Norwegian winter

Let me tell you about my first Norwegian winter....
I am here because of the kindness of strangers, because of some people who came to trust me mostly because of my writing.... that's how they know me--only through my writing.....and a few face to face encounters last summer....
Maybe they trust me because of how I write about the people with whom I work....maybe my writing carries more than I realize....when I am the proudest of it, that is what I hope.

I don't know for sure; nevertheless, I am here in Oslo because strangers trusted me.
It is January and just beyond the darkest days of winter, the longest night of the year, the December solstice; night falls like ink between 16:00 and 17:00 and then a lovely twilight begins around 09:30....some days there is sun, but usually, this liminal sky surrounds me between dawn and dusk ....

when I told colleagues when I was coming to Norway, I got mostly disparaging comments: long nights; cold dreary days.... I was warned, sarcastically, " wow aren't you lucky!"

Yet, indeed I am.
Someone I love told me soon after we met that twilight is the time of day when wild creatures have the most freedom to move.... they are harder to see, tougher to discern when everything shivers in this threshold state...
and I am experiencing these glorious threshold days and I find that I like them... I like the motion that stillness makes possible.