100 days, and Before feels like a different time and age

I grew up during The Cold War. A little skinny girl in a little skinny country squeezed in between Nato and the Soviet Union - although there was Finland of course, but due to its former ties to the East, Finland didn’t feel like a bouncer to us. Finland wasn’t safe.

My sons were born around the time when Gorbatjov took power in the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall fell. That’s when my children entered the world. They grew up when the Eastern European countries turned into democracies and with parents feeling the world (from our European perspective) turning into a better and safer place. 

Trouble 1 was one of the last Swedish 18-year olds having to struggle through the mandatory military service, being a trained fire fighter for air base. Trouble 2 had the choice not to, so he didn’t. He chilled. The Swedish defense scaled down, because there weren’t any military treats any more. We all chilled.

How naive. It feels like now.

Donald Trump has only been president for a 100 days, but the Before feels like a different time and age. The Pre Trump era, when most of the world leaders spoke to each other in lowercase letters. There was Putin and Kim Jong-un and Assad and Erdogan and many more of course (which was bad enough), but letting Trump loose among these has been like taking the leash off a fired up pit bull.  

I am not going to list the Trump accomplishments - or which word would be the most accurate for his 100 days presidency. But the fact that he has bombed Syria (which I know even Democrats applaud) without seeming even to have a strategy in mind, as well as developed an U.S - Russia situation which some say hasn’t been this chilly since The Cold War, and additionally put the U.S and North Korea on the brink of a major major conflict, as Trump himself puts it, scares the hell out of me.

When I was a teenager I was in Berlin twice. Taking the train through East Germany, being startled in the middle of the night by soldiers screaming “Haben sie Wapen, Ammunition oder Narkotika? (do you have weapon, ammunition or drugs?), while turning our suitcases in and out, pushing those special trolleys with mirrors under our seats, searching for hidden goods. I’ve been passing through Check Point Charlie, guards with pointed weapon on the wall. And getting through former Jugoslavia to Greece train-backpacking wasn’t a field trip. I have been afraid traveling in Europe. Really afraid.

In 2005, after Trouble 1 graduated from high school (and before he started his military service), I took both my sons to Berlin for a few days. It was my first since the wall fell. And a very different experience. The new and shining Mitte. The Parliament. Those places hidden in the dark East before. We visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and monument. And the fascinating Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which had opened just a few weeks earlier. We took a bus tour around Berlin and it was special knowing this was a very different tour than the ones I did 35 years ago.

And I was amazed by the fact that it was all gone. The fear. The totalitarian ideas casting it’s shadow over us when I grew up, even into my adult years. A shiny new world to show my children, linked to the history behind and the different -isms. 

I honestly thought we have learned. I honestly thought mankind had moved forward and changed for the better, knowing what is good and what is bad. I honestly thought it was over, from my European perspective. As I sent my oldest off as one of the last ones for mandatory military service in Sweden.

Today, twelve years later, I feel like anything can happen. How wrong I was. How naive. Mankind has not matured to a wise old monk knowing it’s way. And Donald Trump, kicking and screaming like a big baby doesn’t help. As for me, I am still the skinny girl in the skinny country squeezed in-between Nato and Russia. And Sweden is rebuilding a military defense.

(Being done writing this post I am realizing my jaws are cramping from clenching my teeth)

Watching my brain lit up

Easter Saturday I was invited to my sisters’ and her family. It was a really cozy afternoon and evening with nice food and in good company. In addition, it was the first time since Christmas I was socializing in a group of people.

The morning after, lying in my bed waiting for the Sunday home care personal coming to help me up I experienced something interesting. I could see my brain. In front of me. The beige-brown mass with the characteristic meanderings. And the meanderings started moving. And there was light. The brown mass changed into different clear colors. I saw my brain coming to life.

I’ve spent more than two months pretty much isolated in my house and in myself. The home care personal come helping every day, but as the focus for our time together is me and my situation the topics for our communication isn’t always that inspiring. No, the winter has been a sleeping brown brain mass, only darker here on the 64th latitude. 

