This is my favorite theme for a post! What inspires me right now. Though I have a whirlwind of thoughts, caused by this transfer from Barcelona back to Oslo, I don’t really find the time and energy to write them all down in texts and posts. The photos however – they are always easy to share.
So let me speak from my heart through photos – and several words. Btw, what do you prefer in a blog post – pictures or words? (I used to be a word person)
Palamos is a small and colorful town on the Costa Brava, the northern coast of Catalonia. It is a bit more classy and less touristic than other towns. It is not easy to access it from Barcelona, there is no train, only buses along the curvy roads – so the tourist masses choose another destinations, while Palamos enjoys some peace 🙂
While I am still enjoying Norwegian summer in Oslo, I wanted to share some colorful images from Catalonia. Partly, due to the lack of up-to-date photos 🙂 I forgot for a while about photowalks – though I relived my Instagram. I stopped using it last summer and was pretty happy without it. But now I felt like opening it again. Maybe, because the life in Oslo is much quiter than in Barcelona, and I miss the daily dose of being bombarded by impressions :))
Or maybe, because sitting down and writing a thoughtful post feels like more work than sharing a photo with almost no text to it. I like to use Instagram as my visual journal, though not daily and without getting too obsessed this time (@marina.exploring is my name there, if you feel like visiting). And since I’ve started teaching again (I teach the language course of Norwegian in my old school), I have so much of self-expression during the day, that there is no need left to express myself in pictures and words. I do it every day, in pictures, words and exaggerated body language :))
So, let me take you to this colorful and peaceful paradise on the Mediterranean coast!
I landed in Oslo physically a week ago – but it took me some time to land here emotionally and mentally. As I get used to my new surroundings, opening my eyes for their beauty, I still don’t feel for blogging about it.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be writing a book, not a blog :)) Because I have this literature attitude: you have first to live through, to work through, to digest and process – and only then to express in letters. To get the best out of it, not just taking everything on the page. This is a writers’ attitude, I have heard. To write about the past, once it is been processed, not about the present.
The blogger attitude, however, is to document the present, to capture what’s going on right now and share it. Sometimes I do it, sharing my emotion of the moment – but I prefer to wait. So even though I am in Oslo already, finding the pretty patterns in the new mix of life – I will go on with some posts about my life in Barcelona. Where it also took some time (a lot of time) to settle down and start seeing the pretty patterns.
Today is a simple little post about things I like. Five, as I usually count.
There is a season for each thing, is said somewhere in the Bible. As I stand some days before leaving for Norway, I feel that the seasons are changing. And not only because I go from an African heat wave hitting Barcelona to a weird Nordic summer of +17 and rain, but also because I feel that the story is changing. I am turning some invisible pages right now.
Only now I feel like enjoying Barcelona at my most. I even want to share some photos of it – but when I searched my gallery on the phone, I found only photos of furniture, its prices and flower pots. I remember when after my first months here my friend asked me: “And when are you going to write a post about your favorite places and cafes in Barcelona?” Not that I was not eating outside. But I was like: “Dude, what do you imagine my life to be? Sipping coffee on the terraces all the time? I can write a post with the review of furniture stores though. If that would interest someone 😆”
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that in the end my summer will be Scandinavian. After much back and forth, it looks that I will still join my husband who is working in Oslo this summer (first, the idea was that I go with him, next, that I stay in Barcelona, and in the end he got a bit emotional because two months apart is too long. Just to give a little idea of how our family works 😆).
I didn’t know what to feel. Happy to escape from the heat and noise of Bcn (and to hug my Oslo friends) or sad to leave the summer for the Norwegian weather unpredictability? But then I decided to look at the brighter side of things – took my journal and jotted down all the things I am looking forward to do in Oslo.
And the list got quite long and happy.
Once I read this: “May you walk in beauty” is the blessing of Navaho Indians. I ripped the page with this article from the magazine, put into my vision journal – and left it in Oslo. So I don’t remember anything except this phrase, no explanation, no thought elaboration 🙂 But I simply love it. It is a good blessing. I like to sign my posts with it.
And then I thought that when I hear this phrase I usually think of great things like natural wonders or man-made creations. But this doesn’t need to be something great and faraway exotic. In fact, it can be something small and near, like the things that surround me every day. So I opened my eyes and looked for the beauty all around me. Everything that I like.
Here on the blog I try to follow the philosophy of small steps and small things. And I want to add to it by capturing the small things that give me joy. So here is one of them.
