Dec 27, 2015

Old time Christmases in remembrance

When I was a little girl, Christmas was a a crowded and sparkling three-day event. They all arrived the evening before Christmas Eve and filled every corner of the house until Annandag afternoon, the day after Christmas Day. Three generations, tons of food, fika and lots of presents.

My mother had a brother and a sister, Arne and Inga-Märta. We took turns celebrating Christmas in our home in Nordmaling south of Umeå, my uncle’s home in Robertsfors north of Umeå, and my aunt and grandma’s home in the city. We were six cousins, and then there were my mothers three great aunts. Altogether fifteen people under the same roof for three whole days. And it wasn’t like we had mansions, just regular homes, where did everyone sleep?!

In my home, the preparations for Christmas started early. The house needed to be cleaned from top to botton before the guests arrived, and decorations were not allowed until the house was shining and smelled from detergent and teak oil. But oh the joy of finally putting up the Christmas posters and of course decorating the tree.

Most of all though, the anticipation. The knowing it would happen, they would soon be there! Later I put a name on that anticipation, the Pär and Lena-feeling. Pär and Lena are my cousins and there was nothing more fun in this world than getting together with them. And now, three whole days, and it was Christmas!

Now, you should know that Christmas in Sweden is a lot of eating. 15 people were each day served breakfast, morning hours fika, lunch, afternoon fika, dinner and evening fika. You know by now fika is a sit down coffee/tea/lemonade with a cardamom bun and some cookie. But a Christmas fika is an overload of special Christmas cookies, served (by that time) at least twice a day. I thing the evening fikas might have been sandwiches. And then, of course, there was the Christmas candies too.

All this was cocked, handled and served by the three women in the family, my mother, her sister and my aunt Eva, married to Arne. My father, who was a pastry chef was somewhat involved too, I’m sure there also must have been a Christmas cake.

Trying to remember myself in all this, I have this feeling of us kids running around in our own universe while the grown ups were chatting and laughing, taking care of the kitchen, and there was always some table to be set or a table cloth to be shaken in the cold out the back porch door. The great aunts were often resting thanks God, cause I really disliked having to be polite putting up with their conversations.

But, in spite of the great aunts, Christmases were heaven to us children. Imagine being together from the minute you are waking up until you are forced to bed for three whole days! Then again, imagine the emptiness when having to separate, watching the tale light of the cars disappearing down the snowy street.

I am recalling all this, this Christmas. Christmas Eve was here, at the end of the road. We were unusually few this year. First time without Trouble 1 who spent Christmas withs his girlfriend Fay’s family. So we were only six here, very calm and relaxed. And as we have put the early morning Christmas service -julottan- to rest, there was no singing to prepare (quite strange) and we could stay up as long as we wanted (quite nice).

But when we split for the evening, it was still only for a few hours, because on Christmas Day my aunt Eva had invited all my relatives for a Christmas fika! The great aunts are of course long gone, and so is my mother and father and my uncle Arne. But Evas apartment was crowded, warm and full of Christmas cookies and candies. It pretty much felt like an old time Christmas this year.

And what about Annandagen? Well I guess I am not a little girl anymore. I felt quite happy on my couch drowsily and accidentally watching a parade of seventies dance movies on TV by myself.

Dec 20, 2015

Letting go of a life line

When does this story start? When my father died? When an old friend found me in a dreadful state of mind? When I was born?

Yesterday I closed the door to her practice behind me for the very last time. It’s almost impossible to grasp.

Let’s call her Eva. She was a 50-year birthday gift from an old high school friend. He and I got together after many many years. At that time my self image was so distorted I didn’t think I had a right to exist. The year before, when my father died at the same time as my ex husband and life companion got on with his life, I promised my sons to find someone to talk to. 

I did, and it was a disaster. I left every session in tears, feeling even more deserted and completely lonely in the world. I expected therapy to be tough so I forced myself to go back every week, until an old colleague one day found me crying in the rain at the parking lot afterwards, telling me this wasn’t right. Tough yes, but not devastating. How would I know? There is a downside to being persistent.

This was when my high school friend and I got together. He was very concerned about me and told me about Eva who he had been seeing for some time. Would I like to meet with her?

I was burned. And it was with great fear I decided to make a new try letting someone into my bleeding wounds. But I did.

For a long time I had been aware of the need to look at myself and the circumstances in my life, such it had been and such it was. I knew, if I started doing so, it would be for ten years, possibly the rest of my life. Eva and I have had 9,5 years together now.

She has been the exact opposite to my first, I would say traumatizing, experience. Eva is a warm and loving woman with no need putting up a cold distance to her client. I have never felt diminished and belittled, never evaluated and judged. Eva has the wisdom of an old soul and no high horses to sit on. She knows that she doesn’t have all the answers. She is a fellow human being who has made her own path in the labyrinth of counseling and therapy, and me, in my turn have given her to many friends around me.

There is this movie, Shall We Dance?. Susan Sarandon is the wife hiring a PD (Richard Jenkins) to spy on her husband (Richard Gere), when he starts acting out of character.  In one philosophical scene the wife asks the PD why he thinks people marry. Out of passion?, he says. No, she responds, we marry because we need a witness to our life.

Depending on what life has brought me these last 9,5 years I have seen Eva once a week or every other. She has been my guide, my support and my friend. Not outside the practice of course, but in her warm and safe room she has been my friend. She has been with me through everything I’ve been through, she has watched it all. She has been the witness to my life.

Whatever happened in my life, and God knows it’s a lot, there has always been Thursday. When I got to curl up in Eva’s warm corner to share. To let it all out, to let go and give in, to learn and get perspective, to look deeper, to strengthen myself, and to be full accepted just as I am. Eva has, many times, been my life line.

