It is almost exactly a year ago, something really extraordinary happened.
I had been working in a bar for nearly two years, after I graduated from University.
At this point I’d been living in London for over 5 years, and I had always been incredibly in love with this city.
However, last year, I hit the cold and familiar brick wall; the honeymoon period was over.
So I quit my job, lived on my savings and was thinking long and hard of what to do next.
I needed an adventure.
Fast-forwarding 5 months, I left my keys with a cute guy I’d found on the Internet.
I was to sublet my room, because I was sure I was going to come back. I just didn’t know when.
My plan?
Vague and barely a plan at all.
First step was to go to Norway.
This is where I was born and grew up, and I wanted to connect with old friends.
I picked up my old Toyota at my parents’ house, put the camera in the bag, and drove around for a month.
There were uncontrollable laughter, the birth of my niece and good old Viking-drunkenness.
It also consisted of sunrise-jams, hiking in the mountains, and bathing in far too cold fjord-water.
After nearly three weeks of constant rain, I was glad to leave for England again.
Second step: Avoid London.
One thing I find about London, is that once you live here, you rarely leave this place.
Everything is so conveniently happening here.
I decided that I would travel to places I hadn’t been before, and that involved going to places like Kent and Oxford.
I ventured into some fields in the middle of nowhere, to a family festival, even if I don’t like children.
But it was okay, at least it wasn’t raining. And people were happy.
I like photographing people who are happy.
On the opposite side of London, I ended up walking the streets of Oxford, with a personal guide. She speaks impeccable English, by the way.
We had picnic by the “river”, cheered with wine glasses to passer-byers in boats, and watched guided tours led by deprived students.
We also had a pint of ale in the historic ‘Turf Tavern’, although I didn’t down mine very quick, and neither did I see a ghost.
I took inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and decided to fall into a whole new world too.
Although mine involved a long plane journey across the pond, to the big and scary America.
Third step: California and Burning Man.
I spent the next three months, travelling on my own around California. I didn’t know anyone and I had as little as £1,200 in my bank account.
The part of me that wanted an adventure, wanted it unambiguously to be a challenging one.
In fact, I wanted it to be such a difficult and nearly impossible journey, that I would set myself up for failure.
I wanted to cry, to feel hopeless, frustrated and push myself to the brink of giving up.
Typically, none of it happened.
For three months I never slept in a hotel or a hostel – I didn’t even couch surf.
I also never went hungry, I never felt scared and I never called desperately home to my parents, asking to be saved.
To sum up these three months in one paragraph, is nearly impossible. It wouldn’t give it justice.
So I will try to make this short, and maybe cheat a little.
3.1: Burning Man
I slept 8 nights in a tent, in the middle of the desert in Nevada. I shared this experience with about 70.000 other people,
but specifically I also shared it with a camp consisting of around 60 people. I’d only met one person there twice before.
I was the only Norwegian, in fact, the only European person in the San Francisco/Los Angeles crew, called the “Janky Barge”.
For over a week, I photographed complete strangers, and captured a sense of happiness I never before thought existed.
Burning Man does something to you. It does something to people.
Being a photographer at this place, is like some sort of heaven.
Best described: Christmas Day + birth of a child + winning at life = Burning Man.
It’s an ocean of creativity, freedom, beauty and pure joy. And the dust makes everyone look incredibly sexy too.
I left this place with new discoveries about myself and the world, inspiration, new set of friends and a half-shaved head.
And fortunately, a bunch of incredibly, awesome pictures.
3.2: Los Angeles
One of my neighbours at Burning Man was a lovely woman, that went by the name of Cinthia.
She invited me to come to stay with her in Los Angeles for a bit. Little did I know that I ended up staying there for a month.
I always thought I would be more of a San Francisco gal than a LA-chick, but I guess I was terribly wrong.
Cinthia owns a hair salon up in the Valley, and has this cute little 1-bedroom apartment 10 minutes away.
It was here I ended up falling in love again.
Not with a guy, or with Los Angeles, but with people, music, art and life itself.
All of a sudden, I was photographing actors and models surrounded by hair-stylists, make-up artists and assistants.
Professionally I gained invaluable experience, and personally I learned to really appreciate, listen and love more.
3.3: Californian “Rednecks”
James was another neighbour from my camp at Burning Man. He has this little cabin up in the woods by a creek,
a 45-minute drive from everything, north of Los Angeles. I got to spend 2 weeks in this cabin, together with his dog, Roxy.
