Will write something very soon!

Until then:

The above pictures are from Kvannhovden Lighthouse. They are not manipulated in any way. I just had some fun with the light, the colors, the reflections in the glass and the way the view was distorted when seen through the lantern.

Also, as I've mentioned befor, I've been getting into urban exploration. I was unsure as to weather I would stick with it, but now, all I see is abandoned buildings! :O

More pix at Flickr and DeviantArt

Lier Mentalsjukehus

Del 1

Denne gangen føler eg veldig for å skrive på norsk. Laurdag 24. november bestemte eg og Ramona oss for å ta ein tur til Lier Mentalsjukehus. Vi begynte dagen med å gå feil, men fant etter kvart fram på en sti gjennom skogen og ankom ved det vi kom fram til måtte vere B og E-bygget, to av dei nedlagte avdeligane.

På førehand hadde eg gjort en heil del research… i den grad bloggar kan reknast som pålitelige kjelder… eg som har studert media burde vel vite betre. Vi hadde lest om den forferdelig ubehagelige atmosfæra, kamera som plutselig slutta å virke, overdrivent vakthold og bygningar som hadde blitt revne.

Det første som slår mot meg til min store skuffelse er mangelen på påtakelig dårlig atmosfære. Eg står ved eit høgt gjerde og stirra inn på et gigantisk forfallent psykiatrisk sjukehus innhylla i et lett slør av tåke inne i skogen og det eg er mest redd for er at ein av dei bilane eg høyre skal vere på veg opp hit. Ramona himla med auga og påpeika at dei faktisk ikkje kan ta oss på at vi er på arkitekturvandring på den lovlige sida av sperringane, på den leselige sida av skiltet med teksten ”Farlig område. Adgang forbudt”.

Etter kvart som vi tar det raudbrune bygget (E-bygget) i nærmare ettersyn blir derimot snart skuffelsen min påtagelig, noko som med litt godvilje kan seiast å skape ei dårlig atmosfære. Vi leika med tanken at det kunne vere eit fantombygg, i og med at vi hadde høyrt det skulle jamnast med jorda for 3 år sia, men her står det like frekt og ser i grunn ikkje ut som det har tenkt seg nokon plass. Dette bygget seiast å vere det værste, og her skulle stemninga vere så dårlig at ein kjenne det på lang avstand. Eg står og kikka meg nervøst over skuldera. Bak meg ligg ei av dei avdelingane som framleis er i drift og dette likar eg dårlig! Langt dårligare enn den raudbrune kolossen framfor meg. Eg huskar ikkje om eg sukka i det eg snudde meg tilbake mot den historiske vederstyggeligheta 3 meter framfor meg, men det kunne vere dramaturgisk korrekt akkurat her. For dette hadde eg ikkje forventa, naivt godtruande som eg er. Ikkje ein gang kameraet mitt lar seg merke ved nærværet av den dødsdømde raudbrune. Det er hol i gjere på Lier seiest det og bygg E har opptil fleire, og vidopne dører i motsetning til bygg B.

Det er derimot i nærvær av bygg B at vi får oppleve det nærmaste vi skulle komme ei overnaturlig oppleving denne dagen. I det eg er i ferd med å dokumentere framsida av bygget, merka eg meg at kameraet mitt (Canon EOS 40D) er bittelitt treigt, men bare litt. Det blir imidlertid verre. Eg utbryte ”ka det e no då?!” og ser meg rundt etter vedkommande som eg snakka med, men Ramona er ikkje å sjå nokon plass. På dette tidspunktet blei eg litt stressa, men tilbake på vegen fikk eg straks auge på ho ved gjerdet. Eg fortsette å ta bilde her og kan konstatere at noko fremdeles er litt merkelig med kameraet. Det er vanskelig å forklare for nokon som ikkje kjenne kameraet, men det oppstår ein liten forsinkelse mellom at eg trykke på utløysaren og bildet faktisk blir tatt. Det elles lynraske speilreflekskameraet sneglar seg plutselig ettertenksamt av gåre i slow motion. Kanskje minnes det eit tidligare liv som kompaktkamera? Ikkje veit eg. Kameraet er satt på serieopptak (ikkje sånn der hypersensitivt seriopptak altså) og etter kvart må eg holde knappen nede så lenge før kameraet reagera at det tar 3 bilde i slengen mens det først er i gang. Ein gang vil ikkje det ta bilde og elles fokuserte det litt upresist, noko eg ikkje har opplevd med vedkommande objektiv før. Dette kan jo knapt kallast fullstendig kamerakræsj, og det kan jo strengt tatt ha sine naturlige årsaka, men litt arti var det jo likevel. Eit par lysår unna ein skikkelig Lier-opplevelse, men greitt nok.

Etter kvart tar vi turen gjennom skogen til bygg A. Dette er eg lite gira på fordi vi må passere rett forbi bygg C som fremdeles er i bruk, men Ramona lar seg ikkje merke med sånt og eg følgjer nervøst etter. Vel borte ved dagens tredje objekt, kan vi konstatere at nokon her (som ved E-bygget) har opna gjerdet og rett og slett spasert rett inn… det er til og med en godt opptrakka sti inne på det sperra området så vi anslår at dette antakelig er den mest populære destinasjonen for spøkelsejegera, adrenalinjunkiar og sånt som elles måtte slenge på slike lugubre reisemål. Også her står det med store bokstava: ”Farlig område. Adgang forbudt”, men trusselen om skade, død og straff felle for døve øyre kan vi tydelig sjå. Eg hadde sett føre meg at ein måtte til med avbitar om ein ville inn, at vaktene overvoka området kontinuerlig og at politiet sto klar i buskene, for sånn kunne ein nærmast tolke snakket på nett, men der tok eg visst feil. Eg får fort auge på en veg på oppsida av bygget som eg vil ta en kikk på og forsvinne opp ein bratt, glatt bakke som Ramona nekta å ta fatt på. Aleine i skumringa finne eg restane av eit gjede med piggtråd på toppen og tar veien gjennom det som kan sjå ut som restane av ein luftegård (?) og befinne meg no på oppsida av bygget. Her er det óg ein stor opning i gjerdet så her spassera eg like godt rett inn. Likevel blir det ikkje til at eg går lenger enn snaue 3 meter frå opninga. Lukkartida på kameraet mitt har vandra heilt opp på 1/3 sekund så det er nesten umulig å ta skarpe bilder, sjølv om kameraet elles fungerar fint igjen. Det er med andre ord begynt å bli mørkt. No begynne eg å føle på kroppen at eg faktisk befinne meg aleine i umiddelbar nærhet av ei dyster bygning som faktisk har eit visst rykte på seg. Eg er ikkje akkurat redd, då det heile følast litt uverkelig, men eg skjelve svakt og føle meg litt svimmel. Eg står på toppen av ei trapp som fører ned til bygget og eit stort, vidopent svart hol av ei dør. No er det ikkje lenger et gjerde mellom meg og Lier Mentasjukehus… det føles merkelig. Eg snur og går ut igjen, finne veien tilbake langs utsida av gjerdet og kan konstatere at Ramona er bortevekk. Eg skal akkurat til å ringe til ho då det kjeme ein bil kjøyrande opp til huset. Eg får passelig noia og tar turen opp gjennom skogen og opp på stien over igjen. Stien går i omtrentlig riktig retning så eg satsa hardt på at den går opp igjen dit vi kom frå. Det gjere den ikkje vise det seg. Tåka har tiltatt litt og det blir stadig mørkare. Sist men ikkje minst befinne eg meg i skogen, omringa av Lier Mentalsjukehus… så var det altså vegetasjonen som skulle få stå for noiaen en laurdags kveld i November. Akkurat i det eg skal til å bli betydelig fortvila får eg auge på ein gigantisk blågrøn sak til høgre for stien og styre letta inn i skogen mot det som må vere bygg B.

