Reading the Landscape

Environmental historians speak often of “reading the landscape.”  They see signs of glaciation from the rich soil of the upper Midwestern United States to the rocky inlets along the fjords here in Norway.  They note a tree that grew towards the light, perhaps away from a wall or the shade of its neighbors.  They note built paths that take them through a park along approved routes and maverick paths that beeline towards a swing set.  

Rarely, however, do environmental historians mean something so literal as reading words written on the land, but that was one of the first and most intriguing sights that I encountered in our new neighborhood in Oslo:

What struck me most was, first, that it was graffiti written directly onto a rock wall and, second, that it was graffiti that was protected and displayed as if it were in a museum – with a plastic cover and a wall plaque:

The text reads in Norwegian: Ver Tro Mot H7 meaning: Be true to King Haakon VII.

A little internet research (and, I confess, some possibly questionable background knowledge culled from Joe Nesbø’s The Redbreast) revealed that the graffiti dates from World War II and enjoined Norwegians to be faithful to the king during the Nazi occupation of Norway.

Altogether, the graffiti and its preservation strike me as distinctly Norwegian.  Here, in a round-about way, is why:

  

I commonly begin my environmental history class by describing one of my favorite walks in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park.  The walk used to take me past my own potted, dwarf lemon tree and the manicured lawns of tony Los Feliz, across a major street with four lanes of traffic, past a golf course, onto a hiking trail, within sight of Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood sign, and back home to my little lemon tree.  I ask my students to identify when I am closest to nature on the walk and when I am farthest away.  A couple of years ago a student said that the view of the Hollywood sign took me farthest from nature.  “What’s a better example of human culture defiling the landscape than writing a word on the land itself?” he challenged.  “And what’s a better sign of the dregs of civilization than Hollywood?” he continued. 

Here in Norway, something like the Hollywood sign is indeed hard to imagine.  Reverence for nature is a part of the Norwegian national character, perhaps best illustrated in the concept of allemannsrett, translated as freedom to roam or everyman’s right.  Norwegians can hike, camp, gather mushrooms, pick berries, assemble a bouquet, canoe and otherwise enjoy the outdoors on almost any uncultivated land -- of which there’s a lot in Norway.   Yet, there’s no tragedy of the commons here – the right relies on the assumption that Norwegians will protect such spaces, and here’s what’s incredible to this American: They do! 

So valuable is nature to Norwegians that their rights depend on its protection.  Everyone has freedom to roam so everyone better take care of where they’re roaming. Thus my surprise at seeing graffiti on a rock wall.   There’s a lot of graffiti in Oslo, but defiling a rock wall, even in an urban park, seemed beyond the pale to me at first glance.  But, of course, this was historical graffiti, and apparently the H7 monogram was a common tag on buildings, fences and other man-made structures during the war.  What’s more Norwegian than to demand loyalty to Norway on a piece of nature? Buildings and fences might not last.   A rock, however, is likely to persevere.  Norwegians will guarantee it.

The City and The Country

            The stunning fjords? The bright Scandinavian summer sun? The first stroll in a European city?  Nei!  What turned my son’s head, what steeled his will to overcome his jet lag and culture shock, what first tickled him was…garbage. 

I had a hint when he marveled at our toilet, outfitted with different buttons for solid and liquid waste.  He’s familiar with such toilets from public places at home – he knows when to pull up on the green handle.  Nonetheless, when I explained the two different buttons on our toilet in our apartment here, he exclaimed: “That’s a really great toilet!” 

            A couple of days later we took a ferry to a neighboring island with a fellow Fulbrighter, Sarah.

  Rain threatened, but we took our chances and headed off to explore Langøyene.

Langøyene was once two islands, but has been joined with landfill.  That might have been the source of all the, well, garbage.  Broken crockery clinked in the waves. 

In addition to his greatest find: a rusted plug (I think),

Kevin also found a broken bottle top worn smooth by the waves and a number of shells.  Sarah spotted a lovely bit of pottery that we intend to give to my mom for mosaic making.

            His appetite for the detritus of civilization satisfied, Kevin could finally give his attention to some of the more natural features of the island.  He clambered over a few rocks,

 

steered clear of a flock of geese,

and mourned the loss of a crab shell that crumbled in his pocket.

His agony was brief.  The next day Sarah presented him with a perfectly whole crab shell in a lovely jewelry box.

  

Later, as we headed toward the troll statue across from the Holmenkollen ski jump, he told me:

“It’s amazing to have all this,” he gestured at the trees and clouds, “right here in a city.”

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

Whatever Norwegian first thought of the saying: “There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing,” evidently had never spent a summer in St. Louis.  One could, I suppose, go naked, but even that would be uncomfortable.  Even summer is a misnomer because there are actually five seasons between Spring and Fall in St. Louis.  They are: Tornado, Allergies, Bugs Biting You, Regular Summer, Unbearable Heat, and Other Allergies.  Needless to say, such seasons are not marked on the calendar with the same happy festivals that commemorate solstices and harvests.

But this summer has been different.  As early as June, I began remarking on it to friends.  “Is this what halcyon means?” I asked.  The weather was not too hot or too cold.  A pleasant breeze blew. A friend at a neighborhood café said, “I don’t know.”  “I think it’s halcyon.” I said with certainty. 

