her er sol og glede!

Once upon a time, Sigrid went to school. She didn’t really like it very much, mostly because it came with the sensation of having something that lived inside her that would press itself violently into her chest at random and without provocation. Once upon a time, Sigrid watched her sister through the small window on the door of the music room. She thought she might stop to say hi, but that thing inside her told her to keep walking. Once upon a time Sigrid’s mother was sent a letter prohibiting either of the girls from bringing the family dog onto the school premises and to consider putting him through a ‘behavioral readjustment’ program that might curb his enthusiasm for biting minors. “Uff da,” said Sigrid’s mother, pushing her hair behind her ear and watching the letter fall into the bin.Once upon a time Sigrid found a pot of paint in the janitor’s closet which smelt very strong and nice and made her dizzy, like she was diving into nowhere. It made the thing inside her stop doing its thing for a bit. Once upon a time, there was a Sigrid before the Sigrid we are hearing about now. She lived in the same town as Sigrid does now, however this Sigrid lived a couple of generations before our Sigrid, long before there were hazy classroom hours and easy-to-access cans of paint. We do not know much about this Sigrid at all, just that she was very bad. She had more babies by more men than anyone was supposed to know about. In her photograph, she wears a dark corset and high collar. Her hair is pinned up high on her head, pulling tightly at her forehead. She stares straight into the camera, her hand rests on her sister’s shoulder. If she had her own thing inside her, it was also invisible. Once upon a time Sigrid lay down alone between the oars on the deck of her little boat in the middle of the fjord, took in the misty snow-capped mountains and jet black sea, and closed her eyes listening to the gentle lapping waves. This felt good too, like freedom. Like diving. Once upon a time, Jo rolled her eyes as she brushed her hair, watching an oil-splattered Sigrid trying to work their grandfather’s old chainsaw from the window of her bedroom. Once upon a time, Sigrid knelt down and looked straight into the eyes of the dog as if to remind him that best friends don’t hurt each other. That was good, too, knowing that he saw her and understood. Once upon a time, Sigrid went to school but failed all her exams and didn’t feel like going back. That thing in her chest made her write down all the wrong answers. Looking back, there were only two things she would miss: The way the janitor left clementines for her by the tins of paint he knew she was tucking into, and the sound of her sister’s arpeggios spilling into those echoing hallways whenever that soundproof door opened and let the outside world in.  Like Sigrid, Jo had discovered diving routes of her own. Lucky for her, her method of transport was one that met widespread approval.