Altså har vi ikkje opplevd dårlig atmosfære ut over det vår eiga psyke sto for. Vi opplevde bare mild til moderat kamerakræsj. Muligens med unntak av den bilen som bare svippa opp om A-bygget såg vi ikkje noko vakthold og dei vidopne gjerda tyde heller ikkje på noko omfattande oppsyn med området. Elles, no er ikkje vi eksperta på rivingsprosessa og sånt, men så vidt våre ufaglærte auge kunne skue så leve det raudbrune E-bygget fremdeles i beste velgåande… Etter litt vidare research viser det seg at bygg E er blitt freda og at kontinuerlig vakthald ville vere kostnadsmessig umulig i følgje Lier Kommune.

Ramona hadde som ho sa ingen andre forventninga enn å sjå gamle hus, so ho meinte turen sto heilt til forventningane. Eg…vel. Eg trur folk har jævlig god fantasi og føle meg stadig litt fortvila over min egen manglande evne til å forstå at ikkje alt som folk skrive på nettet stemme eller, rettare sakt, at eg ikkje får oppleve det samme. Jaja, et stk merkelig bilde og et ganske bra kamera som midlertidig blei redusert til et ganske dårlig kamera er vel ikkje så verst det heller ;)

Mangt har nok foregått bak lukka dører på nettopp slike institusjonar rundt om i det ganske land. Akkurat kor fakta sluttar og spekulasjonar og myter overtar er jo ikkje så lett å vete, men behandlingsmetodar som lobotomering er høgst reelle og offisielt var den siste i Noreg utført så seint som i 1974. Liknande inngrep er fremdeles i bruk i Sverige. Elles fins det vel alltids kyniske folk som gjere livet surt for menneske dei har makt over, som sinnslidande. Inntrykka sette seg litt når eg er trygt tilbake på hybelen og lese boka ”23 salen” som omhandlar forholda på Lier på midten av 70-talet då desse bygningane fremdeles var i full drift. Dette er ikkje særlig betryggande lesning og heller ikkje dokumentarar som denne(NRK.no) er akkurat frydefull. Sida besøket på denne dystre staden har eg hatt ein merkelig følelse som eg ikkje heilt klare å plassere og eg har vore plaga med rare draumar som eg kan huske relativt tydelig.

Del 2

Ingen vits å skrike, ingen hører
Ingen vits å gråte, ingen føler
Ingen vits å gå…. ingen steder
Ingen vits å sparke, der er så tjukke vegger

Så står det skrive… på Lier Asyl, bygg A.

Så blei det altså enda et besøk på Lier. Denne gangen såg vi spøkelseshus, spøkelsesgardiner, spøkelsesrekkverk, spøkelsessol, spøkelsessåpedispenserar, spøkelses…. Vel som du sikkert forstår såg vi, tross stor velvilje, ingen ekte spøkelse. Kameraet mitt fungerte upåklagelig med unntak av en eller to ganga, faktisk syns eg nesten fokuset fungerte betre enn vanlig, om noko. Hadde kameraet kanskje vore innlagt her i et tidligare liv så lys blei overflødig for å orientere seg? Blitzen utløyste når den sto på og lot det vere når den var av. Av 4 AA-batterie, 6 AAA-batteri og et kamerabatteri blei ikkje eit einaste av dei tappa på uforklarlig vis. Ingen smelte med dørene eller viste seg i vindauga (verken på innsida eller utsida). Likevel, før eg begynne å høyres altfor kjepphøg ut, må eg nok innrømme at redigering av interiørbilda frå bygg A må vente ei stund, for laurdags kveld klare eg ikkje dei bilda av uvisse grunna.

Også denne gangen hadde eg gjort mykje research i forkant. Likevel har nok kildene min stege eit par hakk på kvalitetsskalaen. Endringa i typen søkeresultat kan eg takke for eit enkelt søkeord, det er nemlig stor forskjell på ”Lier Mentalsykehus” (det populære namnet) og ”Lier Sykehus” (det faktiske namnet). Denne gangen hadde eg altså fylt haudet mitt med saksdokument frå Lier Kommune og Vestre Viken HF… og hadde det ikkje vore for den der tilstandsrapporten eg snubla over ein sein kveld på verdsveven, hadde eg nok snudd i døra då vi blei møtt av to hull i gulvet. Men det var bare golvplankane, etasjeskilla skal vere i tålelig stand (i allefall i 2009), så vi fortsatte, men tok det som ein advarsel om å passe godt på kor vi satt beina. Eg la dessutan ned veto mot å besøke både loft og kjeller etter å ha sett tilstanden til den første trappa vi kom til. Den såg rimelig massakrert ut, så då fikk det ikkje hjelpe om dei andre trappene såg aldri så fine ut og hadde rekkverk som såg påfallande nymalt ut (virkelig VELDIG påfallande). Etter å ha studert bilda av den første trappa mistenke vi at den faktisk er massakrert, i og med at det såg ut som ytterdøra muligens har vore opna med motorsag…

Inne i bygg A vart eg ganske overraska over meg sjølv. Eg var nesten rolig. Bare nesten. For roa var bare toppen av isfjellet, det var ei slags sjokkarta ro. For det kunne jo liksom ikkje stemme…. At eg, EG (!!!), hadde forvirra meg inn på Lier. Eg kunne kjenne at pulsen min var litt høgre enn vanlig, men elles var alt vel. Eg trudde den svarte tåka av panikk skulle komme sivande og legge seg som eit tett teppe rundt haudet mitt, men panikken min var som bambi på isen. Den var parat når den følte seg kalla (som når eg plutselig skimta en svart skikkelse i sidesyne, som viste seg å bare vere Ramona som hadde gått inn ei dør og kom ut ei anna), men den måtte gi seg like fort for den fikk liksom ikkje fotefeste. Vi såg rett og slett ikkje et jævla spøkelse som kunne rettferdiggjere den, og falleferdige hus hadde vi jo sett før, vi har jo vore på gamle Lyster Sanatorium.