Lying in my bed Easter Day morning seeing my moving lit up brain I could understand what was happening. For the brain communicating only with one person at the time and mostly on the same subject, it doesn’t require a lot of activity. I am guessing it can take care of that half a sleep.

The evening before though, I had been in a group of eight grown ups and two little children in a not too big apartment. To be a part of such a cluster you can’t be asleep. Neither me nor my brain. To interact needs work. Reading body language, facial expressions and the dynamics of the group. To be a part of the conversations needs split vision, attention, listening, reading the situation, reacting and acting. 

And that’s what I saw the morning after lying in my bed waiting for the one person coming to talk to me for some minutes. I could see and feel how the synapses in my brain had been activated, wanting to connect, feeling the energy of good and meaningful work, seeing the sun!

Lying there, it was sad for me realizing how important this is. For my brain. For me. And how rare the occasions are. Television is nice company (and I am only watching valuable television), but communicationwize it’s a one way street. I am beginning to think my brain is gradually dying. I can absolutely understand loneliness and isolation being a significant cause for dementia. 

So, how fun it was Friday evening having dinner with the alto colleagues in my choir! A group of loud women in different ages, throwing lines and sound bites at each other for my glowing synapses to catch.

I really hope there will be more opportunities for my brain to move and and lit up. It’s essential. It’s crucial. Or else, I am afraid, it and I will wither and die.

SIT! LAY DOWN! STAY IN PLACE!

There is a drain in my shower - of course. For years, taking a shower has been combined with being prepared for that drain refusing doing it’s job, water not running down the pipes but instead making a pool in the shower, eventually flooding the floor. So the showers weren’t the relaxing and soothing moment they are supposed to be, but a tensed situation where you had to be ready to jump out of there as quickly as possible, shampoo barely rinsed out of your hair. 

It didn’t happen always, but often. The plumber was here frequently. Sometimes the drain worked for a while and you started thinking the problem was solved. Relaxing just a little bit. But there it was again. And you could never figure out when and why. The only thing you knew for certain was that it would happen and you needed to always be ready for it.

That drain has become the symbol for disaster stand by. Whether it’s about things going wrong in my house or in my body.

Some time ago my back was doing a tiny bit better. The dirt road to my house was to parts finally free from ice and snow and I could take sluggish mini walks. Extending them with a few meters a day. I felt like, maybe! Maybe I can start living a little bit!

It lasted for a week. I turned worse. And every other day I had and am having acute situations. A couple of the worst kind. Knifes across my lower back and sacrum. I haven’t had them before this winter. Leaving me immobilized and in nameless fear.

And the message is shouted to me in capitals: SIT! LAY DOWN! STAY IN PLACE! DON’T YOU EVER THINK YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ELSE THAN LIE LIKE A STRANDED LOG ON YOUR COUCH! DON’T YOU EVER THINK OF EXPANDING YOURSELF NEITHER PHYSICALLY NOR MENTALLY! STAY IN YOUR BOX! THIS IS YOUR LIFE, DAMN IT!!!

For a week I was thinking I had something going. I started hoping. I started looking forward. Seeing a little bit of future here at the end of my dirt road. Than the slap over my face. Again. DON’T YOU EVER THINK!

Am I to blame for having trust issues? How am I supposed to trust when the only thing I can trust is there is nothing to trust? How is a human being supposed to live and stay sane during such conditions?  

I know. I am not suffering from a deadly decease. I have roof over my head. Food on the table. There are no bombs dropped over me from the sky. I have no right to complain. But sometimes my body feels like a war zone, land mines going off at the slightest move. And it’s just hard. And mentally extremely draining.

Right before Christmas the plumber used the big gun and since then the drain has actually worked. Still though, I am listening for the characteristic sound of the water filling up in the shower. Looking down at my feet to secure it is not happening. I still don’t trust it not to happen. Will I ever? 

