AURORA, 15th of June 1996
When you're outside, and everything is highland, it's like nature has its own sound, and that's one of my favorite sounds. I really loved sitting still silently outside, in a tree or in a bush, to just think (Aurora).
Note: This is part 1 of the series “From The Fjord Of Light To The Queendom”.
Stay tuned as the upcoming parts will be written throughout 2024.
Aurora Aksnes was born at Stavanger University Hospital, the 15th of June 1996. According to national weather history, it was a cloudy day without rain, and approximately 10 degrees temperature. Aurora was born on a Saturday.
Her family lived in a place called Høle ("underwater hole"). It was then a small municipally with only about 400 inhabitants. This was a 30 minutes car ride from the city Stavanger, and it has a close connection to nature. Her parents lived there for 15 years, which means that both of Auroras sisters, Miranda and Viktoria, walked their first steps here too.
Aurora lived in Høle for three years, before moving to The Fjord Of Light at Os - about a 30 minutes car ride outside of the 2nd largest city of Norway, Bergen. This means that Auroras first words were spoken at Høle, her first humming and singing, her first experiences with all that excited her in the nature. Her curiosity was probably born her too, and she began to experience the joy of dancing.
There was no TV or radio in Auroras childhood house. The family had a record player and a few LPs. This was how she came to love Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and Enya. These are often named as her source of childhood musical inspiration.
DISCOVERING THE PIANO
Auroras 10 year older sister, Miranda, must have turned 13 when they moved to The Fjord Of Light. Miranda was tutored on how to play the piano when she was young. My guess is that she didn't want to continue playing after she moved from her childhood home, but that she kept the piano in her new room for a while, until she had it stowed away in the attics. Another theory is that she got rid of it after its "ON"-button stopped working.
Aurora had a great love for music as a child. She remember her parents used to sing in a local choir, and she remember playing out the scene from Titanic where Jack leads Rose up to "fly" at the front of the ship. She was about three or four years old, and she was standing on a rock in her garden, arms out to the side, singing "My Heart Will Go On". She hadn't seen the whole movie, but had caught this scene when her older sisters watched it one night (when Aurora probably should have been in bed...)
I was never allowed to watch Titanic when I was younger, but I remember watching one scene when I was three years old. That’s one of my first memories. I walked into the living room, and my whole family was sitting there watching it, and I was supposed to be in bed. I managed to catch a glimpse of the scene where they were standing on the edge of the ship holding each other, with the song in the background. That burned into my mind. Then I started going over to my neighbor’s lawn; they had a rock on that lawn that kind of looked like the front of a ship. Every day, I walked over to that stone, stood on the edge of it and sang that song. [laughs] I think I felt really beautiful. Sometimes I would wear several gowns on top of each other. It made me look like a round ball. (-Aurora-)
As a six-year-old, Aurora went to her attic on some kind of a treasure hunt, and there among the stabled stuff, she found Mirandas old electric piano. She then remembered that she missed hearing her sister's playing in the house, and she plugged it to power to test it. Unfortunately, the "ON"-button would not stay down, so she had to hold it with one hand and play with the other.
This was how she discovered that the music in her head was hidden within the black and white keys of this instrument she fell in love with. As days and weeks passed by, Aurora often found herself sneaking up to play at the piano. After some time she found a way to keep the "ON"-button down by taping it. Probably she from then turned it on and off by plug it in and out of power.
Favorite childhood memory
"My favorite childhood memory is definitely every memory i have of being outside in the forest" (Watch it on YouTube).
LIFE AT SCHOOL
Already at a very early age, Aurora felt discomfortable at school. She liked to learn, and was a curious kid, but she didn't really connect with the the other kids, and the classroom was a noisy place. Aurora always preferred the quiet of the forest.
She also got into some trouble due to how easily she got distracted. I guess she sometimes spoke out of place, wandered about when she was supposed to sit still and plucked at other things than school work. I don't actually know the truth here, but she have spoken about teachers speaking down on her for not paying attention.
I'm very sensitive.
I remember, as a kid at school,
if someone was sad or angry,
it could have a great impact on me
She didn't really got bullied or harassed. She had friends. It's just that her interests didn't match the interests of the other ones that well, and she was known to act weird and dress herself weird. She often felt out of place in school. This might be due to high intelligence;
When she was about 11-12 years old, Auroras teacher had the class do an intelligence test. This is not common practice in Norwegian schools, so I wonder why the teacher decided to do so...
Anyway, Aurora performed very well at this test. She did so well that the other kids made fun of her. They laughed, and said things like: "Now we understand why you are so weird. You're autistic!". Aurora explained in the HAIK documentary that she didn't understand why they laughed, but she understood that they were being rude.
She have never been diagnosed with autism, by the way.
At one point Aurora realised she tried to be someone else than herself, to be someone who "the cool girls" would like to be friends with. She realised she pushed herself too far, just to be accepted by someone who would never appreciate who she really was This is the background story for the song "I went too far", which she began writing at the age of 9. This corresponds well with the time Aurora started to put lyrics to her music made by the piano at her attics.
I find it so cool that Aurora was born at the same date as the Norwegian musician and composer, Edvard Grieg - Who, as fate made it happen - also is from Bergen. Makes a man wonder if there is something magical in the water over there 😍🥰.
Edvard Grieg
June 15th, 1843 – Sept 4th, 1907
Edvard Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide.
(Source: Wikipedia)
The clip above is linked to Auroras interview in Norwegian. Sadly, it's no English translations to be found. You should still listen to her play that piano, though 😍.
There exist a version on YouTube with Spanish subtitles, though 🥰.
Aurora talks about childhood etc…
I loved being alone, especially if it rained.. I love the sound of rain…
8 things about Aurora you should know
I love to eat baby porridge… the one with banana flavour…
Final words
Phew... That was a lot of words... This was, of course, not the complete story of Auroras childhood - but it was A story. At least the parts of it I think is interesting. I don't expect you to read all of this in one take, but I do hope you will find time to read it all through, in bits and pieces, and that reading it will bring some kind of enjoyment into your life.
If you want to chat, share some thoughts or information or give me some feedback, please feel free to do so.
Have a day 💚
Rune