Laurdags kveld måtte eg gje opp redigeringa av interiørbilda inntil vidare, for eg klare dei bare ikkje heilt akkurat då. Veit ikkje korfor, men mulig eg bare er litt i sjokk over at eg har vore inne på Lier… etter alt det sjuke eg har lest om plassen. Det føltes på en måte… for lett. Å bare løsne en liten streng, løfta en del av et anleggsgjerde ut av ein betongkloss, og bare spasere rett inn på Lier Asyl, ei aldri så lita ulovlegheit, utan bruk av avbiter, vinkelsliper eller motorsag og utan engang å springe hylande derifrå i vill panikk, gå ut av sitt gode skinn eller måtte innleggas i nabobygget. Akkurat som sist sitte eg igjen med en merkelig følelse av at det var noko eg ikkje oppfatta då eg var der, og at det e sjukt god ide å ALDRI reise tilbake dit. Eg veit ikkje korfor det er sånn. Dagen etter var eg allereie begynt å angre litt på at vi ikkje var på lofte… at vi ikkje var i E-bygget… eg er nesten begynt å leike med tanken på et besøk til…

Vi såg rare ting, det skal vere sakt. Vi såg omtrendt 3 gardiner i heile 1. etasje. Alle saman såg ut som dei like så godt kunne vore nye. Som om nokon bare rett og slett syns det var en steikje god ide å ha bare ei gardin og flassa maling og bare var ute å ta seg ein røyk mens vi snoka rundt her. Men ingen henge vel opp gardiner i bygg A lenger? Kunstfiber, konkluderte vi… med mindre nokon hadde funne det for godt å pusse opp. Kva oppussing angjekk, ankom vi etter kvart dagens tredje trapp. Kvar ein flekk på Lier er dekka av flassa maling, men det såg ikkje ut som tidas tann hadde bete på rekkverket i denne trappa. Den såg rett og slett nymalt ut. Blank og fin og knall raud var det, til vår store forundring. Igjen får eg litt følelsen av at det må vere nokon her. Der det er nymala rekkverk er det folk ikkje sant? Aldri før har eg sett livlause gjenstandar forbryte seg så skamlaust mot fysikkens lover (med unntak av eit i overkant livlig pannelokk en gang), og dette gjore meg unektelig litt utilpass.

Elles var ein del rom djupsvarte frå midtvegs oppe på veggen og opp. Den typen svart som bare slukte blitsen min og gjore den ubrukelig. Dette var på ingen måte mystisk. ”Brann på gamle Lier psykiatriske Sykehus” står det nemlig i diverse nettaviser datert 14.06.2009, då helvetesmakta holdt på å ta overhand i første etasje. Synet var en smule surealistisk og begeistringa var stor over eksplodert glass, rast murpuss og avgrunnen i det svarte, svarte, røykskada taket.

Enkelte rom hadde heilt enormt ekko. Eg snudde og forta meg ut døra igjen før personalet heilt nede på avdeling C og G skulle høyre meg kviskre. Interiøret begrensa seg i grove trekk til brusboksar, brannslangar og såpedispenserar. Malinga var det heller ingen som hadde tatt seg bryet med å stele, konfiskere eller sette på lager, om den virka aldri så ivrig etter å forlate veggane. Elles var en del av bilda litt ulogisk uskarpe. For eksempel kunne forgrunnen og bakrunnen vere nogen lunde i fokus, mens området i mellomgrunnen var fullstendig uskarp tilsynelatande utan logisk grunn. Det kan muligens skyldast dugg på linsa. Laurdag kveld låg eg likevel sammenkrølla og fikk ikkje sove. Når den angstforvrengte natta omsider blei til tidlig morgon blei det likevel litt søvn, og søndag morgon hadde noiaen, tross tunge skyts, pakka saken og reist, kanskje tilbake der den høyre heime? Til gamle Lier Asyl, som nok har vore påtagelig belasta av fenomenet opp gjennom åra. Det skulle vel bare mangle at det satt i veggane.

Vi snoka litt rundt bygg B og E denne gangen og, men bare på utsida. Eg hadde snubla over eit rykte på nett om eit vakttårn ved bygg B og dette måtte vi jo undersøke nærmare i og med at vi lurte veldig på korleis vi kunne ha vandra rundt B og E i to timar sist og klart å gå glipp av et heilt vakttårn. Vi blei etter kvart ganske lattermilde. Då eg seinare same kveld las om nokon som kunne fortelje om ein jordkjellar ved/i bygg B der det vist nok skal ha foregått kremering, tok eg dette først som lause rykter, men det var heilt til eg kom på at vi i mangel på vakttårn hadde måtte ta til takke med funnet av det som såg ut som ei pipe som stakk opp av bakken rett oppafor bygg B. Creepy.

Bilder kjem litt etter kvart HER

Eg tegna kart før vi tok tur nummer 2. Som du kan sjå på kartet under er A, B, E og F dei avstengde avdelingane. F har vore stengt kortare tid enn dei andre.

Asylum

More fiction. From an idea I had after my visit to Lier Mentalsykehus a week ago, until I finally finish the actual story of our visit, which is no very intriguing in it self :P Sorry about any typos, as my notebook doesnt spellcheck.

-Fiction-

Imagination.... also Luster Sanatorium, third time

Black clouds
Black liquid is floating in the air.
Twisting and turning and shifting shape
Everything is too lucid and fast moving
Ever changing and reinventing itself
I just can’t get a grip on it
A grip on what to do about it
But it’s just in my head
Around me it’s dark and silent
A blank canvas for my imagination to paint in shades of black
The sun has been defeated
The birds are dead
The stars are watching from a safe distance
They’re out to see an ill matched fight

It’s night, and I’m all alone outside. This happened somewhere in February, when I first started walking in the dark. What was at first a massive challenge loaded with almost unmanageable fear has now become an enjoyable habit. I wouldn’t have anticipated it in a million years that it would become this easy. But I had to keep it up, didn’t I? So on the 20th of October, I have left the cool Norwegian autumn outside and I am in a dark basement. I’m back at Luster Sanatorium. It’s good for the nerves... in a weird, sort of backwards way. Even though we’ve just been let in by a guy who said he’d expected I'd return (I guess he most know something), there is a distinct feeling like we’re out of bounds here. I can’t really pinpoint that feeling, but it makes me all giddy and adrenaline spiked. I’m not much of an adrenalin junkie, but this is so much fun!

Last time I visited this place, I quite innocently suggested that Janne would walk ahead (not having to explain to her the level of discomfort dark enclosed spaces cause me) when we reached the basement, but she had had enough after being dragged around for a good 2 hours and wanted to leave. This time we start in the basement. This place feels relatively good I decide, and I keep reminding myself of it. I’m in a pitch black basement, and I feel relatively calm. Ramona is ahead of me with a small flashlight that just happened to be attached to my keys. I didn’t actually think to bring one and I even forgot to bring my flash. Just to top it all up on the photography side, I had had an ice-coffee on the way there, somehow enough to make my hands tremble. We wonder into the depths of the basement, Ramona blessedly calm, me with my fringed nerves, but somehow not very jumpy. This is new knowledge to me. I’m actually, weirdly, only scared to death by things that are not dangerous. And would you believe, it actually sort of makes sense. Dangerous stuff is usually quite easy to deal with unlike those unresolved moments when you’re just not sure what you’re faced with. The silence is the worst of it, the lack of input.

Sometimes we see moving, black forms, sometimes we see their faces. But it’s just people (unlike that supernaturally tall man out on a field the other night, who was just a bush). I don’t doubt it for a second. Once, in the dark depths of the basement, I see a lone person that I later came to wonder about, but I didn’t at the moment. When I turn around a moment later to see if the person has gone, I think I see a dark figure disappear behind a corner. I decide it must be my shadow moving in correspondence to the flashlight Ramona might have moved, and I turn back away from it, sealing the deal with my brain, though it might not be right. I learned this in traffic: look away from scary stuff you have no power over.

One room in the depths of the basement had me reverse out the door quite literally. “Do you smell that?” I had asked Ramona earlier, still outside the building. She didn’t, though I could smell it quite clearly even in the fresh, cold air outside. In that particular room it was so strong that I couldn’t stand it. It made me dizzy; made me feel like I couldn’t or shouldn’t breathe. Ramona could smell it too at this point, but she didn’t find it uncomfortable at all.

