tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75092648118660876792024-02-07T11:12:43.509-08:00Home is Away, Away is HomeMaria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.comBlogger387125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-5138863347359639282020-04-05T10:46:00.002-07:002020-04-06T11:15:41.375-07:00My friend Katta is dead<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On March 30 2010 my friends Katta, Maria, Eva and I met at a pub in Umeå. That very same day I had a call from my oncologist telling me the dark area fully invading my right hip caput in fact wasn't a metastasis from the breast cancer I had been treated for the year before. I didn’t have a spread cancer! The joy that day! And I got to celebrate with my girl friends! I consider March 30 to be my second birthday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On March 30 2020 my friend Katta died, from a spread cancer. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Katta and I handled cancer completely differently. When I was declared cancer free I told my oncologist that should it come back I wanted her to give me the full picture. All the facts. To not ever hide anything from me. To put it all on the table. Especially if there would not be any hope. I want to know. Because I need to be prepared. That counts for most things in my life. If I’m only prepared I can deal pretty much everything. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For Katta the most important thing was to keep the hope. “I can take a lot as long as we are working towards a happy ending. And I never want the hope to be taken away from me”, she told the doctors.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t think I was the best person for Katta during her seven years with cancer. It took me way too long to understand our different ways in this. I would ask her for the latest labs, the results of the MIR’s and the CAT scans, and what did the doctor say? I am afraid I put pressure on her. I asked her for what I had wanted to know in a similar situation. And for that I am very sorry. I did better the last few years, still, I am very very sorry. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Late Sunday evening I wrote her a text. I had been told it wasn’t long now. I knew she wouldn't read it but I really wanted to talk to her one last time. Yet, pushing the send arrow that momentI felt bad. Perhaps she still had hope and I didn’t? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Katta lived fully all through her many years being sick. She enjoyed arena concerts, she travelled, she did the most amazing and impossible things. She had more friends, and close friends, than anyone I know. And they were all by her side until the end. I can’t think of anyone who would have a single negative thing to say about Katta. She was the most likeable person you would ever meat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I could have softened the title of this post. Katta has passed away. Her final rest. Something like that. Bullshit, was Katta’s opinion about those kind of euphemism. Tell it like it is! She was a very straight forward person.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She also didn’t like me telling long stories. Especially not interrupting with one of my stories, which of course, is a very rude thing to do. So Katta, I hope you don’t feel I have interrupted anything. And I am going to end here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, only one thing (I can feel her firm eyes on me now). I have been cancer free for 10 years now. I’ve had quite a few scares, but this far I have been spared. As happy and grateful as I am for me, as sad and sorry I am for Katta. I had wished her so many more years in this world with all her friends. She is much missed.</span></span></div>
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-11659009894624123132019-09-22T11:28:00.000-07:002019-09-22T13:19:22.375-07:00Letting go of my dream life / the second last chapter<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">206 465 0540. I have loved my Seattle number. The figures. In what order they come. The shape of it. The sound of it. The fit in my mouth while saying it out loud. I can even whisper it just to come close. We, a perfect match.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">206 made me a Seattleite. 465 0540 was me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After cleaning out my Seattle storage and selling the car (although the money for it actually never showed up…) in summer 2017 I have continued letting go. Last year i closed my bank account and this July I cancelled my Seattle Times subscription. Although the paper is really generous when it comes to headlines and preambles, even a free article now and then so I can still keep myself pretty updated.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am not sure when I bought my first phone in Seattle, actually my first cell phone ever. It might have been in 2000. 206 465 0540. Love at first sight. A Pay as You Go of course, since I wasn’t a resident. Through all these years I have seen to to always have some money on the account, that’s how I’ve been able to keep the same number. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the years I was commuting between my two homes being back in Seattle 2-3 times a year I refilled when I was there. Later, I’ve saved my number every September. 100 $ and I’ve been good to go another year.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The last few years though I have hesitated. Will I ever be back? No, probably not. But what if? Hope. Am I allowed to keep the hope? And so I have. Last year I missed the date with two days. In panic I called ATT and a kind agent helped me getting my number back. My number.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">September 7 was the date 2019. And I didn’t refill. It was time, finally. Letting go of my Seattle citizenship. One day I will call that number. Kind of to meet an ex’s new woman. But not now. When I am ready.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have totally accepted that my Seattle dream life will never happen. The time for it is way over. It’s harder for me to accept the fact that it did not happen. I’m not dwelling over it though, not any more. I am keeping Seattle on a distance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet. A couple of days ago an evening-lit-up Seattle downtown picture passed by on Facebook. They do of course, most every day. But something in this pic just pulled me in. I was standing at 5th Avenue a chilly December night after having a delicious dinner at Palomino. And it was like someone punched me in my stomach. I lost my breath. Overpowered by the insight of how deep and strong my feelings for Seattle are. And how I am surpressing them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Giving up my Seattle number is an important and necessary act. And the second last chapter in the process of letting go. What’s the last chapter then? Well, my Tempur Pedic mattress is still sitting in my dear friends Matt and Elizabeth’s basement on Capitol Hill…</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-39577867288594412042019-08-25T11:07:00.001-07:002019-08-25T14:10:36.542-07:00Being a part of their baby sister’s wedding<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Becca was three years old when I first met her. A shy little girl who hided behind her mother’s legs, peaking at me from a safe spot. Today she is an outgoing tall slender woman who is fluent in Spanish and Italian and a professional dancer. And last Saturday she married.