I made the bed into a sofa again, had a cup of tea with a generous helping of sugar as I didn't feel like any breakfast, sat looking out the window, at the shiny telephone booth, sparkling in the sunshine, the sunless grass in the park behind, the trees at the back, and then the mountain that rose steeply, with the row of brick houses above, also in shadow, then got up and put on a record, flicked through a few issues of Vinduet, all to pass the time until it was nine and I could leave. Lessons didn't start until eleven, but I had planned to walk around town first, perhaps find a cafe and read a little.
A chimney sweep came down the street with his long brush wound into a ring over one shoulder. A cat strolled across the grass. An ambulance drove down the road along the mountainside, behind the brick houses, visible between them as it passed, it moved slowly, no siren blaring, no lights flashing.
Right there, at that precise moment, I felt as if I would be able to meet whatever challenges came my way, as if there were no limits to what I could do. This wasn't about writing, this was something else, a boundlessness, as if I could get up and go now, this very minute, and then just walk and walk to the end of the earth.
This feeling lasted for thirty seconds perhaps. then it was gone, and even though I tried to summon it back, it refused to return, a bit like a dream that goes, slips from your grasp as you struggle to recall it after waking.
-- Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Five, p. 58.
A chimney sweep came down the street with his long brush wound into a ring over one shoulder. A cat strolled across the grass. An ambulance drove down the road along the mountainside, behind the brick houses, visible between them as it passed, it moved slowly, no siren blaring, no lights flashing.
Right there, at that precise moment, I felt as if I would be able to meet whatever challenges came my way, as if there were no limits to what I could do. This wasn't about writing, this was something else, a boundlessness, as if I could get up and go now, this very minute, and then just walk and walk to the end of the earth.
This feeling lasted for thirty seconds perhaps. then it was gone, and even though I tried to summon it back, it refused to return, a bit like a dream that goes, slips from your grasp as you struggle to recall it after waking.
-- Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Five, p. 58.
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