The wind chime 2.0

It was 22 $ and irresistible. This was the last week of our first stay in Seattle. 1993. We were finishing up a three month adventure. Tight on the budget at the very end. A last stroll down at Pioneer Square. And there it was. The wind chime.

Well, there were lots of them of course. Pretty much a cute little hole in the wall store full of them. All sizes. And only really good quality, as we could see - like we were experts on judging wind chimes…

The 22 $ one was a good size. There were bigger. There were smaller. This was something in between leaning towards bigger. It felt sturdy. The finish of the black lacquered metal was matt. As the wooden clapper. It was simply irresistible.

The wind chimes came in different moods. One giving you Energy, one Soothing. There was Tranquility, High spirits, Ocean breeze and Rain forest. Which ever mood your need was, there was one for you. 

This is coming out as ironic, but that’s not my intention. Those wind chimes were so beautiful. And well tuned. The ring of them were warm and gentle. We fell in love. Felt like we couldn’t return to Sweden without one. So be it, even if we had to have our dinners at Jack in the Box those last few days!

I don’t quite remember which mood became our buy. But my guess is something along the lines of tranquility, that’s always been a strong need of mine.

The wind chime travelled the ocean and found it’s new home at our northern Swedish village farm house front porch. The perfect place. The sound of it was mixed with cranes, black birds and chaffinch. Boys’ laughter, my songs and the ice cream truck. Come to think about it, Trouble & Trouble probably don’t remember their home without the warm sound of the wooden clapper against the black metal.

Summer and winter, sun, rain, snow and ice, the wind chime has been the guardian of the house. The hello and goodbye. For 22 years! 22$ for 22 years! A couple of years ago one of the black metal tubes fell off, the twine did break. And last summer another one came off. I tried to fix it, but the twine, which had been holding up in the northern Swedish climate for 22 (!) years had finally worn out. So what to do? I couldn’t be without my life companion!

Well, there is a simple solution to most things around my place. His name is Mats. A long time friend. What Mats can’t fix isn’t worth fixing. 

Mats isn’t only a handy man, a fine carpenter and a radio producer (although he nowadays makes his living as a programmer (why???!!!)), he is also a brilliant musician. So saving a treasured wind chime is just the perfect task for him.

Now, the problem here was that one of the metal tubes was missing. I don’t know how that happened, I know I’ve saved it, I know I’ve seen it around, but now it had vanished into thin air. I handed the pieces of the house guardian over to Mats and asked him to do what he could.

And he did. A new twine (will it last for 22 years?) is attaching the metal tubes, and the missing one… is replaced! I haven’t yet talked to Mats so I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he found a metal tube (was is black to start with or did he fix the color?) which is now a part of the the happy group playing for me.

Trouble & Trouble put it back on it’s special place a few days ago. And we all noticed it… it had a different ring to it. The harmony was different. It was a different chord!

That’s so interesting! None of us had, during the 22 years been diagnosing the harmony of our long time friend. It’s been like the wind in the trees, the rain, the birds (not the ice cream truck), part of the nature surrounding us.

So, we have no idea which tones have been creating the promised Tranquility here at the end of the road. This updated version though is diagnosed. There is the (if you are counting from the lowest tune, which is just one way of doing it) tonic (1), the 2, the 3, the 4, the 6 and the octave. The octave is Mats addition and I know he has tuned it into perfection.

The question now is, what will this new chord do to me? How will this updated harmony change my life? Will it bring Ocean breeze? Storm and thunder? One thing I can say, the promised Tranquility didn’t happen. Or maybe it did? Maybe it would have been Armageddon without the wind chime and it eased the situation down to only Thunder and Lightning?

It turned out we were experts judging the quality of wind chimes after all, the 22$ were absolutely worth a couple of dinners at Jack in the Box. Even without knowing how much I would enjoy it, I know I would have grieved leaving it behind for the rest of my life. And here we are, 23 years later, the wind chime still kicking after a Mats make over. And I am wishing Tranquility is still around, juiced up with Energy and Stability. That’s what I need.

Communication making us less empathic

- Why don’t you ask Google?

I am asking Trouble 2 for a little bit of computer support, it doesn’t happen that often. And that’s his response.

- I’ve googled it and it seems like I will be okay in a few days, I won’t call the doctor.

That’s Josephine. Her horse has happened to step on her foot. It’s swollen, busied, looks really ugly, she can’t walk on it and it hurts like hell. But Google claims she is okay.

I am realizing the reflex for people under 35 is to ask Google for help instead of a human being. Google is their best friend. The one to turn to and trust. I find that interesting.