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Summer 1995 we happened to stay in a house across the road from the Smitth-Heffron-Herring residence. Little did we know that family would become friends for life and the start for an expanded Seattle experience. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The idea to live abroad was mine. The fact that Seattle came to be our second home a coincidence, or if you would prefer some other word for it. My sons were at that point too young to have a say. Later though, there were times they would have preferred to be in Sweden and it took a bribe or two to make them come along.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During all those years when I dragged my sons across the ocean between their two homes I came up with reasonable arguments for doing so. I saw it as I provided them one more country, one more continent, one more language, one more culture and one more family. The Stolterman Seattle crowd, a bunch of interesting, loud, fun people who liked us as much as we liked them. And, I said to myself, I will continue doing so until they are old enough to decide if they want that second home or not.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">August 17 2019 Trouble 2 and Audrey were a part of Becca´s wedding.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Trouble 2 was 7 that summer 1995 when 3-year old Becca was hiding behind her mom. A little too far from each other in age to be able to play together. But as you know, age differences become less of a problem as time goes by, and they found ways to enjoy each other and have grown really close over the years. Trouble & Trouble have the privilege of being treated with four Seattle siblings, and Becca is the baby sister. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Right before Christmas last year I got a message from Becca telling me that she would get married to the man in her life. And that I was invited! I bursted into tears. So happy for her, and so honoured, grateful and moved that she wanted me to be a part of it. Oh how I wanted to be there on her big day! I actually had some imaginary plans for it to happen, but in the end I couldn’t make it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Trouble 2 and Audrey did though! And they even got to be in the close circle of family and friends who arranged all the practicalities for the big bash out on the Olympic Peninsula. On my Saturday evening I texted Trouble 2 a hi to everyone. He responded he just hugged the bride from me and that they were all off for the wedding. What a day this will be!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At that moment I became very emotional. It all moved closer to me. Yes, I was 3000 miles away but in that moment we were together. And I admit I was sad. Not getting to be there at the biggest day in Becca’s life this far. And digging deeper into those feelings I found that most of all I was sad to not share this day with her parents, my dear friends. We have been through so much together over the years, good and bad, and this would have been such a beautiful moment to add.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Was it the right thing to force Seattle on my sons? Well, now they are definitely grown up and can choose for themselves. In 2012 Trouble 1 was one of the wedding ceremony witnesses for the Seattle big brother Reed, along with his sister. And now Trouble 2 was a part of baby sister Becca’s wedding. For me, who has a tendency of seeing time and life as big arches, this is beautiful. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">And it’s big. They have each other, this six-clover now extended with girlfriend, boyfriends, fiancé, husband, wife and even children and step children. They have each other and I hope and trust they always will. </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-78816231207422729862019-08-11T10:11:00.003-07:002019-08-11T14:05:54.376-07:00Getting to be the container of her future<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have this old hay barn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My cousin-daughter, the cosmopolite, for now calls London home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this is the story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lovisa was born in Umeå. She grew up in Miami. And studied fashion design in Washington DC, London and Paris. As her mother comes from Asia, that part of the world is also home to her.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Northern Sweden with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins are very dear to Lovisa. And there has been this summer house with the fire place, the out house and the boat in the lake which can take you to the island with the cutest cabin, no running water neither electricity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But times changes and this summer it was finally due to close the summer house for good. This is sad for all of us, but especially for Lovisa. She wanted so badly to keep some of the furniture and special memories for the future. To keep the Northern Swedish part of her soul. But where will the future be? And where to store her Swedish soul until she finds out?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Don’t you have an old barn somewhere, my cousin asks me from Miami. I sure do I responded, stressing the word old. There are big holes in the roof and therefor the floor is giving in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We came up with a solution. One of my handy men in cooperation with Trouble 1 - the Spider Man who is more comfortable on a roof ridge than anywhere else - put new tin plates where the wind had taken the old ones. And repaired the floor.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t say how happy I was to get my old barn fixed. It really needed to be done anyway. Win win!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A couple of weeks ago my cousin and Lovisa showed up in the late evening, a big truck loaded with her souvenirs. Lifting, carrying, lifting, carrying. With Tetris skills packing it all in in the left part of my barn. It all locked good and the three of us were satisfied with our plan and the result of it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Too good to be true? Well… During a heavy rain this week we discovered water was leaking in after all. Not where the roof was mended but through tiny holes all over which I kind of new about but had forgotten (repressed) as they were nothing compared to the gaping square meters, consequences of last winter’s snow storms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I felt absolutely miserable. I had promised Lovisa a safe home for her future and it turned out I was totally unreliable!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What to do? Fortunately my cousin is a true optimist and problem solver. A real fixer. And between us we could take care of it, at least that’s what we hope. I found the perfect big sturdy plastic sheets in my wood shed, and my cousin created a tent to cover the furniture.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s raining now. Pretty heavy. And I must admit it makes me nervous. I so much want to do this for Lovisa. I kept my storage in Seattle until two years ago. I kept my hope and my dream. I kept my American life in a Safeguard unit on Martin Luther King Way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I want Lovisa to be able to keep her Swedish childhood. And the dream of setting it up somewhere in the world in a future. Or maybe a Northern Swedish cabin. For now though, it’s covered under plastic sheets in my old hay barn here at the end of the road. </span></span></div>
