“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
These words, from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, have pulled me back into their meaning, time and time again over the last few weeks.
As winter has begun to fully take form here, and the daylight dwindles, and I feel like a bowling ball, bounding from the hand of force, only to end up in the gutters of work and endless work….
I have wondered why, why am I feeling lost, depleted and burnt out, more than before, more than ever?
Should I not be like Winter, settled into slowness? Into a steady rhythm of rest and restoring, dipping into the reserves of frozen foraged berries, reaching for my knitting needles, and falling asleep before reaching the point of exhaustion?
I have not been like Winter. I have been resisting rest and resisting a rhythm, the only real cadence my body knows, down to the fibers of its being.
I told Sofia this, last week, and she proposed that we take a walk in nature. My spirit perked up. And though I was late to our appointment… I arrived, layered up, ready to follow her footsteps, through the thick forests, into patches of pale sunlight, across slippery soil, down to the waterfall, to find rocks capped in ice. We crossed it, we laughed, our limbs learning to stabilize. It was only an hour or two. But a small part of me was reborn, was remembering… what we had done all Summer, all Autumn… and had somehow forgotten, neglected now.
We said we should walk every day. But the days went on, and we didn’t. I found myself back in that endless state of stress, no place to release, no meaning to make of it.
And then, a new proposal.
I met Signe on the second day of school. In the textile classroom. She asked me where I lived on Vancouver Island. I, surprised she knew it was a place, told her Nanaimo. She said she knew it, that she’d spent the last year living there, studying at Vancouver Island University. The same place I am based out of.
The coincidence was so surprising and somehow relieving. She knew. This woman from Denmark, here in this tiny Norwegian town, in this niche textile program, knew the street names of my home. She had been to shows at The Vault. She swam at Piper’s Lagoon. She rode a bicycle everywhere.
I learned the places she loved. She knew the places I loved. But, perhaps most powerfully, she knew the land.
Signe’s prior point of study, before textile design, was Outdoor Education and wilderness guiding. Her final exam was to ski down the top of a steep summit. Before Nanaimo, she lived in Whistler. And before that, she’d lived wherever she could to be close to nature.
We had been sat across from each other in the classroom, and over time, a friendship formed. And over time, I noticed myself inspired by her attitude, by her approach. She seemed like a distant star, a safe way to orient myself.
I would recommend her TV shows, about fashion or about wilderness. She never watched them. At lunch, I found myself eating whatever cheesy mess was being served at the cafeteria. She would crack open a Tupperware from home, packed with home-baked rye break and a few raw carrots. I asked to follow her on Instagram, and she responded by telling me she didn’t have an account.
I felt both embarrassed and excited. What would life be like if I baked my own bread, if I didn’t incessantly consume images from the collective? What if I walked in nature, every day, as a way to touch back in with nature, to clear my head?
Then, last week, she asked me if I’d like to come out to join her on her farm in Bo, a small village about an hour from my home. She said it would be nice to just celebrate the end of the semester, to do something completely different than school. Maybe knit by the wood stove, and sip some Glogg. My spirit just about jumped up out of my body.
Yes. Emphatically, assuredly, yes. I would love that.
We left from Notodden together, in her big blue van, which she spent a chunk of her life living out of. We stopped at the Vinmonopolet, to grab the ingredients for Glogg (Danish mulled wine).
On the ride out to Bo, we talked — about everything. Nature, art, community, friends who we love, friends who live far away, about making a home, and making a new home again. We talked about stress and pleasure, the things that delight us and the things that don’t.
Her home was a hundred-year-old farmhouse, just out of town. It was technically the ‘firehouse’ to the main house next door, where a beautiful couple in their 70s lived life fully. Signe explained that, in those days, people would have a separate house where the fire would be, to do the bread baking and whatnot, keeping things safe.
Inside the firehouse, things were incredibly cozy, or hygge, rather. Dried oranges for ornaments decorated the windowsills, along with long candlesticks and painted eggs.
We chatted and laughed, chopping onions and potatoes for dinner. A warm curry, full of spices and fresh ginger. Served up with dollops of Norwegian cream and boil-in-a-bag rice and tortillas to clean the plate. We sat, all together, Signe, myself, and Maria, her roommate, and discussed our days, our cultural differences, Norway, food, nature, and holiday traditions.