Why don’t you ask Google, my son asks me. Of course he is a bit annoyed about his mother disturbing him. But the thing is, my reflex is to ask a person. A human being. Someone in flesh and blood. Someone you can actually talk to. And with. Because, what happens when you are interacting with someone real?

Well, a lot of things. A real person, ARP, listens not only to my one question but to the whole perspective. ARP asks you questions back, to understand the situation. ARP asks you about things you didn’t think about or consider yourself.

ARP also says hello. And you say hello back. You might chit chat a bit, a lot if you are in the U.S. And you say thank you, and ARP says you are welcome and take care now. And you say goodbye and wish each other a nice weekend if it’s a Friday. It’s called human interaction. I kind of like that. It does you good. It might even make your day.

But I’m a people person. I like people. Not everybody does. Some like hotels where you check in with a machine and there is no staff around. That’s not my cup of tea.

There is research now, pointing out that our contemporary communication habits are changing our empathic skills. Communicating in brief messages on a screen changes us. Not hearing ARP voice when communicating changes us. Not seeing ARP while communicating changes us. It makes us less empathic. I find that scary.

I am also pretty sure it decreases our conversation skills. When you cut right into a subject you miss out on the fillers that makes us connect to each other. How are you? What’s going on? Oh, I didn’t know you’ve moved! And you mother is sick, I’m so sorry.

We are probably communicating more than ever in history, but if the quality of  communication is poor, what does that do to us? And if it makes us less empathic? Well, that’s something to think about.

An Old Aunt pondering

Little Brother was christened today. As Sister was 1,5 years ago. What a party!

I am the Old Aunt. Of course Little brother and Sister don’t know this yet, but they will eventually. One of those relatives who is always around, the kids having a vague idea how they are related. Or even knowing but not paying too much attention to circumstantial facts. I know, I’ve had Old Aunts like that.

Little Brother’s and Sister’s dad is my nephew, Trouble & Trouble’s cousin. His wife and have decided we are sisters. To complicate the facts to the babies, or as we call them G4, the fourth generation.  

Little Brother and Sister are miracles. As every child of course. But some are more than others - no offense.

Some children arrive in this world, almost by chance, it seems. Oops, I got pregnant! Nine months just swishing by. I’ve never felt better in my life! Delivery, what an experience!

Our family has a somewhat different tradition. There has been a lot of struggle. Oceans of worry. Pain. And babies in Heaven.

There are many stories to tell, but not here and not by me. I can let you know though that Trouble 2 (who is not a hasty person), was unexpectedly eager to enter this world way too soon. I had to be in bed from the 25th pregnancy week, to make him stay inside me until he was ready for the world outside. I won’t be too emotional here, simply present the facts.

To be a part of Little Brother’s christening today was pure joy and gratitude. To watch Sister steeling the show strutting around greeting everybody. To know that these children have a happy church full of family and friends who love them and care for them and will be there through their lives. And provide them safety, words and tons of music, as they did today. 

And I, the Old Aunt, to them will be one of the figures in the family saga. They will be watching me from the child’s center of universe where mom and dad are the closest, grand parents and cousins in the circle next to the center. I will be a bit vague to them. But they will never be vague to me.

From accused terrorist to language book writer!

I haven’t mentioned his name before. It’s Moder Mothanna. And together with his Swedish friend Andreas Nilsson he just released an educational book giving Swedes a chance to learn Arabic! 

It was back in November 1915 that a 22 year old man who hade been living among the 1600 inhabitants of the small northern Swedish town Boliden with his name on the door at the asylum accommodation since September, was arrested by the Swedish Security Service. Could he really be a terrorist?

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/11/sweden-on-4-high.html

No. He wasn’t. It became clear after interrogation. The young man was released and promised support from Swedish authorities. To be arrested as a possible terrorist must be nothing less than a trauma. The Swedish Security Service claims though that the arrest, at that time, was the right thing to do. They had intel.

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/11/sweden-on-4high-back-in-boliden.html

The ground in Boliden was covered with snow as the young Iraqi man was back. He has no idea where the intel about him came from, he himself fled from ISIS and the war. The accusation is what’s hurts, how people could think that he was someone and something he wasn’t.

The weekend after, he and his friends rented a community center throwing a party to celebrate he was back, inviting everyone in Boliden, serving delicious Arabic food. They wanted to connect closer with the people of the small town, saying thank you, striving for creating a life together.

A winter has passed. Moder Mothanna still doesn’t have a residence permit. The promised support from Swedish authorities didn’t happen. And the Swedish Security Service never gave him any explanation what so ever to why he was arrested as a suspect terrorist. The story is hanging over him as a dark cloud which he will probably forever be living in under.

