A nobel day

Winter has arrived. A big storm hit Sweden yesterday, covered a lot of parts in heavy wet snow. Although we are, in comparison, prepared for this kind of weather, power outings and impassible roads are still an inconvenience.

But it’s beautiful. Although the snow and I aren’t best friends while I am forcing its powers, I can recognize the Christmas card beauty here at the end of the road in my little village in he outskirts of Umeå. And the winter landscape is laid out just in time for the Lucia celebration on Tuesday December 13.

But today a different celebration, as reliable and enlightening as Lucia. I am watching the Nobel Prize Ceremony on television. I’ve only watched the whole thing once before, in 1997. I had promised to tape every minute of it for The Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, they were preparing for their own Nobel celebration. So, I was loading hour after our on my VHS while watching this ceremony with new eyes. Eyes that had just arrived in Sweden after spending a year in Seattle.

This was a year when the snow had laid out its soft quilt all over Stockholm. Venice of the Nordic countries, a picture in the dark December afternoon. The City Hall with its characteristic tower the main setting, inside The Blue Hall all spruced up with Italian flowers, glowing warm from artistic lights, candles, music and gorgeous dresses. And then there is a king. And a beautiful queen. A handsome prince and two lovely princesses.

With eyes who had just spent a year in the US I could sense the foreign guests astonishment being a part of all this. This tiny country close to the North Pole frozen in frosting. Hosting one of the most important events of the world. Is it really for real? And today, I hear Alexis Steinman, daughter of late Ralph Steinman, Medicine Laureate, saying what I was thinking back then 14 years ago: “It’s like a fairy tale!”

I’m not sure that we in Sweden are fully aware of the impact of the Nobel Prize. It’s an institution in the Swedish society that passes by like a glimpse every dark December, out in the world though it’s a torch for scientific and intellectual enlightenment. Nobel is one of very few magic words in any language, for most parts unquestioned and solid. And a Swedish brand, I would say understated and somewhat overlooked by us. Maybe we are too close. Maybe you need to get your eyes opened far away to see. Maybe you need to get out of your own shadow. And even then it might be hard to find the words. To quote Tomas Tranströmer, the Literature Laureate 2011:

I am carried in my shadow

like a violin

in its black case

All I want to say

gleams out of reach

like the silver

in a pawnshop