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-44768202918121136422019-06-30T10:52:00.001-07:002019-06-30T13:35:30.434-07:00Magical white night duets<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I fired away a couple of high pitch phrases. And someone responded. A dialog followed. And a couple of days later it happened again. With a different responder. Today I want to share with you moments of magical nightly meetings.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had been celebrating Midsummer’s Eve with my extended family over at Norrbyskär, an island just off the coast half an hour south of Umeå. Back home, happy from a nice day, I stepped out on my front yard to say goodnight to my little Queendom here at the end of the road. The sun had set at 11.09 PM and would take a brief recess until 2.48 AM. Now it was 1.30.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I sang a little tune to the light night. These magic white nights unexplainable to anyone who hasn’t experienced them. So, I hummed my tune. I put a bit more power behind it but didn’t want to wake anyone up. Back in the day when women called for the cows to come home in the evenings they used a special technique which makes the sound travel far over the hills. I can’t say I know this special way of communicating, but I am pretending…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, singing my fake cow call suddenly a bird yelled out. I had frightened the pour thing, I thought. That didn’t stop me though, and at the next scream back I realized there was a crane down at the field east of my house. We did a back and forth for a while, and it was extra special as he/she was so close. What a way to end a Midsummer’s Eve! Or more right, to start the Midsummer Day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some days later I did my usual evening routine. Bidding my goodnight to the green surroundings on which I am the third generation. I stood on my front porch singing a little song to nature. And nature responded. In the sweetest way you could ever imagine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This was not a cow call. This was a quite improvised summer tune. On the first four bars a blackbird came flying, landing in my father’s pine tree separating the yard from the fields to the west. How wonderful!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But that was just the start! Because in the white night we sang a duet together! I sang a few bars and the blackbird followed me. A few bars more and it sang me an encore. And again and again and again! We kept on going until he/she either was bored with my tune or decided there was better ways to spend the night. Maybe time to feed the kids. I guess even a blackbird has to put the babies before singing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know this story sounds fabricated. Or wishful thinking. But just the way that bird flew in and landed in the three. Like I had been calling for it. He/she must have heard something that sounded interesting, the way people gravitates to free live music in a summer park. And the presence in our improvised concert. I swear, it was real. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wish I could add that those nights were warm and soft against my bare skin. Nope. The northern Swedish summer has this far been… a northern Swedish summer. Even if the sun is out, there is a gale coming down from the North Pole driving me crazy. Today I’ve been sitting outside in my fleece AND down coat wrapped in a blanket, just to get some hazed sun to fill my vitamin D storage. 15°C/59°F and strong northern winds, later 5°C cooler and rain. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Weather-wise May and June are on a low, but white night concerts with a crane and a blackbird makes the pre-summer rise to unforgettable.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-4562692282407545032019-06-02T08:12:00.004-07:002019-06-02T13:31:41.524-07:00CRITICAL!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here I am today. Back on my couch. Every move hazardous. And in great pain. I am checking my journal/chart of when I last wrote these words. CRITICAL! It was April 2018.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For months and months I’ve been moving forward. In gratitude and joy. It started late summer 2018 thanks to the long and record warm summer. A couple of set backs when fall arrived and February-March a bit more difficult, but nothing at all like my winters have been the past six years. Normally I am bedridden February-March and even April. This year I’ve been on my feet all winter! Attending every single choir rehearsal Wednesday evenings and singing all the concerts, sitting at my bar stool. That’s nothing but amazing!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You remember my hallway? My newly remodelled wonderful lavender hallway? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/04/realizing-dream.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/04/realizing-dream.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I even had the energy for project leading all that which is also remarkable. There was a problem though, how would I get my grandfathers wooden sofa and the big drawer painted? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You know what? I did it myself!!! Not in one take of course. It took me several weeks. Sitting on a chair for a little while and doing just the amount of work I could at the moment. But I got it done! And I can’t even describe the bliss I felt while doing it. Me, in my old painting cloths, dipping the brush in the paint and applying on the wood. Just like old times! A part of me that’s been buried for years waking up. Giving me that special kind of energy. It’s been like a miracle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When May entered my back started to decline though. I didn’t want to way too much in to that. I just observed and adjusted a bit. The last Wednesday of the choir season May 22 was my worst for the semester, and it happened to coincide with the pre-summer concert. But sitting at my stool it still worked pretty good for me, and I am so glad it did.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now it turns out I was really lucky. One more week and I couldn’t have done it. And today I am waking up in a state I haven’t been in for more than a year. Getting out of bed was risky and scary. So is sitting down at the toilet. As actually sitting on the toilet. Sharp pain alert. I am in my pyjamas on the couch. If I have to get up (which is a hazardous thing to put myself through as well) I am walking extremely slowly with the rollator - a Swedish version of a walker but with four wheels. My body is scared. I am scared.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is this happening? I have absolutely no idea. I have loved and been grateful for every minute of my many months of onward momentum. I even started to trust it. I felt a little bit like coming out on the other side. You know, like people occasionally do. And then they start touring holding speeches and end up in Ted Talks and make a lot of money. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t say that was my plan (although that would have been grate!), but I did want to plan ahead. Thinking I would stay in that good place. That it was kind of over. A six and a half year dark experience changing for the light, and being just that, an experience overcome. I looked at Julian Assange when he was carried out of his room (we had been in house arrest for about the same amount of time) thinking (a bit smug I admit) that I have aged more well than he had…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, it could have been worse. Even though it’s happening right when the first summer month starts (sucks!), I'm grateful it isn’t mid winter. At least it isn’t dark and slippery outside. Also, this was my monthly blog-Sunday. A perfect way to spend a not-by-my-choice day at the couch. And I am planning on beating this.</span></span></div>