Sweden in chock and love

At around 8.30 PM I called Trouble 2. And started to cry as soon as I heard his voice. To my surprise. I didn’t know I was in that much need.

I was listening to my Friday Fun radio show Spanarna when suddenly the broadcast was interrupted by the news. A truck hade been driving into one of the main stores on one of the main streets in Stockholm on a Friday afternoon. That I actually knew from a telegram on the news right before Spanarna, but now I was informed it’s been driving Drottninggatan at a high speed and crashed into Åhléns main entrance, hitting people on it’s way. 

In the future, having the question “Do you remember where you were at when you got to know about the April 7 2017 terror attack in Sweden?” I will answer I was lying on my couch and Spanarna didn’t come back on air. Looking at my radio waiting for it to happen. One of those historical moments when time get’s interrupted and you sort of want to stay on the right side of that timeline. Grasping for it. Your mind kind of like a lagging motion picture.

A few hours earlier I had turned acute after a couple of weeks without sharp pain and serious shootings in my body. That didn’t help.

Neither did it help that Donald Trump decided to take action in Syria during Thursday night.

My afternoon and evening was spent in front of the TV. Zapping between SVT Swedish National Television and CNN. A little bit taken by the excellent and lengthy CNN reporting about the situation in Stockholm. Feeling cared about from over seas in the midst of their own political chaos. And holding hands with SVT:s calm voices, the Swedish natural level of emotion, even at a for the nation chocking moment like this.

Hours went by. Same pictures over and over again. People fleeing in panic. Same eyewitnesses. Same reporters running around chasing comments. The king and queen interrupting their trip to Brazil flying back.

There were the stories about many people lying dead and injured on the ground. Blod. Chaos. But no pictures. SVT, the responsible outlet sparing Sweden from what we don’t really need to see. And not putting dependents in the horrible situation recognizing a red coat or a hockey scarf on the ground.

Meanwhile, the news from Pentagon says there were Russians at the Syrian airbase attacked by 59 AmericanTomahawk missiles. So, Donald Trump, who even on the Wednesday condemning of the Syrian chemical attack left out mentioning Putin or Russia (although his ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley did, clearly, the same day) happened to launch missiles landing among Russians. This while FBI, the Senate and the Congress independently are investigating Russian links to the Trump campaign.

What a twist. I would say if this was a TV series. But it isn’t. This is for real. And inside me the little girl who grew up at the Botnian Bay coast during the cold war, the Cuba Crises and Bay of Pigs, awakens. The little Swedish girl squeezed in-between Nato and the Soviet Union. That girl is scared.

April 7 2017 was a dark and ugly day. In the evening this vague feeling of the need for family. Being by yourself on such a day is not a good thing. That’s when I called Trouble 2. And the tears suddenly did break through. I didn’t want to burden my son though, and luckily my friend Eva wasn’t busy. We watched the news and the developing for two hours together talking on the phone. Actually we didn’t say much. But we shared the evening and the moment. It felt good. It was a good thing.

Sweden is now among the world statistics for terror attacks performed like many others in Europe. Four people are dead and 10 wounded still hospitalized in different conditions, several severe. Of those who lost their lives one was a Britt, one from Belgium and two Swedes. An 11-year old girl never made it home from school on Friday afternoon.

We have seen them all over the world through the years, the walls of flowers on the scene for a insane terror tragedy. This weekend the people of Stockholm are building one of those walls. As well as building resistance. And opening up their hearts.

When the subway was shut down on Friday men and women gave strangers in need a ride. While people wasn’t able to get out of downtown, others opened up their homes offering shelter and food. Preschools prolonged their hours for the children who’s parents weren’t able to pick them up. And the police are love bombed with flowers and hugs for their compassionate work during this tragic event. Today tens of thousands gathered at Sergels Torg, the square right at the scene of the attack. Linking their arms together during a minute of silence. In tears and dignity listening to words and music of love, hope and comfort. Sharing the moment.

