Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year! I hope that 2011 will be a memorable year for all those things that bring joy and peace into our lives. And I wish that for the world as well. There has been too much conflict, too much death, too much war, and not enough peace and joy. 

I don't think I will miss 2010 even though there were some happy and memorable times. It was one of those years that stand apart from the others. 1985 was one of those years for me. They are challenging years, educational in their own way, but the process of learning comes at a cost. This year was incredibly frustrating, confusing and disappointing. I am not quite sure yet what I lost this year, but work problems took their toll and I think that has led to a widespread disillusion with the academic work world. That in and of itself would have been such a terrible thing for me to admit ten years ago, that I was disillusioned with my career and my work. Now it is not. But it is a tough thing to let go of--that intense love of work that I used to have--actually sad in many ways. A small grieving process in terms of letting go of the way I used to look at my work. I am not sure a new job would do the trick for me anymore, because I have become so skeptical about academia and the research world in general. However, my consulting work for the university library (Live, Kirsten and Liz) and for Liiv-MD (Bernadette), were the high points of this work year. Without them, I would surely have slid into a real depression in reaction to my work life. These jobs challenged me and got me thinking in new ways, and helped me to rediscover the joy of immersing myself in work and new projects. They also made me realize that I could leave academia and not look back. I wouldn't miss it very much. So that's a good realization, as well as knowing that I let something new into my life, in a non-traditional way. I broke my own mold and that was good for me.

The happy times were spent with family and friends, both here in Norway and in NY. Some of the highpoints of this year were seeing Pat Metheny in concert, Birgitte’s PhD defense and dinner afterwards, Caroline and Marius’ wedding, a relaxing summer vacation with Trond, and my trip to NY in August and seeing all my wonderful friends and family there. Those times are precious to me--treasures in my heart. Those times are what life is really all about, or what I want my life to be mostly about, and they are what I want more of as I get older. The sadness of this year was the passing of my colleague and friend Liza right before Christmas. Although we (her colleagues and friends) knew it could happen at any time since she was quite sick, when it did, it happened so fast and it made me realize again how unpredictable life is. We don't always have time to get our lives in order and to say goodbye. We cannot and should not take life for granted, and we should try to live each day in the best way possible. Not always easy to do or to remember, but well-worth thinking about. I say this mostly to remind myself to do that.

My one New Year’s resolution, if I was going to make one, would probably be to complain less about my workplace (if that is possible). I will certainly try. I imagine it will go like this though—I will want to complain, but will put a lid on it. Then I’ll go buy a punching bag to take out my frustrations, and who knows, that may help to get me into better physical shape. Or I’ll buy a dart board and hang it on the inside of my office door. Tossing a few darts at the board may help me feel better. In any case, I’m definitely going to try to deal with my workplace frustrations, and otherwise make the best of my life outside of work, which is most important.

For Auld Lang Syne, my friends

The end of this year and the beginning of a new year are upon us, and for the sake of old times I want to honor the memories of those who passed on recently and of those who left us years ago. You are not and never will be forgotten.

I am reminded of the movie When Harry Met Sally when a new year is right around the corner. The ending of the movie never fails to bring tears to my eyes, because when Harry finally realizes that he wants to be with Sally for the rest of his life, he is overwhelmed with a sense of urgency to get to her. How often does that happen to us? To know that feeling--that sense of urgency-- when you want to change your life or some part of it, and you’d like it to happen NOW. Except that sometimes God and the universe have other plans and the changes take much longer than you’d like. Confucius said “Every journey starts with a single step.” Our lives are our journeys if we want them to be. They can be long journeys if we’re lucky. We can choose to really live our lives, to be present to ourselves and for others, to step up to the plate, to take responsibility, to live now, to honor the past because it gave us our identity and to respect the future because it is an unknown entity. It’s scary to take the first step sometimes. It’s easier to stay put on the couch in front of the TV rather than to stand up and move out of the passivity that may have become part of our lives. I’ve written about that so many times this past year probably because it was an important realization for me. I got off my couch. I stopped watching TV in a mindless way, flipping from one channel to another in a vapid attempt to find something meaningful to watch. I stopped asking it to give meaning to my life. Making the journey means wanting to be active participants in our own lives. It means being aware and conscious and alive, and willing to be all those things. It’s important because if we don’t choose against passivity, we hand over the reins to others to control us and that is not an attractive option at all, at least to me. I have become preoccupied with this because it could happen that our freedoms could be taken away from us if we are not aware of their value to our lives. That thought scares me.

Writing this blog has helped me become an active participant in my own life. It has given me back my voice and shown me what is important to me for the rest of my life. It has opened new roads and ways into my heart and soul and mind. It has also helped me unearth long-buried memories that were waiting to be revealed. It is amazing what we store away and how much we forget. Writing unlocks many doors; some of them open into rooms of sadness, others open into rooms of light and hope. For old times’ sake, I honor all my memories and all of the people who helped make those memories together with me. Some of them are sad, others joyful, but they define me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The ending of a year is always a bit poignant, but also hopeful because we move into a new year full of possibilities. I think I have finally understood (after many years) that there really are several possible outcomes to one specific event, not just one, and that we can often choose our response. Just that thought gives me a sense of exhilaration and freedom that I haven’t experienced in a while. I wish that sense of exhilaration and freedom for my friends, family, for those reading this blog, and for the world in general. I hope that 2011 brings hope to those who have not known hope for many years. I hope too that we find grace in our lives and in the things we do and that we realize that we do have a choice, a voice and the means at our disposal to make a difference in the world. 