But now, she is moving on. And it’s time for me to say good bye and thank you. And start my life without my Thursday routine.

Dec 13, 2015

Sweden, becoming a fortress


I am watching the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau welcoming the Syrian refugees. Giving them permanent residence permits at the airport terminal, social security numbers and health cards. Inviting them to become Canadians. Expressing it’s a wonderful evening. And I am thinking wow. It is possible!

I am not proud to be a European theses days. And I am ashamed to be Swedish. I am even ashamed about my city Umeå. In only a couple of months Sweden has moved from letting everybody in need in, to building a fortress. The national conservative party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) much despised opinions about refugees and immigration have in a very short time become politically okay and the Social Democrat/Green government this week agreed on a law which will definitely change the earlier polished image of Sweden for the worst.

The pressure from the masses fleeing from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan is high in the bottle neck passage between Denmark and Sweden. ID controls on the ferries is already a fact. And on the new year there will also be ID checks on trains and buses. The reason, in the this week passed proposition, is “a severe threat to public order and internal security”. And the purpose is to make less refugees come here, and transform Sweden to a less attractive country. What a goal.

A severe threat to public order and internal security. Now, this is interesting. 154 758 refugees have , this far, sought for asylum in Sweden 2015, twice as many as was predicted this summer. That’s a lot. And we weren’t prepared. Of them, about half the number, gets to stay in Sweden.

The situation at the south Swedish border is very difficult. Unaccompanied children get lost and vanishes. Malmö (Malmoe), where the peak pressure is, this week asked five other cities to let some of the pressure off, helping Malmö out, becoming transit locations for unaccompanied children. Umeå was one of them. All the cities except Umeå responded yes. Apparently we couldn’t handle it. Note that Umeå is scoring very low welcoming refugees in general. A city with the self image of being open and tolerant.

We can’t handle it. Public order.

Sweden is a well organized, well functioning and well being country. The tolerans for disorder is low. What we perceive as chaos might to others be serenity.

The word chaos is used a lot here these days. As well as out of control. The refugee situation is so chaotic and out of control that we need to take a breather.  That’s why the ID-controls on ferries, buses and trains. The Swedish government in the proposition this week even tried to sneak in the option closing Öresundsbron (the bridge connecting Sweden to Denmark) if necessary, but that one didn’t pass. And who is going to handle the ID checks? Well, people working on the buses and trains! Evaluating Middle Eastern drivers licenses!

I know the situation is extremely strained and I appreciate the concerns. It’s not ideal people being on the run from terror for months finally arriving in the country for their goal, having to sleep outside in the cold because there isn’t room for them inside. But it’s probably better than being rejected and sent away. 

It’s not ideal being offered beds in tents, but it’s a roof over the head and the tents are warm. It’s not ideal being too many in an asylum accommodation, but there is food and clothes. It’s not ideal starting school without interpreters, but the children get to meet Swedish kids having a chance for friends in the new country and learning the foreign language from there.

But we can’t handle it. And I would say it is not in concern over our guests in need not being treated as well as we expect us to do. It’s about our organized country being stirred up by the disorganized world coming here messing with our systems and protocol.

The now viral video of Justin Trudeau welcoming and dressing Syrians just out of the airplane is of course a well arranged photo op. The refugees look like they have had a make over already on the flight. And 25 000 people is not many for such a big country, but it’s more than the even bigger U.S. and a lot of the European countries. And the photo op is still real. The facts are real and the Canadian prime minister is expressing an open face, a warm heart and generosity.

In Europe, all I see now is strained shut down faces. Cold eyes. Building a fortress. Even my own country. And that, to me, is very painful. I am thankful, this Lucia Day, for the new Paris climate agreement sending a bright light telling that it’s actually possible for the world to come together. Thank you.

Dec 6, 2015

It's been three years now

3PM and the December darkness is falling with the semi cloudy sky behind my grandfather’s crummy mountain ashes as a back drop. I feel like those trees. Old. Beaten. A couple of them I have taken out already. The rest are way over due. Sad and week. The storms tend to make an end to rotten and hollow stems now and then. 

When I was a child, we had our hide away in a tree house in the sturdiest one. I can still feel the power in my body climbing up there, and the freedom on the platform in the greenery, sensing the movement of the tree. Looking at the world from above. Later, I let my family’s clothes dry on a line between two of them. Tiny colorful baby clothes, eventually transforming to over size black teen age t-shirts.  And of course there was a basket hoop. Those crummy trees carry life times. As I.

They are my view from the couch where I have lived my life for the past three years. Yes, it’s been three years now since my back crashed in such a bad way I have never recovered. That’s not what I pictured that day of course. I had crashed before, sometimes it lasted for a couple of weeks, once it took me six months to get back on my feet. But I always did. Not this time.

It was a huge step letting strangers into my house to help me out. It was giving in and letting go of my autonomy and power. But I had no choice. I had to save my children from being completely burned out taking care of me. And in Sweden society has to step in when you are in this kind of need.

But I have been, and still am, forced to fight for my rights. It is the City of Umeå who makes the decision about how much aid I am allowed. The officials are not too generous, and often heartless. I have even been to court in these matters, and lost.

My salvation is the company I am hiring for doing the job (which the City pays), a small local one, Civil Care. They have stood by my side all through these years and are doing everything they can to make my life as tolerable as possible.

