When I was younger I used to say Easter was my favorite holiday. There are a couple reasons for that: (1) I felt like if I said Christmas or Halloween that would make me sound greedy; (2) Easter occasionally fell on my birthday, and I liked that. 

That's all, that's it. It probably says something not entirely positive about me that those were the reasons I wanted to say Easter was my favorite, but on the other hand--picking favorite holidays is kind of a weird exercise, anyway. For me holidays tend to become one of the axes the year cycles around, and I'm beginning to realize that the way I approach each one usually says more about my state than the holiday itself.

Easter in Norway is a more widely celebrated, secular holiday than it is in the U.S.--complete with the traditional airing of crime shows on TV--which might account for why this year especially, my understanding of the holiday is personal. So right now, I'm approaching Easter as a journey: Christ's journey towards his life's purpose. Reflective, perhaps, of my own attempts to figure out what my life is for and what I'm supposed to do with it. But this isn't so far off from a lot of the tradition around the Lenten holidays, and Easter is really just the culmination of that, the arrival at the end of a journey. As a result, it's difficult for me to extricate Easter from everything else. I'm not sure we should, just because context is so important. Even as we acknowledge the holiday, celebrate, say Lent is over--what Christ began continues.

This is not to belittle what Easter celebrates (He is risen, He is risen indeed). But it celebrates the fulfillment of prophecy, the fulfillment of purpose, and I'm not entirely sure that means it celebrates completion. We continue. The road, as the song says, goes on forever.

And the party never ends. Happy Easter, god Påske. Now, if you need me, I'll be on the next train to the arctic circle. 

Wisdom

It was a night of early spring,
The winter-sleep was scarcely broken;
Around us shadows and the wind
Listened for what was never spoken.

Though half a score of years are gone,
Spring comes as sharply now as then -
But if we had it all to do
It would be done the same again.

It was a spring that never came;
But we have lived enough to know
That what we never have, remains;
It is the things we have that go.

-Sara Teasdale, 1922

I'm visiting family in the south of Norway for the Easter (Påske) holiday, and experiencing the barest brushing of spring.We saw a northern lapwing today, and one of my relatives said that, as one of the first birds to migrate back to Norway from warmer climes, they're a sign of spring here. "Not a very good one," she said.

We were in Lista, which is the name of both the region and the town my grandmother was from. The town is windy and flat. There are farms and a lighthouse. Denmark is somewhere across the ocean. The Germans occupied the area once, and there are signs of older settlements around--stone carvings that date to the Bronze Age, Viking burial mounds. "But mostly it's sheeps and fish," my second cousin said. "If you're ever wondering where you came from."

Translations of My Postcards

the peacock means order
the fighting kangaroos mean madness
the oasis means I have struck water

positioning of the stamp — the despot’s head
horizontal, or ‘mounted policemen’,
mean political danger

the false date means I
am not where I should be

when I speak of the weather
I mean business

a blank postcard says
I am in the wilderness

-Michael Ondaatje, 1992

Always Already

Always already, the word within the world.
So the spider spins the same web each morning
and you are born into meaning

like a serf into a ditch—this is your horizon:
a huddle of huts, smoke lifting

into a bloody sunset. So
culture is a kind of nature,
a library of oak leaves

muttering their foregone oracles
while stars wheel in their fixed
imaginary constellations

and out in the harbor
a mermaid drowns in the net
from which if a small silver herring should escape

it is only into the greater net, the ocean.

-Katha Pollitt, 2004

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about immigration. And Emigration. Migrations, in short.

This is not because I'm planning to emigrate (hi Mom, hi Dad), but because I interact with a lot of immigrants here, and because my grandparents were immigrants. From here. Or--not here, precisely. They emigrated from a different place at a different time. My grasp of Norwegian history is weak so I'm supplementing it with Wikipedia, but as I understand it the bulk of Norway's wealth, the money that undergirds the highest standard of living in the world, comes from oil reserves that weren't discovered until 1969. My grandparents left Norway well before then, after Norway separated from Sweden in 1905, after World War I, but before the Nazis occupied Norway during World War II. They came to America, where they met and married and established the family that would be my mother's and, later, mine.

When I was younger it was important to me that I was half Norwegian--being able to say that seemed cleaner than attempting to excavate the jumbled heritage on my father's side (German, English, Scottish, Czech, French-Canadian...). It's still important to me that I'm Norwegian-American, but that's the caveat: American. Because Norwegian I am not.

Fé vældr frænda róge; føðesk ulfr í skóge. Úr er af illu jarne; opt løypr ræinn á hjarne. Þurs vældr kvinna kvillu; kátr værðr fár af illu. Óss er flæstra færða fo,r; en skalpr er sværða. Ræið kveða rossom væsta; Reginn sló sværðet bæzta. Kaun er barna bo,lvan; bo,l gørver nán fo,lvan. Hagall er kaldastr korna; Kristr skóp hæimenn forna. Nauðr gerer næppa koste; nøktan kælr í froste. Ís ko,llum brú bræiða; blindan þarf at læiða. Ár er gumna góðe; get ek at o,rr var Fróðe. Sól er landa ljóme; lúti ek helgum dóme. Týr er æinendr ása; opt værðr smiðr blása. Bjarkan er laufgrønstr líma; Loki bar flærða tíma. Maðr er moldar auki; mikil er græip á hauki. Lo,gr er, fællr ór fjalle foss; en gull ero nosser. Ýr er vetrgrønstr viða; vænt er, er brennr, at sviða.

Wealth is a source of discord among kinsmen; the wolf lives in the forest. Dross comes from bad iron; the reindeer often races over the frozen snow. Giant causes anguish to women; misfortune makes few men cheerful. Estuary is the way of most journeys; but a scabbard is of swords. Riding is said to be the worst thing for horses; Reginn forged the finest sword. Ulcer is fatal to children; death makes a corpse pale. Hail is the coldest of grain; Christ created the world of old. Constraint gives scant choice; a naked man is chilled by the frost. Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind man must be led. Plenty is a boon to men; I say that Frothi was generous. Sun is the light of the world; I bow to the divine decree. Tyr is a one-handed god; often has the smith to blow. Birch has the greenest leaves of any shrub; Loki was fortunate in his deceit. Man is an augmentation of the dust; great is the claw of the hawk. A waterfall is a River which falls from a mountain-side; but ornaments are of gold. Yew is the greenest of trees in winter; it is wont to crackle when it burns.

-The Norwegian Rune Poem, 13th c.