The knock out week

Smash! Crash! Thud!

I can’t even find a word that fits for the sound of the biggest fir on the north side of my house falling. And then the tallest aspen. My big project for this summer is building a car port, and the fir and the aspen and quite a lot of their nearby friends had to be victim for the chain saw to make room for what I hope is going to make my winters a bit easier to deal with.

I was still in my bathrobe watching that big fir falling. Bertil and Clas came rolling unannounced with the saw and the tractors before I was even out of bed Tuesday morning last week. Well, I had asked them to do it for me, they just forgot to tell me when. And they are early birds, so…

So, before breakfast, in my bathrobe I watched the forest fall. It’s been there all my life and generations before me and now it’s gone and it leaves me unsteady and staggered. Although I know it’s for a good cause. It will be good. It will be very good.

Bertil and Clas are not just early birds, they are also intensely fast and do I dare to say, in their excitement over knocking down such tall trees, a bit wreck-less. So, in a few hours the trees were down and so were my telephone lines. I have two of them, one for the house and one for my business. Before the evening I was standing on a small clear cut without landlines. All wobbly.

Wednesday was quite an intense day too, on the cell (oh how I hate being on the cell for hours, no, no way, this was proof to me that I am not a modern human being, there is no way I will terminate my land lines) with confused airlines and cheery renters to wrap up a Seattle-stay for myself (!), so waking up Thursday morning I asked for a peaceful day. A day for recuperation. The reply was instant.

Crash! Or whatever. This time it was above my house. A terrible thunderstorm, arriving as unexpected and fast as my loggers, parked right over my house. Me again, in my bathrobe. Running around the house pulling cords from the outlets. Bu too late. This was bad. This was really bad.

Digital box. DVD. The radio part in my amplifier. Two telephones. A spotlight dimmer system in my bathroom that’s not possible to turn off (!). Several outdoor lighting. Broadband. Airport. They were all knocked out. That is, what I have found out this far.

So, Thursday evening my house was quiet. No landlines. No Internet. No television. My home here at the end of the road had turned into a summer cabin.

Saturday morning. My doorbell is ringing. Here we go again, hopping out of bed into my bathrobe. I am very surprised to find two Polish guys on my front porch. I can’t help laughing. It’s been a lot of unexpected mornings this week. I’m not sure what scared the poor guys the most, my crazy laughter or my bathrobe. But, in a few minutes I had my landlines back! And Sunday afternoon I had replaced all my broken communication tools. Being without them for four days had been an interesting experience. And the week had been a knock out one.

  

Mission completed

Pälle is close to white and smells good. I gave him a good bath this week. Pälle is 25 years old and hasn’t had a real clean up since he was a teenager. Pälle is Trouble 1’s tiny teddy bear that’s been with him since he was one year old. And the reason for this occasion is that he is preparing for traveling.

So is Trouble 1. He is packing up his most important things for spending three months in Seattle. I am driving him to the airport tomorrow morning. Trouble 1 has spent a great deal of time in Seattle since he was six. But this is the first time without anyone from his Swedish family. So, Pälle will be a good companion.

Trouble 1 and his little brother Trouble 2 didn’t really have a voice about Seattle to start with. And I remember sitting on the plane going over there for a year, putting my children in an American school, thinking, “What am I doing?” Pulling my sons out of their safe environment, just because I wanted to! And it wasn’t easy. Those first three months, before the school and their new language were comfortable to them, were tough. So tough that they, although the nine following months were great, didn’t want to do it again. Every time I was on the subject about spending another school year in Seattle the boys replied: “But we live in Sweden, right?” And now they were old enough to have a voice. And a vote. And they won the game.

So, I had dragged my children across the ocean, forcing them in to a different language and culture, just because I wanted to. But as they won the game about not doing school in Seattle again I found my way of still having a foot there. We spent summers in Seattle, fall breaks, even the Millennium. I wanted it for myself, but also for my sons, even though they were reluctant. That one school year had given them a second language, a culture different from their Swedish one, friends, and an American family: The Stolterman Crowd. I made it my mission to provide my sons all that, until they were old enough to choose it for themselves. Or not.

Today, being young men, they have a hard time figuring out why the heck they didn’t want to be in Seattle! And now they are choosing it for themselves. So, Trouble 1 is packing. He has wanted this for some years now, and it’s finally happening. There is this class at an art school waiting for him. The little boy with the Seattle Art Museum art kit tight under his arm is returning. And parts of his Seattle family are still there waiting for him. Pälle has been with him in his backpack every Seattle stay. And will be this time too. Fresh from his bath. And my mission is completed.

