ABOUT HOW I BECAME A LOCAL

It has been just over 4 years since I moved to Tøyen in Oslo. Four years is long enough to go through all the feelings and challenges of building a new home, a bit like the stages of grief. 

The first six months start off with a shallow sense of optimism. Telling yourself it’s only going to be temporary, if you don’t like it you can move on...right?! You take barriers to practical things like opening a bank account or finding a part-time job as little bumps on the road to new beginnings. Basically you have a touch of denial. 

Autumn is over and the winter starts getting really dark and so do your thoughts. Your new self-made job (because no one will hire you) is not going to plan. Things really get in the way like the fact that Norway is not in the EU...which small business can afford an extra 20% VAT on anything ordered from outside Norway? EEA haaahhhaaa.... Schengen hahhahaha as if I have the spare cash to go see my family in Italy and I obviously have a passport anyway. So you start resenting things you have totally no control over. Like racists. Especially the do-gooder white people who think they know what it’s like to be out of a job, stuck in a housing block with drug addicts, the mentally down-trodden and the old and senile with no one it look after them. As if. Structural racism is real man! So unless you are black (and not aristocratic) or muslim (and not caucasian)...you just don’t know! 

But they say anger only leads you head first towards the dumps. In fact by the middle of year two you’re a diminished, dimmed down version of yourself. Depression comes knocking so you try not to stand out too much. You try not to take up too much room at social events because your bloody Norwegian sucks. But you keep trying to fit in. Ultimately you want to be liked, right?1?!

In year three it's the bargaining phase. You start dedicating way too much energy to half-baked ideas and promises of opportunity by those that gave you a tiny bitzy witzy job. You work for a bit less money or terms that normally you’d be like ...

“heeelllllll no!”

You know the kind of job that in normal circumstances you’d be like...

“...can't you see what I'm capable of!” 

You start listing in your head all the experiences or sacrifices you’ve made. Two degrees, dead end admin jobs, that time you worked in a call centre, that waitressing job that gave you a bad ankle and that scar on your elbow. That summer you stank of fish and cleaned toilets to save enough money to pay student debts and to visit your sick grandfather. The list goes on and you keep playing that old broken record again and again.

But spring comes along....and suddenly you remember the jobs you actually enjoyed. Like that time you had awesome colleagues and worked for the largest humanitarian organisation in the world. How against all odds (a rubbish boss and cuts in funding) you made work count. Like that time when Jen, Paula, Karen and you started a community interest company after the NHS stopped funding community advocacy workers. When the white tide of conservative public policy cuts started hitting all social justice initiatives - and you bounced back with more grit and fire then before. These thoughts finally remind you of your old self and you start to apply your long lost identity to what’s in front of you. You realise you are surrounded by people like you. You start loving your job and hanging out with your neighbours and really cherishing your new friends. 

‘YOU ARE ONE OF US’

Finally by the end of year three your are like...

“why do I always fall for the trap of the grass being greener on the other side?”

You remember why you really made the move in the first place. You start to look around this place you now call home. You realise for practical reasons you might as well change your address on the old bank account. Officially make this your new home and cut the emotional ties to your old home. 

And major events such as a mortgage (you can barely afford), your first baby (joy and exhaustion), and oh a bloody global pandemic (total panic)...force you to face the fact that this place...Tøyen - Oslo - Norway...is in fact home. So no matter what the haters say...we are all migrants except for the very few. I’ll call these few, the privileged or the uncultured elite or the down right self obsessed with fail to look beyond their noses to understand that the majority of the human race have to move around to survive. The lucky ones can afford to stay in the same place all of their lives and still flourish. The rest of us we move to where we can access stuff. You know kind of essential things like an education, like an affordable house, like a job, shelter from persecution and violent prejudice.

In this time of crisis I hope we all take one big-long-deep breath and accept that we are just human beings. None of us belong. We are all on borrowed time. 

I can only speak for myself and my immediate loved ones when I say the time is now. It is in these moments of profound change that “we” the people (everyday people that need jobs to pay our bills) need to really put our values first. So don’t just go to the supermarket but support your local bakery, the florist (you always mean to get flowers from but think it’s too indulgent), get a takeaway from the new Italian restaurant up the road, order a burger and encourage your friends to do the same and just have a ‘houseparty’ (I obviously mean on the app). 

SHOW UP

Show up for the kind of jobs you hope will still be around when this crisis is over. Show up for the daring entrepreneur who risked his house, or her savings, and definitely their family holidays...to start up something for themselves. I for one will be going to Gallery Bastian later for a takeaway because they make lasagna as good as my mamma’s. On Monday if the sun shines again I’ll have a delicious pizza, in a box, on the bench, in front of the church where the sun shines the brightest and sip on a homemade ginger and carrot smoothie....in the hope that Noah keeps sleeping long enough to eat at least three slices. When he wakes up I will pop down to Nordby Bakery on Tøyen Torg get a coffee and a yummy bolle. Then I'll buy myself flowers because I’m worth it. When Noah goes to bed tonight I’ll continue working on that business plan for my mum who is starting a new chapter in her life. Her new chapter is called “retirement without a pension” - because who knows if BJ will have any money left after Brexit is done. 

As my papa always said: 

chi va piano va sano e lontano 

Loosely translated: those who go slow, go safe and go far!