About This Blog

hauktjern.jpg"I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you." -- Annie Dillard

As of April 2011, my husband and I are American expats living in Oslo, Norway!

I am a writer. This is a sentence I have long had to remind myself to say. After six years behind a desk in an insurance office, I'm taking a leap of faith, hoping that with time, dedication, and the support of my husband I can achieve my lifelong dream of writing for a living. Our move is meant to accomplish many things, and one of those is to inspire my writing life, to give me time and energy to do it again. I am a writer. My hope is that soon the truth of the sentence will embed itself in my mind, my soul, my tongue. That way, when asked, it will spark and flame naturally, combust without my effort, like a heartbeat, like breathing.

This blog began in 2005 as an outlet for my creative energy. Reading those early posts over now makes me cringe. I didn't know what I was doing. Opening my mouth and letting the words fly out, certainly, but without any method or goal. That said, what I love about the blog now is the way it maps so accurately the trajectory of my life with words. I can see my personal evolution, in mind, body, and spirit. As well, the blog serves as a journal and travelogue. The trips we've taken and the events we've survived in the last six years are not lost. I've recorded them here. 

I spend my days differently now than I used to. My schedule is my own to manage. Some days I do nothing but write. Some days I do nothing but keep house (the most darling rooftop flat you've ever seen!). Some days I watch TV and laze around on Facebook and play with my cats. But on the best days, I find a way to do a little of each, striking a fledgling's balance between what is easy and what is difficult about life. On the very best days, Jonathan and I wander and explore our new city, new country, and new language together. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I'm doing it hand in hand with my best friend and true love. It does not get better than this!

Today my goals for this blog are different. I'm a first-time expat living in Oslo, so allowing others access to this beautiful Nordic country is important to me. My marriage, so new when I started posting in 2005, has thrived for almost seven years now; what I have to share about my marital relationship has matured greatly. And I'm a student once more, in the midst of a Low Residency Master of Fine Arts program through Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, set to graduate in the summer of 2012. My emphasis in the MFA program is creative non-fiction, something that has fueled and been fueled by this blog.

So who am I? A California girl in Oslo. A young wife. An avid reader. A former volleyball player and coach. A dog person who owns (and deeply loves) a cat. A student. A Christian constantly redefining her own brand of faith. A citizen of the world. An optimist. A loudmouth. A climber. A traveler. A first-time expat. But most of all these days, I'm a writer. Finally.

(In the photo above, Jonathan and I are at Hauktjern, just outside of Oslo, looking over some possible climbing routes together. When the photo was taken, we'd been in-country less than two months together.)