So, what is it like, my life? Well, it’s basically tied up in strict routines and pain. I occasionally have better days, but I can’t cheer on those in public out of fear of the City cutting my aid. The treatments and different medications, which are an absolute necessity, are expensive and economy is a constant struggle and dread as my possibility of working is significantly restricted. During my better periods I sing in my choir, even though some of my alto colleagues’ patience with my coming and going and special arrangements is at it’s end. And, as I can’t get around and not plan for socials or throw parties and get togethers, I don’t really see or hear (with a few exceptions) from people any more. I’ve always seen keeping friendship as a job (which I was happy doing), and when I am not doing it, it doesn’t happen.

Do I sound bitter? Of course I am. Bitterness is a severely forbidden feeling, so shameful it’s generally hidden in the dark, disguised in looking from the bright side and smiles and things could be a lot worse and I’m okay and there is so much to be grateful for.

Which there is. Truly. During the last two years I have, in spite of my physical restrictions, been producing a documentary, a portray, an assignment it took me nine years to land. Extremely inspiring and rewarding. I live in a country which is for the most part safe and where taxes makes society take care of people in need, like me. Through Civil Care I have several new young friends in my life, and I get to see people every day. My sons are nearby and I am still in the house I love, my home on my grandparents home stead. And I did my final check up at the oncology this spring, after five years of treatment.

Still, of course I would choose a different life if it was within my control. I would have my meals at the kitchen table. I would take long walks and work out at the gym. I would sit at a regular chair during the choir rehearsal and stand through the concerts, like everyone else. I would put all the kitchen utensils in the right places. I would drive my convertible, top down, in the sun with the wind in my hair. I would hunt for and work more. I would go back to Seattle, make my temporary homes in my choice of neighborhood for the time, walk my favorite spots, drive my favorite routes, watch the sunset in Gasworks Park and Highland drive, put up a Seattle office and produce my film portrays there too, so many interesting people who have stories to tell! And I would travel to Italy, find my perfect place at the see and practice the Italian I’ve been studying every day for years now.

But most of all I would invite my children home for dinner. Cook something nice for them. Prepare the dessert. Take care of them. Pamper them. Adjust the screwed up upside-down relationship life has put us in. Be the mother and make them feel the safety coming home as my children.

Nov 29, 2015

Sweden on a 4/high-Back in Boliden

It had only been home to him for a month, but really a home it seems.

The aftermath upon the arrest of the 22 year old Iraqi refugee in Boliden, a couple of hours north of Umeå little more than a week ago, have been severe. Did the Swedish Security Service know what they were doing at all? And had every newspaper  in Sweden as well as public service radio and TV lost their mind, releasing a suspects photo and name?

The answer on the second question is yes. The rules for name publishing in Sweden are very strict, and you don’t disclose a suspect. But “preparing a terror attack” was new territory and it seems like everybody sort of got over heated and went over board.

Question one is probably more complicated. The Swedish Security Service claim they acted on intel. And that’s their job.

What is really interesting to me here is how Swedes in general (that is what I am noticing in the media and social media I am choosing, of course), and journalists in particular are upset about SSS action and how they acted, to this open and non hidden young man. His friends in Boliden though, also refugees, open as well, being interviewed, did not question neither the police or the SSS. “They are doing their job, it would be wrong if they didn’t, it’s as simple as that”, was their response.

I am asking a young man who I am seeing a couple of times a week about his opinion. He came to Sweden as an unaccompanied refugee at the age of 16 and he works with my home care company. He has travelled the same journey as the thousands and thousands of refugees struggling their way through Europe this fall. So, what do you think? There is no doubt about it, everyone acting in any way suspicious must be questioned.

The 22 year old was released last Sunday. I am not mentioning his name although I could as it’s out there, but it just doesn’t feel right at the core of the journalist heart deep inside me. I am not mentioning his name although he will continue his life here in Sweden. In Boliden. Because. By the authorities he was offered a new place of his choice to live, anywhere, where he would be a bit more incognito.  But his response was a polite, thank you but no. All I want is to go home to Boliden. I feel safe there. 

The ground in Boliden is covered with snow and the young man is back. He has no idea where the intel about him came from, he himself fled from ISIL and the war. The accusation is what’s hurts, how people could think that he was someone and something he wasn’t. But he holds nu grudge towards the police. Nobody said bad things, he tells he was treated well and they gave him nice meals and clothes.

Next weekend he and his friends are renting a community center throwing a party to celebrate that he is back, inviting everyone in Boliden, serving delicious Arabic food. They want to connect closer with the inhabitants of the small town, saying thank you, striving for creating a life together. And he sends his gratitude to the Swedish police who took good care of him.

I find this moving and touching. And I am learning something important. These people have left unimaginable conditions of life and an extreme regime behind. A 22 year old man who was arrested out of the blue on suspicion preparing a terror attack to the country where he wants to create a life and a future, doesn’t feel violated or bitter, no he expresses gratitude to the Swedish police for taking good care of him.

And. The terror that is pretty much unknown to us but we rightfully fear, is what the young man and his friends know by heart. That’s why they came here. They are as scared as we are that it will strike their new country, possibly even more. That’s what I’m hearing from my friend working with me too. And they are therefore, as I am perceiving it, more tolerant to inquiries and interrogations here, even when it comes to them selves. Let’s only hope the police will continue being an authority treating the refugees and future Swedes so well they will be shown gratitude.

Nov 22, 2015

Sweden on a 4-high.

Today the prosecutor decided to release the man arrested on suspicion of preparation to commit a terrorist offense. He is no longer a suspect. But the terrorist threat remains. Sweden is not safe. And this is new to us.

Watching the news early Thursday evening, I hear a reporter talking about the intensified police presence, and with a tendency of a smile, saying that it’s not likely though to find the hunted terrorist in the inlands of northern Sweden. Some hours later the man was caught in the small town Boliden, about two hours north of Umeå.