Ignoring all the advice I give my students about looking words up before using them, I began to use the word, if only in my thoughts, to describe the whole summer.  That perfect temperature beckoned me and my dog to Forest Park day after day.  That pleasant breeze blew as I watched my fig tree, from a stump of eighteen inches surge past the fence line of our yard.  “By August,” I thought, “it will be over twelve feet high.”  We had some hot days, but they were close enough to the halcyon ones that I forgot them quickly.

And that perfect temperature and perfect breeze followed us across the country.  From a day at Pittsburgh’s Kennywood Amusement Park with my in-laws to an afternoon watching the monsoon clouds gather over the Sangre de Cristos in Santa Fe to one last picnic with friends in the neighborhood, all I could think was “These are the halcyon days.”

By the time of our departure to Norway, the phrase had become a habit.  Our last day in the U.S., I finally looked up the word.  “Denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically calm and peaceful,” the Oxford English Dictionary told me.  All summer, Norway had been on the horizon.  All summer, I had seen the weather I called halcyon as a good sign.  Turns out that a word I thought meant auspicious actually means nostalgic.

No matter.  Our last day, we drove through 90-degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures to deliver our cars to my husband’s aunt and uncle in St. Charles.  Missouri.  My thighs were sticking to the car seat.  My aunt drove us back to St. Louis on the return trip.  We got stuck in traffic.  The light glared.  We all sweated.  I asked to listen to a cd my husband made for himself and his friends.  It opened with a cover of “Joy Round My Brain,” which you can listen to here:

It was halcyon. 

Suburban koan

Suburban Koan

            One of the changes that I’m most eagerly anticipating in my life in Norway is that I will have a chance to enjoy my time out in nature more instead of working on my yard in…um…nature.

            Any good environmental historian will tell you that nature is ever-present: in the coal that powers my computer as I type, in the cotton of the tablecloth under my arms, in the crickets I can hear outside the window, in the breeze from the open window.  But I find it hard to see every nature as equal or equally pleasant.  I believe that St. Louis’s nature would be a challenge to the most devoted outdoors-person, and I’m definitely not the most devoted.

            My husband finds me sweaty and bug-bitten while I google gardening approaches.  I’m looking for a different standard of gardening, one less standard, less rigid, looser and maybe, well, funkier than what seems to be the suburban American norm of square lawn with 3-5 ornamental plants.  I knew better than to try “organic gardening,” which I assume would only lead to organic farming certification sites.  “Heritage gardening” takes me to heirloom seed sites – cool, but not what I’m looking for.  “Surely, there are hipsters in Brooklyn developing, like, alternative lawns, right?” Then I realize that most folks in Brooklyn don’t have lawns.  “Do you think I need to try ‘lazy gardening’?” I ask.  “How about B+ gardening?” my husband proposes. 

            The yard troubles me in general, but nothing, nothing troubles me more than the leaves falling. Two falls ago, I watched the season begin.  Leaves fell from the three pin oaks in our front yard.  Leaves fell from the silver maple in our back yard.  Leaves fell from the neighbor’s trees.  Leaves fell from the park trees.  Leaves fell from my shoes when I walked in the house.  Leaves fell.  And fell. And fell. 

New Mexican girl that I am, the majestic and melancholy autumn was initially novel.  There is a hardly a tree within sight of my childhood home that exceeds a single story.  Pine and juniper predominate.  The very idea that leaves could fall challenged my imagination.  Combined with owning my first home, I couldn’t wait to greet the season.  “I will rake in the crisp evening air!” I declared.  “I will meditate on the passing of seasons.”  “I will assemble vast piles of leaves and my son and I will jump into them and laugh and gaze at the crystal blue sky.”

Such were my plans.  In reality, pin oaks drop their leaves for almost the entire year.  I’ve raked in June when it was 85 degrees Fahrenheit and I’ve raked in mid-February as my nose ran and the sun set.  I’m allergic to the silver maple, and even poking my head out the back door can initiate a bout of sneezing.  I’ve never tried jumping in a pile of its leaves.   But, no matter.  The leaves are going to keep falling.

I might have been able to get my head around the leaves, but then came the leaf blowers.  I hear them in June and October and March.  They whine and bellow and they seem never, ever to stop their relentless pursuit of the leaves.  I hear them as I pull on my mittens and slip off my flip-flops.  I hear them even when they’re not running: I hear an ear worm leaf blower in the shower and over the blender, and sometimes in the music of my son’s video games.  And I rake.  And the leaf blowers blow.  And the leaves are going to keep falling.

            What did people do before leaf blowers?  What do they do without leaf blowers?  I do some googling.  (I realize that my husband would call this B+ research.) I learn that as far away as New Zealand I have compatriots at their wits’ end over leaf blowers.  I find this awesome cartoon here.  

I learn that leaf blowers inspire obsession.   Standards wouldn’t be so high if it weren’t possible to get every speck of dirt, every leaf off of the lawn, off of the sidewalk, off of the ground. 

Of course, I also see the advantages.  The landscapers my neighbor’s employ can clear the front yard in the time it takes me to wipe the snot from my face.  They have work to do and doing work efficiently is satisfying.  Maybe as satisfying as raking in the crisp air of an autumn morning.  I wouldn’t know.

There are leaf blowers in Oslo, and I imagine snow blowers too.  But we’ll be living in an apartment, and I won’t be out in our yard raking and shoveling.  Maybe I’ll miss it.  One day last winter I was raking our driveway.  A leaf had lodged itself in a crack of the sidewalk.  I raked over it once, twice, maybe five times even.  The leaf rested.  I let it be.  I could get it next time.  The leaves are going to keep falling.