Dec 25, 2016

Grief caught off guard

He is saying on the radio today, that grief can show up unexpectedly as a lightning years after. He, the actor and author from my region talking on that topic. And I burst into tears this Christmas Day, probably because we share the dialect and culture. And because my dad would have loved his stories.

I know I haven’t grieved my father properly. The grief can hit me like it did today, caught off guard. A picture. A laughter. A rose bud. An annoying weed in the flower bed. Fragments surfacing. But I did never swim in the sea of that sorrow, exclusively. And as an attempt to do a little bit of that now when my wound is open I am going to express why. On this Christmas Day. Grateful and happy after a wonderful Christmas Eve with my family.

My father died late november twelve years ago. At the same time my sons’ dad, my ex husband, moved on with his life. We had been divorced for a year, but he was still my best friend. I got to know this as I was sitting writing the obituary. The funeral right before Christmas, the Holidays, New Years, those weeks an inferno of tears, rage, loss, fear and feelings of being abandoned. My father was very fond of me. So was my husband. Loosing the two of them at the same time was beyond words. The two sorrows entangled in each other. But the loss of my best friend dribbled out the one of my dad. Partly because I had not seen it coming, it was a shock there and then. Partly because I had two teen age sons to see to in the middle of this.

Which I did poorly. Did I take my son’s hands during their grandfather’s funeral? Did I hold them close to me? I don’t know. I feel like I didn’t although I might. I was occupied keeping standing on my to feet. I was trying so hard pulling myself together, acting like a grown up.

For the longest time I was a wreck. I didn’t have a lot of support nearby and to a part I can understand why. You are divorced, right? And you initiated the divorce. Yes I did. But life isn’t black or white. Nothing is black or white. And divorcing ones best friend also the father of ones children something so difficult no one should have to get through it. At least not at the same time as loosing someone else close.

I was a wreck. Oh I did hug my children, I did. I would say I was clinging to them. I needed to be close. Loosing my best friend over shadowed loosing my father and my focus on that change for my family over shadowed the loss of a grandfather. Finally my children asked me to go and talk to someone. Which I did. For a long time. But one of the things I feel the most bad about in my life is that I wasn’t able to be a mother when my children lost their beloved grandfather.

Nor was I able to take care of my own loss of a beloved father. But it’s been twelve years, why not during all this time? Because life isn’t a quite lake to contemplate. Life is a more or less stormy sea. A fierce waterfall spraying your body and soul with goods to handle. Life isn’t a cozy fireplace to snuggle up beside. Life is wild fire to keep on a short leash.

The grief over my dad is encapsulated in everything that’s been my life beyond him. Everything else that’s been needing and needs more acute attention. So today, listening to the actor/author speaking my dialect talking about grief, I had one of those moments when dad comes dancing before me. Literary. He loved to take a little spin by himself. And I hear his laughter. The laughter that everyone loved. I feel his including spirit. And I cry. Realizing at some point I need to take care of this for real.

And yesterday, on Christmas Eve, we closed the unwrapping of the Christmas gifts with standing up singing “Du gamla du fria”. My dad was probably the only Swedish Santa wrapping up the gift delivery with a crazy little spin and a free spirited interpretation of the national hymn. Maybe the only one in the world. The one and only.

Dec 18, 2016

Where Swedish is being the wrong kind

I can’t really find a word for the feeling this weeks news from Finland is bringing me. Might it be fear?

Of the five Nordic countries, Sweden is the big brother. It has the largest area and a population of 9 million compared to Finland, Norway and Denmark 5-5,5 million people. And then there is Island of course, only about 320 000 inhabitants.

The countries share history and partly culture as well. We also share language community since one of the Nordic languages is spoken in each country. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic all have the same origin, the Old Norse. Finnish though, is a Finno-Ugric language, not at all relate to the Old Norse.

However, Finland is officially bilingual, Finnish and Swedish are both national languages. Finnish is the majority language and Swedish a minority language spoken by about 5 %, the Swedish speaking Finns.

Now, the status about Swedish in Finland is questioned by some, especially by Sannfinländarna (The True Finns), a nationalistic and right wing party. As in too many countries around the world, the protectionism is on the march and the tolerance for minorities, wether being there forever or new to the culture, is vanishing. 

What happened in Finland this week is a new healthcare reform decided on by the government. The reform means that emergency care won’t be available in Swedish at some hospitals in Finland, among them Vasa right across the Gulf of Bothnia from Umeå. Vasa is the county seat in the region Österbotten inhabited by a majority of Swedish speaking Finns.

The situation is of corse upsetting to the Swedish speaking Finns who argue this is a human rights issue. Being denied emergency care in their mother tongue is downgrading them to second category citizen.

Now, why is this stirring up uncomfortable feelings in me? A tiny cramp in my stomach. Besides that it’s a bad decision.

Sweden wasn’t always the politically neutral peace loving country we are perceived as. Breeding skilled diplomats sent to troublesome hot spots of the world. Sweden once was a violent European super power and this is something we are very quiet about these days. The Swedish Empire. It doesn’t fit our today self image. And the reason to why Swedish is a national language in Finland is that Finland once was a part of Sweden.

Sweden is the big brother. Not only by area and population, but by history. This is not something we are walking around thinking about. This is our natural DNA. I am a white woman living here, self-evident as someone who knows her family tree by names and dates seven generations back. Aware of the many generations even before that. Speaking the language that is my country.

I think, realizing my language, four hours from here by ferry, in one of our brother-countries, is considered unwanted and problematic, feels…unreal. I am reacting like the safe ignorant majority woman I am. How can my language be disturbing?

But that tiny cramp in my stomach. I vaguely recognize it. From where? Then it comes back. An emergency stop for gas in Oakland California. The off ramp from the freeway and the gas station in the shadows under the ramp. People with empty eyes and frightening body language hanging around the place.