A week ago Europe was struck and chocked by the terrorist attacks in Paris. It has happened again. This time the target was ordinary people at restaurants, a sports arena and a metal concert. An act carefully organized and successfully conducted, looking at it with ISIL eyes. It seems like we are impotent protecting ourselves against this horrendous force. And this weekend Brussels is on red alert.

The Swedish scale for terrorist threat is a 5-level. In mid September the Swedish Security Service raised the level from a 2  - low, to a 3 - elevated threat. The attack in Paris didn’t change that. 

But on Wednesday the threat was upgraded to 4 - high. The decision was based on material from the National Centre for Terrorist Threat Assessment (NCT) which is responsible for producing threat assessments for Sweden and for Swedish interests abroad. A man was arrested in absentia on November 17 on suspicion of preparation to commit a terrorist offense.

That’s why, most everywhere in Sweden, police were patrolling streets, squares, train and subway stations, bus terminals, and even the northern inland, sparsely populated. Who would have imagined though, that’s where this man would be found?

Sweden has, this far, only had terrorist act as a failed attack. December 2010 two explosions happened in downtown Stockholm. Only the bomber himself died. It could have been so much worse.

There was something peculiar with this man arrested though. A 22-year old who hade been living among the 1600 inhabitants of Boliden with his name on the door at the asylum accommodation since September. Could he really be a terrorist?

It’s been a couple of tensed days here. But no. He wasn’t. It became clear after interrogation. The young man is released and promised support from Swedish authorities. He will need it. To be arrested as a possible terrorist must be nothing less than a trauma.

The Swedish Security Service claims though that the arrest, at that time, was the right thing to do. And Sweden is still on a 4 - high, on the 5-level scale for terrorist threat. As some circumstances still need to be clarified, the work continues. The Swedish Security Service will conduct additional interrogations with a number of people to obtain information on the alleged attack plotting against Sweden, with a view to proving the allegations wrong. Yes. let’s hope that will be the outcome.

What made me really worried, besides being on a 4 - high, was the fact that the arrested man was found in an asylum accommodation. This fall, when the worst refugee situation since World War 2 is happening, I am ashamed to say they are not welcome everywhere. As of late October, 17 asylum accommodations in Sweden were set on fire and the xenophobic forums on the Internet is filled with hatred and abuse.

If an extrovert 22 year old swimming in the public pool and liking the local grocery store in Boliden on Facebook, had done what he was on reasonable suspicion arrested for, the resistance for and the fear of welcoming refugees would certainly increase. I am relieved that wasn’t the case. And hoping asylum accommodations will feel safe both to Swedes and refugees in the future.

Nov 15, 2015

This is the case. My case/The end

It started last summer and ended this week.

For those of you following me, you know I have been in a legal process with the City regarding my needs for assistance as I am physically restricted. The contentious issue has been regarding being helped getting from my bed and couch to the bathroom, as well as being assisted to my treatments twice a week. June 2014 my application was denied by the City and November I appealed to the Court of First Instance (Förvaltningsrätten). And lost. 

This was a big disappointment of course. Although my lawyer and I had very little hope about a different outcome, we decided to go forward in the process, appealing to the Court of Second Instance (Kammarrätten). This happened in January 2015. The verdict is absurd in so many ways, and we needed to make our voice heard one more time, no matter the outcome.

On Midsummer’s Eve my lawyer contacted me, with unexpected news. The Court of Second Instance (Kammarrätten), had approved my appeal, which means they were willing to look at the verdict from the Court of First Instance (Förvaltningsrätten)! That’s all there was, the outcome could be in favor to me or not, but  the important thing was, there was something in the verdict they were questioning and willing to look in to!

Neither my lawyer nor I saw this coming and I was so happy for the both of us. He is just the sweetest person, who has put in I am sure at least 30 hours on me, only charging me for 5. And I could tell from the expression on his face he was really excited to get a case like this in Court of Second Instance.

Thursday though, the verdict came. I lost. I have been fighting quite a few battles in my life but never before a legal one.  It lasted for 1,5 years and now it’s over. There is nothing more I can do. I lost. And that’s the end of it.

Nov 8, 2015

Move Seattle on the go!

It’s raining in Seattle this weekend. And rain in Seattle means bad traffic. Rain on a weekend even worse traffic. Not that there is ever good traffic in Seattle any more.

As much as I (always) long for and miss Seattle, the thought of traffic makes my belly crunch, my muscles tighten and my pulse rise. To be gridlocked in the Mercer Mess. Stuck at an I5 onramp. Bumper to bumper on the highway. Detoured in Downtown. Sounds like a movie titel.

Seattle is often high ranked on the list of livable cities. But being nr. 7 on the list of most congested cities in the U.S is not a ranking to be proud of. And Seattle’s scores a top-five national ranking for traffic delay. Still, an early summer 2015 survey show that a huge number of Seattle-area commuters — close to half — can’t even imagine a scenario that would get them to ditch the car and take an alternative, even just once a week!

In a scientifically conducted survey more than 6,000 households were asked about  hypothetical scenarios that might entice them to take transit, carpool or van pool at least one additional day per week. For example, gas at $5 per gallon (3,8 liter) elicited the strongest response, but it would still only change the driving behavior of 18.6 percent commuters. And if parking costs were to spike by 50 percent, 11 out of 12 drivers say they’d simply shrug it off. 

To a Swede ca 44 kronor for 3,8 liter gasoline is nothing, but I can tell you parking costs in Seattle already are astronomical, at least compared to the Umeå standards.