Another favorite Christmas song

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

(Music and lyrics by Torme and Wells—1946)

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping at your nose,

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,

Help to make the season bright.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,

Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.

And every mother's child is going to spy,

To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,

To kids from one to ninety-two,

Although it’s been said many times, many ways,

Merry Christmas to you.

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This song reminds me of trips to New York City at Christmastime when we were children. It was not an annual tradition, but we did manage a few trips as a family as I remember. We would take the train from Tarrytown to Grand Central Station in Manhattan and then walk down 5^th Avenue to 37^th Street to see the storefront window at Lord &Taylor’s. It always had a spectacular Christmas display of one kind or another; folks lined up to walk past it with their children. It fascinated us as kids. We also would go and see the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, watch the skaters on the rink in front of the tree, and stop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral nearby to light a candle. What I also remember (also thanks to this song) are the street vendors who sold roasted chestnuts. My father would buy a bag of them and share them with us. I don’t remember that I liked them very much, but he did and that was fine. They always smelled so good, especially in the cold winter air and it was nice to hold the warm bag of chestnuts and feel the warmth through my gloves. But it was the sights and sounds of Manhattan at Christmastime that I remember too. And even as a young adult when I worked in Manhattan, the Christmas storefront displays, the glittering trees, the streetlights and Christmas lights hung up, Trump Tower with its big wreaths—all of it has stayed in my mind—glittering with the splendor of the season. 

Christmas music and memories

Listening to the classic songs and carols that I grew up with is one of the things I really love about the Christmas season. With each year that passes, they become more important to me, I guess because they link me to my past as well as to my present. The way I prepare for and celebrate Christmas is strongly influenced by my memories of growing up as well as by the different people I’ve come into contact with through the years who have shared their Christmas traditions and favorite songs with me. As with films having to do with Christmas, I have my favorite Christmas songs and albums. I’ve already posted the lyrics to some of my favorite songs in previous posts. Interestingly, the I-Tunes store is having a ’12 Days of Christmas’ promotion until January 6th—customers can download one free song per day until that time. I’ve decided that I am going to download twelve different Christmas songs and put together my own collection of songs.

One of the earliest Christmas albums I can remember listening to as a young child was called Christmas in Italy. It had a picture on the LP cover that completely fascinated me as a child. I have a tape recording of the album but would love to get a hold of the LP. I actually found a link to the album on Etsy that shows the cover: http://www.etsy.com/listing/60305492/christmas-in-italy-natale-in-italia, but the LP had already been sold. The cover shows two Italian children seated at a dining room table on which different foods, fruit, cake and wine had been laid out—an Italian Christmas feast. Their grandmother was serving them. The large high cake on the table appears to be a panettone, which is a fragrant-smelling and tasting Italian cake that my parents used to buy each year at Macy’s department store and that we ate for breakfast on Christmas Day. Panettones were always imported from Italy as far as I can remember; they appear to have come from many different regions in Italy. I still buy a panettone each year at Christmas. It’s not difficult to find them in Oslo. But back to the album—it is one of my favorites from childhood; the children talk in Italian in between the songs, and I always remember at some point that it sounded like they said my sister’s name, Renata. That somehow made it even more special.

Another favorite album is a collection of Christmas songs and carols sung by The Singers Unlimited. I got the LP as a gift from one of the doctors I used to work with at Memorial Sloan-Kettering back in the 1980s. It was one of his family’s favorites and he knew I would like it, so he bought it for me one Christmas. You can now buy it as a CD on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Singers-Unlimited/dp/B0000046J8. What makes it special is that the entire album (from 1972) was recorded ‘a capella’, without instruments, and The Singers Unlimited (a well-known jazz group) add their own special touch to all the songs they sing—jazzy vocals, interesting harmonies, lovely arrangements. Well-worth owning.

In later years I’ve acquired other collections of Christmas music that have joined the ranks of my favorites: A Windham Hill Christmas (II), Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas album (wonderful), A King’s College Christmas (British), Christmas with the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin in the Fields (British), and A Charlie Brown Christmas (lovely Christmas songs performed by the Vince Guaraldi trio). We also have a well-worn recording of the music by Tchaikovsky from The Nutcracker ballet. Attending the Nutcracker ballet each year is an annual Christmas tradition in our house that started in 1993 with a visit to the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in Manhattan, and which we’ve kept up with in later years here in Oslo at The Norwegian Opera and Ballet.

I like celebrating Christmas in Europe; it lasts for more than just one day. You get a chance to enjoy the season and the holiday from the day before Christmas and for at least the week afterwards. The holiday is not over on December 26^th.  And that is how we grew up, since that is how my parents celebrated the holiday. Our Christmas tree stayed up until the Epiphany on January 6^th. Our tree now stays up even longer. The celebration of Christmas rounds out the year and prepares me for the coming of a new year. It is not about and never will be about materialism and commercialism for me. It is a celebration of the traditions, rituals, memories and spirit of the season and gift-giving is a part of that. But it is all the other things—the songs, films, preparation of food, going to church, and visiting family and friends, that make it what it is—a joyful, holy, special and sometimes sad time of year. I remember and miss those who are no longer with us—like my parents—but I know they are with me in spirit because I feel their presence during the holidays, and that is comforting. I understand the value and importance of traditions much more now that I am older; they keep you rooted to your past and give you a sense of identity in the present and that is a good thing. 