For me, a white woman born to walk safely in this world, it takes a documented dangerous place like an off ramp gas station in Oakland to feel the scare of being the one that’s different and out of place. To be the wrong kind. This week I am getting to know someone four hours from here, speaking my language, is the wrong kind.

Dec 11, 2016

My bad marriage

This year it was August 6. Summer disappeared over night and I panicked. I won’t survive! It happens every year when I have to let go of my front-door-always-open season.

August was a huge disappointment, September and first part of October though a surprising bonus. The latter October a rainy fog exchanged for real winter and one foot of snow starting the November weeks. Then it all melted away and the darkest of the dark hit us in companion with roads slippery from ice.

The “I won’t survive!” is for real. That’s exactly what it feels like. My body is happy when it’s warm. I am like a discharged battery before the sun comes out, and I spend the whole summer filling that battery to the brim. Overloading, I can’t get enough. Because when my body is happy I am happy. It brings me energy and with energy comes strength and stability. And will power. The good spiral. I don’t think I’ve ever realized the dignity of it as much as this summer. And the consequences of closing the door in the fall. Closing me down. Whiter like the summer flower I am. I won’t survive!!! I am not meant to be here, I must move to where I never have to be cold!

And where I can wear light clothing. It is interesting, because when I don’t need to cover myself in a lot of clothes I am in contact with my body. I can see my body. I can touch my body. My body is caressed by the hem of the white dress. My feet feel the grass. I am not separated from my body. We are a team and the chances for us to feel good and be good together increases.

I used to use the winter for good stuff. I used to go downhill and couldn’t wait for the snow pack to allow the slopes to open. I loved going downhill! And I was quite good at it. Mastering a black ski slope, what a kick. Being present with every fiber in my body. The full experience of being in contact. Shoveling snow, cars stuck in the mighty white, snowed in, it was all forgiven for those rhythmical runs in the slopes in harmony with myself.

2000 was my last downhill year. 16 years ago. Since then, I would say, the dark and cold season of the year has nothing to offer me. There is nothing forgiving about it anymore. When there is snow it’s beautiful, but as I can’t shovel it myself it’s a burden not only on me. My road is often slippery from ice and it’s a dangerous and tensed balancing act trying to take just the tiniest walk. The other morning there was actually a thin ice crust on what I thought was safe snow. I slipped, my pelvis yanked and… 

I won’t survive! I do of course. I’m here. But I do die bit by bit. Wither petal by petal. This year I decided on it must be possible to keep the energy. It must be a decision right? Mind over matter. Make a list of good things to do. Stick to it. Light the candles. Take out nice fall clothes to hang on my bedroom closet doors as an inspiration, just as I do with my summer clothes, that must work? 

A bit. But not really. I am doing all those things, but I am not warm. My body isn’t happy. And we are not connected. We are not a team. My body is something that hurts a lot, rules my life and I don’t want much to do with it. And I am beginning to realize that maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.

I saw this calendar. Beautiful paintings for every month. Swedish nature at it’s best. And the poetic saying: June, July August. All the other months a Longing. That’s a much better mind set than my usual. I tried to incorporate those romantic words within me.

Did I succeed? No. Because for me the grim truth is I should not live on the 64th latitude. The 64th latitude and me nowadays is like an old bad marriage. Nine months of surviving for the three months I am longing for. Or more accurate hoping for, because the Swedish summer is nothing to trust. Exactly like that marriage. You try and you come up with strategies and you hope for those better days but you have no idea if they will happen. 

So, what to do? Well, if I could do on my own and come up with a way to make it economically I would move. To the very south of Europe or even further, the winters have to be manageable. Or maybe I will build a giant green house to cover my house and the whole place and I could be outside even in the winter. Oh, I forgot, than I would need to install a sun too, to keep it warm. My friend Goran who comes from Kurdistan says the sun in Sweden isn’t a sun, it’s a lamp. It gives light but not heat. That’s a good way of putting it. And I definitely need a sun.

Dec 4, 2016

And life brought me the interpreter!

Earlier this fall I was telling the story about Elisabeta, the Romani woman making her living outside my grocery store. She has been on her knees on the purple inflatable cushion for more than a year now, always happy with a smile on her face however dark, rainy, snowy and cold the Umeå winter is.

We see each other Mondays and Thursdays as I am picking up my groceries and we talk to each other in the little language we have in common, a few words of English. What can I get you today? Chicken. Most often she needs a warm grilled chicken or some fruit. Sometimes money for gas for her cold trailer where she lives with her three little children. I wonder if she waits for me Mondays and Thursdays. Trusting and knowing those days she will return to her family with something to eat or with the possibility to buy heating for a few days.

I feel like we are friends, Elisabeta and me, although I am fully aware of me being in absolute power. And I have been dreaming of being able to talk to her for real. To find out what it was like being back in Rumania this summer. What it is like being here besides the cold and dark. Getting to know her a little bit.

A few weeks ago it was time for some staff changes within my home care company. It happens on a regular basis, as working in home service is more or less a transition job.  It is always hard on me. Connecting-getting to know-feeling safe-becoming friends is a process taking it’s time, and loosing-grieving-letting go meanwhile welcoming new people starting all over again is pretty draining. I know it will always be okay in a while, and often more than okay, even amazing, but the transition is difficult.

This time around one of the new people in my life is Daniel. He is a sweet young man, about 20. I couldn’t quite trace his accent first time we met. I was figuring maybe Finnish with something more mixed into it. It turned out he was Rumanian. He came to Umeå in his mid teens to stay with his uncle and went to school here for a year before returning to Rumania where he was for five years. But decided on Umeå again this spring. His Swedish is absolutely amazing, and as every young person from other countries and cultures I have met who has made difficult decisions following them through, he is reflective and wise and by experience more my age than 20. 

Imagine my excitement when I realized Daniel would be able making Elisabeta and I talk to each other!!!

