Berit Bareksten, sociologist at HVL, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Jewellery in memory of beloved ones. My totally black bracelet, a gift from three of my friends – one of them dead already. She wasn’t ready to die from us. She had just moved into her new language of love – Italian. She became one of the most beloved teachers ever. It’s true. All of what I’m writing here is true. Moving into landscapes of burning memories, trying to redemptive some of both my errors and my griefs by writing them. Errors follows in the paths of intensely sorrows. There have been like this for such a long time. You must believe and go further with me. I like to give away some of my jewelleries, looking down onto my shelter – a shelter for to hide from the world, while feeling weak and crackling. I wrap those memories around me like textile coverings, feeling warmer than in the early morning. I woke up with a slightly felt headache, and slowly went out of my bed. Trying to think of something else than dead. It’s not easy. You must believe this and go further with me. My thoughts are occupied with those who are going to die. It’s everyone, you say, disturbing me while trying to give this upcoming day a chance to still become a good one. The sentence: It is sad, is the only one occupying my body and my head, being a part of my body. The sadness is all over, and I wanted that specific sadness to be a beautiful one, with colours and music, she said. I want you to put colours on in my funeral, she told me, last Friday. I was there on what should have been a normal day at work. But nothing is normal and synchronised with the rest of the world – not for her, not for me. I’m in a limbo, try to establish something for real in this trembling times, filled with anxiety, hope and work to do. Doing well, still feeling locked out from the belonging of colleges. Being in-between as those suffering from diseases. So, that’s why: This in-between is my place of true belonging. Belonging in the texts, and with my colleges-students doing creative academic writing with them, because I’m quite good at it. Reading my beloved death ones, (as Hélène Cixous also does) and those of my friends followed the same path of death. As the death is a kind of a narrow path deep into well-known forests, or alongside the rivers – or by the seaside with the whole ocean taking part in my sadness. Tears overwhelming fits with the ongoing, moving, flowing water. Disappearing. Drowned. Dying. Taken away, melting into something huger than me. That’s why I must live by the sea, you see? It’s not easy. You must believe the oceans capacity and go further with me. Wittgenstein came to my mind. In some of his fragmented notes he writes:
“The thought is already worn out and can no longer be used. (A lingering remark I once heard from Labor regarding ideas in music.) Such silver paper that is once crumpled up does not kang lattes all the way back out. Almost all my thoughts are a little crumpled.” (1995, p. 50. My own translation from Norwegian).
And he is so right about the art of being able to write creatively, when he says about his thoughts, his pencil, and his writing hand: “I actually think with the pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand writes.” (1995, p. 50. My own translation from Norwegian).
So, the jewelleries then. What about them? Stones and scallops made by friends long ago, some golden earrings, more in silver og those hearts made of brass (like music!) will always be a part of me in memories of the child born to this world, unplanned but truly loved from the first moment. The silver hearts are in my ears right now, because I will meet up with my friend who gave them to me, years ago. The green heart around my neck is from her without much more time to live. Her timescape is about to running out of time. The never-coming-back will be her escape from the world, not willing to that escape – neither her, nor we. Her beloved ones, for all of us it’s much too early to leave. The ocean drowned my screams in its tremendous beauty. But her gift, the green heart is coloured by her, in life and in the landscapes of the dead.