A beautiful Norwegian Christmas song--A Star is Shining Tonight

We sang this song tonight at the Christmas service at the nearby Protestant church—Iladalen Kirke. The Oslo Gospel Choir sings a nice version of it and you can find it here on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ilTwan9A8M.

EN STJERNE SKINNER I NATT     (Eivind Skeie / Tore Aas)

Nå er den hellige time

Vi står i stjerneskinn

Og hører klokkene kime

Nå ringes julen inn

Refr.:

Englene synger høyt i kor

Synger om fred på vår jord

Verden var aldri helt forlatt

En stjerne skinner i natt

En nyfødt kjærlighet sover

Nå er Guds himmel nær

Vår lange vandring er over

Stjernen har stanset her

Refr.: Englene synger .......

Se himlen ligger og hviler

På jordens gule strå

Vi står rundt krybben og smiler

For vi er fremme nå

Refr.: Englene synger .......

               

Her kan vi drømme om den fred

Som vi skal eie engang

For dette barn har himlen med

Og jorden fylles med sang

                          

Refr.: Englene synger.......

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(My best attempt at an English translation)

A STAR IS SHINING TONIGHT    (Eivind Skeie / Tore Aas)

The holy hour has now come
We stand in the light of stars

And listen to the clocks that chime
Ringing in Christmastime.

Refrain:
A choir of angels is loudly singing

Singing about peace on earth
The world was never completely forsaken

A star is shining tonight.

A newborn love is sleeping
God's heaven is now near
Our long journey is over
The star has stopped here.
      

Refrain: A choir of angels .......

See how heaven lies in rest

Upon the Earth's yellow hay

We stand around the manger and smile
Now we have found our way.
      

Refrain: A choir of angels .......
           
Here we can dream of the peace
That we will one day own
For this child has heaven with him
And the earth is filled with song
                      
Refrain: A choir of angels .......

Oh Christmas Tree

Despite the difficulties and sadness of this past year (especially during the past few weeks), I am looking forward to Christmas, perhaps in part because of the difficulties and sadness. There has to be something joyful to look forward to. I know that there is—my faith tells me to wait and be patient. My heart and soul want the peace and joy of this Christmas season, and if I let them in they will take root there. I’ve opened the doors and am letting in the light of Christmas.

Setting up our Christmas tree always helps make the house a peaceful haven. I have old and new Christmas ornaments and they all have their turns on the tree. Each ornament has a history—one was a gift from a friend, one I bought at a Christmas store in San Francisco, another is from my mother, another from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and so forth. I remember how I got each one of them because it is my personal history dating back to when I was a teenager and started to buy or receive them. I collect Christmas tree ornaments and Christmas angels of all kinds. I love sitting in the dark with the lit and decorated Christmas tree in front of me. It’s peaceful in an indescribable way. I can remember back to when I was a child. I felt the same way then. I also remember being outdoors in the deep snow and finding a snow-laden evergreen tree, branches hanging down nearly to the ground. When they did that they created a kind of ‘cave’ to sit in—where I would sit and contemplate the peace around me. It never felt lonely to do that. I felt protected by the peace of the snow and the tree.

Each year my husband and I have the same conversation when we go to buy our tree—how big it should be and how high it should be, etc. He pushes somewhat for a smaller tree each year, whereas I still want a larger tree. We always end up with a tall medium-sized tree that has enough branch room to hang a fair amount of ornaments.  Maybe when we’re older we’ll go for a smaller tree, but for now, it’s nice with a larger one. It fills one area of our living room. My friend in upstate NY has a large tree this year as well; her husband dragged it from the car into the house commenting all the way that it was too big. I guess this must be a man thing—to comment on the size of the trees and to complain (a little bit) in general—or register some skepticism? But our tree is big this year—I used twenty-five feet of garland to decorate it (wrapping around the tree). That’s much more than I usually use.

Anyway, I am posting some photos of our tree and some ornaments. Enjoy! Have a joyful and peaceful Christmas! Take some time to sit with the tree……..

 

 

Christmas album by Kurt Nilsen

I'm guessing that this is the album on which the Norwegian singer Kurt Nilsen's NRK1 Christmas program tonight was based. If so, I can't wait to buy it. He has a wonderful voice--never misses a note. He performed a lot of Christmas classics, many of them American and of course that won my heart. He also performed the lovely song 'Walking in the Air' from the film The Snowman, which is a very touching little film.

According to YouTube, the album was released in mid-November. It includes the songs: The Christmas Song, Let It Snow, Baby It's Cold Outside, Himmel på jord, When You Wish Upon A Star, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Gje Meg Handa Di Venn, Walking In The Air, Nå Tennes Tusen Julelys, Stjernesludd, White Christmas and Auld Lang Syne. Stjernesludd is a Dum Dum Boys song--blew me away, especially with the children's choir as accompaniment (here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juajvkj71kc).

(I checked iTunes on January 2, 2011 and the album is now available for sale).

And one more great Christmas classic--Winter Wonderland

(How often we heard this song as children and loved it--my mother used to sing it along with us when we listened to it on the record player. I always remember the part about the snowman best--that he was Parson Brown--it stuck in my head, I don't know why. Amazing to think that it was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith and that it is a Christmas classic all these years later. Kurt Nilsen sang this song tonight as well. He did such a great job tonight with his Christmas show on NRK1). 
------------------------------------------
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Later on, we'll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we've made,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he's a circus clown
We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the other kids knock him down.

