Apr 24, 2016

The photo album/holding life in my hands

A time machine. An emotional staircase downwards. And self therapy.

Trouble 1 is turning 30! That’s amazing. Not that I feel like it was yesterday and time has gone by like a blink of an eye, not at all.  I am not surprised 30 years have passed. But the fact that my first born baby is a grown up man. That’s pretty amazing.

I have been a diligent photographer ever since I bought my first camera at age 12. I used to put together photo albums and I have a cupbord full of them, my life documented in pictures up until I was 30. And then what happened? Well Trouble 1 happened and then Trouble 2, and there simply wasn’t time for albums. 

I didn’t slow down on my actual photographing though. Still using B&W as a base. Which was optimistic of course, because my time in the dark room was down to zero those first years and then only used for more arty projects. So my color pictures became more frequent instead.

I’ve kept them in boxes, like most people do. Waiting for that peaceful time to come when I would quietly sit down and enjoy the pleasure of making albums for my two little boys. It’s funny how peaceful times have a tendency of never showing up. Then I put up a goal: for their graduation. Didn’t happen. When they were turning 20. Didn’t happen. Now, goddamn’t, my first born is turning 30, it has to happen!!!

And it is happening. It hasn’t been peaceful. Nor quiet. Because of an intense job winter and then myself turning 60 it hasn’t been any breathing space what so ever, but for the last 2,5 weeks I’ve been spending all the time I could scrape up digging deep down in memories and emotions.

As I am a well organized person the practical aspect of the whole thing hasn’t been a problem. All the pictures are archived in years and events. Christmases, vacations, birthdays. It’s just picking them, one after one. No, the real work has been the emotional part.

To, 30 years later, be looking at my growing belly and swelling breasts (naked of course, this was Sweden in the eighties), a new born baby, renovating and adding on the house, building a home, the start of a family, all the close friends always around…

…is exhausting. Where did it all go?

These first years were so happy. They really were. I had to fight hard for my children (complicated pregnancies and deliveries) and was incredibly grateful for them. They had a loving, responsible and present father and we lived this idyllic life on the countryside  surrounded by friends in the same phase of life, lots of babies. Like every toddler family we were constantly tired, sick from colds and slept in shift to get by. But the pictures are mostly sunny summers, naked little kids running around in the grass, grandma feeding them blueberries and milk on the bakers cottage doorstep.

So what happened? Well, to be prosaic, time passed, the kids grew up, their parents grew apart, most of the friends did the same, grand parents died and that’s that. To say it is all gone is neither true nor fair. But it’s changed. Of course. The baker’s cottage has been a storage instead of a summer house for many years now, but I am hoping to get a chance to change that some day. My sons are around, for which I am incredibly grateful, so are their girlfriends, new family members. I am still here, taking care of the place myself, which is a challenge in my physically restricted situation, but a challenge of my choice.

I am going through those photos. Filling page after page in the album. I can only do a few at a time. Then I have to take a break. Breath. Process. Go back. Write. Write Trouble 1’s story. As well as mine. Hold our story in my hands. Literary. Look at it. Touch it.

The 2,5 weeks only gave time for Trouble 1’s first five years. I have barely started. The boxes are filled with pictures up until 2007, when I went digital. I will continue. Imagine when I have turned all those pictures into a story. My children's story. My grown up life’s story. And I can hold it in my hands.

Apr 17, 2016

Following your heart?

They say what you regret the most at the end of your life, is those things you didn’t do. I am not sure that will be true for me.

I have taken all the chances I have been given, personally and professionally. I have definitely said yes more often than no. And if that’s how you are wandering through life, you will most certain have the experience of taking a few punches. I know I have. They can be painful and they can be shameful. And they might stick with you until the very end.

How do we make our choices? By brain? By heart? By will power? By gut feeling?

Sense and sensibility. Reason and emotion. Brain and heart. For me, these are often in conflict. Sometimes so severe it’s tearing me apart.

And if it only was brain and heart. Then will power is entering. What’s will power? For me (I’m sure someone with more knowledge in this department would have a different explanation), often the same as heart. This is what I want! This is where my heart and soul is leading me! This is the road I need to take! This feels right!