The survey even asked if there was something else that hadn’t occurred to the attending that might do the trick. Again, no. Not many drivers could think of some other scenario that would get them out from behind the wheel. The survey seems to suggest that, to some degree current traffic nightmare is a prison of own making. 

There is an upside though. 19.6 percent of respondents said that, if it were an option, they would take high-speed transit rather than drive. As a percentage, that is fairly low, but it projects out to more than 310,000 car commuters in the region. Imagine the impact on rush-hour traffic if that many cars disappeared from the roads! 

And, here is the news: it is fall ballot time, and Proposition 1 in Seattle, to spend a record-high $930 million over nine years on streets, transit, pedestrian and bicycling routes, was winning handily Tuesday this week! 

In March 2015, Mayor Ed Murray introduced Move Seattle, his ten-year transportation vision that integrates plans for transit, walking, biking, and freight. The idea is Move Seattle will help meet current demands while working toward future needs as Seattle continues to grow. Move Seattle envisions a transportation system that contributes to a safe, interconnected, vibrant, affordable, and innovative city.

Who wouldn’t like that for Seattle?! Well, quite a few as it turns out. And of course it’s about the money. Not just the $930 million for Move Seattle, but the nay sayers claim a yes to that kind of tax increase ($279 a year for a mid-value $450,000 home) would pave the way and give a green light for more tax requests.

Anyway, today mayor Ed Murray and about 56.5 percent of voters are happy, and here is the mayor’s plan for action: 

“The first thing I want to get done is that the Safe Routes to School get built everywhere,” Murray said in an interview. The plan calls for equipping roads near every public school to include sidewalks, low speed limits, crosswalks, enforcement cameras or speed bumps.

Sounds good to me!

Nov 1, 2015

A light family tradition in the dark

It’s always very beautiful. All the lights. Flickering in the dark. And it strikes me, like so many times before, how on most every grave there are candles lit.

It is All Saint’s Day, Allhelgonadagen, in Sweden. A church holiday becoming more and more dear to us, it seems. When I was a child I remember dad walking to the cemetery to make my grand parents grave look nice for the the pretty dark holiday. It wasn’t that easy to light a candle in the cold or rainy fall back then, as the plastic wrapped ones is a fairly new phenomenon, so only a few vague flares, that’s my memory of my childhood All Saints Day cemetery.

Today every cemetery in Sweden is lit up in honor to our loved ones. The gloomy holiday we payed as little attention as possible has changed to a celebration of light. Some cemeteries even offer coffee for warmth to visitors shivering in the dark.

My parents passed away only six months a part 2004 and 2005, and since then my sister and I have made it a tradition to visit the cemetery in Nordmaling, 45 minutes south of Umeå where we grew up, at All Saints Day. It hasn’t happened every year, but my guess is Trouble & Trouble and their three cousins remember it as an annual event. And it’s not always we are all gathered either, the nicer when we are.

Over the years our little crowd has been blessed with girlfriends and a wife. Which is nice also because we like to sing to our parents/grandparents. And as my sister and I have produced only male voices, imported female voices come in handy.

Yesterday we all met up at the family grave. We lit the candles in the lantern, one tall for dad and one shorter for mom. And then one for my grandparents. The evening was unusually beautiful. Dry, calm, some degrees above freezing point. It wasn’t quite though, as we aren’t that quite. On the contrary, we are pretty loud. I hope no one was offended by our laughters, and if they were, my hope is we were forgiven when singing grandpa’s and grandma’s favorite hymns. We even sang them a Christmas hymn in harmonies, Jul jul strålande jul, as we won’t be there on Christmas Eve.

This year we also brought them a very special gift. My sister’s oldest son’s one year old daughter. This was her first visit to the family grave, and I can easily picture my parent’s joy watching her toddle around before them, singing already, and looking exactly like my sister that age.

Afterwords we were all invited to my sister’s place for a nice warm dinner, and joined by the little girls newborn baby brother. Only 10 days old he was passed from one arm to another through the evening, we all wanted to have our share of this new family miracle, and he let us. It was so nice of him.

I am happy and grateful to see my sons and their cousins appreciate this tradition. I am happy there is a way for them to visit their beloved grand parents. I feel the value of the stately tombstone my sister and I carefully selected, our parents names engraved in a font my dad would have picked out. The stone is a picture of them, a picture we all recognize and know. It’s a comfort it’s always there. And that we are always welcome.

Oct 25, 2015

Where do you find the Nr 1 and Nr 5 wealthiest person in the world? Well, from this week in Seattle.

This week Jeff Bezos jumped up being third richest person in US. Warren Buffet is in between him and Bill Gates, who is number one.

And this week Jeff Bezos jumped up being the fifth richest person in the world. Bill Gates is number one. I am not sure if I am to congratulate Seattle or not.

I remember a hilariously funny show, a typical Seattle moldy basement show, somewhere around the Millennium. It was a one man show. The man was Mike Daisey. He had worked at the by then still fairly new company Amazon.com for some years but was now out of the cubicle. He also wrote a book, “21 dog years, a cube dweller’s tale”.

Ironically (as the book isn’t making the company looking good) I am finding it on Amazon:

In 1998, when Amazon.com began to recruit employees, they gave temp agencies a simple directive: send us your freaks. Mike Daisey -- slacker, onetime aesthetics major -- fit the bill. His subsequent ascension, over the course of twenty-one dog years, from lowly temp to customer service representative to business development hustler is the stuff of both dreams and nightmares. Here, with lunatic precision, Daisey describes lightless cube farms in which book orders were scrawled on Post-its while technicians struggled to bring computers back online, as well as fourteen-hour days fueled by caffeine, fanaticism, and illicit day-trading from office desks made out of doors. 