It was only a matter of time. Already in 2010 a failed attack occurred. And this might sound strange, but in a way the Friday terror attack in Stockholm is making us a part of something bigger. Sweden is no longer spared from the the horror and grief we have witnessed among our neighbors. Our innocence, in this sense, was Friday afternoon stolen from us, like so many other have been robbed. We are now sisters and brothers with our European friends Norway, Denmark, England, France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and Russia. We share the experience. And might that be a good thing?

Great places come with a cost

I’ve been spending the last few weeks putting together a photo album for Trouble 1. Like a real hands on photo album. I started for his 30 year birthday last year and made the first two, covering his life from my growing belly until he was five. Now for his 31 it was time for album nr. 3: summer -91 - summer -93. Which means our first stay in Seattle is told in pictures and writing.

Looking at a downtown picture shot from the Space Needle deck I am struck by how sparse it is. The high rises scattered over the area. And pointing the camera to South Lake Union I am thinking, wow these pictures are historic! Seattle has grown into a dense city and some places are completely changed. And the densification just keeps on happening.

There are more construction cranes in Seattle than in any other US city. While many American cities don’t have a real downtown, Seattle has a very clear and distinct one centered around the heart of shopping Pacific Place Mall, Westlake Mall and the Nordstrom flagship store. It’s great! Especially when you are new to a city it is really helpful to have a center to navigate around.

And as if that’s not enough one more downtown is coming up. South Lake Union in my pictures from 1993 is an industrial area area with one story buildings (Umebor, think Västerslätt) where you could find most anything from shipping and boat supplies to film rolls. And boy was that a hard neighborhood to navigate! Today it is the Amazon campus with 25 000 employees, more to come and a city center growing for the daily need for all those blue badged people. Easier to navigate? Well, they say it’s hard to get in and out because it’s already congested and has made the commute even worse.

For as long as I have known Seattle it has never been an inexpensive city. The only time the home prices went down was after the 2008 crash, but Seattle was never hit in the way many other cities in the US were. In 2010 I dreamt about buying the fabulous penthouse where I was staying for the summer which was for sale at a bargain, 375 000 $. I even bought lottery tickets! No luck though unfortunately.

Today Seattle tops the nation in home price growth. The national numbers are up 5.8% for the last year, Seattle 10.8%, close to double! During my early Seattle years renters were only people who were in transition or didn’t have a reliable income. That changed when home prices became unaffordable even for people with a more stable life, and during the past four years rents have skyrocket across Seattle about 40%!

So what happens to a city which is super expensive going on even more expensive? Well, except traffic congestion it attracts a finical elite. And some Seattleites who have been there for generations have to leave.

It turns out nearly half of Seattle millennials consider moving as Seattle-area costs are soaring!

45 percent of millennials in the Puget Sound region think they will have to move somewhere cheaper to afford the life they want, even though nearly all would prefer to stay in the area. Such a loss! Such a terrible loss!

This is not a problem exclusive for Seattle. Attractive places are difficult spots for young adults to start a life, same goes for Umeå although on a different scale. The condo market was up 12% only in the last quarter here. Those cities might also be a hard place to retire or being disadvantaged in other ways.

The costs in booming Seattle are even negative for tourism. A recent J.D Power survey ranks Seattle 37th on the list of the top 50 destinations in the US! The gorgeous Emerald City! What happened? Well, tourists have pretty much the same complains as Seattleites: traffic is bad and it’s expensive. A Best Western hotel in Seattle does probably not have a higher standard than in Phoenix or somewhere else. And Air.bnb doesn’t help. People offering apartments know the market values.

Where am I going with this? Well it all started with that 1993 downtown photo I just pasted in my son’s photo album. Cities like Seattle and Umeå where building cranes move like choreographed in the sky are great cities. Developing, evolving, fun, often young. The median age in Umeå is 38 years, in Seattle 35,5 of 2015. But all that comes with a cost. If you can afford that cost it’s great. If you can’t, not so much.