As the world turns

"I am going to go to Norway...If I spend 6 months of evenings alone, I will be happy. Heck, if I have 6 months of evenings - the kind where I get to come home - that's all I will need." 

- I wrote this in my diary 24 August 2014

You can probably tell from the text above that I'm not used to having much free time. It's actually quite problematic at times. I get myself involved in various projects; I teach violin lessons and ballet classes after work. I run myself ragged for the activities that I love. The concept of a quiet evening at home is almost foreign to me. Well, at least it was until I came to Norway.

Much as I would love to, my time here is just too short to get involved with my usual hobbies. I didn't even bring my violin with me. Granted, I've filled my time here in other, wonderful ways - attending concerts, biking to work, spending time with my housemates - but still, my evenings are a lot more open than they've ever been. I absolutely love the fact that I can work as late as I want to. I'm quite often the last one to leave IRIS, but when I finally drag myself homeward, I feel like I have really accomplished something. I leave when I want to, not when I have to, and this flexibility has increased my productivity by several orders of magnitude.

When I do go home in the evenings, I have time to think. I have time to enjoy the place where I am in my life. I have time to relish all that is happening around me, to feel the world turn. 

Tonight, I hear the rushing wind and pounding rain of the storm outside. I think about my housemates in their rooms above and beside me, some chatting, some sleeping, some lost in their own thoughts. I picture myself on the map, poised at the edge of the Atlantic, on a skinny peninsula at 59 degrees north. I see the weather pattern coming from the west, gathering moisture and momentum as it crosses the North Sea. 

Then my mind flies across the water, and I see my German colleagues working away in a place that became my second home. I see the kitchens and living rooms where I spent so many marvelous evenings. I think about Stefanie, my dear friend, enduring the perils of her own Ph.D. in the Netherlands, and how at the end of this whole saga we might be the only people in each other's friend circles who actually understand what it was like. 

I see my family scattered across the Midwest of the United States. I think about my parents discovering a new home of their own and finding a community worth waiting for. I think about my brother, who lately has been maturing so quickly it leaves me dumbfounded. I see my sister, and my friends that might as well be my sisters, each in their homes with their husbands and their families and their friends.

I pass over Oregon, the place that I know so well but have yet to understand. I see my past self before departure for Norway and my future self after my return - and let me tell you, they are two different people.

My mind flies to Samoa, to New Zealand - places that I only passed through but which gave me such great memories. I think about Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and an entire section of the world that I have never seen. I wonder what future adventures might hide there, waiting for me. I start scheming ways to get myself to Zanzibar and salivate at the thought of an expedition in South African waters. I think about the people I will meet, the wonderful things I will learn from them, and the reality checks I will have because I'm sure science in the developing world is anything but easy.

I hover over the equator and zoom out, viewing the earth from space. I think about how small I am in the grand scheme of 7 billion human lives. I see the storm system over the North Sea, spraying rain on most of northern Europe. I see my settlement plates, currently underwater in Svalbard fjords, happily collecting larvae, oblivious of all other things happening in the world around them. I see myself, writing by the light of a lamp in a small bedroom on a skinny peninsula at 59 degrees north. I have a job - a calling - that I am passionate about. I have people on 2 continents who care about me deeply. I have free evenings, time to think, time to dream. I have a place in the world, however small, and tonight, I can feel the world turning.