Light

Before I came to Norway for the first time (when I was ten) I imagined that everything here was colorless, like in a black and white movie. I'm not really sure where I got that image from, but certainly stories of the cold, dark winters and, well, black and white movies didn't help. In college I watched the old version of Hunger as part of my Scandinavian Cinema class; the light in that movie was what I was expecting things to be like. Boy was I surprised when I found the intense color palette. Pleasantly surprised, I might add. When I came a few years later, in the winter, I was also impressed by how light it was in contrast to the stories of darkness I'd heard.

Today, on my way to play for my practice playing exam, I was enveloped in a light that was so thin it barely made it through the clouds. Everything from the trees to the buildings to the mountains in the distances and especially the snow was black, white, or a shade of grey in between. I've never seen silver clouds before. Black ones, sure, but not silver; maybe pewter is more descriptive. They hung over the sky, holding in the horizons.

Somehow, the eerie lack of color didn't make me feel uneasy. In a way, it was rather comforting to know that the strange grey world my young mind had cooked up wasn't an indication of a lack of mental pigment. The stark contrast with Sunday's dazzling blue skies and glittering fresh snow was enough to remind me that I'm in a special place here amongst the mountain tops. If that weren't enough, after my practice exam (or perhaps during or before), the silver carpet lining the sky gave way to several hours of spectacular snowfall.