Flowers for Boston

Almost two years ago when I heard a bomb go off in Oslo, I immediately thought of the construction work down the road. It didn't cross my mind that this loud bang in my safe and tranquil hometown could be a massive bomb that had just killed and injured a lot of innocent people.

I can imagine a lot of people in Boston did the same, probably thought they heard fireworks or something. The thought of a bomb at this annual, traditional family event in this safe, traditional city, seems so far away, so surreal. But sadly, we have to come to terms with that the surreal - is real.

The terror strikes ordinary people at moments when their minds couldn't be further away from fear and insecurity. Ordinary people - you and me. And among us, some people walk around with ideas of spreading fear and creating chaos among their peers. How and why these ideas occur is necessary to try to understand. The reason behind the specific attack however, deserves no attention.

No cause in this world can defend killing children. The action is cynical, ruthless and disgustingly cowardly. And tragically, it seems to be catching on among insane extremists.

One of the goals the terrorist that struck Oslo had was to promote what he called his "Manifest" - a paper describing his ideology and how killing 76 teenagers was "a necessary mean in his war against islam." Unfortunately, his paper got attention.

But he failed badly on several other goals. He failed to nurture fear and hostility between groups of people. He failed to turn people against the ruling government. He failed to spread hatred. He failed to destroy the political recruitment.

When a group of people is attacked, people unite, help each other, stick together. The group of ordinary people is pretty big.

The shock and the sorrow bring out the strength, the courage and the goodness in people. Instead of crawling into hiding, the masses strike back with an overwhelming demonstration of compassion, cohesion and love. It makes me proud of being human in the middle of the puzzling inhumane event.

The rhetoric from the White House has a different tune than before. There is no "us and them" or "war on terror" anymore. Justice, yes - the individuals responsible will be brought to justice. The arena of the war seems to have shifted from the ground to the mind.

Two years ago, back in Oslo, I walked downtown to leave roses by the area where the bomb hit. A journalist asked me why I wanted to leave flowers and I replied "because they are such strong symbol of compassion and peace. I really hope we'll see a lot of flowers here"

A week after the bombing, the sea of flowers was so big that a few blocks had to be closed off for traffic. It was closed for months.

When words come too short, flowers can pass on a powerful message. Flowers represent solidarity, compassion, cohesion, peace. Love. Let the purpose and cause behind this horrible act drown in a sea of flowers.

Ordinary people are not soldiers. But ordinary people can fight the enemy by refusing to back down to the fear. The war is in our mind. Protect your values by sticking to them. Keep living, keep running. In the honor of the fallen.

Honk that horn, you bastard

Our Captain in Montreal once told me "You have to know something, Marianne, there are plenty of ASSHOLES on the roads around here."

People behind the wheels forget themselves from time to time. Actually quite often. They get sucked into the mission of getting from one place to another, operating the vehicle and maneuvering between thousands of other cars on the same mission - just different destinations.

After a few years of practice, the technical part of driving becomes automatic and one drift into driving-mode, a sort of hypnotic concentration, slightly distant to the surroundings but with continuous focus on the road. Or so one should hope.

In this condition, the self guards for a lot of people tend to be off duty.

I would never, ever even dream of yelling " move your ass, fuckhead!!" to a stranger who happen to cut me off at the lineup for the counter at the supermarket. No matter how cheeky or deliberate he is. In fact, I would never say those words to a strangers face, period. Not even when I'm drunk.

But I have to admit I'm one of those who loose my self guard when driving. Behind the wheel, I'm responsible for driving safely, not responsible for practicing good manners. Observed from a distance I probably balance on the borderline of Tourettes syndrome. But hey, I'm not the only one.

The thing is, when you happen to be in stable driving-mode, which is really where you should be when driving 70 miles per hour on a highway, you get startled when you realize that some people are not. People talk on the phone, read sms, eat, smoke, smoke and talk on the phone at the same time - and thereby cause dangerous situations or fail to let you in when you're entering the 95.

Thats when you feel the blood boiling for a moment and words you didn't think you had in your vocabulary get aired out. Nobody out there can hear what you're really saying. But then cars are fitted with horns, and honking is international, it translates all swearwords in all languages into one generic anger tone. As far as I'm told, it is there for safety purpose, but for a lot of drivers it serves as a great impulsive anger outlet button.

Recently I had someone honking at me for about 10 seconds. Imagine what he wanted to put across ... Don't remember what I did, probably failed to go on a green light or something because I turned around to talk to my son in the back seat. That's ok, I understand. I probably could have done the same.