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-49244750326496440172019-05-05T11:13:00.003-07:002019-05-05T13:21:34.932-07:00What if there will be enough pages in the end?<div style="color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Parallel to remodeling my home entrance this spring I have been putting together photo albums for my sons. We are talking old school analog pieces with glued pictures and hand written text. The real deal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">As I have been a devoted photographer I did shoot tons of pictures when Trouble & Trouble grew up. I didn’t have the time to make albums for them at that time though, but for Trouble 1’s 30th birthday I sat down and put together the first one for him. Two actually. Black covers. Covering the time from him growing in my belly until he was 5. The third black album was delivered on his 31st. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Consequently Trouble 2 was presented his first two albums on his 30th too. White covers. As the brothers are two years apart, the first three albums for Trouble 1 and the first two for Trouble 2 ended them up on the same page so to speak, are you with me? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Spring is the birthday season for the Stolterman family, we are all born in March and April, the best time for the start of life we tend to think. And a good time for making photo albums as well. Light is back, life is back! And this time around the work was so much easier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Because, as I said, my sons were now on the same page when it comes to documentation. Summer 1994. So what I did was simply going through the pictures making one stack for each son - and actually a small one for myself. Then I placed the albums next to each other and put the pictures in them, parallel. So smooth! Different pictures (I didn’t have copies) but pretty much the same text. So the albums are unique but the journey the same. Summer 1994 traveling around Sweden and hanging out at our place at the end of the road with friends, as well as spending time at grandpa and grandma’s cabin with cousins by the sea. And summer 1995, our second Seattle stay this time with Madrona as our home, getting to know the city. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">So, all was well at my desk where I attended to this task. Except for one thing. In Trouble 2’s first album I remembered to put a couple of important B&W pictures right at the end of it. One was his parents wedding photo. The other a picture of our vocal group Moritz. Eight young people singing together for many years. Four couple actually. We were best friends and we all have kids at the same time, and for the longest time those nine children thought they were cousins. The Moritz cousins. So, these two pictures are in a way the origin of my sons’ life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">For this new album I had promised Trouble 1 to add those pictures for him. And this was the problem. As there wouldn't be space for them in my parallel gluing procedure. So, as I was tagging along in my work I was haunted by how I could solve this problem. I couldn’t figure it out. And I couldn’t relax and enjoy. Because as every parent to more than one child knows, it has to be fair.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">As I couldn’t figure it out, I just kept on going. Thinking I will find a way at the end. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">It turned out that Trouble 1’s album had extra pages! When gluing the last Madrona pictures in both albums (from Valley School which was the key to why we one year later came back to spend a year), it was the end of Trouble2’s album, but not Trouble 1’s! Because there where two extra pages, exactly the right amount for adding those two B&W pictures I had promised him! Can you believe it?!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">I was sitting at my desk. Astonished. It all worked out in the end. Just like that. And I was thinking, oh how I wish life was the same. That there would be enough money all the way through, just covering the funeral. A good place to live when it’s time to leave the end of the road. Those things I worry about. That it would all add up in the end.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">And maybe it will? But as I can’t figure the future out, I will just keep on going, isn’t that what we do? Like with the photo albums. Worrying along the line. But maybe there will be exactly as many pages as I need in the end. Maybe it all adds up in a perfect way. </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-18874638894456648682019-04-07T11:50:00.003-07:002019-04-07T13:37:21.348-07:00Realizing a dream!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You know that old saying To Aim for the Stars and Reach the Tree Tops. Or something like that. Well, I’ve done my share of aiming for the stars with no tree tops in sight. I would say with every grand plan I’ve had, I have fallen badly and ended up crawling in shame among the weeds. But for one exception. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many years ago I watched a movie. I want to think it was the beautiful I am Sam, but I am not sure. Anyway, in this movie there is a hallway with a staircase. The walls in that hallway are painted in a wonderful lavender color. That color just opened my heart and I said out loud: one day I want a hallway in that color! Years later I reviewed the film (or if it was a different one) with the same reaction. That’s my hallway color!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the beginning of 2019 I wrote a post about how I wanted things for this year.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-i-want-things.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-i-want-things.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And my number one wish was to remodel my hallway. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was 21 years since I picked the terracotta tiles and the broadly striped light beige Designer’s Guild wallpaper. The colors have been feeling like a life time ago and the wallpaper certainly looked that way. Worn out and soiled. The entrance to my home was simply depressing. At least to me. And I am the one living here. So.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Per is my age and, as I, his family is rooted in this village since centuries back. He is also quite a handy-man. He did my kitchen a year ago and I learned that he was thorough on the job and very patient with me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You remember the woman in Sleepless in Seattle who had her home done? The one who wanted a Subzero fridge for her catering plates and therefor needed to tear a bearing wall down? Well, that’s me. Not the catering, and I wouldn't take down a bearing wall, but it’s got to be right. The result has to make me happy. Euphoric. Which demands a lot of the crafts people I am hiring. I’ve noticed though that often times they appreciate performing on a high standard. It’s challenging in a good way. Showing off their skills.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, as Per now knows my preferences and seems okay with it I asked him if he wanted to help me out with my entrance/hallway/mud room. Could he do it this spring? And he could!