Feels right? Now that’s an even more tricky advisor. Yes, something can feel really right, but hidden in under that feeling you might feel something totally contradictory, telling you the opposite. If I do this, which is a big yes right now, there is a huge risk it will lead to regret and pain, and nothing good will come out of it. And I’m not talking about shots of tequila here.

To me all these, which are supposed to lead us right, is a big tangled ball of yarn with lose ends I am pulling, trying to entangle. Sometimes I am finding the right end to pull, and the knot dissolves. But often the pull just makes it worse. If I was a child I might end up throwing the ball of yarn into a corner and in the best of worlds a grown up would pick it up and help solve the problem.

But I am not. I have to find a way myself. And not even as a child I threw the yarn away. 

In this time and age we are advised following our hearts. That hasn’t always been the case. A controlled sense I am sure has been more frequent through the human history. Following ones heart (in any sense, personally and professionally) must be a luxury condition only possible when economically independent and surrounding environment’s judgment can’t affect your daily life.

Being judged to your heart and soul is a different story. Universal and timeless.

Follow your heart. Such an alluring call. It sounds so easy. Like someone is waiving at you from a peaceful and sunny morning beach. Come come! Here is your haven. Everything will be fine. Just walk through the dawn dew grass and arrive here, safe and sound.

Following your heart is an act conducted by love. By passion. And passion and peace are most often incompatible. Whether the goal for your passion is a job, a person, a hobby, a place, an assignment, a life, it will not be a quiet walk in the dawn dew grass. Going for a passion is risky business. A lot at stake. The travel towards a passion is more likely to be rowing in dangerous waters and gusty winds for a tiny island far out in the ocean.

Listening to your brain might be a good thing. It is protecting yourself, which we absolutely need to do. But it’s also playing safe.

So, what is it that I will regret, when it is my time? Out of all the chances I have taken and the pain, suffering, regrets and lost dignity coming out of them? Thinking about them now, while writing, to my surprise I am finding, not much! At the time for the choice, it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. At the end of the day I can’t regret the pain. Being alone on that stormy ocean fighting for my heart. Because I tried for something. I was courageous. I was me. I lived.

And is there anything at all I didn’t do that I will regret? Well, there was this man who I once loved, and I never told him. Classic. Would I do that again? Brain and heart. Reason and emotion. Sense and sensibility. I hope not. Because that’s dignity. That’s self respect. To stand up for your heart. What ever the outcome will be, pain and regret at the time. At the end of the day, I want to know I have put my heart out there. That’s where I want to be. That’s where I want to end.

Apr 10, 2016

In my case, it was Lundgren

It’s unusually early in the year for me being struck by the summer season panic. But it’s because the snow already is barely covering what’s hidden inunder. January was very cold with temperatures around -13°F (-25°C) for a month. But February, on the other hand, was unusually mild and we haven’t had much snowfall this winter so the snow pack hasn’t been that thick, only about a foot.

And now it’s April, temperatures are mostly above freezing point even through the night. And this week there was this heavy rain helping the snow transform into liquid, making the basement under my kitchen a swimmingpool and revealing all the must-do, can’t-wait-one-more-year around my place painfully visible.

Generally and basically I have a fundamental love for this time of the year, here in the north, the spring-winter. So do most every Swede. When the light returns and the sun is finding us. When the promise of nature coming out of hibernation is real, once again. 

They say Sweden is the most secularized country in the world. That might be true, by conventional meaning. But we worship our nature. The forests, fields, meadows, lakes and the sea is our church. That’s where you will find us on a Sunday. And that’s where we found our family names.

Every third Swede, 3,4 million people carry a family name connected to nature. And it’s a type of name you don’t find anywhere else in the world. Unless it’s been migrating of course.

Lindberg, Marklund, Ekdahl, Rönnberg, Ahlgren, Grankvist, Barrlund, Furmark, Björkman, Ängström, Strömgren, Sandberg, Asplund, Holmkvist, Ögren, Sjölund, Blomgren, the list of combinations from two words out of nature for a name is pretty much endless. 

