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”.