I have a problem where I see fjords everywhere I go.
Some call me pretentious, but I call me homesick.
When giving directions to my house
for the fourth of july barbecue,
a holiday I don’t even celebrate
but didn’t want to be alone on,
I told Sam to drive over the fjord
and continue a mile before turning left.
“Dude,” he said. “It’s a creek.”
Then to clarify: “This ain’t Norway.”
No, this ain’t.
This ain’t Oslo.
This ain’t the borough of Lørenskog.
And this stupid host house
with the plastic pink flamingos and garden gnomes
and the obnoxiously big american flag
that only sees the glory of the sun
one day out of the entire year in july
ain’t my apartment in Grünerløkka.
That creek ain’t a fjord.
To call that creek a fjord is to do a disservice
to all the great fjords of Norway.
I remember my childhood infatuation
Summer nights in the Oslofjord with my father
Carved by a receding glacier in the last ice age
in years long past, the glacier long since melted
leaving only traces of existence behind,
fjords, for example.
Studies show that Norwegians are the happiest people in the world
But a displaced Norwegian, in a foreign land
on the most country’s most important day:
There is nothing sadder.
I miss the fjord,
and my Norway.