My imagination can be quite volatile. Once I read about Asperger Syndrome. I felt that I fit some of the characteristics... it would explain a lot... I like people a lot but I’m a total social misfit. So I wondered around for a few days, feeling how I would feel if I found out I had Aspergers. It was quite comforting in a way, but I also had the feeling a lot of people might judge me on something like that. That is unfair I decided! Why does everyone have to fit the mould? Then I started reading a book about psychopaths. I soon started to feel like I might be one. I started to imagine how I would feel if I was one. This is a way of learning and it’s quite effective. I cleared myself quickly and to anyone who knows me, the idea in itself is ridiculous. I’m overly sensitive if anything, which led me to consider Borderline Personality Disorder. Just the name makes me cringe and I do not have it... I think.

Then I decided to stop self-diagnosing and that it was time to befriend my imagination and put it to good use, instead of just hiding it away in my closet, where it had lived its life, a shapeless creature, only to come out at night to haunt me, allowing for only the really uncomfortable images to needle trough the filter. Ramona enjoyed this gleefully back in high school when she would tell me of pain and injury just to see the tortured look on my face. Now we hunted through the sanatorium for faces, and we found them everywhere. At first I needed to get most of them pointed out to me, but then I got better. I used to think I was crazy as shit, but I was stupid to restrain myself. It was real good fun. In one room we stood for a while, looking around at the walls and ceiling as they populated our minds in surprising quantities. We agreed that room was particularly fun. Someone else might not see it for the peeling paint, the mildew, the decay. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say. Beauty is in the brain, and my brain was alight with the chaos, the endless possibilities for the impressions to be puzzled together, to be filtered, to be understood and misunderstood. It’s all so ugly and so beautiful to so many. It’s hopelessness and despair to some, ideas, possibilities and unrealized potential to others. Some will undoubtedly see Jesus on the wall while others see the devil. It’s all bundled together in there and for good or bad, how it appears to you does say something about you. It’s just not always clear what. This is so confusing, and I love confusing stuff.

We walked through the basement, then the first floor, then we started to doubleing up on the basement. It had somehow gotten colder down there as we passed above on the first floor, making our breathing a traceable white in the air. I had taken the lead, checking to see if we had missed anything, but I quickly turned back as I hit a particularly cold spot that had me shiver violently. This had me thinking in terms of supernatural, but Ramona (rationality personified) thinks I’m an idiot. Oh well, I suppose I might be a little eager to add to my list of unexplained phenomena.

Despite the lack of appropriate gear, the 8 GB memory card I had bough specifically for this trip was filled to the brim with about 980 bundles of pixels, about 490 JPEGs with their accompanying massive, uncompressed RAWs.

I’m still feeling somewhat soft and impressionable from the shock of two car crashes, so I see this as a good time to see and experience new things. I need to keep the momentum. Quickly, but not too quickly, or else one might trip and fall through the floor and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

A while ago, I was back in the pacific blue Peugeot again. The one to which the second, more serious accident happened. We towed it back home a few weeks ago, and now my dad has patched it together... sort of. It runes nicely, the engine looks and feels and sounds on point. The soft, deep, smooth hum of diesel, just like always. The left headlight is a bit off. The dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree. ABS, ESP, air-bags. Nothing works it tells us, frantically. STOP. It blinks and beeps. It runs but I know the big red “STOP” means the computer can intervene and slow the engine to avoid damage to it. I read this in the manual a few years ago. The seatbelt on the driver’s side is sort of slow... the one on the other side is locked completely in place. There is an alarming sense like someone died in here. But no one did. We both lived to see another day. I though the panic, the shock, the adrenalin would stick to the interior, but it haven’t really. I feel somewhat tense, but it’s only a minor discomfort. The car smells funny, but it’s only from hanging around idly in the rain for too long.

So what am I trying to say? Fear is not set in stone. Nothing “is” scary. Fear happens in your head and only in your head and so does beauty ;)

Panic

I’m walking alone in the dark. The road is abandoned except for my light, quiet footsteps and the soft moonlight. Ahead of me is the E6 highway. I make a few clumsy moves in response to the music in my ears, confident that no one will see me in the dim light beyond the highway. The road less travelled by descends and crawls out of view under the highway, set in its track of submission, of lesser importance. I follow it out of the moonlight and into the blackness. As I do, and old friend makes a reappearance as I start to feel a bit panicky. I want to run, but I cannot have this, it’s been too long. So I stop dead. I look into the ceiling. It’s black, like a pitfall into nothingness, or an elevator into the underworld. I generally hate elevators for the fear of where they might go. Maybe this is the underworld, it sure looks like somewhere dark things might like. I walk to the other side and stop again, looking back to find a home for all the images that play vividly in my mind, toying with me. But there is no such place I tell myself, as I have done so many times before. I just wish I could see it so I could calm down. Suddenly, a most disturbing view fills my mind and leaves no room for anything else. My brain attacks my system violently, prescribing a massive dose of adrenalin, because this is real! A light starts at the far end of the tunnel. It illuminates the entire width of the ceiling and progress towards me quickly, efficiently, without a sound. I stagger backwards helplessly, not sure how to respond. Eventually, my brain has caught up with the events and the spell of panic is broken with the revelation as to what this is. As the source of the phenomenon, a car, appear on the hilltop on the other side of the tunnel, I turn around and walk quickly away, giggling like a little kid, body still trembling uncontrollably from the adrenalin my brain has carelessly neglected to withdraw. Panic used to be a regular occurrence, but now days I’ve become so calm that the adrenalin seems to come in uncomfortable abundance whenever my brain has the faintest excuse to throw it at me.

I look back once the car has passed. Something had been following me trough that tunnel. It was so faint that I could barely make it out in the darkness and always straight across from me. Surely, I must have been my own shadow I tell myself as I walk away. Surely. Though the image continue to twist in my head, not quite dead yet. I know deep inside that such a shadow would make no sense at all, and they always do, don’t they? Being purely logical creatures, they never appear out of place.

Back in the tunnel, there is a most unreasonable shadow indeed. Still in the shape of the girl who just passed it by, it lingers by the opening. “Another time” it tells itself. She’ll be back for sure.

Jeans

Once I walked into a store, thinking I’d get some jeans. This sales person immediately comes up to me and offers me some help. I usually avoid getting help but the complicated size system leaves me no choice but to accept. The lady immediately picks out about 5-6 jeans to try. Between trying each pair, I’m commanded to get out of the dressing room so the lady and my mum can see how they look. The lady goes on and on about style and fashion. Noticing the look on my face, she adds:
“if you’re interested in that sort of stuff...”
“Not so much” I reply, putting it very mildly.

By the next pair of pants she has already forgotten, going on and on about how unbelievably fashionable this particular pair is. Now slightly annoyed, I very carefully let her know that I don’t really give a shit about how fashionable it is. Finally done with trying; I sigh relived, but it’s not over yet.

The lady immediately grabs the pants from my hands, keeps two of them and throws the rest of them in a pile on the table behind her. She lays the remaining two out nicely and goes:
“These two look best on you!” she smiles widely, eyes now sparkling vividly, not picking up on my unsure look. Don’t I even get to buy the pair I want?
“But... I liked one of the other ones better” I start to point at the pile, but I can’t make out the right one in the blur of blue. Suddenly unsure, I’m lost for words.
The lady look at me almost pitiful and goes, smile now back in place:
“The way I see it, these two are your only real choice.”
“But what about the...”
“Those made your calves look too long”
“But what about...”
“Those made your ankles look fat!”
“But the...”
“That one made your knees look weird!”
“But I have a syndrome, my knees are weird...”
“They are also out of style”
“But...”