In the show, Mike is sitting with a plain light bulb above is head in a dark basement room at a desk made by an old door on two trestles, because that’s what an Amazon desk looked like those days. Bring some slackers in, add beat up doors and trestles, give them a phone, a stack of Post it and sell some books from this under ground thing we created!

What I remember the most from the show is what happened when Mike Daisy was looking for job, post his Amazon years. Because of Amazon in his CV he was offered high end job he had neither experience from or skills for. It’s ridiculous, he said, the only thing I did was sit at a desk writing down orders from people buying books!

So, this has been my image of Amazon. A dark dump basement. It’s hard to grasp the development from 1994 only in Seattle, where Amazonians now occupy 14 shiny buildings at the new South Lake Union campus in the middle of Seattle. In the next five years Amazon will have 10 million square feet (about 1 million square meters) of office space in Seattle. That's enough for more than 71,000 employees. And they have certainly moved up from the basement.

A New York Times article this summer investigated the work conditions at Amazon. Employes aren’t allowed to talk to media, but former “Amabots” testified people crying out of exhaustion at their desks, putting in inhuman numbers of hours a week. The article describes coldhearted bosses, annual staff cuts described as “purposeful Darwinism” and grueling hours for burnt-out employees.

I remember similar things said about Microsoft at my first Seattle stay in 1993. Important meeting scheduled after hours and weekends so that people having started families would get the hint they weren’t preferred anymore. And I myself have been on Microsoft campus in Redmond on a Swedish National Radio story, carefully guarded not to speak with anyone who wasn’t on my in before hand approved list.

For me, who only know Seattle since 1993, Microsoft has always been there, and it’s hard to imagine what the city had been without it and without Bill Gates. A man who was equally loved/hated until he turned respected and even admired.

Amazon, I can tell, is changing Seattle to something Seattleites in general don’t like and even fear. In fact, it’s all but guaranteed that at any given time someone somewhere is blaming Amazon for something: spiraling housing costs, worsening traffic jams or the specter of income inequality. And Jeff Bezos, well, so far I don’t hear much good about him

Oct 18, 2015

The end of one journey and the beginning of another

- You make a difference!

Most every day he is doing the updates on Facebook.

- Marie and Per were here tonight making waffles with our guests. All tasty and engaging.
- Eight hair dressers students visited today giving hair cuts to at least 50 of our guests. Amazing.

Torstein Bratwold is a friend of mine. Together with a former politician, Åsa Ögren and handpicked staff, they two weeks ago welcomed the first 150 refuges to the asylum accommodation in the old nursing home in Umeå.

All matters concerning asylum are, as they should be, strictly handled by the Swedish state and the Swedish Migration Board. It was only weeks before, that the nursing home and Torstein and his colleagues were approved of by the board. And now the first bus was here. Men, women and children who had been on the run for months. The end of a journey. And the beginning of another.

Torstein’s updates on Facebook makes my eyes tear. Because of the stories these people carry. Because realizing what a bad fit my well functioning Swedish society is to people without a social security number (personnummer) and a bank account (even if there is very little in there). Because of what Torstein and his colleagues are doing in this situation. And because of the volunteers who willingly and with great joy are making their contributions.

The goal for Torstein and his friends’ company “Umebygdens etableringscentrum”, is to create the best asylum accommodation i Sweden. Their standards are way above The Swedish Immigration Board’s. The good energy is spreading and people show up at the accommodation to contribute with what they can. Here is a selection from Torstein’s updates:

Andreas, you are amazing! Today you made an invaluable contribution when you came to our asylum accommodation with a large roll of paper and a lot of pencils. But the most important thing of all was that you gave of your and your kids time. Quickly the children gathered around you and began to draw, some drew animals and the boats they traveled over the Mediterranean Sea.

Today was the first day that breakfast was cooked in our new and nice kitchen. Our partner the Swedish Church with matron Carolina, delivers organic produce which our guests cook themselves.

It is not until Thursday we start our regular teaching, but today Nils Seye Larsen, at the request of our guests, spontaneously was teaching Swedish. What a feeling when 40-50 people after an hour are counting to ten and saying "My name is .... and I come from ..." in Swedish, with big smiles. All over the house I hear the vowels ååå. äää, and ööö as the evening is settling. And I am happy I get to experience this along with all the dedicated and talented people.

The last few days the guests at the accommodation received the first Swedish social studies in Arabic and Persian. The knitting circle was a success, God knows everyone will need a warm scarf up here! The goal for the accommodation is to give the guests possibilities to be an active part of the Swedish society as soon as possible. And let’s Torstein end this post with a quote summing up the first ten days of his, his colleagues and their guests new life together. The end of one journey, and the beginning of another.

Ten days have passed since our first guests stepped off the bus and slowly but surely we have procedures in place. I am impressed and proud of all the good will that we encounter from both the authorities and individuals. The Swedish Migration Board, the City council, the public dental service and the police. Everyone wants well, although we our society do not have the habit to receive people who are without social security numbers, bank account numbers, identification cards, cash and Swedish language. Situations arise daily, but in most cases we solve the problems. I would especially highlight the Immigration office in Umeå, who passed a nearly overwhelming task these past days. Together we will create the best accommodation in Sweden.


Oct 11, 2015

The illusion of control

Looking at the world from my couch I am fascinated by control as a concept.

My Facebook feed is inhabited by people who are often on the move. Traveling. Going to concerts. I am thinking they are booking their tickets presupposing they will actually take that trip. See that concert. And I am sure most often they are. Nothing happens that will not make it happen. They decide, they act upon it and follow through. Looks very nice.