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, the crucial task for me was to find that lavender color which has been in/on my mind for 10-15 years. Paint shops have those sun color schemes with 2000 colors, you know? Like sun fans. I picked one nuance close to my memory. Friday afternoon two weeks ago Per painted parts of the main wall, for a try. His quite comment: well this is an intriguing color.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was. But was it the right one? It was dashing. But it led me to a 14 year-old girls room. A little too much.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back at the paint shop I checked out the closest nuances to the one a bought, one darker and one lighter. I could tell none of theme would work. No, you would probably need the one just in between, Björn - the guy who helped med out - said. But there is no such color on the chart. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course not. Out of 2000 colors I want one which isn’t there. A nuance in between. Like taking out a bearing wall but the other way around kind of.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Björn took on the challenge though. I could of course try to make a mix of my own. A little less pigment. Add a pinch of black. From the top of my head. But I can’t guaranty the result, the mix can be whatever. He said. Yesss, that’s my guy!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I got back to the house with three colors. The darker, the lighter and Björn’s Mix, as we called it. I don’t know if Björn is one hell of a paint mixer or if I was unbelievably lucky, but his special mix is perfect! Just perfect! Exactly the color I’ve been carrying in my dream factory for years!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To make the room more exciting and dynamic I’ve actually used all three colors, on different walls. If you don’t know, you think it’s the light changing. But I know. And I love it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So what about the floor then? You can’t have a terracotta floor to lavender walls, of course not. But it turns out you can actually paint tiles! This was the part Per and I were dreading a bit since it was new to both of us. But it worked! Thursday morning he put the primer on and in the evening the first coat of dark grey color, drying overnight. Friday evening the same procedure. Yesterday morning I walked down the stairs from the upper floor, amazed by the sight. I took my first steps on the new dark grey surface. It's so beautiful! Like a new tile floor!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Can you picture the there nuances lavender walls and the perfect dark grey floor? Tomorrow Per will be here and finish up. Put the moldings back and a last hand on details. Adjust lightings. Then it’s my job to in some way get my grandparents sofa out of wood and a drawer from the seventies painted in white.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is it so important to me to get it just right? Whatever I create? I can’t describe it in any other way than when it is, my heart rate slows down. My breathing goes deeper. My body relaxes. My mind finds peace. And my soul is filled with joy. Dissonances resolves. The chord is tuned. There is perfect harmony.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">You might think to remodel your home entrance isn’t a big thing. Not much of a grand plan. And I agree, it isn’t. It’s more of a small plan. But to me who don’t have much power to change things on a larger scale, it is. I am realizing an old dream that’s been with me since I first saw that lavender film hallway - by the way I must find it one more time. Once again I have proven that here at the end of the road I am able to succeed. And that’s a good thing. I am grateful and happy.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-7490273089497127602019-03-10T11:30:00.000-07:002019-03-10T14:05:28.114-07:00Will you be in contact with your contacts?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So how am I doing without my long time Sunday routine? I am doing surprisingly and wonderful well, thank you!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It snowing through a sun hazy sky this afternoon. Kind of magically beautiful. After a couple of weeks with life threatening ice slippery roads heaven opened a couple of days ago and let go of 25 centimeter (0,8 foot) white stuff and we are back to real winter again after having had somewhat of a spring-wintry feeling for a while. That’s how it goes this time of year on the 64th latitude.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, how did I spend my first unscheduled Sunday for 7 years and 4 months? Well, I was lying here on my couch after my morning routine, thinking, What would you enjoy today Maria? I noticed my hands and them being in a terrible need for manicure. So I did that. With lots of time letting the different layers of nail polish dry, for a satisfying result. Nice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I did something I’d been thinking about all winter through heavy snow falls and storms. Something very practical and even more satisfying than doing my nails. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When weather is really bad (you could say dangerous) and I go to bed I bring my torch into my bedroom. In case of power outings. That’s the only thing I do, but it’s something. I try to remember having my cell phone charged. I also have landlines, two actually. One of them is connected to a phone which needs power though, so that one is out when the power is out. And if my cell should die, well, that’s that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Only, I actually have two old school phones in the house connected to the world out there with sturdy reliable telephone sockets. One in the kitchen and one in my bedroom. Amazing, right? So I am safe!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then again, if my other phones die… I don’t have access to any phone numbers… Do you have your contacts written down on a paper somewhere nowadays? I don’t. Or at least, I didn’t. Because that’s what I did my first unscheduled Sunday in 7 years and months!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I chose my analog calendar to be the safe place. I wrote down the numbers to family and friends I could call in case of emergency. And the most important numbers to my home care company. In addition, I also added the electrician, plumber, heating pump service technician and the guy who administrates my village broadband fiber net.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There you go! I have taken a step for security if the crises should happen. I am also planning on a list to keep in my bed stand. That might happen some other Sunday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Only. Again. Every single contact on my proud calendar list is a cell number. So, if the mobile network goes down…there is no-one to call. Because who has a land line these days? Except me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In many places and regions in Sweden the old reliable copper wires are cut. Some more years, and there won’t be any left. Too expensive to maintain. And we have the mobile network, right?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last summer every household in Sweden received this information folder from the Swedish Civil Contingencies: If Crises or War Comes. It tells you how to prepare, what to do and where to go if there should be a real crises.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the very important things to think about should that happen, is to be careful about using your cell phone. To not overload the mobile network. