I listen to the bells of the Bergen Cathedral, ringing out even louder than the seagulls are laughing. If I were in that bell chamber with those massive church announcers, I could be judged. The sheer sound of a thing can kill. Resonance too powerful to withstand.
Being as far away from home as I always manage to be, I look for the familiar in the foreign. Can I find loose change on the ground, or perhaps the vanilla lattes will come in the same kind of glass? Not so. Not even that was true in Bergen and the MacDonald’s was far too delicious.
You see, my heart is swayed by nothing at all, it is simply charmed. I am charmed by change and lattes in a small glass, and I am charmed by speech that I cannot even understand. I ask for a bag for my pastry in Norwegian, but I cannot love in a language. So there, I loved by being present.
All can understand the ringing of bells. Significance surpasses understanding as seagulls surpass their primitive need for screaming. Change becomes meaningful when you allow yourself to be charmed by it, so I understand that being alone is not the same as loneliness. Acquaintance has nothing to do with falling in love. I fell in love with a city because I went there to appreciate it. And oh, how I wish I felt the same about everyone I know.
Who decided that a metal cup is beautiful and that it could toll for all life, death, warnings, and marriages? And that each one is rung from the same tower?
And so, resonance can have nothing to do with the bells, but who is ringing them. It has everything to do with being human.