Grand Hotel, Moss

In the 1920's a friend of my father came to work in

Moss. He first lived at the Grand Hotel, close to the

railway and the canal.

I don't know when it stopped being a hotel, but these

days there seem to be apartments on the upper floors

and businesses on the street floor.

The end wall was recently replastered.

Did it also get six new windows or were those

there before?

I am not quite sure.

Autumn in Moss

Kirkeparken with the statue of the elk / moose

in the background.

Simple fun

This is a copy of the cheese slicer my Norwegian

grandmother had in her home in Oslo.

I have now bought a copy of that cheese slicer.

It looks beautiful, and every time I will use it,

I will fondly remember my grandmother.

Simple fun.

"More humane, tolerant and eager to share"

My friend Norberto from Brasil wrote, in a longer text with

thoughts after a trip abroad:

In that respect, revisiting places and meeting old friends,

has the dual effect of registering and incorporating changes,

and reviving old feelings through smells, tastes, images,

and in less extent sounds.

The name of the game is perfecting oneself, this endless game,

the increase of consciousness and well-being regardless of

our health conditions.

The feeling of belonging to someone, a family, a musical

group, a country, or the human race is always reassuring,

and it can be achieved by listening to a symphony,

looking to a landscape either in a painting or through

a real scenery, or trivially sharing one sorrows and hopes

with a long-standing friend.

This feeling makes us more humane, tolerant, and eager to share.

Forgiveness

I used to think that forgiveness only was possible

if the person who had done something I considered

wrong or hurtful to me, asked me for forgiveness and

probably also in a convincing way.

Now I feel that forgiveness has more to do with a

conscious decision from my side to let the grievance

go emotionally.

I like these two quotes Jerry sent me:

"When deep injury is done to us,

we never recover until we forgive.
Forgiveness does not change the past,

but it does enlarge the future."
Mary Karen

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old

grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business.

Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control. . .

to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage

and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always.

The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past.

Forgiveness frees the forgiver.

It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare."
Lance Morrow

"Forgiveness frees the forgiver". I like that.

Summer vacation in Sweden

I am not yet three years old on this photo,

but I remember when it was taken.

Lately I have realized that I have a few very clear

memories from the age of two and a half to three.

Renting a cottage for a ski vacation in 1939

Among my father's correspondence, I found this letter

he had received back in February 1939:

Thanks for the letter I received yesterday.

As already mentioned I can supply "dyner"

( bedcover with feathers) and pillows, but I

assume you bring woolen blankets,

because those I cannot supply.

Bread you can buy up here.

Greetings,

70 years later I think about my father and his friends

planning to rent a cottage up in the mountains to go

skiing and having a good time. I also imagine my father

volunteering to find and rent a cottage.

Then the whole group sitting on the train from Oslo

with their packpacks, including woolen blankets....