The Monday afternoon was dark and rainy when Elisabeta and I greeted each other with our usual cheery hello. And I said, Elisabeta I have brought a gift for us, this is Daniel!

Daniel started talking to her in Rumanian and she was probably in a mild chock. Except for the Romanies there isn’t a lot of Rumanians in Umeå. She looked down, stroke her eyes, partly covering them, I had a feeling she was uncomfortable. In the store later I asked Daniel. Yes, she was probably startled by the situation. And maybe ashamed to meet a compatriot, bent on her knees. A compatriot who is still different.

Placing the warm chicken in her hand, she asked me through Daniel if I knew somewhere they could set up their trailer. Due to a road construction the Romany camp is evacuated by the City from the piece of land the church has been letting up for them until now. I felt so ashamed shaking my head saying no, I am so sorry, but no.

And of course I am thinking I am out here at the end of the road on my own land. There is place for a trailer. But they want to be all together and they need water and toilets. I am discussing with Daniel on our way back here, and yes, they need to be not too far from the city either, where they make their living. But still. As I am warm on my couch in the evening. But still.

Monday this week Elisabeta had good news, they had been offered rooms at a shelter. It made me so happy and maybe even more happy that she through Daniel could bring me the news! This was the second time for the three of us, and Elisabeta seemed to be more at ease with the situation. She asked me what was wrong with me. For more than a year now she has watched me being helped in and out of the home care car by a number of aids. Now I could tell. She was concerned and wished me good health and  would pray for me. And she thanked me for my good heart and soul and on top of that she thought I was beautiful! Forte beautiful! We all laughed and Daniel told me they they were using the Italian word forte (which means strong) for amplification all the time.

Being helped into the car afterwards I was so grateful for my conversations with Elisabeta and the many to follow, and I thanked Daniel for giving me this gift which I had been longing for such a long time. The wise reflective young man replied “It’s not me giving you a gift, it’s life”. 

Nov 27, 2016

To be a -56 (or being one of the -56s)

There are the very distinct terms. The Baby Boomers. Generation X. The Millennials. Generations having their significant features. Then there is the crowd born in the Fifties. And they are like…nobody. Anonymous. No features at all. I am one of them.

Friday evening I was watching the 60 year anniversary of television in Sweden. We were born the same year, Swedish national television and I, in 1956. It was a great show. Fun. Dramatic history. Warm. Nostalgic of course. It was like watching my own life pass in review. So familiar. Close. Emotional.

There have been more anniversary shows this year. Because although the Fifty-generation generally is perceived as pale, there are exceptions. And in Sweden they happened to be born in 1956.

The -56s. That’s the term they go by. And they were all, except one, athletes. Internationally very successful, still some names might not ring a bell to you unless you had a special interest. To Swedes though, they are icons. So let me just list them. Frank Andersson, wrestler. Linda Haglund, sprinter. Tomas Wassberg cross-country skier. Ingemar Stenmark, downhill skier. Björn Borg, tennis player. And then of course Ted Gärdestad, composer and singer who left a much loved treasure of Swedish pop ballads for us to adore and pass down when he died much to soon.

Well, Björn Borg I know is still an icon to more than Swedes of course. And Seattle, you might remember Ingemar Stenmark as he was competing with the Mare brothers.

So, 2016 I have been watching all these shows of the iconic -56s. And it’s like I am watching myself. Especially Ingemar Stenmark who grew up in the mountains of my region. Who talks with the same dialect and is shy and self cautious as northern Swedes in general are. Who made all of us hit the slopes. But “watching myself” is more about watching my own story. Feeling myself through the familiar footage. Sensing who I were. The people around me. My life. I actually think it is really good therapy at the 60 year turn.

I am also realizing how much I am identifying myself with the -56s. Or, is it even that I am defined by them? In what degree do they have something to do with the fact that I have through my life expected myself to be a success? I can’t specify an area or a topic, but at some point I would be successful and in some way recognized. Is it that if you are born 1956 you would be destined to succeed? Anyone else born this legendary year who can relate to this? Well, it might rather be my mother’s grand plans for me. Or a combination.

Anyway. People born in Sweden during the Fifties don’t have a name or a special characteristics. We are pale, bleak, anonymous and forgotten. Except for six outstanding persons born in 1956, giving us unforgettable memories and experiences and making our lives visible. I happened to come to this world the very same year. I think all of us born that year feel a little bit like one of the -56s. Freeloading in the sun of those iconic legends. And my own success? Well, there is still time…

Nov 20, 2016

A 95-year birthday and a 4 year anniversary

It is lighting up the November dark outside my balcony window. An hommage to my dad. He used to decorate the railing of the back porch in my childhood home. Twisting pine twigs with lights around the railing at Christmas time. Light wires weren’t common in Sweden when I grew up and I don’t where he had found this. But the more rare and beautiful it was. I remember being proud about our special back porch and my father’s skills. Pottering was unusual for a man.

This summer I finally fixed a power outlet on my balcony with the only purpose of making my balcony railing as beautiful as my dad’s. I need to be practical though. Although I am surrounded by pine trees it’s too hard for me to cut the twigs and make them stick to the railing. So I bought a package of fake twigs and lights-combo at a cheap store. It really looks nice though this hommage to my father and it makes me feel like he is here with me.

Today would have been my dad’s 95 year-birthday. He passed away though, the day after his 83rd. I miss him everyday.

A different anniversary happened on Thursday. Marking four years since my back crashed and I started needing help in my everyday life.

As much as my dad left too soon and as much as I miss him I am often thinking it was a blessing he didn’t have to see his daughter in this situation. My back problems started more than 30 years ago and I know it was painful to him seeing me suffer. And needing to ask for help with all those things he taught me. Changing the tires, attaching a shelf to the wall, saw wood, painting the front porch. Well, that was long ago, now I need help with the most basic things.