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I agree. That’s a crucial advice. But excuse me, how are we supposed to communicate? Power out - no broadband. Copper lines cut - no land lines. Message in a bottle? Pigeons? Runners?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am doing a bit of mockery here. But this is serious business. I don’t know about other countries, but this is Sweden. Where we are so eager to be on the forefront when it comes to technology that we literary are cutting proven safety nets because they feel outdated. Like we would never need a Plan B.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is all so vulnerable. We are all so vulnerable. How do you feel when the mobile network is down? In this time and age when everything can be hacked. What’s you gut feeling about The Cloud as the hand to hold in case of emergency? No, I didn’t think so…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So. I am going to write a contact list for my bed stand. Next to my parents analog telephone with a wire in to the telephone socket. And if the mobile network is down, at least I can call 112 (911).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">And the question for that first free Sunday of mine? Did I enjoy writing that list? I most certainly did.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-16050549177716890182019-02-17T12:04:00.004-08:002019-02-17T14:24:56.721-08:002019: I want things!/So thank you for now<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Do you remember this one?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-i-want-things.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-i-want-things.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s been percolating in me for a while: do I really want spending every Sunday writing my blog?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The main reason for this question is the fact that my body has been doing better for a good while. Jinx jinx, that could change any minute, so knock knock knock knock on every piece of wood within reach. But as a result of this improvement my days are a bit changed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Right now the afternoon sun is for the first time this winter reaching my west window finding my eyes here on the couch at the end of the road. It might not have happened before because it’s been cloudy. It could also be though that I haven’t been on the couch at this time. Because I am more moveable. Not every day. But some.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is good news. This is really good news. This is wonderful news.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, I am moving around a bit. Sometimes sitting a little while at my desk in my office. Sometimes at my dining table in my yellow kitchen. Spending time at other locations in my house than my couch gives me opportunities for other activities. Different activities. I am exploring long buried memories of creativity from ancient times. Times when I could go 24-7 on tasks like being in the dark room, sew a suit or sit at the piano crafting a song.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">OK, hold your horses! Or hold my horses I should say. I am not DOING these things! I am only thinking about them. But finding these memories makes my mind reach further than my couch. Beyond my computer, a lit up screen and a dark keyboard. What could I do? And what do I want to do? What is my mind, heart and soul missing and longing for? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have answers to these questions. I won’t share them with you though, not at this point. I would love to when I have realised one or two of them, so wait for it!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But to make room for other aspects of my creativity I need to make a change for myself. I need to clear my Sundays. Maybe not all of them, but some. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is truly a big change. For 7 years and 4 months I have been writing my blog every week. Home is Away, Away is Home. I have been sharing stories about my two cities Umeå and Seattle. I have been reporting about politics. And I have been letting you in to my personal life. A life which has gone through hardships and joy, changes and stagnation. You might have experienced me open and transparent, and that’s correct. Still, what’s most important to me I can’t share. Out of consideration to other people, and maybe also to myself.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this moment I am struck by anxiety. Can I do this? I love writing, and even though my English is far from perfect and pretty plain, publishing a text every week is great practise. Also, I have had a chancel for formulating and sharing stories, for expressing myself in words, something that is essential to me. Can I be without that?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t have any followers. Yet I know some people are reading my postings. The Blogger statistics is impossible to figure out so I don’t know how many. That doesn’t really matter though. I am merely writing for myself. And you and you and you and you. And I am encouraged and grateful to anyone and everyone who has taken time and focus for my stories over the years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I am suffering from grave separation anxiety in general this is not a farewell and goodbye. I will not shut down Home is Away, Away is Home. I still want the possibility to write if I have an important subject or just feel like it or miss it too much. I know I am taking a chance though. Continuity has been one of my strengths and probably the most important factor to why people find me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Three deer are crossing my field at the base of Dry Mountain in the bright afternoon sun. Spring-winter is saying hello. And I would like to thank you, each end everyone for your attention this far. Who knows, I might very well be back next Sunday!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">PS. I am wiggly and out of balance. This is scary. Can I get back to you on this?</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-78178969788613160432019-02-10T10:51:00.002-08:002019-02-10T13:06:00.282-08:00Umeå and Seattle on the same snowy page<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A Seattle Facebook friend is posting a question: Do you remember the 1996 snowstorm?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I sure do. It was when we stayed for a year and the snow hit the day after Christmas and literally put a 1,5 feet wet white blanket over the city causing all kinds of damage including casualties. A whole family died as their house slided out in the Puget Sound. It was all horrible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope this week’s snow adventure isn’t that bad. It’s funny because right now the weather maps for Seattle and Umeå looks the same. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last weekend we had about 30 cm (1 foot) of snow in a storm which made authorities advice to not go outside or at least not take the car. Well, when you live on the countryside you have to anyway, there is no other way to get around. But as Trouble 2 was driving me back home from a downtown choir rehearsal I was glad our car has 4 wheal drive, I don’t think we had made it all the way here to the end of the road otherwise. it looked like the Oregon Dunes. Did I mention it was -14C/7°F…?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This weekend the heaven has blessed us with 20 cm more (0,7 foot). Last weekend was powder, but as the temperatures now are around freezing point, it’s a heavy load. I am sure the snow in Seattle is about the same quality.