as a gas station. The energy though resembled, to the best of my knowledge, that of the Isle of Lewis. In its seclusion, in its vastness, its coastal routes, its lakes and waterfalls, moon-like landscape. I had the impression that this was the first island where you could drive for about half an hour without encountering anyone. I did not write about it before because that very night, before I thought I would die here, I actually had the first two long conversations with locals since a rasteplass rather far South. So it’s been a while that I encountered somewhat talkative natives. And I cherished the moments. A fisherman, born and bred there, and would you have guessed, another Fisherman, also born and bred there. Hard to imagine a childhood like the one described to me. Seagull egg hunting on cliffs, cod season from mid December to mid February and the rest of the year monthlong trips on their fisher boat, passing oceans and rivers and canals alike, as a family down to the south of France, ski-hiking right up to where I was parking to observe the Northern Lights.
The sunset was bloodied and orange two days ago, seeping into the line where the heaven meets the sea, partially covered by fluffy clouds. A magical feel. Treachorous now that I have the retrospect. Too fairy-like, too peaceful. Admittedly there was a thick, dark blanket on the far west approaching, but the wind was coming from west too, I thought I may see this massive danger float by from the back of my car.
I settled in, cuddled up, ready to let the blogpost of the day be and revel in the new possibilities that emerged in my head. Options to live here, enthused by the comments of the two fishermen I met, realising how very special it would be to seek out a few possibilities come Monday.
Stay for good. Maybe.
Or maybe not.
An hour later the wind had shifted, turned unexpectedly and I was fearing for my life. I am not saying that lightly at all. I mean it. The last time I felt this exposed and challenged by the weather conditions was when I did the vision quest up in the Swiss Alps. A 21 day retreat, culminating in the four day water fast totally alone in the nothingness above the tree line, in a land of stones and gnomes and moss and fairies and wilderness, just me and my tarp. Not a tent, a tarp, open on two sides and only serving as a triangle roof to keep the worst off. Day three there was when the thunderstorm hit and I was up all night, literally praying to any deity and entity out there, to the inhabitants and energies and stewards of the corner of the Earth I was lying upon to save me, to keep me save, to let the tarp, fastened only by stones, hold out and keep the rolling thunder at bay, the striking of the bolts away.
At the edge of Havøya, I prayed again.
This time to the same beings, this time because the back of my car was heaved by the gusts coming from the ocean. Nothing visible for more than a meter each side. Fog making the usually dawn-like nights seem darker. More alone than I ever felt before. In danger. Again, for hours, again close to thinking that should the windows break there was no safety, there was no protection I could seek out.
Not for me, not for Marjorie.
Until the early morning, then it suddenly had moved on and I was exhausted.
I may have been overly dramatic. And still, I have no other person to evaluate the situation, just myself. And I take pride in knowing that I am not easily shocked. I was then.
The whole day yesterday, after this night, was sunny with blue skies and a light breeze.
I was planning on staying there for a couple of nights, possibly more.
I was planning on considering an option for staying there even longer than possibly longer.
I drove off around noon.
Exhausted and still shook within.
My brain knew and told me there was no danger anymore, we were save. But my soul was caught between being petrified and fleeing.
So I fled, admonished myself while driving that once again I had abandoned the plan to stay somewhere, made myself feel small and weak and alone. Somehow even managed to tell myself off, reprimand myself for being unable to evolve due to my running away all the time. Then I snapped.
In a good way.
Told that bickering voice within to ease and stop it. Because the very part this voice was putting down was the very part that enabled us to see these places, experience these experiences, live this life the way we live it. What I was calling out to be my biggest flaw and failure was actually the part that was the most exciting about myself. The one I cherished and loved and admired most.
And out of that night and day, and another night of quiet rest tucked away behind a mountain facing East, and another bright, unexpected morning with a bath in yet another clear, turquoise pool of water at the base of a waterfall, I drove off today to the Nordkapp.
I felt ready.
I was ready to reach it, squeeze every inch of joy and love for myself out of reaching it.
Leave behind bickering voices, feelings of inadequacy, constant confrontations with my lack of roots.
Starting to treasure the ants in my pants that make me step out of my comfort zone over and over and over again.
This was my goal.
There will always be another mountai, another objective, another destination calling.
Or not.
Or be content with what I got, what I have, what I am.
So the scariest of experiences brought out something absolutely magnificent.
Did that ever happen to you too?
All the love and light in the world to you, my beloved souls.
May you get everything you need…
…and a pinch of what you want too!
Nadine
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