The most important for a Swede is to fend. It is deep down in our culture. To not be a burden to anyone, not to other people and not to the society. Although the welfare state is (or has been) the Swedish soul, asking for help when you are weak and vulnerable is a failure. It’s the receipt for that we are in fact weak and vulnerable. 

We are not thinking twice about payed parental leave, child benefit, payed sick leave and state student grants, they are as natural as rain to us and I would say we are perceiving them more like human rights. But to apply for the help we are entitled to when we are becoming at age is to surrender to fragility. Giving in to that our life is over in the western way of perceiving it. It’s the proof of us not fending. 

My mother was sickly for many years at the end of her life and my father took care of her. He did not want people in the house doing the cleaning and helping out with food and grocery shopping. He wanted to fend. 

It is also a matter of dignity of course. It is an art form keeping your dignity while needing help from others. I am sure my father would have performed that art well if he had surrendered to it. But to watch his daughter surrendering at the young age of 56 I think would have broke his heart.

The first two weeks of November came with snow and my pine/light wire looked like Christmas, just like my father’s. It’s gone now, the rains are falling in the deep dark. But the lights are helping. On the 95-year birthday.


Nov 13, 2016

A soft-boiled egg without a shell looking even more forward to the first female president

Alyson Camerota and Chris Cuomo are staring right at me. They are dead serious. Announcing Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the U.S.A.

My plan was to stay up during the night, but I was down in fever and a cold and couldn’t do it. I dragged myself out of bed in the late morning and onto the couch. Put the TV on. CNN. Met by my usually energetic midday anchors. Not a smile on their face. Donald Trump is the new president-elect.

I felt like when I was watching the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. My body went into a cramp. This couldn’t be true. This is not happening. But like with the planes and the towers they ran it over and over again. Breaking news. The banner. I read it. Over and over again. And again. I cried.

The last few days I have been extremely tired. Like zombie tired. It’s the cold of course, but I am beginning to think I am having a mild PTSD light, hopefully transitory. 

I know what a shock is. I have had a few. So I don’t use the word carelessly. But there on my couch I was registering the feeling of a mild shock.

I think the fact that my companions for the occasion and the day, Alyson and Chris, clearly were as horrified and stunned as I was, enhanced the feeling. We were in this together. As all the commentators and experts in the studio that day.

For three days I kept CNN on morning to lights out. I watched Hillary Clinton’s succession speech momentarily. I saw the motorcade ride for the White House with the new president-elect while it happened. I heard every reporter and expert comment during the 1,5 hours the two presidents had their first meeting in the Oval Office. I watched the photo shoot at the end of it. President Obama relaxed (as relaxed as he could be in that situation) on his turf. And Donald Trump looking pretty small and his man-spread interestingly narrow compared to Obama’s. I watched all this to be present in the moment. That’s my way of processing. And it comes with experiencing intensely.

Switching over to Swedish National Television at the end of the third evening I discovered something odd. I felt slightly uncomfortable. A little bit of anxiety out of the slower tempo and the softer voices. Abstinence. I resisted the reflex zapping back to the high energy that’s been feeding me for three days. And in a while my breathing deepened. My pulse slowed down. I felt like I landed in Umeå after sitting in Seattle traffic for some weeks.

Then the fatigue. And a feeling of being in limbo. Part of it fear and uncertainty of what this planet will turn to with the boy brought up to be a killer never admitting he is wrong at the helm of “the free world”. Part of it because I don’t really know where I am at.

Three days experiencing and processing the frightening change of history with Alyson, Chris, Wolf Blitz and the breaking breaking news has transferred me to the U.S. My mind is there. Although my body is here. I feel like I am sitting in a tiny wooden boat without ores, drifting on the open sea. Balancing tide and waves. And myself. The trick is to just sit there. Follow the movements of the water. 

Here on my couch I feel a strong need for silence. It’s like those three CNN-days are still ringing in my ears. Shouting. And the message of it. Too much input. I need that silence and listening to myself to move back here. Touch ground. It’s hard though, since every day will be dramatic in this political shift and the temptation being present in that first hand information via American media will be strong.

The shocking fact that Donald Trump will be the next American president and the experience of the election has left me vulnerable. I am a soft-boiled egg without a shell. But I will try to stabilize myself with a positive future scenario. The fact that it didn’t come to a third Democratic term (which would have been historic) makes it possible for them to return in four years. And the fact that Hillary Clinton didn’t win makes the opening for a different woman to do so, which would not else be possible in a mans-age. 

So, let’s look at Donald Trump as a bump in the road. I know, he is a big pump. And a dangerous one. One who can throw the whole carriage over. But more Americans wanted something different than Donald Trump in this election. And in 2020 it will be Elizabeth Warren or Michelle Obama. I am looking forward.

Nov 6, 2016

The secretive girl seeking her father’s validation and the boy brought up being a killer who is never wrong

It is the last Sunday before the election for the next president of the USA. I want to write about it. I need to write about it. But in what sense? I am keeping the by nature loud CNN on while a quite snow is falling over my fields as a soft backdrop.

An American president election is as important for the world as for the U.S. That’s one reason to why we are so obsessed by it over here. Another reason is of course that it’s good entertainment. This time around good isn’t the correct word even, great would be more proper. I would say frightening though. As this is not a well written TV series. This is a reality show which is not only about being the most malicious one on the set, but who will be, as it’s called, the leader of the free world.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Neither one of them generally perceived as really sympathetic persons. A man and a woman of mature age. Once they were a little girl and a little boy. And as different as they are from each other, they have one thing in common.

The girl Hillary and the boy Donald both grew up with harsh and demanding fathers, even cruel. No matter what Hillary did, however a straight A student she was, her father responded “Did you get all A:s, then the bar in your school has to be set too low.” In addition to that he was mean, and abusive to her mother.