The atmosphere had changed quite dramatically, probably a few sentences ago, but I am not very good at social games and it was only now that it registered with me. I’m very dizzy, I need to sit down I think.

“Trust me!” she goes, “ You don’t want to get that one. You’ll regret it.”

The warm summer day outside feels increasingly far away, as my hair stands on end. The look on her face puts me off. I suddenly notice how tall she is. I’m not sure if that was a piece of advice or a threat. Anxiously, I look nervously around and notice that people all around are watching me. If my heart hadn’t been pounding so hard in my ears, I might have heard pins drop.

“I’ll take it!”

I was almost surprised at the frantic sound of my own voice, when I had not expected to hear it at all. I reached out and grabbed one of the pants she had picked out. Having magically appeared in my hand, I swear I could feel my credit card tremble when I looked at the price, but it would just have to do. No one messes with the Fashion, not even me.

Looking back and remembering my own reflection I can see now that she was right:

Photoreading

A while ago I wondered into a bookstore, as is my very bad habit... (if I could only read books half as fast as I can buy them). This particular store was located at my school, and it had a vast collection of self help books right next to the counter, these were all on the sort of topics that eager, hardworking students would be interested in. Like “How to improve your memory”, “How to write unbelievably long text” and such. I am pretty much allergic to this sort of literature, as I find it very annoying when some know-it-all tries to tell me that everybody works the same way. This might have something to do with all the teachers that have tried to tell that I will remember what they tell me better if I take notes. I hate to break it to you, but no matter the amount, quality and quantity of research the supports this, my brain refuses to adjust to it. It just doesn’t work for me. This annoyance at any form of generalization usually makes me stay fare away from these books, but that day I spotted an interesting title: Photoreading! It turned out to be about the exact thing I hoped: reading incredibly fast! I already have pretty damn good memory and I don’t even know if I want to learn to write those insufferable academic texts, but I want to read fast. I have dyslexia (word blindness) so reading has always been a bit of an uphill struggle for me. This book advertised that it can be read in 30 minutes. I had my doubts about this to say the least... I thought I might have to use some force (and several sharp metal objects) if I wanted to get that book in my head that fast. I actually managed to do it in about 45 minutes though. You’ll have to read it to find out how, but there was a bit of cheating involved. Every book should be like this! I might be a slow reader, but I’m a quick learner and it’s not fair to have to be spoon fed everything. I prefer to do my own thinking. Anyway, I don’t really remember what sort of techniques were presented in the book, but I am less interested in techniques and more interested in the idea. Instead, I figured I could reinvent my own reading.

I had already noticed that I sometimes read very fast; but most of the time reading feels a bit like walking in deep mud, with big grey clouds forming in my head like muddy cotton candy. At the time I was also reading Shutter Island (great book by the way!) and I found that if I concentrated hard I could almost flick a switch in my head. What happened was that it was almost like the story was playing in my head like a movie. It was awesome! It was like a whole new way of reading, but I can’t really explain it right. I tried to explain it to a friend of mine, but she didn’t really buy it. I suppose I might not understand it if someone tried to explain it to me. At the very least I would have assumed this was not for me and my problematic head. I don’t really know anyone else who is as interested in messing with their own head as I am. At least they’re not as keen to share it as I am. Come to think of it, I have one friend who tells me about strange stuff, but she has this way about her so I always believe everything she tells me. When I talk about stuff like this, I’m usually either depressed or so exited I’m bouncing up and down and talking way too fast... I suppose it doesn’t add to my credibility.

Back on point, (nooooo, I never sidetrack myself! For real!) I suppose my interest in reading as a phenomenon started a few years back, when I read my first book in English. The first pages seemed impossible to get trough, but after a few chapters it was going really good. Now days, it’s so easy that I actually forget which language I’m reading. Sometimes I’m just reading and reading and reading and suddenly there is a word I don’t understand. I sort of slow my brain down and have a real good look at the word. Sometimes this makes it even more confusing. So I look at the rest of the sentence, but suddenly I can’t understand a single word on the entire page (true story!). It might just as well have been Greek or something. It is sort of like I try to look it all up in my internal Norwegian dictionary and become terribly confused when I can’t find it anywhere. At some point I usually remember that English isn’t Norwegian at all and I can sort it all out. This left me with the impression that there is more to reading than what meets the eye.

Whenever my internal dictionairies proves insufficient, whatever the cause, I have a few external ones to help me out… there’s the English – Norwegian, the German – Norwegian, the French – Norwegian, the Finnish – Norwegian, the Norwegian – Norwegian, the English – English and the English Idioms… you know, just in case I’ll ever find the time to learn French (won’t happen) and more German and Finnish…

Other things I have been up to is some towing and some photoshoping:

Blodbøk

One day I’m working at a graveyard which has a particularly nice big tree with red leaves. It is raining heavily this day and at some point I decide that both me and my hardworking machine need a break to dry up a bit, and what better place than under this massive tree who’s leaves seem heavy with blood and who’s base I and a colleague have unsuccessfully tried to reach around. Considering the nourishment that has inspired this giant to go so far in reaching for heaven, the colour is quite fitting. Wearing bright orange pants, slightly radioactive looking and waterproof beyond belief, I just sat right down on the ground, leaning on the tree. Another reason I frequently choose this spot is that no one can see me sitting there unless they happen to walk into this part of the graveyard. However, having settled on the ground, I look up and realize I am not alone. Being slightly damaged (in the mind that is) by my work, I tend to only notice green stuff that grows when I work. I have a certain talent for tunnel vision, but now I can see clearly that I am surrounded... by gravestones that is. All of which were facing me it seems. In my ears, my iPod is going on and on about positive thinking. Not of its own accord though, it is playing my audio book. Usually I see stuff that need to be done, now I see dead people, or rather their names, spelled out with leathers of varying quality. How sad. Now that they were all facing me, I feel like I should say something. Some of these stones look very depressing, but I can’t think of anything good and positive to say. I sigh, lean my head back and look up into the sky of red leaves. I make a disdainful grimace at the positive talk in my ears.
“Positive thinking? Well isn’t this a most perfect day to be negative?” I think as the rain picks up even more and the red drops fall from the bloody leaves and onto my face. After all, who am I to discriminate against certain thoughts just because their dark and depressing.

Figure of speech

(I figured I’d get some fiction as well out of my previously mentioned visit to Luster Sanatorium)

I’m looking out a window. I’m in a big, white, abandoned hospital, on the third floor. I look out and I can see that the view haven’t decayed one bit. The threes are still green, and out there I can see real live people walking around. But there’s no one in here. The contrast is alarming. I look back into the room. It’s so old and lost and forgotten. The paint is peeling like there is no tomorrow and it’s dying to be out of here. Even paint’s got places to be and stuff to see it seems. Whose thoughts live here, I wonder. If someone lost their mind in here then maybe it’s still around? It sure feels like someone just left, or like the house is alive with all the people who have gone.

I’ve heard that some people see funny things in funny places, and I want to see funny things too… I’m sure it can be done. Some people think that people who see funny things are funny too and that there is something wrong with them, but it’s not, and I know.

