Although I lived elsewhere when I was a child, my around five years living in Odinsvei («Ôðinn’s Road») are what I most often think of as my childhood. Although I suffered the mental torture of kindergarten and elementary school whilst living there, most of my Odinsvei-memories are from the events in the streets and in the area. The flower meadows at the end of the road. The cliff that only the best climbers of us managed to climb. The lake where we used to ice skate in the winter. The little forest. The hills. Fruit trees and raspberries. The horse track with stables.
With time the flower meadows was turned into a road. The lake was drained and turned into a bog as they built rows of apartments on the hillsides. The forest was cut down and replaced by a parking lot and an industrial building. The horse track was closed down, and the stables were left to rot and fall apart. All in just a few years. And they called it “progress”.
Of all the growths in this world I love trees the most. They are so beautiful and… strange; as if they were the bonds of our world, keeping and holding everything together; roots in the soil, stem in our world and branches with leaves stretching into the sky. Three worlds in one entity.
It is sad to see how entire forests just disappear, almost overnight, but then I remembered one thing; last year I planted thirteen trees on our property. Apples trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach trees, apricots trees and a yew tree (and a lot of bushes too). I dug all these deep and fairly wide holes myself, using a shovel and simply put the young trees into the ground, covered their roots with some soil and gave them some water. That was it. Yes, it was hard work doing all that digging in the Sunshine, but it took me less than a day – and before anything else I actually planted thirteen trees on our property. I did even before I began digging the foundation for our own house. The trees somehow came first – and it makes sense. They do come first.
HailaR WîdanaR!