Grown up people are in control of their lives. They have a job, a workplace, colleagues, a salary coming in every month, sick leave benefits if they get the flu and pension kicking in when they retire (in Sweden). They can pay their rent or mortgage and maybe even have money over for those travels.

This is the every day control in general. Then we love the idea of controlling our thoughts and feelings, our bodies, our minds. I am just today reading about the app Muse keeping my thoughts in order. Dual N-back works my RAM. Lumosity challenges my mental processing speed. There is no end to what we can come up with to be in control. Be more in control.

But. We never are. Tomorrow you can be out of job and everything falls apart. Someone close can die and you loose your ground. A divorce splits your life like a gorge. You wake up one morning with a tumor in your breast and death breaths your neck.

Am I sounding morose? Well listen to this.

The Cold War is forever over and someone starts the agenda to recreate the glory of Russia. We would never forget Treblinka and Auschwitz, and neo-Nazis are marching all over Europe. A couple of years ago people in Syria were living regular lives going to jobs and school, today 4 million people have fled the country. And then, of course, there is the natural disasters.

Where am I going with this? I am not sure. But I think my life ruled by my body and the circumstances around leaving me exposed to fortuity, risk, hazard and the random has made me very aware of the concept of control.

I am not in control of anything. What I can do NOW and NOW can be changed during the AND. Can I take a walk when Josephine comes here for dinner? I don’t know. Can I water that plant that would need it? I don’t know. If I move just a little bit here on my couch, what happens then, does The Knife stab right in my sacrum? I don’t know. If I walk down the stairs, can I get up ugain? I don’t know. My choir is about to have these concerts next week, will I be able to attend? I don’t know, probably not. If I do attend, will I be able to make it through the concert? I don’t know. 

It’s the City who decides how much help I am allowed. Right now I’m good, but my experiences tells me to not trust it, changes for the worst is just a phone call away. Working in home care is often a transition job. I get to know the ones coming here to help me out, I build a relationship, start feeling safe, get attached, just in time to let go, and then start over again. That’s the nature of it. Although I’ve been extremely lucky with personnel over the years. 

I have a beautiful house so I’m safe and warm in that sense. I own it, but due to conditions out of my control it won’t be for as long as I would want or need. I have a home but I am sort of here on borrowed time, and I don’t know how much time I have. I have a home for now, but am feeling homeless.

So, my life is a 24/7 blue light flashing. And therefore I am very sensitive to situations where people are exposed and vulnerable. Without control. I remember very clearly first time in Seattle when I was facing a homeless man. The sign: no job, no food, no cash. He looked just like anyone. Like you and me. Like it was his first day on the street. I was struck by the thin line. Between being in control and not. And I see a lot of that in the world, here from my coach.

In December 2014, due to a weak minority government, the parties in the Swedish parliament made an agreement for stability and for damage control of the social conservative party. The agreement would last for the next eight years. Friday the Christian Democrats broke the agreement and Sweden is facing a totally unexpected government crisis. What seemed to be under control isn’t.

So what’s the point here? It’s a good thing most people don’t have my experiences. Or the Syrian refugees. Or the begging Romanies on their knees outside every grocery store in Sweden. It’s a good thing most (Western) people feel safe and in control. It’s a good thing they can book a trip and take it. But anything can happen to anyone. Control is only an illusion.

Oct 4, 2015

2 cities, 4 years and 201 postings!

For four years now this has been my routine, what would I do with my Sundays if I didn’t write my blog?

I had planned on starting a blog for quite some time. The purpose was to share stories from my two hometowns Umeå and Seattle. Stories about two very different cities with a lot of things in common. The northern locations in their countries, the cultural arts scene, the Waterfront design, the building cranes, the tolerance and open minded Seattleites and Umebor, the moving forward spirits.

My very first posting was entering cyberspace on October 1 2011 in the Seattle Montlake neighborhood in the lovely apartment I was renting from the equally lovely Dita, only one block up from where me and my family were living 1996-97. And I am not sure it wold have happened right then if it hadn’t been for my back turning acute and I had to stay put on Dita’s couch instead of running around the city having fun.

I didn’t see it as a sign back then (thanks God) that this would be my future life. Staying on a couch instead of running around.

Anyway, I have been telling stories about my two cities. About the Waterfront projects. About the Seattle process and the Umeå process (democracy is strong and we take our time). The traffic situations, architecture, the bicyclists, Refused and Nirvana, developers and preservers, and Swedish politics verses American. To name a few.

I love that. I love doing a good research and get the story right. I used to be a journalist. A public service broadcast journalist. Therefore, every time I am reporting about a city-plannning discussion or a traffic gridlock situation I am feeling like I am doing my job. In two aspects. I am telling about something real and important, hard facts. And I am following my original purpose for Home is Away, Away is Home.

I wasn’t planning on being personal at all, except for stories connected to the original purpose of the blog. But as time passed, life provided me material with great impact on myself, and therefore close to my heart and easily transferred to my fingers tapping the computer keyboard.

And what have I learned about my readers over these years? Well, to a journalist something really frustrating. It turns out only a few are interested in city planning and politics. But hey, you love reading about my misery! When I am in despair over body issues or about not getting the help I need from the city, that’s when the curve on the Blogger diagram is peaking!

Am I surprised? Not really. This is what I am teaching when I am preaching storytelling professionally. Fill your story with people, emotions, images, and stay true. That’s how you can reach someone’s heart. Also, as a former news reporter I know tragedy sells.

So why am I annoyed? Why frustrated? Well, I could come up with something heartwarming or heartbreaking to tell most every week. But I just find it too…easy. A facile point win (does that work in this context?). And I don’t want Home is Away, Away is Home to be an all mushy porridge of emotions and sentiments.

