In the shadow of the fireworks

I don’t like odd numbers. They feel sharp and edgy. They make me tense. And I don’t like writing the number three. I can’t make it look good. I am sloppy with the details in this sense and most of the time 3 looks like a backwards C. So entering the year 2103 basically doesn’t feel good. On the other hand, the numbers 0123 is a neat and relaxing combination. They’ve just been up in the air and came down a bit shaken. So I think I will work on finding out a new way of writing the number 3. Make it pretty instead of sloppy. And maybe the new year will turn out okay after all.

Thousands of people gathered at the Umeå waterfront yesterday to watch the fire works over the river. As people did in Seattle for the Space Needle spectacle showing off in the winter sky. Here in Umeå I can feel the city inhaling with quite a bit of anxiety entering 2013. Because it means that it’s only one year left until everything has to be done. All set. A year from now we are only weeks from the opening of 2014, Umeå European Capital of Culture. The building cranes are stretching for the sky as the city is, and every time I pass the Umeå River half lying in the car having a ride for one of my back treatments I watch downtown Umeå change before my eyes. A tall building – a new hotel – has popped up right in the city center, in Broparken (The Bridge Park) the new Parkour park is in the works, the first one in Sweden. And at the waterfront it’s busy as Kulturväven, the building for cultural arts is happening inside a gigantic lit up plastic cover.

I feel the loud voices about all the changes have died down a bit. Or it might just be the winter making the opinions going into hibernation. In Seattle though the developing at South Lake Union is stirring things up. Mayor McGinn wants to allow 33 new towers rising up to 40 stories, that is 400 feet (122 meter). The South Lake Union Coalition that wants to preserve the low character at the south end of the lake, stresses that the mayor’s proposal is totally out of scale for the area and will dwarf nearby buildings and ruin the neighborhoods connection to the lake. As always, I am kind of amazed about the discussions when it comes to city planning being so similar in Seattle and in Umeå. The arguments for the pros and the cons very much the same. They are only on different scales.

As for my own new year’s celebration there weren’t any big fireworks. But a warm and friendly evening at my dearest neighbor Alida, her granddaughter and boyfriend. Alida is 95 years old and as always this time of year we wonder if there will be one more Holiday with this very special lady who has been there all our lives, no matter which generation we belong to. I had a ride there, was served rainbow trout (or is it salmon trout?), we had sparkling wine and I got to lie down on their couch instead of mine. It was the perfect New Years Eve for me this year.

I feel a bit sad though that life has taught me not to be happy about a new year starting. Not to have any expectations. On the one side of my couch is the walker, which I need to get myself up and down from my couch camp-office. On the other side my dumbbells lined up waiting for the real Maria. The Maria that takes 1-hour power walks and does three heavy work outs at the gym every week. The Maria that shovels snow and puts on the winter tires. The Maria that loves grabbing the saw and the hammer and get things done! That won’t ever happen again though, I am very sure. I feel like I am walking on a long staircase downwards, and every time my back crashes I take one more step down and my life gets a bit more limited. And entering 2013 I have no idea of when I am going to get out of this couch and what my body will allow my life to be in the future.

But as long as I am not putting away those dumbbells there is still the hope. The hope that I again can walk the 80 meters to visit Alida. And maybe all the way to the creek when spring sets off the locked up water. And pick up the dumbbells and feel the power returning to my body. The fireworks of life released in my frozen person. Now only in the shadow of my existence.