Not that I didn't raise a fist at him. Can't remember wether a finger was up or not, but it's not important. The impulsive road anger disappears just as fast as it appears, with no regrets.

The reason why you react in the first place is because you are very alert. A lot of accidents happen, but a lot of accidents are avoided too thanks to horrendous impulsive reaction behavior.

The Captain is right. There are a lot of assholes on the roads. And we're all just people in cars.

The Value of Sharing

Some mothers have taken the concept of sharing a bit too far.

The other day, a little girl had brought her doll stroller to the playground, and my son was really envious. It had handles and wheels and it was easy to push around, a concept he is very fascinated by these days. So he tried to borrow it. But the girl started whining "Nooo!' as he approached and he decided to back off.

Her mother got involved and said "Yes, yes, you have to share" and pushed the stroller towards us.

My son had already picked up a ball to play with instead. But the girls mother persistently placed the stroller in front of him and said  "I want him to play with this, she needs to learn how to share."

He accepted the offer and started pushing the stroller tirelessly around in circles at the playground.

When the girl was ready to go home it was my sons turn to scream "Nooooo!" and the forced separation with the stroller released one of those "turn-into-a-potato-sack-I-will-die-if-you-do-this-to-me" tantrums, rolling around on the ground, screaming.

Thanks for sharing. Really worth the experience.

We live in the decades of revolutionary sharing. Sharing can be liberating for societies, but captivating for your mind. Sometimes it seems like people need to share to justify their experiences. As if you don't share it, you can't claim it's happening. Or - what is the point of experiencing if it can't be shared?

At the playground, I believe kids are pretty good at sharing experiences and sorting things out between them without adult interference. But sometimes you see kids deliberately stealing toys others are having fun with, or pile up all the cool toys they can find only to deny their playmates access to them. Then I believe adult interference is in its place.

Some would say say these kids need to improve their "sharing" skills. But you could also just call it bad behavior. Sharing seems to have become an associate with good. The frequent appearance of this word and the practice of it by some parents makes it seem like the most important life skill a child can learn.

If you're participating on social media, you're receiving whatever other people would like to share. Receiving a lot of crap is part of the deal to be able to get the benefits from it. We happily sign up and accept all the crap to be a part of the network, to belong and to be allowed to share our own stuff. The value of sharing has become the sharers domain. You don't share to be nice to others, you share because it makes you feel good about yourself. You share to be noticed, leave a footprint.

I think it is time to look at the value of keeping certain things to yourself. We don't have to share everything all the time. It's ok to demand some privacy and peace alone with something you're busy working on, looking at, playing with, experiencing. It is valuable for your own happiness sake, to be able to appreciate an experience without requiring "like" tags from an audience.

So if a little bully comes up to my son on the playground and tries to steal his toy, I'm not the mother who turn to my boy and tell him: "share, be nice ... share!" I smile and tell the intruder in a calm, but firm enough tone "stop, you may borrow this toy when my son is finished playing with it." In my head I'm thinking "get lost you little devil, find your own fun." 

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share.

Sweet Motherhood

So when you finally have the child of your dreams and get settled into motherhood - you slowly come to realize, through your constant drowsiness, that life is not about you anymore. You feel like you exist purely for the sake of nurturing, protecting and guiding this new human being who's life is just starting. When he needs you, you're there. Day and night.

You'll learn how to go to the bathroom at convenient times, how to prepare to get a shower once in a while, how to feed yourself in between shuffling spoons of cereal carefully into the baby's mouth.

You also learn how to keep a happy face when the baby is watching you even though you're drop dead exhausted and how to express enthusiasm over the magic of a light switch.

You learn that sleep is a luxury that you'll cherish when you can. You care about house cleaning. You get obsessed with healthy nourishment (for your child, at least) and you stop worrying about your hair. Not to mention make-up. It's probably dried out, if you even remember where you keep it.

And whatever interesting you were doing before the baby was born, you're not doing it anymore.

Having a baby is like a long, life changing, hardworking, disciplinary exercise camp. When you're done, nothing will ever be the same.

At the same time, you're having the most beautiful and intense moments in your life.

Watching your baby sleep leaves a calming, comforting and empowering feeling. Hearing baby-giggle is like an injection of pure happiness. Serving your baby the first solids is pure comedy.

Following the development of your own child through the first year day by day, makes you humble  and amazed about life.

My son has started pre-school. And he sleeps well during the night (usually). Which means mommy will have time and energy to focus on something other than baby-needs. Like blogging. The topics of the Everyday blog will certainly be influenced by the changed life. Because nothing will ever be the same.