Young Donald was sent by his stern father to the New York Military Academy at the age of 13, spending his school years boarded in the grimmest educational environment the father knew of. Finding the severe discipline he exercised on his son wasn’t enough and believing a military structure would provide the best setting to shape him in the right direction.

The two young students became extreme achievers. Due to the constant fights in the girls home, her room became her refuge. She closed her ears the best she could and developed a talent for secrecy, concealment and inscrutability.

The boy became a young man within a military environment along only boys and learned about women through Playboy magazine. His father used the expression “a killer” for the personality he wanted from his son. In addition, he was taught to never admit any kind of wrong doings. One could say the boy learned well and his father should be very proud.

I am watching Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton flickering by on my TV screen. A woman who probably all her life has been looking for her father’s approval in everything she does. Longing for validation filling that hole he created in her. And a man who is the perfect product of his father’s pursuing.

The two candidates for president of the USA. The most powerful position in the world. A girl prone for inscrutability seeking her father’s validation. And a boy who is never wrong and brought up to be a killer.

I wonder if there are any parents not messing up their children. I think it’s inevitable. Fortunately most messed up children (that is all of us) are a problem only to themselves and their closest neighborhood. Not to the entire globe. So, in this particular case I would vote for the secretive girl seeking her father’s validation. Not for the killer who is never wrong.

Oct 30, 2016

The no bad mood-win!

Yesterday I felt a little off. I shouldn’t, because the sun was out all day (the much there is) these last hours of Savings time and we hadn’t seen it for two weeks. It’s like when Mount Rainier suddenly occurs after a long time of over cast, oops, there it is, I kind of had forgotten about it! 

This last week has been a transition week between my Pre Fall and my Late Fall. I have spent September and October working on public relations for a new CD from my choir Sångkraft Chamber Choir and upcoming concerts marking the CD release, which happened last weekend. Most other things in my life I had put on hold so the to do-list for Late Fall is pretty extensive. But in-between, a week of  recuperation.

The off feeling yesterday I can’t really figure out, not that it’s that important. It wasn’t like I was in a bad mood…

Bad mood, I was thinking heading for bed, when am I ever in a bad mood? This was interesting pondering.

I can be angry. I can be frustrated. I can be sad. I can be melancholy. I can be in despair. I can be devastated. I can be annoyed. I can be mad. I can be in a good mood. And all the positive adjectives on that scale. But in a bad mood. Like in general. Waking up in a bad mood. Being and feeling grumpy. No. Never. I am realizing. Not any more. Very interesting.

In my former life I used to constantly be in a bad mood. At least that’s how I remember it. And how I am perceiving myself. A negative grumper - I just invented that word.

I have definitely become a better person, and I mean that. I’ve been working a lot with myself for many years, and I am different. But in my bed yesterday I am reflecting about something else on the case bad mood.

To quote Carrie Bradshaw, “I can’t help wondering”: is it because I am by myself?

I am spending most of my time alone. There is a lot to say about that of course. My solitary is not by choice and to a large extent it is a negative aspect of my life. But. There is no one here to annoy me! Well, that’s not entirely true. My home care personal are all wonderful people and like family to me, but my kitchen drawers are a mess (dear ones, that’s not entirely true either, but you know what I mean). Etc.

Like family to me. And I am thinking, is that one definition of family? The people closest to you can really put you in a bad mood? Get on you nerves. All those annoying little and big things you don’t agree on. You go to bed irritated about your teenagers not having a clue about their share of the family disorder and you try to sleep beside a snoring husband with whom you had the usual dsipute. No wonder you wake up in a bad mood! And does anything change during the day? Nope. So you go to sleep… and you wake up…

This is like an epiphany to me. I am really never in a bad mood anymore. And is the case that only people interacting with us on a daily bases are triggering our bad mood?! I am thinking I have had my share of bad moods in work places too.

I share my life with my adorable little lady cat Sorella. Like any family member she has her peculiarities. In a couple of aspects she is more like a dog. One of them is that she is not, like normal cats, hiding and covering her defecation. No, she prefers leaving her excrements right on the slate tiles leading up to the house. Or at the path from the baker’s cottage to the outhouse. Yesterday I ruined my second pair of sneakers in two weeks with walking right on it. 

This might be why I was a little bit off yesterday. Or because I had a lousy night although no one was snoring beside me. Or the fact that Late Fall is starting tomorrow and I have to take aggressive action on my to do-list. Lots of different feelings will show up as they always do and that’s fine and as it should be. But according to my new awakening, I will neither wake up in a bad mood, nor go to sleep in that state of mind. My nest has been empty for nine years, how interesting I haven’t realized that win until now! 

Oct 23, 2016

Elisabeta

- Elisabeta, welcome back!! I walked up to her and spread my arms.

- Maria Maria, madame! And she stood up and an we hugged and took each other's hands and I touched her face and we  smiled and laughed, and she asked me: bra? Bra? Which means good. Good madame?

Elisabeta is the Rumanian Romani woman who earns her living outside my grocery store. I first met her about a year ago, bent on her knees on a purple inflatable cushion with her paper cup in front of her. In a little while we knew each other’s names.

I am doing my grocery shopping Monday and Thursday so we get to see each other twice a week. I always buy her some food. Most often a chicken, but sometimes she needs fruit more, or potatoes and some olive oil. For some reason I feel better buying her food then giving money, so that’s been my choice. After many months I realized I’d never asked for her preferences so I did, but it turned out she actually preferred food so we were both happy.

Elisabeta only knows a few words of English and Swedish, and of course I don’t know any Rumanian. Some of the Romanies here know Italian but she doesn’t, so it is hard for us to communicate about more than chicken and fruit. So although we’ve met twice a week for almost a year I don’t know much about her except the obvious. She is here bent on her knees begging for people’s mercy during the cold and dark Umeå winter because that’s her best choice. I know though that she has three children and lives in a trailer while in Umeå. And I’ve met her youngest, an adorable little 3-year old girl.