When it snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Walking in a winter wonderland,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

(I heard the Norwegian singer Kurt Nilsen perform this Christmas song tonight--one of my all-time favorites. There is a melancholy feel to the song--beautiful and poignant. It seemed to me to be a wartime song, perhaps from WWII, so I checked its history on Wikipedia. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane wrote the song. The song was not written as a wartime song but was rather introduced and sung by Judy Garland in the musical 'Meet Me in St. Louis' in 1944. Garland's recorded version of the song was popular among the troops at that time).  

-----------------------------------

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of Yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

A poem about death by Rainer Maria Rilke

On Hearing Of A Death 

We lack all knowledge of this parting. Death
does not deal with us. We have no reason
to show death admiration, love or hate;
his mask of feigned tragic lament gives us


a false impression. The world's stage is still
filled with roles which we play. While we worry
that our performances may not please,
death also performs, although to no applause.


But as you left us, there broke upon this stage
a glimpse of reality, shown through the slight
opening through which you disappeared: green,
evergreen, bathed in sunlight, actual woods.


We keep on playing, still anxious, our difficult roles
declaiming, accompanied by matching gestures
as required. But your presence so suddenly
removed from our midst and from our play, at times


overcomes us like a sense of that other
reality: yours, that we are so overwhelmed
and play our actual lives instead of the performance,
forgetting altogether the applause.

This is for Liza Kravik, rest in peace.

A year of loss

We are approaching the end of 2010. This has been a year of loss. Losing a colleague and a friend to cancer has been the hardest loss, because we watched her disappear slowly from our lives over a number of years, but this year was especially tough because the changes in her were most pronounced. It is surreal when I think that we will never see her again. That will be the hardest to deal with, especially after the holidays are over and everyone goes back to their normal work routines. But the other losses were also gradual, just that they did not involve the loss of people directly. Those losses had more to do with general life things, like the loss of illusions (beliefs?) about life and work in general. I have not lost hope in the future however even if at times it seemed that way. My beliefs that there is justice in the world, that people want to work for justice, that nice people can get a break, that politicians want the best for their constituents, and that power doesn’t have to corrupt (and absolute power doesn’t have to corrupt absolutely) have been fairly well-shaken; I don’t know if I have lost these beliefs though. I hope not. But I am disillusioned. I have watched people at work gain power and change overnight—and not necessarily for the better. They gave up their moral values in their quest for power. I have watched other people lose their self-esteem and confidence after being treated badly or unfairly by some people in power. I have struggled with confidence issues myself after having been treated unfairly by my union leader. Other people I know have lost their jobs, followed by their confidence and belief in themselves. They don’t ask too much from life anymore and that is sad to me too. They have been beaten down. I hope they rise again but much of that is dependent on how the future treats them. Some people don’t rise again; my grandfather was one of them. He lost his drugstore during the Great Depression and he never recovered emotionally or psychologically. He gave up on himself and gave up hoping in the future, with unfortunate consequences for his wife and children. Life doles out portions of injustice and misery at times to us all. We never can really know when those times will happen, just that they do. Sometimes it is loss of health, or serious illness or death in the family, sometimes it is loss of employment, other times loss of money or material goods due to the economy, accidents or natural disasters. Whatever the cause, loss comes to us all and it is a painful life lesson.

Saying goodbye to a colleague and friend

A colleague and friend passed away early this morning after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. Her death was peaceful. We visited her yesterday afternoon, having had some idea of what might happen this week. We got a chance to say goodbye since she recognized us even though she could not talk. Her life the past five years has been a roller coaster ride that is almost impossible to describe. We who witnessed her fight know how much she went through, how many rounds of chemo she endured, the different drugs that wore her down, made her lose her hair, affected the nerve endings in her hands and feet, changed the taste of food, and so many other things. Cancer is a horrible illness and she was the first to admit that. She bemoaned how it altered her physically. Mentally was another story. It seemed to motivate her in a way that I found surprising. She was a fighter to the end. She focused on living and not on dying; she kept on working as much as she was able to, almost right up until the end. It kept her going and she was honest about that; she did not have much immediate family around so the social environment at work was also uplifting. She and I often commented on the irony of her situation—she had metastatic cancer that showed tendencies toward becoming resistant to the different drugs she was taking, and she was working on projects at work that had to do with how cancer becomes resistant to chemotherapy. She was very interested in all the new studies and data showing that this or that drug might help improve prognosis. She was an active participant in her treatment programs and was not afraid to discuss her illness or to challenge her doctors with new knowledge that she had found on the internet. She was stubborn and it was that trait that kept her going and instructed those around her about how she wanted to be treated. Except for one or two occasions when she told me that her cancer had again spread and we shared a good cry together, she did not want pity nor did she want anyone to feel sorry for her.  

I knew her for many years, since I moved to Norway. She was an American who married a Norwegian and moved to Norway in the 1970s. Both of her children were fluent in Norwegian and English from a very early age. She saw to that. She did not travel each year back to the USA as I have done since I moved to Norway. It did not seem as important to her as it is to me to do that. But she had weekly contact with her father (a widower) via email, and as he got older, daily contact. When he developed lung cancer, she went to stay with him as his nurse and companion for a few months until his death. She told me that her mother had also had cancer and had died shortly after she moved to Norway. She was proud of the fact that her mother had briefly been a movie star in Hollywood; she had starred in a movie together with Ronald Reagan, but her career was a brief one and when she married she left acting.