As I watch, the paint starts to move. Like little leaves or butterflies. It comes off the wall fluttering, flying. It looks like nothing else as my mind projects it. They’re heading for the door and for the window, out of here. They’ve heard it’s scheduled for demolition and they want out. They’ve fought themselves free slowly and now it’s time to fly. They might look small and helpless, but they’re light and they’re clever. The minds that were lost in here have not gone to waste. They may have been lucid enough to slip out of the noses and ears of their original owner, but they didn’t go particularly fare. They thought they had escaped, but nothing escapes the paint.

Outside, others have had the same idea. The tiles on the roof are working day and night to get to the edge in time. Though others have gone before them, no lessons are learned. Tiles are born revolutionaries and won’t crumble solely due to the failure of others. The bright visions of the future burns so strongly in them, that they probably couldn’t escape it if they wanted to. They’re more retarded but also quite a bit smarter then you, so they aim to go higher and further and faster than their shuddered friends on the ground, hoping that one day they’ll defeat gravity. It has to sleep sometime right? But there is no rest for the wicked it seems.

But are there no ghosts? Maybe they’ve split too? I wonder across the rotting floor while the paint still flutters around me and I step into the hallway again. To the right it ends in a window so my eyes are quickly pulled in the other, more worrisome direction. It’s darker that way. I stand there just looking for a second. I didn’t bring my glasses, but I could swear to god that I see something over there. Deep in the darkness, there is something just slightly darker. Is that my shadow? I have a quick look over my shoulder to assess the situation and decide that if the laws of physics still apply, it has to be something else. I knew there were ghosts in here! Suddenly excited, I start towards it. It pulls away from me and I follow it down the hallway. Sometimes it’s almost lost from sight, but I follow, too taken to turn back now.

By now the whole house is alive around me. Not of its own force though. My mind has filled in the gaps, connected the dots and redecorated the whole place, making it vivid and animated. You wouldn’t believe the splendor of it all!

"Reaching for the stars"

Money, money, money!

Tomorrow I want to go snowboarding. But since I’m not a pro snowboarder, there is no money in snowboarding. Actually, there is, but it’s sort of heading in the wrong direction. In economy-class in high school, I think I remember learning that there is a difference between money coming in and money going out. So how can I go about justifying it? Oh, I know! I recently discovered that snowboarding is very good for my knee, which is not a very good knee, but has been a sort of descent knee after I had surgery last year. Sooooo, if I snowboard a lot and my knee becomes... if not a good knee, then at least slightly less crappy, then I can wow to sell both of my knees on E-bay! Would you look at that! Anything can be turned into an investment if you’re just slightly creative :P

________________________________________________________________________________

I always come up with this stuff, but it’s totally useless most of the time. I happened upon something I started on this Christmas. Think I might finish it sometime. Here is a few screen shots of it:

What to do on a Sunday.

It is Sunday. My dad always tells me one should have a nice dinner on Sundays. His idea of a “nice” dinner corresponds quite nicely with my idea of a disgusting dinner. However, my dad is a solid 8 hour drive away and I’m sprawled out on my very own sofa, legs over the back of it and the rest of me buried in pillows. I’ve never had one of these before so I’m enjoying it greatly. My stomach is very empty and I want a kebab. I think about going out and getting one, but then I get wary, and then I think I can’t afford it. I am just about to settle for another meal of banana and yoghurt when I stop to think. I do this a lot these days as I’ve started to notice the amazingly impressive amount of bullshit that passes for thinking if I don’t keep an eye out for it. Something doesn’t add up about my reasoning. That stupid kebab costs less than half, or even a third of what I spend on an average trip to the grocery store, getting… just about nothing… maybe something very mildly useful if I don’t misplace it. This isn’t about money; it’s just something I tell myself. I’m actually just a bit jumpy about going out and getting it I realize. I don’t know why, because I don’t think twice about going to a store or anything, maybe it’s just out of old habit.

In the car on the way there, I’m worried. But why? What’s going to happen? I visualize it to see how bad it might be. I find this very useful, when I can manage to make it sufficiently laughable. Like that scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the one with the boggart. The scenarios are endless and I dramatize them abundantly for added effect. The place is closed and the manager hangs around to tell me: “It’s Sunday for fuck sake! We’re closed you stupid bitch!”… or it’s open and I try to order a kebab and is yelled at for my ignorance to the fact that they have none left… or someone finally goes and says what everyone around here is probably thinking: That I have a completely incomprehensible dialect and they cannot understand a word out of my stupid mouth. These mental pictures make me laugh as they play out in my head. Even though these are worst case scenarios, they are quite tame, mainly because it’s wildly inappropriate behavior that could easily be shrugged off and, when laid out in full detail, I don’t believe for a sec that this is actually going to happen. If people act like shit to me for no reason, it’s not about me and I’m getting increasingly good at grasping that. I have had people act extremely rude to me before, someone does something infinitely inconsiderate or stupid and is all up in my face about how I’m stupid for no apparent reason, or someone is in a difficult situation and goes out of their way to let me know that this is somehow my fault. You probably know the sort. It usually just ends with me staring unwaveringly at them without a word till they get uncomfortable to the point of just stalking off, in which case I win. I have decided that this is the perfect way to tackle this sort of thing because then they have nothing on you, you give them nothing to go on. Also it has the added benefit of requiring absolutely no mental capacity, should it be in short supply. Last but not least, it messes with people’s heads. I never snap at people in this sort of situation and I think it is just as well. There needs to be two sides for there to be a fight, and you have to be motivated out of your mind and through the roof to fight with someone who doesn’t respond in any way to what you say to them. Also, I can never really think of anything clever to say until later anyway.

10 minutes later I’m sitting on the curb, waiting for my food (yes, it’s that sort of place). My scare tactics has not been needed. I used to get very self-conscious just sitting around alone, but I don’t anymore. “This is good” I think “it’s actually great”.

Luster Sanatorium... again.

Soon after my first visit to this peculiar building, I decided I wanted to go back again. Fall was nearing and time was pressing since I was moving away for school, so just over a week later I’m on the road again, ice coffee in hand to compensate for my lack of sleep the night before, also ‘again’. This time I have brought a friend of mine along. Though I expect she is not as entranced by this place as I am, she seem to have some level of genuine interest.

It was only this summer that I happened upon the term “Urban Exploration”, though I have been aware of the phenomenon as a somewhat unusual pastime before. It sort of came to me in the form of a radio documentary on the subject. I realize that what we are doing can hardly be described as such, as this place currently has an owner who has not abandoned it and we even had an appointment with him. This was hardly exploration of anything, except of the mind. I wanted to see who I would be in this sort of place. I expected I would be scared shitless to be frank. After my first trip to this place I had played with the idea that I would be unafraid and unfazed by the undeniable inherent creepiness of an old, decaying hospital. I quickly dismissed this idea though, reminding myself not to get all high on my little victory of last time. “I know myself better than that” I thought.

Back on the subject of Urban Exploration (UE), the documentary (which you can download from P3.no) thrilled me immensely. I have been a sucker for photography ever since I was a little kid and knew nothing about it, but lately it has gotten a bit old. When I first got my beloved Canon D40 4 years ago, I took a lot of pictures. A lot of nice ones even, but mostly they were quite plain. It was pictures of sunny days and flowers, the stuff the general public love to see depicted in great quantities. My style soon got darker. I would take sunshine photos too, but the ones that pleased me the most was and still is the darker ones. Now days I mostly take my camera out for rain, fog and storms. When I first heard this documentary I could easily relay to the idea that decay and imperfection can be some of the most exciting and beautiful things you will ever see. I believed it so much that the depictions of Detroit in said documentary moved me to tears. I might be a bit touchy feely, but at least I won’t lie about it. These things can be surprising and shocking and disturbing in a way that is quite mentally stimulating. It makes funny things happened in my head. There need always be some disturbance in your life or you will surely be bored out of your mind. I once hear that the human brain is so nicely suitable for problem solving, that if you don’t present it with any, it will happily make them for you.