A panic moment

Motherhood has kicked in and our little son is already 3 months old. He's a happy little man, small for us but big for his age. He enjoys going out and about, especially hanging on my stomach in his strap facing the world. What a bliss having your whole life in front of you.

Yesterday we had a bit of a panic moment, however.

We had lunch on a street cafe in Hollywood downtown (in Florida, not THE Hollywood) and walked back to the car which was parked on the side of the main street. Mikkel was in his stroller, mommy had a big purse on her shoulder with all the baby gear. The car was pretty warm, we were parked in the sun. I opened the door, put my purse in the front seat and Mikkel in the back. Feeling a bit concerned about the heat, I started the engine to put the air-condition on before unfolding and packing the stroller.

I walked to the back of the car to open the trunk. It was locked. Very odd, it never locks automatically. Or does it ...? I turned around again and grabbed the front door handle.  Locked. I tried the back door, the doors on the passenger side, the trunk once again. Locked. My heart was pounding and I started feeling the strangling sensation of panic. I tried all doors again and had to admit the unthinkable: I'm locked out of my car ... and the key, the purse, the phone and the baby are inside.

I kept trying to unlock it, by force, by thought, by miracle, whatever, while desperately looking around for something heavy to smash the window with.

A guy driving by saw my despair and rolled down his window. "Do you need help, ma'm?" I told him status quo, and he said "Oh, shit.  I'll pull over." He came out, acompanied by his little girl, and handed me his phone. "Anyone you can call?" He said. I started dialing my husbands number but couldn't recall the digits. But then again, what could he do ...? I asked the guy if he knew how to break into cars. He didn't. (Stupid thing to ask, really. But I was kind of desperate) "Maybe I should call the local police" I said. "Yes go ahead dial 911." He replied. "you could call a locksmith, but he ain't gonna get here fast enough, so you might as well call 911." So I did.

A few minutes later we could hear the sirens. There was a queue up the road, and all the cars had to move out of the way. The policecar car  pulled up next to us and a cop with mirror shades stepped out, asking what the problem was. I pointed at my screaming baby inside the car and told him what had happened. "We need a firetruck to jerk up the door" he said. "They're on their way." Another police car came, and two guys stepped out to overlook the situation. "Is this your car, m'am?" They asked me. "Do you know the lock code?" Our car has a lock code on the door handle, which I've never bothered to learn because I didn't think this could happen. How stupid is that. Be sure I know it by heart now. The police kindly explained to me that it's printed on the back of the car manual and it's a good thing to know it. Yeah.

Finally the firetruck came, full sirens. They blocked off the road, got out the gear and jerked the car door open. I jumped in the backseat and grabbed Mikkel, who was soaked from sweating and screaming. The air condition was on luckily, but only low. He was fine, though. Scared, warm and confused, but fine.

The uniformed rescuers wrapped up their equipment, adjusted my air-condition to full blast, gave us a friendly "good luck, take care" and "hope he's ok" before leaving. The queue of cars on hold were allowed to continue up the road again, slowly passing the scene of action.

Mikkel is sadly not old enough to be aware of the 4 cops, two police cars, 2 firemen and the big firetruck  that were there to save him. Yeah, save him from mommy's clumsy lockout. Kind of glad he's too young to understand that.

Yoga Goodness

I've been going to prenatal yoga the last months of my pregnancy. The classes have been a mixture between yoga practice, meditation, therapy and a friendship circle. Too bad it's only for pregnant people.

The teacher, Lisa Edelstein, is also a midwife. She just happen to love working with and talking about pregnancy and birth, and embraces every woman who walk into the studio as if they were lost souls seeking shelter. In a way we are when coming to the studio - pregnant women are vulnerable, especially first timers,  some have back pains and other hassles, and several lack good social networks because they're new to the area. Like me.

Students walk out of class feeling refreshed and appreciated - even spiritually engaged in a way.  Sometimes we hang around chatting for a while after class, or stay behind talking to Lisa in confidence about some delicate pregnancy issue - which she's always open to listen to and give advice on.

Every class has a topic of the day. Something about life in general. Last time, the topic was "gratefulness." Lisa said she used to practice with her children before bedtime - to sum up at least 3 things from the day that is worth being grateful for. "Sometimes you're just grateful that the day is over" - she said. "And that's ok too - just recognize the feeling of being grateful for it."

It is very true, though. When thinking about a few things you can be grateful for, life becomes a little bit more joyful. Worries become a little bit smaller. Annoyances become a little less relevant. It may even help you get enough peace in mind to fall asleep at night.