She loved to read and her interests were in historical biographies and modern fiction. She and I enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series together and going to the Harry Potter movies with work colleagues. She wasn’t as avid a moviegoer as I am but she would occasionally join me for trips to the movies. Her family and my family managed a trip to the local concert stadium to see Riverdance in 1999. She loved Riverdance. We also shared a Thanksgiving together at another American friend’s house and that was an enjoyable time. When my stepdaughter was young, she and I and my friend and her daughter went strawberry picking together. That was a lot of fun; both girls ate more strawberries than they picked. It is one of my most vibrant memories of being together with her. Her husband’s job took them to Africa when her children were small, and that was an experience she never forgot. She loved being in Africa and we always used to wonder why she didn’t join her husband there in later years when he began to work there more often and was away for months at a time. But she didn’t. She would visit him there during vacation and talk about moving there if she decided to quit working. But she never did.

My memories of her are of a person who was kind, hard-working, patient, selfless, nurturing and supportive. She rarely complained. She made you see the other side of impossible situations even though you didn’t want to. She did not have many goals or ambitions for herself, and I for one wish she had. She expressed a desire once to pursue a Master’s degree but it never became more than that even though there were several opportunities that came her way. She was smart and interested in science and could have managed it without problems. She worked on my research projects for the past nine years, and was a great support to me. Her work was consistent, reproducible and high-quality. She also supported her children in all ways, listened to them, gave advice, helped them financially, and was always available for them. I was glad to see that they were there for her when she needed them, especially the past few months. Her daughter is pregnant and will give birth next June; it is very sad that she did not live to see the birth of her first grandchild. She would have enjoyed being a grandmother. We watched how she was with the son of another friend and work colleague. She really enjoyed him and being around him.

I realized yesterday after having visited her for the last time in the hospital, that it was good that we had said all we needed to say to each other before yesterday. As colleagues, I had already thanked her for her help and support at work so many times, and she had thanked me for giving her the chance to do some of her own research on projects that she was interested in. As friends, we spent countless hours over lunch talking about life and relationships and women’s rights and injustice in the world. I was probably pretty confrontational at times when it came to women’s rights. She was less so when I first met her but became more so during the past few years. I think she understood that it was important that her daughter have the same opportunities as a man would have in the work world. I am nine years younger than she was and I think she thought sometimes that I still had a lot to learn. She was probably right. There were things we did not talk about, and during the past few years there were more things that remained unspoken. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was her illness that crystallized the meaning of life to her, or perhaps we both realized that we could complain about the state of the world but we still had to live in it. In any case, we knew how to agree to disagree when we did not share the same views about the world or specific situations. I am glad that her passage out of this life was peaceful. She deserved that after her long battle. I will miss her. We will miss her.

My favorite Christmas films

Getting ready for Christmas…..I just thought I’d make a list of my favorite Christmas films. They are the films I try to watch each year because they remind me of some nice times together with my family when I was a child, and because they really do get me into the Christmas spirit. Some of them are poignant reminders of a simpler time, some are funny takes on tried-and-true Christmas themes, but all of them are gentle reminders in their own way of what Christmas really is about—love from above and here on earth, and gratitude for the many blessings in our lives.

1.       It’s A Wonderful Life (from 1946, a wonderful story about the true meaning of life and how our lives impact on others, with the wonderful pairing of James Stewart and Donna Reed) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/

2.       Miracle on 34^th Street (the original from 1947—a warm and wonderful classic movie about Santa Claus and if he exists, with a great performance by Natalie Wood, a child at the time) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039628/

3.       White Christmas (from 1954, one of my mother’s favorite Christmas movies, and one of mine too)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047673/

4.       Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (from 1964 with the beautiful song ‘Silver and Gold’ sung by Burl Ives. Rudolph saves Christmas) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058536/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlqn_Hjyi8

5.       A Charlie Brown Christmas (from 1965 with the great jazz music by the late Vince Guaraldi—so many wonderful songs. Charlie Brown’s attempt to de-commercialize Christmas) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059026/

6.       How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original from 1966; the Grinch tries to prevent Christmas from coming, and he fails. His little dog steals the film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060345/

7.       Scrooge (from 1970, a musical with Albert Finney, based on the book ‘A Christmas Carol’, with the song ‘Happiness’ that will make you cry) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k5wsEHVy-4

8.       The Snowman (from 1982, a very nice British classic about a little boy and a snowman that comes to life) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084701/ with the lovely song 'Walking in the Air' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeVUnGQOIk

9.       National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (from 1989 with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo; some priceless funny scenes) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097958/

10.   Home Alone (from 1990, another modern little classic that gets to you. Could never understand how the family could leave their little boy behind—but that’s the fun!) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/

11.   The Nightmare Before Christmas (a modern little classic from 1993 with some poignant songs; Jack Skellington in Halloween Town decides to ‘do’ Christmas because he is bored with Halloween, with some highly unusual results to say the least) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107688/

Christmas time is here

(These are the lyrics to the song 'Christmas time is here' from 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', the film that first aired on TV in 1965. It is a lovely song, and you can hear it on YouTube. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPG3zSgm_Qo)


Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

Bacteria bubble lamps, iGEM, and future visions

This past Tuesday the New Science and Math library at the University of Oslo (in collaboration with The Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board) welcomed Drew Endy from Stanford University and a team of students from Cambridge University. They were there to talk about synthetic biology—Drew Endy defined what it is and how he envisions its future uses. He also talked about its impact on society and the potential ethical and moral issues involved in its use. The students were there to present their iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition) project for 2010—an E.coli bubble lamp—essentially E.coli bacteria that have been genetically-modified to become a living bioluminescent ‘lamp’. You can see their ‘product’ here in this YouTube video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=tUFscEVK5Ks. There were four students and all of them wore T-shirts with the words ‘E. glowli’ written on them. They had their presentation before Drew’s lecture, and they held their audience captive for over thirty minutes with what they had to say. They envisioned a future where London was lit by such ‘living lamps’. But what struck me most of all about them was the (high) levels of enthusiasm and interest they had in science and in what they were doing. They believed in what they were doing. They were not fanatical; they just loved their work. You could tell they weren’t just doing it for the fame and glory, even though they have achieved some of that. Mostly they were just enjoying what they were doing and they weren’t afraid to impart that message. And as an audience, you could not help but be inspired by them. You couldn’t help but smile. These students are not jaded, cynical bureaucrats; they are already budding scientists and who knows what lies in store for them? Who knows how far they can go before a bureaucratic daily life confronts them and tries to slow them down? The danger is not that they get completely or immediately discouraged. The danger is that they get slowly discouraged—a gradual, slow, insidious process that leads to a loss of morale and enthusiasm over time. I don’t know what I have to do to prevent that from happening, but whatever it is I will do it. I will be a cheerleader for the other side—the side that says let students do science and let scientists do science. Science students deserve a chance to love science. They deserve a chance to come up with new ideas, test them out, compete with others, and to learn by trial and error. We had that chance in our generation. I still love science. I just don’t love the administrative infrastructure that has built itself up around the practice of science, which has led to scientific daily life being over-administrated by budgets and accountants and unnecessary amounts of paperwork.

All of the conferences and lectures I have been to at the New Science and Math library this autumn (and helped promote on their Facebook and Twitter pages—my consulting job this autumn) have helped to restore my love of and enthusiasm about science. You’ll find the New Science and Math library Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/realfagsbiblioteket. This autumn has rejuvenated my love for science in so many forms—synthetic, ecological, marine, and polar biology, math, physics; try and explain them to me in concrete, interesting and enthusiastic ways and you’ll find a willing listener and an enthusiastic supporter. And it was clear from the public attendance at these lectures that there were many others who felt the same way. But please don’t talk to us just about impact factors, making money, patents, innovations, which research group is the best and which group is the worst. Deliver us from small-minded, petty and envious principal investigators. Give me instead the principal investigators who think big even if they have small research groups (I know a few), who have visions, enthusiasm, and ideas about the future and who like their students and encourage them rather than being threatened by their intelligence. Drew Endy did not appear to be threatened by the iGEM students from Cambridge. He was proud of them. There was a good rapport between them. There is some really good science being done at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian University of Life Science at Aas and at other research and educational institutions in Norway. But its promotion has to come from the scientists themselves (not from bureaucrats), or from scientists who don’t want to do bench work anymore but who are willing to promote the cause of science in order to inspire future generations of science students, or from science librarians, or from a combination of all three groups. The combination idea seems to be gaining support, which is wonderful—real teamwork! Hopefully, science-interested parties at the University of Oslo will set the wheels in motion to build up a UiO iGEM team after having heard about how well the lecture and iGEM presentation went on Tuesday afternoon at the New Science and Math library. All I can say is—go for it! 

Mantra for 2011

I’ve been feeling somewhat anxious lately, perhaps not so surprising given the uneven and rather tumultuous work year I’ve had. I read an article today about inoculating yourself against anxiety, panic and shock, and the author suggested paying close attention to the inputs and images you let into your mind each day. How right she is. The bombardment of negative images and inputs starts already early in the morning, simply enough. You open the front door and take in the newspaper. And immediately—Aftenposten has a new ax to grind—lately it’s been problems with the city hospitals following the big merger (and there are problems for sure) and the effects of the merger on doctors, nurses, patients, budgets, scientists, research, society, and the list goes on ad nauseum. There are always problems, but never solutions. Journalists love to point out the problems, but they never come up with any solutions. They seem to enjoy provoking others. It’s just irritating. Is this their role in society? The news stories are never presented objectively anymore. The headlines are tabloid-like and extremely provocative. They get your irritation sensors going and then you’re off to the races. By the time you start your workday an hour or two later you’ve already experienced enough provocation for the morning at least. And then the bureaucratic workday does the rest, so that by the time you come home you just want to shut it all out.

