Anniversary picture

It’s been a year now. I posted my first Home is Away, Away is Home stories a year ago, right before I left Seattle for the 2011 September stay. And here I am now, following the flight route on the Iceland Air screen in front of me, just starting crossing the Atlantic Ocean heading back to Sweden one year later.

Writing a blog is a lot like sitting in a radio studio talking into a green light: you have no idea if there is anyone out there listening to you, or who it might be. Working in radio you often get the advice to picture someone to talk to; somebody you know, or even somebody you know listening - a neighbor, an aunt. When it comes to my blog I know I have a few readers who check in every week: Maria B, Rolf, Ulrika, Debra, Randi. I feel so honored by that, and it gives me the purpose to every Sunday crawl up on my couch and tape my hands on the keyboard.

Most of the times that couch is in my quiet Swedish village at the end of the road close to Umea. Sometimes it’s in the middle of vibrant Seattle, where I am creating myself a temporary big city home. Following the statistics on Blogger it’s been interesting noticing that I’ve had hardly no readers in Sweden during my recent Seattle weeks. A lot of Americans though, many more than my friends there, so where do they come from, who are they? Who are you?

One little mystery is my Russian readers. Yes, Russian. The every week Blogger statistics tells me there are three persons in Russia following my Umeå-Seattle stories. Sometimes five. Which is hardly likely to be true. I guess there is some kind of computer program accidentally logging in to my blog, showing up in the statistics to make me surprised and happy. Coloring the US, Sweden and Russia in different shades of green on the Blogger world map, depending on the amount of readers in each country. The funny thing is though, during my Seattle weeks now, the Russian followers slowly faded away, no one left at the end of my stay. I am curious to see if they will show up again when I am back in Sweden!

I’ve had the wonderful treat of five nothing but sunny and warm weeks in Seattle, 2/100 of an inch of rain one early morning, leaving all of Seattle amazed about this highly unusual weather pattern. It’s also been a treat spending those weeks with my grown up son Trouble 1 who dropped me off at Sea-Tac today before he moved over to his aunt Autumn’s for the last weeks of his stay.

Trouble 2 has been taking care of my house while I was gone. And my carport! Remember my carport? Yes, it’s there now, and Trouble 2 has been working on the paintjob. Only, I hear it’s been as rainy in Umeå as sunny in Seattle. So it’s been a tricky task. Anyway, he took off for Paris yesterday for the fall going for his music instead of the paint. And as Paris and Seattle are on the same altitude, my two sons are right now on the same level although different continents doing what they love.

And I am hoping the five weeks of sun have charged my body batteries for the fall and the winter. And on Sundays I will cuddle up on my couch and do one of the things I love; share my stories about Umeå and Seattle. With Maria B, Rolf, Ulrika, Debra and Randi. And maybe a few Russians. And if there is anyone more out there, let me know. So that I can turn on my green light and picture you.