All the while, the glogg was brewing on the stove. Gløgg. Perhaps my new favorite holiday treat. Signe claims she cheated by getting the gløgg mix from the supermarket — a blend of warming spices like cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange, and clove — infused in a juice blend. We put that in a pot, along with a bag of red wine, and some nuts and raisins. We let it sit a long time together, before warming it, slowly.
Our bellies full, we transitioned to the living room, where the wood stove was burning. We sipped gløgg and shared stories — the ones that made us who we were, deeply embedded, interwoven into our beings. The gløgg was delicious and facilitated the flow of honesty, of curiosity, of wonder.
And then, our cheeks warmed, our cups emptied, our bodies tired… our beds beckoned.
Normally, at home, I rely on something to help me sleep. Maybe a cup of sleepy tea, perhaps a melatonin. Or a book. I’m often wired. And I often don’t help myself, I sit up late on my phone, on the internet. Or I watch something on my computer until the early hours, convinced that this is how I show myself relaxation.
But here, at Signe’s, I had no internet. My phone was on another floor, tucked away. I was under layers of warmth, and we were tucked into in two twin sized beds on opposite ends of the room. The air was so cold I thought I could see my breath. Signe was used to it, she slept in wool and had two hot water bottles. We giggled in the darkness, in between bouts of silence. I wondered if I’d hear the mice in the walls, or the birds nestling.
I slept. No external aid required. I awoke to daylight and looked out the window to see the birds playing near the feeder, the mountains covered in snow. And downstairs, Signe was brewing coffee and pressing fresh waffles.
It was a dream. And then we went outside to walk. To learn the frozen land and its many shapes. I remembered again, how the land remembers me when I am lost.
I forgot about all of it. The deadlines, the people, their expectations, my own. The essays and the proofs and the perfection and all of it. It fell away. In its place was presence, was wonder. Peace, maybe.
When we came back into town, I was confronted again by my to-do list that never seems to end — the cycle of stress I let myself fall into. But something else is here, too. A memory, a feeling. A moment of relief. A place I can return to, inside myself and on this earth.
I’ll remember it when I feel lost. I’ll return and return, again and again.
“Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer
the list! (5-4-3-2-1)
5 things I’m looking at
I finally finished the matching jacket to the pants I shared a few weeks ago:




a messy apartment — things everywhere, in a state between packing and cleaning
this tree…. this is the vibe for the rest of Winter:
a thrift store coat. it’s far too big, but now that I can work a sewing machine… could I hem it or take it in?
the weather forecast in Berlin!
4 things I’m feeling:
chapped lips
a dull pain in my fingers that I think is from stabbing them accidentally, ceaselessly, with sewing pins
deep warmth, radiating from my skin, having spent long by the wood stove
anticipation and release… today is the last day Ill be at school.
3 things I’m listening to:
2 things I’m smelling:
curry spices, browning in the pan
strangely… I’ve been smelling the scent of my mom, on my pillow, or maybe it’s my scent? I don’t know. the concept of each of us having our own unique strange is so interesting to me.
1 thing I’m tasting:
gløgg!!!! Danish mulled wine!!!
Bicycle Boys! I would love to read your lists. Keep ‘em coming my way. <3
Tunes you heard in the audio voice-over:
Intro: It Never Changes to Stop - The Books
Outro: Seasons Come, Seasons Go - Bobbie Gentry
If you like it here, please share my work with your pals!
Love that tree. Looks like two hearts are etched into it. 💕
Great story. Love hearing about your adventures. Sounds like an amazing time.
Enjoy your new adventures these next few weeks.
You definitely have your own beautiful scent. Can’t wait to smell you soon. 😘
5 things I’m looking at:
- Your beautiful words on the page.
- A mug that reads "I'm So F*cking Cold" filled, appropriately, with cold coffee.
- My bookshelf. God I love a full bookshelf.
- My Calculus textbook opened to "Continuities".
- Kitties sleeping in the same cat tree.
4 things I’m feeling:
- Longing. I long to be with you in Norway.
- Grief. It's mainly women and children in Gaza that are suffering the ceaseless bombardment. It breaks my fucking soul.
- Anticipation. I am looking to the end of the semester-- final exams are just around the corner.
- Hunger. My belly is gloobing.
3 things I’m listening to:
- Rain pattering on the skylight.
- Still by Ola Gjeilo
- My belly gloobing.
2 things I’m smelling:
- Fresh air seeping through the cracks in the caulking around the skylight.
- Coffee breath.
1 thing I'm tasting:
- My own mouth