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…
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