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because, as it happens, heaven has emptied it’s snow storage in Seattle at the same time as over here. And I can see from friends pictures and Seattle Times it is a lot!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am grateful though I am here and not in Seattle. For one thing, Umeå is flat. Seattle hilly. That helps. We are equipped, educated and experienced when it comes to driving in snow. Seattleites not so much, for obvious reasons. And plow trucks are working round the clock to not get the city all clogged up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the second winter in a row with lots of snow here on the 64th latitude. It’s beautiful, but difficult when you can’t take care of the snow yourself. On a personal note I am saved by a kind neighbour. Roger comes by every morning and afternoon while walking his dog. He shovels the snow up to my house and he sweeps the front porch. This week he has even been here three times a day. Crafting a perfect path from my gate to the porch. I am so grateful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">I have a measuring point. The poles supporting my cherry trees. Last winter the snow at it’s most covered the shortest of them. 3 feet. As for today, the snow has just reached that point. It isn’t even mid February yet so I am looking forward to a new record. As long as Roger still comes by and lets me out of the house I can allow myself to enjoy the white landscape and the blue February shadows.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-13791714620592382732019-02-03T11:05:00.003-08:002019-02-03T13:01:34.257-08:00My most important story ever<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am very relieved, grateful and happy this weekend. After months in limbo, me and everyone else in Umeå in need of home care can finally relax. We are allowed to keep the companies best suiting us to help us out in our daily lives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was in November the news came that the majority in the City Council wanted to change the system for home care. Since 2005 people in need of help in their homes have had a free choice for whom would execute the care, Public City Care or private companies. The cost for the client is the same. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My experience from the Public City Care was dreadful. Every day new faces. After a month I was totally exhausted and I didn’t feel safe although frequently looked after. I know very many people tell the same stories, which is truly sad. It really shouldn’t be that way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I switched to a local start up I knew of, Civil Care, owned by to young men, Peter Andersson and Awara Gulani. I was their 6th client, it was more like a family. Today Civil Care has around a hundred employees, nevertheless the heart and love is still there. And they have taken care of me in the best way possible for more than six years now.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, in November the majority of the Council bursted the bomb that they would cancel the free choice system. Instead the City would decide for the clients. That’s a brief summery of the whole thing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People in need of care in their home are most often elderly. Men and women who rarely speak up. Or even have the ability to do so. This is a vulnerable group in society. We are a vulnerable group. A quiet and unseen group. Hidden in the shadows.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was devastated by the news. Civil Care is absolutely essential to my life. They are giving me a life within my limitations! And I new this was scary news to many many more.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In desperation I wrote a long text for publishing on Facebook. Since it was lengthy I didn't expect many in that medium would have the focus span reeding it. I was totally wrong though. Within a couple of days the text was shared around 90 times. It reached people way beyond my network, including politicians. I was stunned.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">An intense debate in local media followed. Individuals, politicians and the local private home care companies. Everybody got involved and spoke up. We weren’t in the shadows any more.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The intensity of the debate made things shift. For a while the balance in the Council was even. Until suddenly the party to the left of the Left Party chocked everyone with being in favour of the free choice! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This Monday the case was up for decision in the City Council. The ultimate shift came already in December, but as anything can happen in politics, the Holidays were nervous to everybody involved. The debate in the Council on Monday was long. But eventually the free choice won the vote. The numbers were 34-30.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this all happened because of my text, absolutely not! Everybody in favour of the free choice system has done an incredible job here and would have regardless. But for me, I think my story of a vulnerable life depending on help from society is the most important piece I have ever published in any medium. It feels good.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-70984993097837221672019-01-27T10:33:00.003-08:002019-01-27T11:09:35.782-08:00My aunt Inga-Märta/part 2<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s funny and absolutely a coincidence, but I am actually doing my nails while writing this text. I wonder how she had liked this color.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Friday, my extended family bid our last farewell to the family matriarch. My aunt Inga-Märta passed away on January 29, a few weeks shy of 91 years old.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Inga-Märta was the youngest of the three children born here at the end of the road during the nineteen twenties. She was also the one, although burdened with ailments, given the longest life. And in February a year ago we celebrated her 90th birthday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/02/my-aunt-inga-marta.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/02/my-aunt-inga-marta.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Family parties have always been an important part of my families social life, and on this day three generations were gathered for coffee, lots of pastry, stories and some singing. It was warm and fun, and even a bit sad. We suspected it might be the last big festivity on Inga-Märta’s behalf, and we were right. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two days later, she gave in for the dementia and moved away from home in early summer. Inch by inch she deteriorated. There was nothing left of her the night she peacefully passed away with her beloved son and grandson by her side. It was the best of endings. And for all of us, as the family Christmas party was the day after and we all got to be together. I am sure she was aware.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Friday, again, three generations were gathered for the funeral, as well as many friends. Nearly 91 years old, to have that many wanting to be there, says a lot about how Inga-Märta lived her life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The ceremony was beautiful and warm. I was happy and grateful to hold both my sons’ hands. To hear my sister sing Handel’s Lascia ch'io pianga (Dagen är nära). And my nephew’s wife play the organ. It was difficult though watching our beloved Bertil, soon 98 years to be, at the casket. The only one left of the five cousins who ran the fields here in the village as children and who kept being close through their lives. