ten days dragging it back home to the camp. Bongo is completely exhausted, the poor thing. He loses a lot of weight and at night I ski down to the farms in Maridalen and fill my sack with hay for him. He is insatiable. According to the moose calendar, he’s on the cusp of becoming a teenager, I would guess. This is a sensitive and defiant period, and we have many long discussions about it. Bongo leaves the tent in a temper several times, but happily he always comes back.
On one of the trips to Maridalen I pick up a couple of good axes. I already have one of course, but these are almost brand new. They are sturdy Fiskars axes. And specially designed for forestry work, as far as I can judge. One of them is large and the other small, and I suppose the poor farmer must have been given them for Christmas. But that’s life. It’s give and take. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that I might give them back when the totem pole is finished, though.
On the last day of January I realise that it’s over a month since I’ve spoken to another human. No problem there. All the things we can say to others, and yet I haven’t said anything. I’m living proof that there’s basically not much to say. I’m proud of myself.
It’s a good start to the year.
FEBRUARY
I spend a whole day enthusiastically humming a melody I can’t place. I’m feeling on top of the world as I cheerfully chip away at the bark on the totem pole. Bits fly off into the forest as I work my way round the trunk, lost in my own world, humming and whistling all the while. Snatches of the lyrics begin to emerge by the evening, and I sing them uncritically for quite a time before I realise, in a cold sweat, that what I’m churning out is the signature tune to an Australian TV show, Bananas in Pyjamas . Not even out here in the forest am I spared the poisoned darts of children’s culture. It’s like a disease. You contract it through hearing. Even mild exposure to the source is sufficient to allow the virus to attack the brain without mercy. It can lie there quietly incubating for months while you go about your own business, not bothering anyone, and then suddenly it rears its ugly head. For the rest of the night it’s like a running battle between me and Bananas in Pyjamas . I try to keep the song out, but back it comes. As soon as I lower my defences, I hum it again. It’s like an obsession. It’s like a film I saw many years ago where the main character’s hand turns evil and tries to kill him. In the end, he cuts it off with a chain saw. He holds the chain saw in his healthy hand and pulls the starting cord with his mouth. Off with the evil arm.
I use bits of charcoal to draw the motif on the totem pole. At the bottom I leave a couple of metres’ space as I’m going to dig it in later. Then above the ground there should be a base of about half a metre and after that there’ll be an approximately two-metre high egg, actually a rhythm egg shaker, but you wouldn’t be able to see that with the naked eye unless you knew my father, and nobody did, which I think I’ve already mentioned. So you wouldn’t be able to see what it was. A casual passer-by would think it was an ordinary egg and that’s alright by me. My father will be sitting on top of this egg shaker with his legs up under his chin and his arms out to the sides, and I’ll be sitting on my father’s head. On my bike. I get this idea while I’m drawing. It comes to me out of the ether, a wonderful inspiration, and I think, why not? I’ll damn well carve myself a figure that’s a representation of me sitting on my bike on top of my father. That would be so beautiful. And then on my head I’ll have a miniature of Bongo standing erect and surveying the town. He deserves that after dragging this monster of a tree trunk up to the camp. He would have deserved it in any case. Simply because he’s Bongo. But after he’s quite literally invested kilos of himself in getting the totem pole
On one of the trips to Maridalen I pick up a couple of good axes. I already have one of course, but these are almost brand new. They are sturdy Fiskars axes. And specially designed for forestry work, as far as I can judge. One of them is large and the other small, and I suppose the poor farmer must have been given them for Christmas. But that’s life. It’s give and take. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that I might give them back when the totem pole is finished, though.
On the last day of January I realise that it’s over a month since I’ve spoken to another human. No problem there. All the things we can say to others, and yet I haven’t said anything. I’m living proof that there’s basically not much to say. I’m proud of myself.
It’s a good start to the year.
FEBRUARY
I spend a whole day enthusiastically humming a melody I can’t place. I’m feeling on top of the world as I cheerfully chip away at the bark on the totem pole. Bits fly off into the forest as I work my way round the trunk, lost in my own world, humming and whistling all the while. Snatches of the lyrics begin to emerge by the evening, and I sing them uncritically for quite a time before I realise, in a cold sweat, that what I’m churning out is the signature tune to an Australian TV show, Bananas in Pyjamas . Not even out here in the forest am I spared the poisoned darts of children’s culture. It’s like a disease. You contract it through hearing. Even mild exposure to the source is sufficient to allow the virus to attack the brain without mercy. It can lie there quietly incubating for months while you go about your own business, not bothering anyone, and then suddenly it rears its ugly head. For the rest of the night it’s like a running battle between me and Bananas in Pyjamas . I try to keep the song out, but back it comes. As soon as I lower my defences, I hum it again. It’s like an obsession. It’s like a film I saw many years ago where the main character’s hand turns evil and tries to kill him. In the end, he cuts it off with a chain saw. He holds the chain saw in his healthy hand and pulls the starting cord with his mouth. Off with the evil arm.
I use bits of charcoal to draw the motif on the totem pole. At the bottom I leave a couple of metres’ space as I’m going to dig it in later. Then above the ground there should be a base of about half a metre and after that there’ll be an approximately two-metre high egg, actually a rhythm egg shaker, but you wouldn’t be able to see that with the naked eye unless you knew my father, and nobody did, which I think I’ve already mentioned. So you wouldn’t be able to see what it was. A casual passer-by would think it was an ordinary egg and that’s alright by me. My father will be sitting on top of this egg shaker with his legs up under his chin and his arms out to the sides, and I’ll be sitting on my father’s head. On my bike. I get this idea while I’m drawing. It comes to me out of the ether, a wonderful inspiration, and I think, why not? I’ll damn well carve myself a figure that’s a representation of me sitting on my bike on top of my father. That would be so beautiful. And then on my head I’ll have a miniature of Bongo standing erect and surveying the town. He deserves that after dragging this monster of a tree trunk up to the camp. He would have deserved it in any case. Simply because he’s Bongo. But after he’s quite literally invested kilos of himself in getting the totem pole
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