Four years and two cities. What’s been up? Well, the cities are still true to their soul. The engaged citizens and the building cranes at the core. 

The Umeå waterfront is pretty much done, the new shiny Snöhetta designed cultural center up and running, liked by some and criticized by quite a few. I think though everyone agrees on the parks running along the Umeå River being a great addition to downtown Umeå, they are marvelous!

Waterfront Seattle is still mostly on the drawing table, but those drawings looks so much like the Umeå waterfront parks, they could be siblings, one of course a lot bigger than the other. When it comes to Seattle though, the change of South Lake Union and the impact on Seattle is what’s loudest.

The 1-year Home is Away, Away is Home anniversary posting was written on the Iceland Air flight taking me from the lower Queen Anne penthouse Seattle view back to Sweden. 2013 and 2014 I was here in my Swedish home at the end of the road, as I am now. The fall has been pretty much as warm as the summer (which was cold), but today I saved the last yellow roses from the garden, as we might be below freezing point to night.

Sometimes I am asking myself why I am still taping my fingers to the computer keyboard every Sunday. I don’t think I have tons of readers - the Blogger statistics is absolutely impossible to understand, so I don’t really know. I guess my texts are a bit challenging. First, they are long. Second, the language. To Swedish readers English can be a threshold. And to English natives I am sure my broken English is petty annoying. I apologize, since I am not able to spend time in Seattle anymore I am missing my English teachers and not improving!

I do like my Sunday routine though. And I get to practice my English such it is once a week. I enjoy writing and expressing myself. And I love my two cities, Umeå and Seattle. I don’t know my readers, but I am very grateful for your attention and I would love to hear from you! Home is Away, Away is Home, going for the 5 year anniversary!

Sep 27, 2015

Have they forgotten their history? How is that even possible?

In my case it is Heikki. And my friend Susanna’s father Robert.

Heikki came with a name tag around his neck from Finland during the second World War. He was one of the 70 000 children evacuated from Finland during the war, one of the largest children transfers in the world, as far as we know.

Elisabet was a distant relative to me, a bit older than my mother, an intense talkative woman married to a silent and mellow man. They didn’t have any children of their own, and they adopted Heikki. My memories of Heikki are very vague, but the story the more vivid. The fact that he for a while was engaged to one of the biggest pop singers in Sweden, Siv Malmqvist, made his story even more intriguing. 

To me Heikki was somewhat of a shadow. Elisabet talked about him all the time, but I don’t know his occupation, and did he live in Stockholm? I think though, that he was a fragile soul, and he died quiet young, maybe even before his parents.

Robert was one of 200 000 Hungarians who fled their country at the failed uprising 1956, and the regained Soviet Union control of Hungary. 8000 people sought refuge in Sweden, and Robert was one of them.

He made a life for himself here. Studied, married and had two daughters, Susanna is the oldest. His two sons were still in Hungary, and by the time they came two the age of military service, Robert and his Swedish family made not only one but two dangerous and dramatic trips to Hungary successfully smuggling his sons, the young daughters half brothers, over the border, for a safe life in Sweden.

Those stories are like taken from a dramatic film with a happy ending. But all films don’t end well, reality exceeds poem, and today Europe is facing the largest refugee catastrophe and immigration challenge since the World Wars. People from mainly Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are leaving their home countries because they have no choice, the voyage across the Mediterranean is true horror, and if they survive, the route to northern Europe is blocked by closed borders, barbed wires and water cannons.

I was born in 1956. The Hungary year. Most everyone in my generation knows a story like Heikki’s and Roberts. The stories of Finland and Hungary. Friends, friends of friends or family. The fact that Hungary today won’t let people even pass through the country is incomprehensible. Have they forgotten your history? How is that possible?

But the news reaching us this week makes me feel sick, maybe because it’s so close to me. People from Iraq are traveling through Sweden for Finland. Although Finland is a lot more restrictive when it comes to letting refuges into the country than Sweden, Finland consider Iraq more dangerous than Sweden does, therefore Iraqis feel their chance for asylum is higher in Finland, and they often have relatives there.

The Iraqis are traveling through Sweden on train. The land-border between Sweden and Finland is at the north end of the Bothnian Bay, the inland sea separating northern Sweden and northern Finland. The Swedish city Haparanda and Finnish Tornionjoki is practically one city, the border passing through it.

A week ago, Finns made a human wall at the border. People side by side, many in the Finnish hockey teams shirts (!) marking they wouldn’t let anyone in. The distance between Bagdad and Haparanda is 65762 km (4074 miles). That’s how far the refuges have traveled in unspeakable privations. And crossing the border, making it down to a refugee camp in southern Finland they were met by Ku Klux Clan look-a-likes, throwing stones and waiving blue-and-white banners: Go Finland go. Like this is a hockey match!! The dark Mississippi meeting the World Championship and the refugees are the hockey puck, or what?!!! And have they forgotten their history? How is that even possible?

Every night the trains with refugees are passing Umeå, making a stop here. People wanting to help out are there, providing them water, food, clothes and humanity. Today I have gone through my closets to see what I can do. I found four pair of winter shoes, sweaters, thick ski pants, two leather jackets and one big long beautiful beige wool coat. 

The coat is a favorite which for some reason doesn’t work for me anymore. For years I have been trying to give it away to someone who would really appreciate it, but failed. Now I am picturing a cold and scared woman, far away from home, being on the run for months, wrapped up in my warm coat, pulling the hood over her dark hair. And maybe she will even feel a little bit pretty, restoring a piece of her dignity.