KARIKJØSNES: August 2012

After a little over two and a half years in BERLIN I have decided to leave. In under two weeks we pack our bags and head for NORWAY ...BUT only for a week. ERLEND received a residency in NY so we have decided to spend the rest of the year there ..or in the States, because you know us ..there will of course be some traveling. The first half of 2013 will be spent living as Nomads, taking our traveling habit of these last years to the next level. The route is still in planning, but Thailand, Sicily and France are some of the suggestions ..with some trips to Norway and Berlin to see our dear and loved once.

In some ways this change will also mean a change for this BLOG. I started it only weeks after I got to BERLIN. I started it because I had realized that I wanted photography to play a key part in my life ...and I started it because I wanted to have pictures to remember my stay here by. I wanted pictures that could remind me of how lucky I was when I didn't feel like that at all, because I was freaking out about my life. It might sound weird to some of you, but as I have mentioned before; before I met E I was never much of a traveler, and I had never lived abroad. I was ..and still am, a person who truly appreciates stability and knowing what is waiting for me around the next corner, and I have always taken a great deal of comfort in that. When I came here I kind of threw all that away. From being a person who always had a plan ...and then a back up plan, I suddenly found myself in a new city, just out of University, with few friends, with hardly any money, not understanding the language and no work, and most importantly; with no plan. For many people moving and having all opportunities open is such an exciting situation to be in, but for me it was terrifying. But I trusted some key people in my life when they told me that this was the moment when I should take a leap of fate and see where it got me.

I think that it took a little over a year before I became comfortable with my new life in BERLIN ..and managed to appreciate the situation I was in. Still I often freak out when I feel like I don't have enough to do, or when I don't know what will come, but I have learned to truly appreciate what this journey I am on has to offer me. So with that change in my heart I decided that I was ready to do this amazing year of travel.

I recently realized that my love for photography springs from the same part of me that makes me not like traveling; sentimentality and the fear of losing and leaving things I love. Even though I am a person who truly enjoys the moment I am also profoundly sentimental and find it very hard to leave things behind. When it comes to traveling I think I almost never did it because my sadness of leaving often overshadowed my desire to go somewhere else. Now I am lucky to live my life with a person with a completely opposite take on life, a person that can take me to the future when I am still scared of leaving the past.

I hope you all will follow me as I start this new exciting chapter of my life ..and that you forgive me if I am not that good at posting over the next few weeks.. I promise you I will make it up to you this next year!