Facing the sun/keeping cool

And there it is! Summer! The saying is summer doesn’t arrive in Seattle until 4^th of July, and yes, most of the time that prognoses is very right. It’s like the overcast and the drizzle is blown away by the Star Spangled Banner and the fireworks on Lake Union, letting the sun and the mountains out for everyone finally to enjoy. Today 83°F (28°C), Monday 80° (27°), Tuesday 77°(25°), Wednesday 83°(28°), Thursday 78°(25,5°), Friday 75°(24°) and a big unobstructed sun! Oh how I love that sight!

And the saying in Umeå is that summer doesn’t arrive until after Midsummers. That’s often true too. At least if we are lucky. Some summers summer doesn’t really arrive. But this year it did warm up last week, even though the forecast doesn’t look like a Californian one.

Northern Sweden is struggling its long cold snowy winters. Seattle is fighting the rain and the very grey skies for nine months of the year. Yet, having spent quite a lot of time in Seattle since 1993 there is one thing I don’t understand.

When winter is loosing it’s grip and spring and summer awaken us, Swedes go crazy. Yes we do. We are going crazy for the sun. We are turning our faces to the south, throwing our clothes off, forgetting everything about skin cancer and melanoma because our craving for the sun is bigger then our fear of death. We just need the light and the warmth like an old car battery needs to be charged.

Seattleites on the other hand are cooler about the summer. They do appreciate it. The blue skies, the mountains coming out of the clouds like a forgotten Set Design; were they really there all this time? But I know that at the end of this upcoming week with temperatures in the eighties you will hear this phrase all around Seattle: “When will we be getting some relief?” Seattleites are very thorough about their sun block and would never chose to sit in the sun. They keep their doors shut to keep their houses cool and would you catch someone at a beach, it will sure be a tourist. And there are more sun glasses sold in Seattle then anywhere else in the entire US, would you believe that, the rainiest city in the country!

So what I can’t figure out is this: Yes, the northern Swedish winters are long and dark. But the Seattle winters are long and dark too. Those grey gloomy rainy months can really wear you out. Be as much as a dark sack as the Swedish winter. Yet it seems like the Seattleites don’t need the sun in the same way as Swedes do. So is it the cold? The cold itself that forces us to shut our doors to keep the heat in the house. That forces us to stay inside to be safe. Yes, it might very well be.

Anyway, for now it’s summer in both my cities and I am going to enjoy it! I’m going to sit outside, put some sunscreen on and turn my face and my starving body towards the sun, charging my battery and not waste any energy on cultural guessing games. And I will take my sun shades on and keep cool…

Only the Sky is the Limit!

Three huge pillars suddenly erected in front of the historic Stora hotellet (The Grand Hotel) at the Umeå river waterfront! And the day after there were six of them! And day three eight! And in Seattle The Seattle Great Wheel opened this weekend! The 175 feet (53,54 meter) ferris wheel is among the tallest in US and is changing the waterfront skyline in a big way. And so are the intriguing concrete pillars in Umeå. But it has taken a while to get there.

Hal Griffith, who owns Pier 57 where the ferris wheel is located, has envisioned this new attraction for 30 years. Three decades was needed for the plan to come to fruition. 42 climate-controlled gondolas are raising Seattleites well above their familiar zone. And I am sure it is a perfect match in the Waterfront for All project. The time was finally right.

Staden mellan broarna (The City Between the Bridges) was first presented in the Umeå City Council in 1989. But by that time of course discussed and envisioned for a number of years. And those huge eight concrete pillars pointing to the sky today is the first proof that it is finally happening. Sure, there has been a big busy and loud hole at the sight this winter, but a hole is just a hole, right? Anything could happen. More appeals, ancient findings, financial problems, politics, activists moving in with their sleeping bags, water running up from the river, the soil and foundation not solid enough, yes, pretty much anything.

But the findings turned out being from the sixties. And yes, the walls of The Grand Hotel and an old bank building is cracking from months of piling, but it seems like nothing can stop this now, there is actually a building coming up in The City Between the Bridges! I have to say, it’s truly hard to grasp. It’s really happening!

The construction of the new building for cultural arts, Kulturväven, will be the biggest contribution to Umeå since the Umeå University in the early sixties and I am here to see it rise. The building will be a ferris wheel of music, theatre, dance, literature, film and crossovers we can’t even fantasize about. And it will forever change the skyline. The physical one, obviously. But also the mental one. As experiencing the view from the top gondola will alter our vision, makes us take a deep breath and let it all in. Make our mind expand. And our hopes to rise. Only the sky is the limit!