He was travelling back and forth to Europe at this point, so it was a sweet deal. He got a dog-sitter, I got free food and lots of time to myself.
This place consists of maybe 30 cabins, and mostly the people there are above the age of fifty, with the exception of a few unfortunate teenagers.
Not surprisingly though, they had a little bar up there, open 4 days a week. I found myself sitting there a fair amount, not because of my thirst for beer,
but because mostly I was just talking to the people there. The dogs were running around freely, and Roxy was enjoying herself.
I was too.
The people here were of a peculiar kind, with so many different backgrounds,
and truthfully, I never thought I would sit in a place where everyone agrees with Trump.
It was an experience.
One of the guys, was an old, quiet man, with red cheeks and a caps on.
His name was Walle, and he would drink his 6 beers, none less and no more than that, and go home.
One day, a woman’s voice came on, singing this beautiful song from the jukebox.
“Oh!” Walle muffled.
“I haven’t seen that girl since she was 10 years old!”
Curiously, I asked him who the girl was.
“Oh, it’s Rosanne Cash, naturally! Johnny Cash’s daughter.”
I replied with a big question mark on my face.
“Hum-hum. I used to live next door to them many, many years ago. It was during all that bad shit.
Some days we would just sit on the porch and play guitar together. We were neighbours for three years, before he moved.
I thought it was for the best though, because that new girl he’d met, she was pretty good for him. Tried helping him with all that drug-abuse and stuff.
He was a good guy though, in spite of everything.”
I recently discovered that Cash was nearly killed in a fire in 1965, that he later was sued for by the government. He claimed it was his camper that caught fire,
although it is more likely he started a fire to stay warm and in his drugged condition failed to notice the fire getting out of control. It destroyed 508 acres.”
Guess which forest it was?
The very same I spent two weeks in – Los Padres National Forest.
I do wonder, if Walle knows.
3.4: The mountains and the end
If I haven’t lost you yet,
I promise you, I am nearly finished with my story.
Burning Man seems to have been the best thing I could have done, in more ways than one.
The best reason, was that I got a whole bunch of phone numbers and email-addresses.
I met Luke one day out on my first day of exploration alone in the desert, and we exchanged exactly that.
When I was still in Los Angeles, I received an email from him. He said that he and a bunch of friends were going up north in the mountains.
He followed with a simple “Want to join?”
So it was there I found myself, on a bus, leaving LA for three weeks out in the free.
With the exception of Luke, that I’d talked to for about an hour, I was to meet 16 people that I’d never met before,
and spend almost 24/7 with them out in the wilderness, camping in tents.
In all honesty, this it was the most perfect ending to my trip, and I couldn’t have asked for a better one.
I heard some unbelievable, extraordinary stories from these wonderful human-beings.
One of the guys, had come up from Peru, where he normally works as a tour-guide in Machu Picchu.
Hearing his stories, about nearly dying in the jungle, about being drugged by a tribe-leader and freaking out, and about
the interesting journey from how he got there in the first place, was some of the highlights.
They were all outdoorsy people, and some of them are now doing these incredible and dangerous trips, climbing mountains in the states.
I learned a lot of things on this journey.
But I also realised a great deal, including this: that I really love nature.
And that I in fact love sleeping in a sleeping-bag, surrounded by simple things in a tent. Things that I only need for survival.
That I love waking up early to the sounds of rain trickling above my head, the wind howling, and a grasshopper as a roommate.
And that it’s something incredibly rewarding of spending that amount of time away from civilisation.
Away from the sounds of cars, noise and busyness.
Away from schedules, sweaty armpits that comes with overfilled underground trains and the stench of chicken take-away shops.
Away from mirrors, make-up and Tinder dates.
Nevertheless, it had to end.
And it was good timing.
Trump had just won the presidential election, and in all honesty – I was not surprised.
With the Brexit happening earlier the Summer, I was almost expecting something like this.
I spent the following month in London, trying to adjust back to normal.
I got the keys back to my room, and filled my shelves again with all the stuff I owned.
Only this time, with less things.
I have been trying to write down everything I have experienced, everything I have learned, and everything I feel.
I still haven’t been able to adjust back to “normal”.
But maybe that’s the whole point.
It’s now like London is an ex-boyfriend I am not entirely sure how to get rid of, but still love.
I’ve had a Summer-fling with adventures, that left me with inspiration, motivation and the feeling of being alive.