So I’ve stopped reading the newspaper for the past week or so. I don’t listen to the radio as a rule, so there’s no negative imagery contribution there. And I’ve cut out most of my TV-watching, so I don’t get bombarded with too much negativity there either. So what is causing my anxiety? Conversations about everything that is wrong with everything--complaints about the state of everything. The fact of the matter is that a lot of things are wrong or problematic right now. The complaints are valid. There is also a lot of sadness in our lives at work now because we know colleagues who are sick with cancer.  We worry about them. We try to deal with sorrow. It’s not easy watching people slip away from you. And then we obsess over other things, like how much better our workdays were ten years ago when we knew what the goals were and why we were doing the work we were doing. We aren’t dealing well with change or uncertainty. We don’t like them very much. We can be like dogs with a bone. We can worry it to death. We chew on our worries until we’ve chewed them to pieces. They’re still there afterwards, unfortunately. Sometimes it feels like we are drowning. This autumn was the last anxiety-inducing straw for me. Problems with my union leader triggered unpleasant memories from my past, and those memories somehow got a foothold and took root. So the other night I felt like I was suffocating. My heart was racing and wouldn’t stop. That went on for about thirty minutes. I was afraid and the fear perpetuated the anxiety--a vicious circle. The fear is vague. That night I feared everything. It all seemed overwhelming. Having experienced a few anxiety attacks in my mid-twenties, I know at least what I’m dealing with (if it was indeed a panic attack) and what I need to do to get my mind focused on positive things. Writing about it helps. If it was a panic attack, it was a memorable one. If it wasn’t then I need to visit a cardiologist. Either way, stress and negative inputs have to go. Anything that can help me learn to relax is welcome at present.It’s time to shut the door on people who want to wear me down in one way or another, who want to control me, own me, deride me, or use me. I’ve shut the door now on one person and I can do it to others if I need to. I did it before when I was younger. I don’t want to or have to deal with everyone, especially people who are not fundamentally nice people. I don’t have to dialog with everyone or negotiate conflicts with everyone. I get to choose. I’ve got to re-learn to block such people and let their negative inputs go. Let them go, let them go, let them go. And with them, blow my worries to the wind. Just that mental imagery is peaceful and relaxing. I feel lighter already. Let them go, let them go, let them go. That’s my mantra for 2011.

Liberty and justice for all

Of all of the topics that preoccupy me in this life, fairness and justice for women are at the top of the list. No matter how I twist and turn the topic, I am always left with the crystal-clear knowledge that a world that permits or allows injustice toward women to occur or to continue is only half a world or not a world at all. It is not a world worth preserving if half of its citizens are denied their rights, trodden into submission (either physically or verbally or both), ignored or diminished in any way. It does not matter to me if this occurs in the presumably civilized parts of the world or in less civilized parts of the world. It does not matter to me if it is a religion or an ideology or a movement or an institution that stands behind the injustice. What matters to me is ridding the world of any of these that cause women of any age pain and suffering. You can of course do it through education but you can also do it through law-giving, in any culture. It is a matter of doing it and not just talking about it. We should be more preoccupied with this as a society.

I don’t understand how men, who practice any form of injustice toward women, don’t see that a world where women do not have the freedoms they enjoy is not a good world to live in. But of course I am thinking in a utopian way. I have faith that if educated enough, these men will understand this and make the necessary changes so that women can enjoy a good life with liberty and justice. But my faith is often tested because sometimes I see that even educated and intelligent men who ought to know better, don’t. They are unjust toward the women in their lives. They dismiss their opinions and feelings, they deride their ambitions and dreams, they demand full attention at all times so that these women don’t ever have the opportunities to realize themselves and they misuse them. This can manifest itself in many ways—men who never take responsibility at home, never learn to cook or clean or take care of the children, men who have to suddenly travel for business for months at a time when their wives want to pursue higher education, men who leave all the nurturing and care-giving to the women in their lives so that they (men) can pursue their careers, men who say they’re going to help and never do, men who fool around but still want to be married, and men who require that women look like life-size plastic dolls (I knew one man who actually insisted that his wife undergo painful plastic surgery in her 30s in order to please him). Some women give in and give up at a very early point in life. Others give in and give up later in life. I’d like to say that in 2010 that we’ve come very far in terms of women’s rights and freedoms. But we haven’t come as far as we think or as far as the media would like us to think we’ve come. And all I have to do is turn on the TV to realize that women are still being exploited and still letting themselves be exploited—the show Jersey Shore, Big Brother, most of the MTV videos, any of the Real Housewives shows, the Kardashian Sisters—and the list goes on; mindless and mind-numbing TV that just perpetuates the image of women as brainless no-ambition empty heads. There are still women in my generation who think that because they gave up themselves and their dreams and ambitions for a man that this means he will love them and take care of them forever, because he will surely recognize their sacrifices and loyalty. But he doesn't. There are even young women in the present who think this way. Where does this type of thinking come from? Are they told at the dinner table that if you just blindly serve a man for the rest of your life that he will be there forever for you? What do their mothers tell them? Are their mothers feminist and the daughters anti-feminist as a backlash? Any relationship, be it a marriage, a friendship, parent-child, or boss-employee, can become unbalanced over time if both people in that relationship are not always working to uphold the balance. It means actively participating as an equal partner and working on a daily basis for fairness and equal rights. Cleaning the kitchen once or making a meal once or twice a year does not qualify as balanced to me, especially if both partners in a marriage work full-time. It means stepping up to the plate without always being asked to do so. It means taking your share of the responsibility for the life you share with another person.

