REDEMPTIVE REALIZATION

Today I’ve entered the jewellery shop in Kviteseid. Unsolicited, the shop keeper brought me his collection of diamonds. (What was it that I said two days ago? Judging by my clothes I wasn’t interested in billig skidt (crap)). I looked at his 50 rings, and I pointed out 3 of them. The first was exquisite at 8000 kr; the second had very good design at 6000, but the diamond was too small so it drowned in it; the third was frivolous, but great fun at 4000. I told him that the rest were run of the mill. He asked: “do you really think so?” “Yes,” I said, “I’m positive.” I told him that if I had more money and no conscious, I would buy the first ring on the spot. Although he said nothing, I could tell that he was sorry he couldn't sell me his ring. Sorry for me. So I said instead: “let me look at your zircon rings.” I bought one, and everybody was happy.

On the way back to the cabin, passing by the magnificent Nisser lake, I intonated along with Emmylou Harris on her song Here I Am. I’ve always liked this song. It’s very optimistic, but it has a deep tone and is full of contradictions. “I’m standing by the river / I will be standing here forever,” she sings, and then laments that although she has always been the lover of the one she’s waiting for, in the blood of his heart, she’s waiting for him as if he were beside her, not iniside her, as she is inside him. I can’t quite make out how her hope ties in with her eternal standing as well as the intensity of the emotion. Love at standstill? What’s that? But I don’t want to pose this question, and thus play the metaphysic – again. I have to realize my plan to finish a review of Brian Rotman’s book, Becoming Beside Ourselves. – Why can’t lovers be standing in the middle of the river, why are they always beside themselves, instead of becoming one? – Enough – with being all over the place – the hour of pragmatism is here. Ashbery reminds me: “A talent for self-realization / will get you only as far as the vacant lot / next to the lumber yard.” Damn. The woods. The trees. I knew it. – I should have bought that ring. Tomorrow I’ll hit the big Hardangervidda. There’s enough glistening vastness there, even for the ones beyond redemption.

(For the song at the bottom, if it won't play in Internet Explorer, it will in Mozilla; enjoy!)