It’s hard to guess Elisabeta’s age. From the looks I would think we are the same age. Which we can’t be as her children are young. Goran, who works for my home care company and often picks up the groceries with me, is guessing 33. Goran is a Kurdish man from Iraq who has been living in many countries on his way to the final destination Sweden. As he is multiple lingual he was also the one figuring out Elisabetas message back in May when she wanted to tell me something besides chicken and fruit. 

I could tell from her eagerness it was something important. Yes, she was heading back to Rumania. And could I spare some money for clothes and food for her children for the trip? Of course I could. She had never asked me for anything before and now she was heading home. I didn’t get to say goodbye though, next time she was gone and I didn’t see her again.

During the summer there have been other Romanies outside my store. But not any regulars. And it was interesting, because I realized I wasn’t ready to connect to anyone new. It was like I needed the breathing space. Which is ridiculous. I needed breathing space?! I feel ashamed. I felt ashamed and I feel ashamed admitting it. But the thing is, connecting and doing the little you can do twice a week is a little bit like an adoption. You commit to someone. There have been Romanies before Elisabeta in my life, and the connection-separation I am experiencing is a process needing it’s time.

But this Monday Elisabeta was back! I didn’t know if I would ever get to see her again, but there she was on her purple cushion! And we were both so happy to meet again. I asked her what I could get for her and her respons was chicken. We smiled. Chicken of course. And it always feels good handing over the warm food in her cold hands.

What I really wanted to ask her though was how she was. How she had been. How was Rumania? What was it like being back home? And how does she feel about returning to the cold and dark Umeå. Oh how I would love to have a real conversation with this woman, always smiling on her cushion how ever bad the winter is.

On Thursday she talked about the trailer. Cold. Gas. Babies. Gas? Money? She needed money for heating the trailer. Of course I wanted to help her out. 

Next time Goran is the one assisting me to the grocery store I will ask him if he, with all his language skills might figure out a way to ask her how her summer was. Maybe he can be Elisabeta’s and my interpreter. Language. Communication. The key to everything. Oh how nice it would be.

Oct 16, 2016

Me, my mother, and the piano

Watch your ears I said as I slammed the piano lid one last time! Bam!! God, that felt good!

My dear neighbors Jenny and Hannes will unfortunately be moving, and it turned out they couldn’t bring Jenny’s piano to the smaller condo. Can I have it, I asked, and I could!

Me and the piano as an instrument have a very difficult relationship. It started out in my early years. Yet, I think a house needs a piano. As a house needs a cat.

When I was 5 my mother took me for my first piano lesson. There were hundreds of them to come until the day when I started high school, moved away from home and was liberated from that ball and chain.

My mother’s ambition for me at that time was two hours practice a day. I don’t know if she come to realize how unrealistic that was, but for all my childhood one hour a day was the standard. I hated every minute of it, and as I grew older I started to lie, telling her that I had done my practice while she was away. Or ran to the piano throwing myself at the stool as I heard her on the steps to the hose. And as an obstinate teenager I was down to half an hour.

A lot of my time at the piano I spent trying to reed the music through my tears. I can at any time recall the effort to blink the tears away, as my hands were occupied on the keys not to interrupt the music she expected from me. And I can feel the salty liquid running down my face, mixed with snot as it reached my mouth. Swallowing swallowing. Playing playing. While the tears found their way down my neck and in-under the collar.

I wish I could tie you to the piano stool, my mother used to say. Well she did mentally. I even have a picture in my head the stool covered with twine. That did not happen, but the picture is the possibility it might. You will thank me one day, she said. I wish she had been right. One might think all those hours would have made me somewhat of a piano player. But it didn’t. Not a bit.

I have hardly touched the piano since I had the choice not to. Correction, I have hardly played anything from out of a music sheet. However, I have written songs and coming up with the harmonies for them at the piano. I wish my mother had seen how her daughter was an intuitive child and that’s the way she could have been a musician, as my mother’s ambition was. Although I wasn’t aware of the density of her desire until a couple of years before she died.

When my parents passed away and we cleaned out our childhood home I, against all odds, took care of the piano. The one I had was really bad, and a house needs a piano. Besides, my two sons liked hanging out with the instrument. I planned on burning the detestable stool though, I mean actually burning it, up in flames. But it turned out piano stools are really expensive so I ended up only putting new fabric on.

Since then, parts of Trouble&Trouble’s music has been created on their grandparents piano. And some of mine too. But it’s time has been up for a good while. Keys are falling off. It’s impossible to tune. So I’ve desired a new one for many years. A house needs a piano. And then it turns out Jenny wants a new home for hers! 

To Jenny and her mother the piano is relaxing. Meditative. A sonorous tranquilizer.  So last week I slammed my childhood piano lid one last time! Bam!! God, that felt good! And Trouble&Trouble and Hannes moved it out to the barn - in wait for final termination. In my music room now, Jenny’s piano, which also is a really beautiful piece of furniture. I think it comes with a good vibe and mojo. Adding the right energy for my home. She kept the stool though. As hers to her, is a comfort.

How different things are, according to our experiences. I will not pull out a piece of sheet music to play on Jenny’s piano. I know my eyes will tear up just watching it at the stand. I once asked my friend Mats what he thought my natural instrument would have been. The piano, he said. You have the sensibility. Too bad mom. The day never came when I come to thank you for my childhood piano upbringing. And too bad for me. I am thanking you for the music in my life. But not for the piano.

Oct 9, 2016

Gunnel and Kjell

Their names are Gunnel and Kjell and they are praying for me every day.

I am a choral singer and has been for most of my life. My choir, Kammarkören Sångkraft ( Sångkraft Chamber Choir), is an amateur choir with professional ambitions, and we are actually one of the most sonorous choirs in Sweden. We started out as a youth choir in the seventies and are still going strong.