Relationship partners have to allow for change, otherwise the relationship will slowly die. This is true as much for friendships as it is for marriages. Partners have to find new and common interests in order for the relationships to be viable. The aim is not to prevent change, but rather to navigate through the inevitable changes that come with age and life and loss. Parents die, children grow up, jobs end, interests change, and all of it is inevitable. What are we going to do with it all if the goal is to prevent relationships from changing? Perhaps one partner wants to travel and the other does not. Who has the right to prevent either one from doing what each would like to do? The best would be to compromise—travel to please another person and stay home to please another person, but those have to be choices that are not forced upon another person. I know several older women whose husbands would never have considered traveling, even when they retired. They required rather that their wives were there each evening to serve them their dinners. I thought this was unfair even when I was a child. Why would these men not consider sharing their wives’ interests after their wives had taken care of the home all the years their husbands worked? I don’t get it. I watched the movie Shirley Valentine recently on cable (I saw it for the first time when it came out in 1989) and that was exactly the theme of the movie. Shirley left for a short vacation in Greece after trying very hard over a period of time to persuade her husband to join her. He ignored her and made fun of her, as did her daughter; she decided to go anyway, and it changed her life. I didn’t get what was so threatening to her husband—why he couldn’t have joined her from the start. But it took him the length of the movie to get his ass in gear and to fly to Greece, but only when he realized she wasn’t coming back to her old life in England. I applaud her guts. Not many women would have done that, and that was the point. She had courage, she had changed, she wanted to share that with her husband, he didn’t want her to change and ignored her, but he was forced to deal with it anyway. And that is the point--we are forced anyway to deal with change. It smacks us in the face. Why not welcome it together, embrace it, and navigate through it together, for better or for worse? Then there is liberty and justice for all. 

Musings on a birthday weekend

Tonight we went bowling, which is something we haven’t done in years. I won’t even tell you how many years ago, just that the last time I was in a bowling alley scores were kept manually by writing them on a score pad. I don’t know when computers entered the picture but they certainly made scoring a breeze tonight, since neither Trond nor I remembered how to keep score. We bowled two games and I have to say it was a lot of fun and that I want to do it more often. I actually managed two strikes and two spares, and started to remember how important it was to have the right bowling ball (weight and fit). We went to Solli bowling at Solli plass in Oslo to bowl and then ate pizza afterwards at Peppe’s pizza which is located right upstairs from the bowling alley. The restaurant was playing a lot of American Christmas music and for some reason that rounded out the evening. The entrance to the restaurant had a Christmas tree with gifts underneath it in the lobby. All of it started to get me in the mood for Christmas. A simple fun evening that was actually a perfect evening—a date night. We enjoyed ourselves. I realized that the fun times in life have nothing to do with how much money one spends. I knew this from before but it’s always nice to have it re-confirmed. Fun comes from just letting go of the cares and worries of life and work. It’s nice to relax that way. We need to do more of it. I realized too that I am blessed with good family and friends. I have mentally survived the difficulties of the past year because of them. I am truly grateful for them and I couldn’t imagine life without them.

Christmas is coming—the city is preparing for its arrival. There is the commercial aspect and then there are all the other small things that make Christmas special, such as the Christmas tree stands in different parts of the city. When we were driving to the bowling alley tonight we saw one of the stands being set up, and some trees were already standing upright waiting to be bought and welcomed into different homes. This makes Christmas special to me. Hearing Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sing American Christmas carols and songs makes it special to me. Bing Crosby sang ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’. It struck me that it must have been a poignant WWII song. When we got home, I googled the song to learn about its history and sure enough, it was the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows in both Europe and the Pacific during that era. I didn’t know this before because somehow it never seemed important before. Frank Sinatra also recorded this song. I always think of my mother when I hear either one of them sing. My mother loved the movie ‘White Christmas’ and that film starred Bing Crosby. I have since become quite a fan of many of their movies, especially some of the comedies that Frank Sinatra starred in. For the first time, I realized that we are now a long ways from WWII and that the generation of people who lived through it are very old now and many of them have passed on. It made me feel a sense of nostalgia but also an odd sense of myself in exactly this time--because I know that the progression of time moves us now toward 2041, one hundred years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. When I was a child in 1960, one hundred years previous was 1860 and somehow that seemed so long ago to me then. Now I wonder sometimes what the next twenty years will bring in terms of new inventions and technologies. It’s hard to imagine what they could be. Perhaps that is how people in 1911 felt about their future—how could they possibly have foreseen computers, automation, TVs, cell phones, and so many other things. It’s amazing what has happened. And when I see how my mind works—hopping from thinking about bowling when we were young to bowling now to Christmas songs and musings about the past and WWII, it surprises me that all of it is somehow interconnected in a very natural way. It feels like a patchwork life quilt of past, present and future, with all of the people and occurrences that make up that quilt. We are all part of the history happening around us. There is some comfort in that thought. 

Being of service to others

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."    

(Buddha)

"It’s been said that you cannot give away what you do not have. One of the most spiritual important insights or secrets in life is that you already have, and always have had, what you need to give away! If you impart the message that ’I am not worthy’ the universe will send it straight back in many shapes, forms and circumstances. When we say ’give me’ we are imparting this message. We are saying we think we need to get something to complete ourselves or prove our worth. Most of us are taught to live a life of gimmie gimmie gimmie - always striving, desiring, wanting, struggling. We do so only because we think that when we get what we want we will be fulfilled and esteemed by others. But it’s an illusion. We are all already complete and worthy but we cannot know it and experience it, until we give it away! Only giving allows us to know what we are and what we have within. Ask the question - how can I serve? The intention to serve will point you towards what you need to give. If the intention is real it also generates the will. The most successful people in life are not go getters, but go givers!"    

(Innerspace)

These are two small gifts that I want to share on my birthday which is today. I came upon them randomly but I know by now that nothing comes my way without a reason. I wondered about the connection between the two quotes and why both struck me as relevant right now in my life. And then I realized that perhaps one can feel anger when one is not doing what one should be doing, which is being of service to others. This is something I want to think more about.