Reading-spots, part 3

 
Nearing the end of my first week in Oslo after two months in the Western Norwegian fjords, I am reflecting on this summer's results in my ever-ongoing quest for finding new places in which to read, to find new reading-spots. While this quest is not limited to my home village of Hyen, it is perhaps especially here that my quest becomes increasingly challenging. Having lived there for the greater part of my life, and returning as often as time and work permit, there are fewer new reading-spots to be found for each passing year. However, as the Norwegian fjords are landscapes of great variety and with numerous nooks and crannies, there are still plenty of places left to find. In this blogpost, I will share one of these places, namely the mountain lake of Langevatnet, which literally translates as 'long lake'. 

Langevatnet is situated on a sort of plateau, although a very hollow plateau, which was carved by the ice millions of years ago. While well above the tree limit, it is not located at the top of the mountain, as the grey and snow-patched rock still rises and curves onwards above this plateau. Even so, it is a strenuous hike, and one that I have not undertaken since I was in my early twenties. Since I had not been there for several years, and since it was a place I came to love in my teens, this summer's hike was a kind of a pilgrimage. As a pilgrim, I was dressed in a hat and carried a stick, and I had brought with me a book of verses that means a lot to me.

When I came to the easternmost end of the lake, I camped in the meagre shadow of a large rock, which can be seen to the left in the picture above. The place afforded me a good shelf on which to sit, and a wonderful view of the lake as it stretched westward. Here, I sat down to read a poem by one of my all-time favourite poets, Raquel Lanseros. I had brought an edition of her collected poems which I had bought in Madrid earlier this year, and I read her poem 'Invocación', Invocation, which is one of my favourite poems, and one from which I find myself reciting whenever I come face to face with something lovely in nature. I selected this poem especially because it has a lot of emotional value for me, and it was one of the first poems I tried to translate from Spanish into Norwegian. (This translation can be found here.) Reading this poem was one of the crowning moments of joy on a trip so full of delight and happiness, and it imbued this reading-spot with a particularly strong sense of belonging.  

Similar blogposts: 

Reading-spots, part 1 

Reading-spots, part 2