Once we arrive at the Sanatorium our car is nearing the boiling point. The fan is working furiously to cool the overheated engine long after we’ve stopped it, similar to the time when my late Hyundai Getz was leaking coolant. We are driving my parents’ Citroen Berlingo, which used to be a descent car before someone messed up the engine and which they have now forced on me to spare the Ford Focus another go at the messed up road. After having a look under the hood to assess the state of things, we decide there is nothing we can do to help it out of its misery (this car is a bloody mess) and finally take off to locate our guide.

A little while later we enter the basement of the building. After the sunlight outside, the basement appears almost pitch black. Ahead of me I can still see the contours of the guy we are trying to keep up with. Being surefooted and all, I manage pretty good, but I keep peaking over my shoulder for my friend Janne as I am worried she will fall behind. The guy ahead of me says he will show us where not to go and where not to photograph and then we can have a look around on our own and take pictures, and this worries me even more. This is, as expected, quite scary, at least for a little while, and I hadn’t expected that we would be alone in here. The seemingly extremely relaxed nature of our guide soon wears off on me to my great surprise and when we enter the higher levels of the building it shows a softer side as the sun enters trough the big windows and breaks the ice. I have been in places that have unsettled me deeply for no apparent reason and places that have felt strangely soothing. This place belongs in the last category. It actually felt unbelievably calm and quiet in there. I don’t know why. By the time we are left on our own, after having promised to stay out of the buildings soft spots quite literally, my nerves has settled in the corner after having to give way to my curiosity, which is a force to be reckoned with. After having been made to check out one of the soft parts of the floor, I was excited enough by the feeling of it that I still can’t help but giggle stupidly every time I remember it, though I expect it is quite exaggerated in my head by now… I can almost feel the whole house wiggle though I’m sure it didn’t. I could now see that this would be worthwhile, even if I had freaked out and had a panic attack (which has been known to happened though it has been years) in which case I might have gone through the floor. This experience was looking to be very bright and colorful in my mind, and not something I would be without if I could help it. We trothed around cheerfully and just a bit astonished by the look of it all.

The feeling is like that of the apocalypse. This massive structure that was once invested a lot of money and work into, is now crumbling in slow motion all around us. Not even something as vast and strong as this can hold up forever on its own. People often say that things don’t last, but do they truly understand the gravity of it or is it just another fashionable thing to say? Some would say this is ugly, but there is something undeniably true, raw and real here. No one planted the mold and the moss. No one pealed the paint. Decay is the truest story to be told because nobody has bothered to cover it up. Still we are here to marvel at it because it is nothing but the undeniable truth. Outside, a few stories down, more people have arrived. More people come to see, to take it all in. As I’m looking down at them from a third (?) floor window I remember standing down there, staring in amazement a week earlier. This is so surreal. A woman spots me I think. Wonder if she thinks I’m a ghost?

I guess people come for various reasons, but quite a few of us come here to find new stuff, to dig something out of the undiscovered corners of our minds. To see something that isn’t there. Not in the house anyway, and not in us probably, but somewhere in the interaction between the two. I had decided in advance that I would do so, just not in such thought trough terms. These things always come to me in retrospect, when I’m curled up in the soft sofa by the open window in the cozy room that I rent in an old mansion. Inspired by the bright pink paper bag of candy from Sweden and my massive Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary on the table, I put it all into glossy words in an attempt to be very poetic about it. I used to think I should be able to come up with this shit on the fly, but it always comes after.

As we reach the attic we are getting a bit worried about the floor, as it was said to get increasingly bad further up. Out of old habit, I’m a little unsettled by the looks of the long corridor, but it loses its grip almost at once when I set foot inside it. We walk slowly, carefully assessing the state of the woodwork under our feet as we go along. Now we just look through the doors and instead of entering the rooms. Suddenly, I feel a light, cold breeze. We’re all thinking it aren’t we? GHOSTS! But strangely, somehow this was only a lazy afterthought to the more rational “gjennomtrekk” (a quick Google-search turned out the word “turnover” for this expression, but it basically means wind that goes through something, like when you open two window and you have a wind tunnel on your hands). I almost jump in astonishment as I don’t recognize this cold rationality. It might be a call for action (or institutionalization) that I analyze my own thoughts like foreign objects, but this was unbearably peculiar. This should be scary… it really should! I mention this to Janne, and she agrees. Either we have actually taken on the personality of the guy who left us on the second floor an hour earlier and who seemed largely unafraid of anything this building has to offer, or there are something severely calming stuck in the walls… or it’s just nothing, absolutely nothing. No scary things come to mind.

I wanted to see new stuff when I looked through the over 300 pictures I had taken. At first it was a bit of a struggle. Then things started happening, slowly but surely. Little twinkling stars of ideas started to appear. Little sparks that soon started to catch on. I will not be so bold as to say that my pix are great, but to me they are stuff that I have not seen before, which is good. When I start to inspect them and work on them, so much movement and life appear in dead things. There are no ghosts in them though; I don’t even bother looking for them.

All the pictures below has been edited quite heavily.

Luster Sanatorium

Last summer I was driving. It is late, it is incredibly warm and we are on a summer holiday. My mum was in the passenger seat, my dad was sleeping outstretched in the backseat. Suddenly, I spot something. I pull over. What on earth is that?! I’ve spotted something massive and white on the hillside across the fjord. It appears to be a building of sorts, but I cannot imagine what it would be doing up there. After all, we are in the middle of nowhere in one of the least densely populated areas in Norway... by my estimation at least, and this thing is in the middle of the forest up on a mountain. I grab something from the backseat that turns out to be my dad’s leg and not the 55-250 mm zoom-lens for my camera that I had meant to get. Having awoken him anyway I start to question him about this building he was on about earlier, that I had paid little attention to. Hadn’t he said there was a Tuberculosis sanatorium turned mental institution turned home for refugees in a remote location somewhere around here? Could that be the place I wonder aloud as I carefully mount the more appropriate lens on my camera. He agrees that it probably is. I point my camera in the right direction and zoom in to get a good shot of what looks disturbingly like the Overlook Hotel, straight out of the Shining, and so terribly misplaced that it is in fact wildly fascinating.

For the remainder of the evening and the following day I talk enough about this to inspire my mum to ask the manager of the nearby hotel we stay at if he knows what building it is. He identifies it as Harastølen aka Gamle Luster Sanatorium and I get something to go on, water on my mill if you will.

As soon as we get home and I am reunited with my beloved computer, I start to research this place. I come upon massive amounts of images and quite a bit of information on the history of the place. Almost a year later (in May I think), I still haven’t forgotten about it, and neither has a friend of mine who’s ears are probably still recovering from my talking about it and the surrealness of it. She sends me a link on facebook. It’s a news story about how the sanatorium is going to be demolished. Now we need to get a move on if we want to see it.

