Täke
Austmarka is a small village in the south of Norway with 251 habitants. It extends northward the border with Sweden. Next to a beautiful forest, a dense fog covers the whole town in the morning. Täke, as norwegians call the fog, surrounds houses, lakes and the immense forest and makes it difficult to see for some hours.
From a personal experience, being a person with a mental health illness can make you feel exactly like this, foggy. Intrusive ideas, obscure ideas, flood your brain. You might try to push them away, but they might come back even stronger. I’ve carried depression for many years in my life, and I’ve taken medication ever since to get rid of this “fog” that crawls upon me. It always comes back hovering, making it impossible to see things clearly in my life. These images you see are exactly how depression looks and feels like to me. I feel a deep sense of emptiness, a void, and a colossal loneliness. No human contact, isolation, and hopelessness. But hopelessness is, in fact, important in life, it’s in the midst of being uncomfortable and afraid where all things meaningful emerge. Hopelessness and despair are important because without them, we wouldn’t know faith. Polarities are a necessary part of life. Being in this place was cathartic, it allowed me to explore these deep tormented parts of myself to make something relevant out of it.
