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.