The safety of ridges
I made a last minute decision and went to Inferno Metal Festival in Oslo. Four days of people, music, the color black and beer.
Then I went back to silence and solitude.
The extreme contrast of the two different worlds hit me in the gut like an angry goat.
Music is haram!
A movie we are co-producing - Rockabul - was screening at the festival. My alibi for attending was therefore work.
The documentary is set in Kabul, portraying Afghanistan's first (and only) heavy metall band.
I love the movie as it shows how art and music can provoke, provide meaning and change lives in a war zone where music is haram (forbidden and a sin).
After four hectic days with social overstimulation I flew back to silence.
Driving from the air port the fjord appeared.
Silent water under a colorful sunset.
I was back from black.
Driving up the road to our farm I saw swans and deers on the field.
That's where they usually hang out, relaxing in the safety of the ridges.
I realized I'd missed out on four days of sunny skies.
Also, my cat was gone. My mom had been there to feed her every day but had not seen her.
Heartache.
There are always hungry eagles flying over our farm.
(After looking intensively for her for two days, someone found her and called me)
This is where I usually hang out,
in the safety of the ridges.
Thinking about the young musicians in Kabul, I feel more than lucky.
I'm also deliberating wether or not I should ever leave the ridges again.
Guess my upcoming trip to Iceland will be the test of that.
"Sitting in your home with your electrical devices,
Do you really think that that's a life that suffices?
Say that you are trying to avoid a crisis-
You're already in one!"
- Geoff Berner