I was 18 and we were all in our late teens. Our ambitions were high already back then and our concerts a big thing, well visited by a loyal audience. And at the core of the crowd, our parents.

Standing in the choir, singing in one of the churches or high school assembly halls, the sight of our parents in the auditorium was a grounding feeling. There they were, Ingrid and Sven, Gerd and Agnar, Gunborg, Bosse and Edit, Vivianne and Lennart, Elisabet, Arne and Eva, Åke and Inga, Kerstin and Martin (my parents), Harry and Anita, Gunnel and Kjell. And they all came to know each other.

I am still singing together with some of these teenagers, though now a bit older. And although quite a few of the parents aren’t here anymore, some still are. And the feeling spotting them in the audience is to me even now reassuring and warm.

Agneta is one of those teenagers and we are alto colleagues in the choir as well as good friends. Gunnel and Kjell are her parents, sweet sweet people, still as loyal to the choir as always. Further more, Gunnel and my mother studied to nurses together and were acquainted from back then.

Gunnel and Kjell have a special place in my heart because I have a special place in their heart. Since they have been following me they know about my challenges and they care for me. They pray for me every day.

Now, writing that in English it doesn’t really stand out as odd or remarkable, since in the American English language the sentence “you are in our prayers and God bless ” is like an everyday household mantra. At least that’s what we hear on TV, in films and of course in the political debate. But in Swedish it has a different ring to it.

Sweden is one of the most secularized countries in the world. So people who believe in God are a minority. By that I mean not just having a vague feeling of something bigger than themselves out there, but defend themselves to believing in God and are active in that belief.

Gunnel and Kjell go to church most every Sunday and God is a solid foundation for their life. They wake up with Him, He is always present and He watches over them through the night. And they pray to him.

I am sure Thank You is a a big part of their prayers. But I know they are also angels watching out for many people around them, asking God to take care of them. And I am one of those. I am one of the people Gunnel and Kjell everyday is sending their prayer to the God they believe in, asking Him to take care of us. Dear God, take care of Mia.

To know that fills my heart with gratitude and warmth. It is big. Overwhelming.

Last night Agneta, her husband Mats, Agneta’s sister Lena (all my good friends), daughter Agnes (a little bit of a god daughter to me), and Gunnel and Kjell gathered here at my place at the end of the road for a fall dinner together. The yellow, orange and red maple leaves as a carpet outside while the lit candles, the fire in the fire place and the company warming the evening inside. And the food of course.

It was such a nice evening. So cozy. So warm. Such a perfect thing to do on an October night. And it was my way to say thank you to Gunnel and Kjell. I have someone thinking of me every day. That’s pretty amazing. Furthermore, someone who is asking the God they so firmly believe is good, to take care of me. Every time my back allows me to attend in one of my choir’s concerts I am looking for Gunnel and Kjell in the audience, always finding them. Thinking, thank you. I am standing here.

Oct 2, 2016

Home is Away, Away is Home 5 year anniversary, now let’s se what the Russians have to say…

This would be a proper time to make it an end. 5 years even. But it seems I am not quite ready yet.

For five years now (yesterday) I have told my stories. Many of them true to my original idea of my blog Home is away, Away is Home. Stories about my two cities, Umeå at the northeast cost of Sweden and Seattle at the northwest coast of the U.S. But as time has passed many have come to be about my personal life. Which has provided me with as much material as I need and more. As Norah Ephron said: everything is copy.

Well, not everything. It’s true that I am letting my readers in on quite a lot. But there is so much more. I am sometimes thinking I should write a book called Most of it I Can’t Tell. Most of it I can’t tell for different reasons. Out of consideration to people around me. Out of shame. Out of integrity. Out of self-preservation. It’s actually too bad, since there are lots of powerful stories within those segments.

It’s been a beautiful fall Sunday today, the first after a freezing point night, just in time for October. Josephine has helped me change the window dressing in my kitchen and entrance. My light blue and white summer throws have been replaced with yellow and brown ones, just as my maple leaves in the garden. I am lighting candles. Accepting and finally embracing the summer being gone, making my home snug and cozy. As much as I LOVE the summer and start panicking already at summer solstice, I am always amazed on how good the yellow fall window dressing in my kitchen makes me feel when the time comes. Tucking me in. A fire in the fire place.

It’s a great loss to me that I can’t follow the seasons first hand in Seattle. Anymore. Or for now? Although I am saying it’s highly unlikely or impossible that I ever will be back, the hope is still not quite dead. I refilled my ATT account for a year only a few weeks ago and that says something of course.

I sometimes feel though that the lack of first hand experiences and being a part of Seattle and the debates and discussions among my friends makes me unqualified to tell about Seattle anymore. Life has made me a distant spectator. I am doing my best to keep me updated though, and I hope that counts for something.

Home is Away, Away is Home is following the seasons, in Umeå and in Seattle. And within myself. Most of my readers are Swedish. A bunch are American. Some are scattered around the world, one here and one there, although that might just be unfortunate clicking.

And then there are the Russians. Most of the time I don’t see them around. But as soon as the topic for the day is politics they show up. So let me do a little experiment here. We are only about a month from the American election so l am throwing in some words that normally would make them react. Such as Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, the Democrats, the Republicans, Bernie Sanders, Tim Kane, Mike Pence, Barak Obama, Michelle Obama, immigration, wall against Mexico, Syria, muslims, Turkey, Erdogan, Putin. Now let’s see what happens!

So for how long will I be continuing my Sunday evening storytelling? I don’t know. I am someone who has a hard time letting go. I am also the kind of person who needs closure, what ever the subject. So I am thinking my exit will be when I have the possibility of saying goodbye to Seattle. I am still hoping for it to happen with myself involved in it at the actual scene. 