Moder Mothanna sued the Swedish state for 1million Swedish crowns (122 849,368 $) because of wrongly being suspected of particularly serious crime and additionally incurred mass media suffering. The outcome happened this week. The Attorney General has lowered the damages. Sweden will pay Moder Mothanna 12 000 crowns (1474,192 $). Very generous. 

But in spite of this huge disappointment, Moder Mothanna prefers to focus on something else this week. As a part of creating good energy for himself and the people around him, he and his native Swedish born friend Andreas Nilsson focused on a mutual project. Andreas, a Spanish teacher, and Mothana came up with an unusual idea: why not trying to build bridges between Swedes and Arabic speaking refugees with giving Swedes the possibility meeting their new neighbors in their native language?

What a great idea! There is nothing like learning a new language. Word by word. A new world slowly opening up. Widening the horizon. You become a baby taking your first steps. And in this case, steps to meeting and understanding people having fled for their lives wishing to create a new one in the cold north only hours from the polar circle.

And it would balance the situation. Learning a language, you are inferior to people already talking the language. The dynamic will shift in the grocery store when the Swedish cashier asks the Arabic speaking refugee for the words for milk, bread and coffee. Language units. Moder Mothanna and Andreas Nilsson knows this. And that’s their mission.

Viadoom II

I can’t even remember for how long we in Umeå have waited for “The Road Package” to be decided on and built. The main purpose for the package is to finally direct all the transit traffic through the city center of Umeå to routes outside town. E4 (European highway 4) used to pass through Umeå until just a few years ago, and although it doesn’t anymore, people still, out of habit maybe, prefers that often slow route. We had actually improved a bit, but since February when IKEA established and opened it’s blue and yellow box just outside Umeå, the downtown traffic has increased again.

Anyway, there are traffic problems and there are traffic problems.

The Seattle Road Package includes the demolition of Alaskan Way Viaduct, a part of Highway 99 that runs alongside Elliot Bay, ending downtown at the waterfront to the west. The replacement for the Viaduct will be a tunnel, and that’s a story by itself. The years leading up to the decision about the viaduct and the tunnel were at least as many as the ones in Umeå, and the debate even more infected.

In October 2011, commuters endured a nine-day viaduct closure as the state tore down the south end section of the aging, earthquake-prone structure. Traffic remained sluggish throughout the week of Viadoom and at the end, the backup on Interstate 5 stretched for 10 miles. It was pretty bad.

During the following years a gigantic drill named Bertha, has, even more sluggish, worked it’s way through the difficult Seattle underground. Well, that’s really an over statement since Bertha most of the time has been stuck in mud, not able to move at all.

Now though, Bertha is going to chug her way the next 385 feet of the future Highway 99 tunnel under the viaduct. Which will be closed for two weeks. Two whole weeks. And 90 000 vehicles a day will have to find different routes to transit through Seattle. Since October 2011 Seattle has gained 45 000 people. Good luck.

At Viadoom I 2011, Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom wrote: “Traffic entering Seattle on I-5 was stop-and-go from Shoreline to downtown, starting as early as 3 p.m. and continuing past 6 p.m.,” He added: “Drivers had a hard time leaving South Lake Union in late afternoon, as actual gridlock — cars stuck at intersections blocking the cross-traffic during a green light — spread from Mercer Street to Denny Way.” 

In other words, 2011’s Viadoom sounds like 2016’s nearly-every-day doom, as a growing economy, a construction boom and rising population stress Seattle’s transportation infrastructure. Add on that Viadoom II.

How does Seattle cope with a two-week traffic crisis? By starting the business day at 6 a.m. 

It seems like Seattle is a bit more prepared for Viadoom II though.Eight downtown office buildings, including the 76-story Columbia Tower, will run their heating and ventilation two hours longer during the shutdown of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, to make the workday more flexible for as many as 15,000 employees and clients. King County government is encouraging its 13,000 employees to use networking software and video at home or outlying areas where that would improve productivity. And Mayor Ed Murray will allow many of the 10,000 city staff to make teleconferencing arrangements with department supervisors, so long as customer service and operating hours are maintained.

Two dozen Seattle police traffic officers will aim to keep intersections and bus lanes moving. King County Metro Transit will pay 22 transit operators to drive 11 more buses than usual on weekdays. And 2016 light rail extends from the University of Washington to downtown and all the way to SeaTac airport. Hopefully that will help.

But the two coming weeks will be an experience for sure. Thousands will try a bus, train, water taxi or the adventurous bike lanes. Some will work from home. Or spend even more time in traffic. Viadoom II is here.