And then we have the monosyllabic ones like Berg = Mountain, Lind = Linden, Holm = Islet, Björk = Birch, Lund = Grove, Ström = Stream, Ek = Oak, Blom = Bloom, Dahl = Valley and so on. These types of name are actually more common than names ending on -son. And they are even more frequent in northern Sweden where 60% are carrying names inspired by nature!

Why is this? Well, a lot of people moved north during the 18th and 19th century, and most often they took themselves a new name, related to nature or place of origin. And during the urbanization in the 19th century people left their peasant tradition -son names behind for a new life. But maybe they couldn’t leave nature behind?

And is there anywhere else in the world where the political parties’ logos are all flowers?! Let me know if there is. So here are all the Swedish parties and their symbols:

The Social Democrats - a red rose (that’s common in other countries too)
The Green Party/Miljöpartiet - dandelion
The Left Party/Vänsterpartiet - a white V in a red carnation
The Liberals - cornflower
The Center Party/Centerpartiet - four-leaf clover
The Christian Democrats - wood anemone
The Sweden Democrats - hepatica
The right party/Moderaterna - a blue M (the exception that proves the rule)

Isn’t it cute? No banners, no coats of arms, no geometrical shapes. Only a simple flower for this nature worshipping people when it comes to politics and running a country. Although I wish the xenophobic and racist Sweden Democrats would be more honest than choosing the innocent hepatica as a deceptive logo.

I was born Lundgren = Grovebranch. My boyfriend’s name was Bergkvist = Mountain twig. When we married neither of us wanted to take the other ones name. Same same but different. So we kept our different versions of nature. But when Trouble 1 was born we felt we all wanted the same name. And I found Stolterman on my father’s side in the family tree back in the early 1700. We left nature behind for an old typical soldier’s name, Proudman = Stolterman. And today it’s only Trouble & Trouble and me carrying that proud name in the nature worshipping Sweden.

Apr 3, 2016

Being backed up on the new longest floating bridge in the world!

Imagine 30 000 people on a  2,35 kilometer ( 7710 feet) long floating bridge, the world’s longest!

The 520 Bridge was our neighbor the year we lived at Boyer Avenue. It connects Seattle to East Side, that’s east side of Lake Washington, Suburbia. At that time it traveled 130 000 cars a day, a massive commute artery. A detail in our living room window scenery where Portage Bay, Montlake Cut, University Hospital and sailboats competed about the attention. I loved our view, so much life and so beautiful!

The bridge was built in 1963 and wasn’t safe any more. After nearly 31 years of arguments, planning and construction, the people of Washington finally got to walk Saturday morning on their new Highway 520 floating bridge, and will drive on it by mid-April.

Floating bridges aren’t that common around the world, and the reason for it in Seattle is Lake Washington’s 61 meter (200-foot) depth and silty bottom which makes it nearly impossible to build solid columns underwater. 

The new Lake Washington crossing is located next to - and south - of the old one, and arrives just in time for crews to remove the former crossing, instead of Mother Nature downing it with an earthquake or windstorm.  Tougher components should make it resilient against gusts and waves. The road deck is high above the lake, so waves won’t slap cars on the highway like on the old one. Windstorms often shut it down as the deck was covered with water, as late as a few weeks ago.

So, Saturday morning Seattleites premiered the new 520 Bridge. Not by driving but by walking! Governor Jay Inslee spoke, a ribbon was cut, and crowds packed the place. Event planners had anticipated up to 40,000 people, but a few hours after the start they ran into an issue: Thousands wanted to leave at the same time, and there weren’t enough shuttle buses. Visitors waited as long as an hour for one of the 51 buses, each able to carry 100 people. Shortly after 3 p.m., officials announced no more visitors would be admitted onto the bridge.

The new bridge started off like the old one always was, a bottle neck. There was a backup getting off 520, nothing new there! Anxiety spread among the thousands on the bridge, but there were food trucks, and people in line for the buses were provided water. It wasn’t as if the circumstances were dire on this nice, 60s-ish day.

Would I still see the new 520 Bridge through our Portage Bay panorama window? I guess so. And Bill Gates, who’s residence is located just south of the bridge landing on the East Side, probably is some meters closer to the on ramp, taking him to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Headquarters in Seattle in the mornings.