By the end of the summer the sanatorium is brought up again, and still not by me. I’m really stressed out after having to be the boss of my lazy brother at work all through the summer, which starts with him actually doing as he is told, goes on to him being rude and obnoxious and me being a total doormat, before culminating with me telling him to fuck off and do as I say and ignoring mean comments on how I handle things. Quite a bit of growing up in other words. This leaves my mum very uneasy and a bit desperate to pull me out of the bad mood that I have settled in. She finally comes up with a solution. We are to go on a road trip of my choice for the holyday that I have been intending to force on her all summer. “Maybe we can go and have a look at that house even?” she suggests while carefully monitoring my gloomy face for any sign of change. “What house?” I ask, genuinely puzzled. “You know, the one we saw last summer. The one you wanted to see!”. As the realization that she is actually talking about the sanatorium start to materialize in my brain, I gradually start to light up a notch.

The next day, I start planning the trip. Someone more capable of rational thinking might think it useful and smart to lay out a plan of each day in equal amounts of detail, but not me apparently. For the second day, the plan was that I had the road memorized from last year and therefore we would go there. For the third day I had sort of memorized a few of the major shifts in direction I could see on the map and my plan was mostly to go on sheer luck and road signs as I had never been in the area before and find the GPS increasingly annoying. I can still hear it going “Sving til venstre. Sving til venstre! ...snu når det er mulig!” and “ta en u-sving!” implying that it is very wrong of me to stop at a gas station. The first day however, was not to go wrong in any way. By the help of various forums, Google Maps and NAF Veibok (the Norwegian Car Association’s Road Book, or something to that effect) I had mapped out the road in my head and calculated the time it would take to get there as accurately as possible. Google Maps gave me the estimated time needed to get to Luster and I could even decide where to leave the main road by help of Google StreetView. Though the little Google-car hadn’t bothered going all the way up, I read somewhere that the road up is about 7 km long and have suffered some serious decay. With a somewhat optimistic assumed average speed of 30 km/h, this should take about 14 minutes. Had I been as good a shrink to myself as I sometimes pride myself on, I might have seen in advance that this trip was basically over after the first day. My assumed average speed was indeed a bit optimistic as the road had an incredible amount of dents in it and our all too low Ford Focus just wasn’t built for this sort of treatment. I managed to keep my cool while my mum was growing slightly panicky in the passenger seat, and couldn’t help but smile a bit at the ridiculous road. It really was almost surreal that this road would go on for 7 km in this awful condition, let alone actually lead somewhere! It was quite entertaining.

When we finally caught sight of the large white building I was ecstatic... and was a little bit out of it after having to work so hard on keeping the underside of the car off the ground. It turns out we are not alone though. A car is parked by the building and there is a group of 4-5 people around my age that seem to have just arrived. They look as if they’ve been caught red handed and watch us verily as we pull in. I figure they are out in the same errand as us and put up an effort to act disarming and quickly get out my camera, hoping to calm them down since I’m of a very sensitive nature and their nervousness is almost painful to see and effectively wearing off on me. We all soon calm down and start to venture along the impressive length of the building. It soon becomes clear that the sanatorium had grown to massive proportions in my head and was slightly less massive in reality. I actually, quite unfounded, felt that it was a bit small, though it obviously wasn’t. Another thing that had grown out of proportion was the scare factor. When we neared the end of the main building we spot a man coming out of it. This turns of to be the owner of the building that informs us that there is no chance of having a look around inside today but we are welcome to have a look around the outside so long as we stay clear of falling tiles and bricks in order to keep ourselves from being beheaded. While my mum stays around to chat with the owner, I take off in search of something. I search around the front and later around the back for the fear that felt so tangible and real while I was anticipating it at home in front of the computer screen. It has been a year since I first lay eyes on this thing from afar and ever since I’ve been imagining how scared I would be just being in the presence of such a vast abnormality. Maybe my homemade therapy consisting of taking long walks alone in the dark on a daily basis has paid off? I don’t think that is it. As I pass by my mum and the owner again on my way to the back (this is one of the few buildings I have seen that actually has a distinguish front and back) I am told that there is no ghosts and that this place is as calm and serene as anything. No way! How can this be? But clearly the guy is right. He should know. Deep inside I know I wouldn’t be walking around on my own like this if I were as entrance by the scariness of this building as I had almost planned to be. Even the fact that the second floor lights are on is explained as easy and logically as the flick of a switch by a fully human hand. What a bummer. Despite the raw beauty of such a massive structure falling apart bit by bit, I feel strangely cheated by my lack of fear. This leads me to feel very unhappy that I would not be able to see the inside of it. This place was as serene a cemetery in the afternoon. A cemetery is only scary with darkness to go with it and properly seasoned by an imagination that blows new life into the ground and gives every movement as natural as can be a taste of messages from the beyond. Believe me, I should know about cemeteries working the summer job that I do. I even accidentally locked a woman in a church once, and she wasn’t even scared.

I still don’t think my great fearlessness is responsible for this experience that was at first almost annoying. Just a week earlier I had been getting very jumpy just nearing an old decaying lighthouse that I keep feeling compelled to come back to for some abnormal reason despite feeling so strongly repelled by it when I actually get there that it feels almost like a physical wall in front of me should I dare to venture just a few meters away from the others (I’ve found that going there alone is futile) and I am in the very annoying habit of almost immediately starting to inquire about whether we are going to leave soon.

I could only be annoyed for so long though. Now I gleefully enjoy the fact that it wasn’t scary. Especially on a day like today when everything is so great I’m almost jumping up and down. The whole experience was weird and interesting and fresh and unexplained and unexpected, like I’ve found a little glitch or a bug in the universe that no one has thought to sort out. What could be better? Just look at me writing this text! I started just past midnight and was going to write for half an hour tops. The next thing I know it’s 4 am! I feel like I could write a book about this place!

Here are some pictures that I almost forgot to add between thinking to myself what a great day this:

I very strongly felt the need to add something that might have been scary had it been real or at least remotely realistic looking:

It still almost made me jump out of my chair when I accidentally opened it on my computer and then made me laugh at my own stupidity. Those eyes are murdering me! :P

Therapy for free

I am sitting on the sofa. I feel like shit. I’m depressed like shit. Why is it like this? Why am I so unbelievably depressed? Should I feel sorry for myself? Should other people feel sorry for me? No... probably not. Or maybe they should. Maybe I’m manic depressive... that sure fits like a glow. Maybe I should be diagnosed. Where and how does one get such a diagnosis? I would probably have to go to a shrink. I cringe. I don’t want someone to tell me how to be. Wait a sec... what do I want with a diagnosis anyway? So I can feel even sorrier for myself? So I can tell myself I’m hopeless? I turn my head and spot a drawing on the wall. It’s of me, even though I didn’t actually bother to make it look anything like me. I look confused in the drawing. I give this version of myself the silliest voice and imagine her going:

“I’m manic depressive. There is nothing to be done about it. I might as well lay back and let it play out because I’m a total nut job!”

I snort. Jesus Christ! Now that’s depressing! I don’t want a diagnosis anymore. I’d just lay back and be even more depressed. They’d probably just give me meds and I don’t want meds. My head will just have to do without meds unless it gets too far out, cause meds always make me feel bad and in my book it’s a safer bet that I can deal with my mind then that I can deal with meds. I almost got myself addicted to fairly mild painkillers one time for crying out loud! So the shrinks can just keep their God damn pills. My liver is in good shape from my general dislike of alcohol so I don’t want to mess it up. I’m not that depressed after all. If I think about it real good, it’s not so bad :)

"Tripping on anaesthesia"

(the portrait in question)