Woodpecker drums up
thin mist and scattered birdsong.
Sudden patch of ice.

Early March in Oslo, and here I am again longing for spring. I can feel it creaking and rumbling under the ice and lingering desperations of winter. Ceramic spring - still cold and fragile, a bit chipped in places, but with its own brittle beauty.

The magpies have started chattering and rasping about the repairs they are making to their big nest in the birch. The sun has returned with a mix of gentle warmth and brutal honesty. I feel shabby and worn, then energized and inspired, then anxious and tired - and curious about how my experience of different seasons has stayed the same over time yet is also changing subtly as I age. Life always both cyclical and spiraling.

For the past few years I have become a part of queer-centric micropublisher Mohini Books. I have had the great pleasure and frustration of trying my hand at co-editing an anthology of queer perspectives on the Covid-19 pandemic, and now "Queers In Quarantine" is finally in print and we will officially launch it on March 11th. May it find its way to everyone who needs to discover it, and may it be shared in all sorts of likely and unlikely places! I am very proud to have helped to make it happen. I have learned a lot from the process and collaboration of co-creating it, and I got to slip one of my own poems in among all the other juicy queer richness.

A big project this year is the latest project and performance with 71bodies, called "A True Story". It premiers in Bergen in June 2023. Once again we invite you to join us in exploring and celebrating trans lives and the many forms of loving, learning connections and family we are part of. Creating and performing with 71bodies is always transformative for me, and we do our best to invite and hold transformative space for our audience too.

Last and not least I am inching towards new recordings and releases of my own songs and poetry. More on that later. I give myself permission to deeply want to share my words and voice, and to often be scared, slow and distracted along the way. Oh look, the magpies have brought a new stick to add to the nest! I trust they have their own system of what goes where and how. I practice extending that trust to myself.

Now it's time to do some singing for my house plants, and hear what feedback they may have. Other than the amazingly resilient Monstera who is saying "Yes, yes, decent song, but just fucking re-pot me already!" - it will happen this weekend, you have my word!