Food Studio

The conversation brought me back to the time when Beyoncé released the album Lemonade, and her process of turning the experience of infidelity into personal growth, resilience and healing. Rarely have I been so completely absorbed by the story of an artist or an album. I remember buying it so I could watch the full feature film (not the music videos) on a big screen during summer holidays with friends at Bøgedal in Denmark, and I was drawn into the entire universe, from the costumes and the process to the sheer power of the women in it.

Photo: Tone Bjordam

And since then, life has not asked me to dance at full volume. Because going through starting a family, giving birth and becoming a mother is an entirely different process. But this past month, the lemons have been arriving in abundance. Losing two souls from my life within two months, while simultaneously ramping up my own business, and on top of all that, smoke-damaging the entire cabin we live in and suddenly finding myself a homeless single mother for a month, is probably one of the most intense waves my life has held in a long time. Fortunately, I have not lost my partner. He and his family have been holding a work camp at Vefaldneset before we are soon to celebrate his youngest brother’s wedding in Sykkylven.

What does it really mean to make lemonade when life hands you lemons? My writing teacher Ida Jackson invited me to a conversation with Carolyn Elliott, a woman who has taken this practice to its absolute limit. Even though I read her book Existential Kink a few years back, and have wonderful people around me who have invited me in and shown the way for how this practice can look, my resistance to truly going into the painful places, to asking what is it in me that likes this, with openness and curiosity, is so strong that it becomes the easiest thing to deprioritise. This time the reminder arrived at perfect timing and gave me some of the most interesting insights I have had in a long time.

One of my lemonade processes this year has been working with my voice. The first phase through writing and «post before you dare» with Ida Jackson. Then a more embodied version, where I suddenly started taking singing lessons with the retired Kristin Groven Holmboe. My resistance before every single lesson has been at an all-time high. So it is a small victory each time I get myself there, and this week I summoned the courage, not because I dream of anything close to Beyoncé, but because I have understood that the voice is a place where we can work directly, physically and bodily with what holds us back. And it is so concrete. Those who know me best have remarked on how visible my emotional landscape is through my voice, and thankfully not everyone picks up on that. But the fact that this round of life’s tsunami has done something to me, and that within it I found a new key to standing in life, whatever it brings. That was so clear to her in my performance during the singing lesson, and slowly but surely it is sinking in for me too.

There are many courageous people daring to raise their voices and their gaze right now, something I believe our times need more than ever. Some of those I have felt most proud of and moved by recently are Sara, Magnus and Caroline, who are challenging our fear narrative with a different approach in their fight against the explosives factory in Hurummarka. I believe that by showing the way and leading by example like this, we create practical utopias out of alternative reality scenarios beyond those that may seem most obvious.

Two others who have been remarkably skilled at this are Anne Beate and Sara with Future Library, which we at Food Studio are so fortunate to be working with right now. Everyone in Oslo and around the world is invited to join, either in person or via live streaming, when Amitav Ghosh and Tommy Orange hand over this year’s manuscript in Nordmarka on Sunday 28 June.

I believe this practice of inviting each other into our practical utopia universes is one of the most important social medicines we have right now. I am also extending an invitation into my own practical utopia project at Vefaldneset in Drangedal this summer, together with one of my greatest teachers, Gitte from Bøgedal brewery. If you would like to know more, just get in touch at cecilie@foodstudio.no.