I’m starting this thread to keep a ‘guestbook’ of our inaugural writing session. If you would like, use this space to brainstorm what you might like to write about.
I’m thinking of writing about what it means to return to Oslo after some time abroad. I walk around and truly admire all the infrastructure and embedded wealth this city has at the same time I wonder how many days, weeks it takes before I feel it being suffocating in it’s foreignness. How long can a mortal stay in heaven?
yooooo poem I found during the session:
also on substack: Poem: Chasing Shadows (2020) - by Simon Ohler
something, something,
still in my belly
stuck in the rug
right under the telly
looking above, looking below
many words, lo and fro
but what do they matter
at the end of the night?
still no good answer
to my call, my plight
what is that bearing?
i hear you enqui’ring
well, thanks, i’m not-so-glad you asked
i’m playing a game, and my opponent is masked
we’re dancing in darkness — the matter is life
the unknown my husband, deception his wife
he is a stranger to me
and yet I know him so well
our dance is embrace
familiar his smell
and I do want to catch him
hunt him down, grab him
but he’s too evasive, the little bastard
relax, slow down, composure
didn’t he actually get closer?
a faint flirt with gracious surrender?
a “catch me if you want” — ever so tender?
to bring a man down in gracious spirit
one must loosen the chase and get off his heels
a deep sleep. a good meal. a last cigarette.
and wrists lay bare for the cuffs.
Simon Ohler, 2020
This writing session was really nice. I ate my lunch & wrote a few pages in my physical journal about my weekend.
Sunday left me with a strange, dissatisfied feeling and I wanted to figure out why. It was a fun, full day with fun, beautiful activities, so where was this feeling coming from…? Maybe I would discover something if I journaled about it.
I ended up going on quite a few tangents. Something I revisited was this phrase I recorded my friend saying in 2023, that “generosity is like a wheel”. I came across the quote in my journal last week & realized that I could not recall why it made sense at the time. But today I think I pieced some of it back together! Here is a snippet that might / might not make sense. 
The incredibly shortened version of my word spiel in my journal today:
I’m going through more deaths this year than I’d like to admit, and needed to reflect on it. It happens often enough it sounds like a cop out repeated excuse to get out of work. Feels like the boy who cries wolf.
I think about how perfect the day is where I’m at: the birds sing, the sky is clear, the wind is cool and gentle, and the sunshine warms instead of burns. But that’s the way death goes - the world moves on, and I stay behind. In my mind I’m still in the evening hours, frantically searching for a next-day international flight that can bring my dad home to his mother. 24 hours arrival at best, 32 hours we can afford.
I find the anticipation of death more agonizing than the death itself, especially if it’s prolonged, especially if you wonder for every second ticking, which will be the last second. It’s the stretch of the last hour that becomes 48 hours to endless weeks of worrying — when will it happen? When will I have to really grieve? Will I be there on their last breath? Will they see me before they let go? When is it finally over, and do I want it to be over? At what point does death actually happen?
Questions and thoughts run rampant in my head. And on such a calm, restful day at that.
Friends, thank you for joining!
I wanted to share two things:
The short story by Ursula le Guin, The One Who Walk Away From Omelas
And some excerpts from my writing today:
I sense my nervous system coming to rest. I am suddenly free from the constant hum of cars and the silence is so sweet like the water that comes from the taps. I savour it.
–
I love the elevation Oslo has. I love how you can quickly climb a hill and get a view of the city. I love how you can see nature everywhere from the river than runs through the city, the waterfall that breaks it up and the dam even further up that invites you to bathe in it. There is so much beauty here and it is easy to be a part of it. It feels so good.
–
Who am I writing this to? Maybe I am writing this to someone I am yet to meet who has never been to Oslo, maybe I am writing to myself in the future once I have forgotten what is like.
–
You always come back form ‘somewhere’ and that ‘somewhere’ leaves an imprint on you. The sounds that you don’t hear anymore, the smells that are strangely absent. At least for me I see so many images in my mind like a film that has been overlayed upon the other.
her original intent (the thing before the choices)
I love this.
