Stir Crazy
After a certain time in the beautiful, safe, predictable, healthy comfort of Volda, I feel the itch, the need to travel. My lungs are too clean of asphalt dust, my system too purified, the last of the heavily chlorinated drinking water flushed out by the mountain spring water in our taps, all my clothes cleaned of the smell of crowded bars and the grey patina from the subway. This is when I have forgotten about how the constant noise makes me feel like I am going subtly deaf, how all the people in large cities leave me with a kind of mental overload which makes me long for a familiar face, and all I can think of is the variety - more than one bar, one restaurant and three cafeterias. The ferry across the fjord is a slow and suitable metronome, timing the life here between the mountains to a stately adagio, while my feet long for a different beat.

It is a good thing I will be travelling to Melbourne in May. But the summer will be slower than ever, spent painting the house and tending the garden. And the ferry will run on summer schedule. It is going to be a long, quiet summer in Volda. I guess I will have to use some really strong solvent for the paint, if I want any excitement at all!