I never thought yoga could extend so much into my everyday life. Even though class is only twice a week, it influences the whole week. Missing a class is like missing food - things fall out of balance.

I haven't done any effort to even try getting into the philosophy and lifestyle of yoga, but I do get that it is a lot about balance and strength applied to several aspects of life. It makes sense, even though it might also be the people in class, and "Mother Lisa," that contribute this foundation of well-being.

Being open to what new experiences can offer you is a key I guess. My gosh that sounds so yoga-ish ...

Yoga One Hollywood
Shree Mama Prenatal Yoga

Healthcare choices

Lately I've been interviewing pediatricians. Soon-to-be-parents are expected to do so over here. I've made phone calls to their offices, asked if I can do a "prenatal interview" with specific doctors and booked appointments for that. The doctors I have chosen to talk to are carefully selected from internet research and reputations in my network.

Would I have done this in Norway? Never. Would any doctor in Norway spend time talking to anybody that might choose to see them regularly with their child in the future? ...

At first, I found this a bit overkill - how am I suppose to know what to look for? How much am I expected to know about healthcare to actually be a decent parent over here??

But I think I've managed to find a good doctor to follow up on our child once he's born. Choosing a healthcare provider is like choosing any other service - comparing general impression and gut feeling for the different overall experience; Did I like the doctor? Did he or she listen to my concerns? Could I easily understand what the doctor was saying? Was the waiting room comfortable? Clean? How did the receptionist welcome me? Did I wait for a long time before I was seen? Does it seem to be easy to get hold of the doctor in an emergency? And so on.

My final choice is based on everything else but judgement of their actual medical skills, which I obviously wouldn't be qualified to have an opinion about anyways. Besides, the internet screening sort of covers that part, revealing education, awards, years of practice, medical malpractice records and user reviews. The interview is all about the highly significant people-handling skills and general personal impression, which is what distiguish one recomended doctor from another.

This whole interviewing experience has made me feel quite empowered as a user. I've now made a concious choice based on personal research to ensure that my child will have the best possible healthcare once he's born. It is a step away from being able to blame the system if things don't work out, and two steps towards taking that responsibility myself. It felt scary at first - but it feels good now. It requires time and effort, but then again - it might save stress, time and concerns once we start using the chosen service. I wish I knew this when I was looking for a provider for my pregnancy appointments.

This is not an appraisal of the general American healthcare system. But there are pros and cons. Some of the cons are that you can choose among plenty of good doctors due to the way things work, and the power of the users of the healthcare services is definitely more dominant here than back in our social healthcare country. Bearing in mind that the powerful user would be the resourceful, critical, aware and educated user who's on a good healthcare insurance plan, and who's gained some experience on how things work.

It makes me think about how I've maneuvered our healthcare system back home on different occasions. Have I kept seeing a doctor I don't really like several times because I think it is too difficult to switch? Yes. Have I ever chosen to pay for my appointment at a private practice to see a specialist because they can see me faster? Yes. Have I ever chosen to return to a private practicioner and pay every time simply because the office is nicer, the doctor is friendlier and staff is more welcoming? yes ...

American and Norwegian healthcare systems are very different on many levels and hard to compare, but depending on what health issue you have - whether you are here or there, you are sometimes likely to face stressors that you wish you didn't have to deal with in those cercomstances. In America, finance and insurance might be your biggest concern, in Norway, waiting in line and lack of information may add to your pain and frustration. Either way you find yourself wishing things were different, that those obstacles between you and healthcare where not there.

Having experienced both systems I'd say I still prefer social healthcare to the insurance healthcare. Knowing that you will be seen regardless of your life situation is, to me, invaluable. But there are definitely quality benefits of the power of choice that are worth reflecting upon. What if our social healthcare system was open to free choice and consumer ratings? What if you could choose to go to a specific medical center simply because you've learned that they perform better knee surgery with faster recovery, without having to pay private fees? And you'd be able to ask for a specific doctor to perform the surgery? What if hospital mistakes were publicly broadcasted and medical staff with unstable records were tagged with this on their online profiles? What if part of the health budget were distributed based on performance statistics, consumer feedback and number of visits ...?

Would this rock the foundation of a social healthcare system - or could it improve the quality of the service? Can public opinion serve as a motivator for quality performance regardless of profit and fear of lawsuit? It could at least make the the voice of the user matter more. And perhaps it could force the users into becoming more aware and responsible as social service consumers ...