But it might be that I need to have someone going  through my boxes in my Safe Guard storage unit at Martin Luther King Way while with me on Skype. I can totally see it. Letting Becca (who is the same size as me) have everything she likes and give the rest away. And then ship my Tempur Pedic mattress back to Sweden. Sob sob…

But let’s hope for a change. And some real reporting. And more Home is Away, Away is Home years. Now, lets see what the Russians have to say…

Sep 25, 2016

The words making my story sing

The first phrase came to me last summer.

I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer and fall writing on a text. Actually lyrics. Lyrics to music composed by a young man I have known since before he was born. He and his brothers kind of grew up with Trouble & Trouble and for the longest time they all believed they were cousins.

Anyway, this young man is a very talented musician, singer and composer, and this one piece of music is written for choir. It is without words and feels a lot like film music. To me, it was just begging for a story to tell. And I wanted to tell it.

And the first phrase came last summer. I say came, because that’s what happened. There it was. And it was in English. 

Than nothing happened. And a year has passed. 

The piece is quit long, about eight minutes. And divided into different parts. A progressive work of music. I new which story I wanted to tell. It wasn’t an easy one. So the combination of me being very busy and dreading to dive in to the subject I had in mind has postponed a focused dedication. But on my summer 2016 list was “writing  the lyrics if I want to”. And it turned out I wanted to.

Lying in my sun chair at the west wall facing the fields up the forest, I have allowed the music filling me and I started to feel which part would be telling what. It was funny though. That first phrase in English turned out to be the title of the song, and the entrance of what I call The beautiful part. Then other parts, like the Prologue, wanted to be written in Swedish! Which didn’t work of course. So I actually had to force it into English.

Which might be why I have been struggling so hard with the language. Or it’s just that my English isn’t good enough. This is the first time I am writing to someone else's music in English, that might also be a reason.

I can sense though, writing my blog every week, that my English is the opposite to improving. It’s obvious how my four year long Seattle absence and the lack of my extremely verbal and articulate friends as well as English tutors is working for the worst.

The story of the song is to me emotionally intense. And to find the exact right words and way of putting them, likewise impassioned. And difficult. I feel poor. I feel like I am trying to write in a language where I am not fluent. Like German. Or I have little knowledge of. Like Italian. I feel limited and restricted. Actually a lot like when being in an intense discussion with my Seattle friends perceiving myself as a child never quite reaching the grown up level.

So, imagine the joy when the right word is arriving! When the sentence rings of the right voice! When the paragraph is expressing the very same feeling I am sensing inside me! When the story is becoming rhythmical and complete!

I am getting there… I sent the first full version to my composer friend last night, exhausted and worn out from squeezing my life out of me. There it was. One part added on to the next. The Prologue. The Dance. The bridge. The Beautiful Part. The Last Waltz. And the Epilogue. 

It’s taken me the summer. Fall arrived for real this week, but today has been one more really pleasant Sunday. So once again I was seated in my sun chair, now going over the full version. A Stoltergården Arnold Palmer at the side board, I would think the last one for this season. Found the lines still not fluent. The bumps. The stops. The ones out of tune. Oh the bliss as I searched inside me one more time and found the chord in harmony! There are still bumps though. But I will eliminate them eventually. I will find the perfect pitch and tell my story fluently. Find the words making my story sing.



Sep 18, 2016

Barely anyone wants to leave Seattle but plenty want to move there

I wonder, if I started a massive everyday clicking for homes in Seattle, would I mess up the statistics?

Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. This is of course a sign of a healthy place where the economy is booming, people want to live and the future is looking bright. It comes with down sides though. Traffic is a nightmare and the real estate market is going through the roof. For established Seattleites the latter isn’t a problem. Their home, pretty much whatever it looks like, is money in the bank. But for starters, well that’s a different story.

For as long as I have known Seattle the city has been a target for people around the country looking for relocating. As Seattleites have been fighting the traffic and the increasing costs of housing the joke has been “we have to stop talking about the beautiful Northwest and focus on the rain to scare people from moving here”. 

But it seems they have failed. Or not tried hard enough. Because a few days ago a national report from Zillow, the online real-estate database company, confirms that more people are competing for Seattle-area homes and apartments, helping drive up home prices and rents. And as much as Seattleites dislike the too fierce developing of the city, fewer look for other places to live. 

So, barely anyone wants to leave Seattle, but plenty of people want to move there. Only two other cities in the country has the same situation, Portland Oregon and Tampa Florida, also ranking near the top of the list of fastest-rising home prices in the country. 

Most other cities across the country had something working in their favor to help with affordability: A lot of people are interested in moving to the Bay Area and Los Angeles but plenty of existing residents there are looking to flee. New Yorkers and Philadelphia natives want to stay but few outsiders want to move there. People in Chicago and Miami want out and few people want to go there.

So, who wants to move to Seattle and why? According the study of all the people outside Seattle searching for homes here, 15.9 percent are from the Bay Area, which has taken a lot of blame for shipping up wealthy techies, driving up housing prices. After that, nearly 12 percent of outside searchers looking at Seattle are from Los Angeles and 7.6 percent are from Portland. Phoenix, New York and San Diego each have about 3 percent of the outside searches for Seattle. People from most of those cities would find cheaper housing in Seattle. 

What about people looking to ditch Seattle? The most popular destinations are kind of in the neighborhood, such as Spokane, Portland and Yakima. Just about all those places are significantly cheaper than Seattle. For instance, Seattle home values ($591,000) are more than three times pricier than Spokane ($160,000) and Yakima ($169,000), according to Zillow.

So, summing the situation up, housing costs are, as we know relative. In the view of outsiders who just moved to Seattle, it might not seem as expensive as it does for those locals who have lived through recent skyrocketing prices.

I think I will give it a go messing the statistics up. The next report will have this one interesting number added: looking to relocate to Seattle are people from Bay Area, L.A., Portland, Phenix, New York, San Diego and Umeå.