Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Pappa chapter 2

Until I was 6 we lived in Mosjøen, Sofie was born right before I turned 5. All these years I did not go to any kindergarten, parts of this period pappa was home daddy while mamma went to work. I have a lot of memories from that period and the day’s home with pappa. I think I have so many memories because he made such magic out of everything we did that it’s stuck in my memories, besides having a great imagination myself, which he also always encouraged a lot. He seldom read books for me, mamma read the books and pappa told stories from when he was a child and about all the tricks he did.
Always around the time that mamma was supposed to come home we opened the window, I stood in the window and we started shouting and singing her name out on the street. :-) I also have a whole story in my head about all our serious talks about the ‘trolls’ in de Øyfjellet. Troll are creatures living in the Norwegian woods according to the legends and fairytails. Øyfjellet is a mountain stretching right up of the Vefsna fjord on the other side of the water, our house at the time was partly standing on pillars in the fjord, so looking out of the window you looked right out on the fjord and the Øyfjellet. This was a great place to live as a child and it clearly was a great environment for the imagination and dreaming, or making up stories about what was hiding in the mountain :-)

The trolls had names and personalities, it actually grew out to be a whole community there in the Øyfjellet, doctor, teachers, grocery lady and so on. Together pappa and I talked about all the trolls and what they did and what happened every day, mainly Surat & Surit were important, the main characters in our story. They were a couple and had many children, they lived in a house inside the mountain looking a lot like our house. Surat was always sitting in a rocking chair and he was such a clumsy troll, he always rocked the chair too hard and bumped into the bookshelf and got all the books on his head. In my memory they even came to visit us a few times, of course they were a little too big to fit through the door, but still they made a visit.

Getting older, our conversations became more intellectual and very often like discussions. He triggered me to think, be critical, open minded and philosophic. He knew at every stage of our childhood to take us seriously and meet us at the emotional and intellectual level we were at the time. This is one of the most important things I will take with me when I have children, I may not have the story telling talent, but I will for sure meet my children at the level they are and grow and develop together with them to strong human beings.



Our house and the fjord



Øyfjellet and Mosjøen down by the fjord

2 comments:

  1. ja, de trotse dochter - dat snap ik na dit gelezen te hebben. Een heerlijk geschreven stuk ter ere van Paul - het zou heb goed doen om dit te kunnen lezen. Maar hij heeft het in z'n "rugzak" !. Prachtige foto's ook !! liefs en ga zo door !

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  2. Ik laat je stukje ook aan mijn papa en mama lezen als je dat goed vindt, ze zijn , net als ik, erg onder de indruk!
    Grappig dat ik mijn eigen vader in je verhaal herken, die kon ook prachtige zelfverzonnen verhalen vertellen voor het naar bed gaan, waar ik dan vervolgen heerlijk over kon dromen! xx

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