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have a family tradition for funerals. As we are all musical and many of us choral singers, we end the ceremony standing together in the front singing. My father passed away at Christmas time and we all said our farewell with one of the most loved Swedish Christmas songs, Jul jul strålande jul, in harmonies. Both my mother and my uncle’s lives ended in the summertime and so consequently we wanted our goodbye to be the summer hymn they both had been singing in choirs for all their lives, En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For Inga-Märta, pretty much everyone in the little church formed a big circle around the casket, it was even hard to squeeze all of us in. And we sang to her,and to us a favorite evening hymn, Bred dina vida vingar. Surrounded by all her loved ones, that’s how she was received by the God she so firmly believed in. And entered the Heaven where she was to meet everyone passing before her. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope this beautiful tradition is now well founded in my children and their cousins, so that when the time for me and my five cousins is up, we will as well be sung off in this glorious, powerful and loving way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Oh, and what about the nails? Well, all through Inga-Märta’s life as long as I can remember, she was particular about her nails. She took good care of them, they were long and colourfully shiny. At the end it was my sister who held her hands and painted her nails. Two layers of mother-of-pearl. I am thinking she might have found my color of the day, a dark purple leaning towards black, somewhat morose.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-91404998164839810732019-01-20T10:20:00.004-08:002019-01-21T11:14:23.980-08:00131 days later: Sweden has a government<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On that porch in Bolsena Italy the late September 9 evening at the election day, we went to bed saying: this won’t be done until the morning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It took 131 days.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Correction, it was actually done in the morning. The left bloc had won the Swedish general election by two seats over the right bloc. That’s pretty basic math. But the right bloc had a different and peculiar way of counting and did not admit themselves defeated. Which resulted in the Prime Minister Stefan Löfvén being voted down a couple of days later.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I will not take up your time with all the in and outs in the process that followed through fall and up until Friday when Stefan Löfven again was voted PM. His Social Democrats is orming a minority government with the Green Party (Miljöpartiet). Exactly the constellation voted down post election. Although now supported by the mid parties the Liberals and the Center Party instead of the Left Party.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And. The right bloc (The Alliance) so confident and aggressively aiming to be the new government (although they didn’t have the seats required) is consequently shattered in pieces.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s been a very interesting process. I don’t think any Swede is envious of the Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlin who kindly and patiently took on the job being the captain of the careening ship on this stormy political sea which we can name democracy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 131 days have to a certain degree been absurd and maybe even ridiculous. But the parliamentary situation was difficult to start with. And 131 days is as long as it took to come to a solution. It’s a record for Sweden and among the top 4 in Europe since the Second World War. It’s been worrisome but I am even more worried about the tone of the political discussion. Loud, aggressive, implacable, even hateful. Because of that I think the Parliament has become a more unfriendly workplace.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, at this time we are facing a new political landscape in Sweden. The Alliance is no more. The Moderates (the Right party) and the Christian Democrats are way over at the Right. The Left Party is pushed aside. And we have a government which is a mid-solution. The Social Democrats have been leaning in that direction for a good while and now they are there. Seemingly willing to sacrifice many of their core matters for market-friendly alternatives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Is there a win in this? Yes. There is. Through this new unholy alliance the Sweden Democrats are disarmed. At least for now. The Xenophobic party rooted in Nazism will no longer have a say. But shouldn’t the third largest party in Sweden have a say? Not in the mind of the 7 other parties - except maybe the Christian Democrats, they are a bit vague on this point. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">So, the government being presented tomorrow is to a large degree a result from a (pretty much) unified political willpower not accepting xenophobia in governance. For now, Sweden has avoided becoming one of the European countries where a brown party has put it’s boots down. That’s a huge and extremely important win. I wish us good luck.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-44929878192199761872019-01-13T08:11:00.003-08:002019-01-13T13:11:33.987-08:00Goodbye, killer views! (It will be safer now)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My personal soul memory is from a sunny September evening 2003 driving back from West Seattle - what did I do there? I can’t remember. </span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn’t plan on taking the Alaskan Way Viaduct, I made a wrong turn and suddenly there I was. Driving north with the evening-glorious Downtown at my immediate right and the stunning view of Elliot Bay to the left as well as the sunset over at the Olympic Mountains far away west. I was high on the unexpected driving pole position experience!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After decades of debate and work in progress the two deck Highway 99 Viaduct closed late Friday night. It is so Seattle how the love-hated Viaduct was packed with cars and people dancing and celebrating the six story construction like it was New Years Eve or 4th of July! Oh how I miss that playfulness of my second home town!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The road up till this day has been nothing but playful though. One part of the debate has been how the Viaduct cuts the Waterfront from Downtown not only visually and practically but by the 24-7 roar of compact traffic generating 80 decibel alongside the Pike Place Market. The shady wasteland in-under the Viaduct has been home of the homeless and rats.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another voice in the discussion was the 2001 earthquake which made the Viaduct crack and settle. By the way, that’s the only time my father questioned a Seattle trip of mine, just a week after the quake. Do you really have to go? I felt I did. And I couldn’t cancel my ticket. It all went well though. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since the 2001 quake, public agencies and citizens waded through eight years of process, an advisory ballot and $325 million in tax money to study and review as many as 75 variations before Governor Christine Gregoire chose a deep-bore tunnel in January 2009 as the biggest piece of a $3.3 billion viaduct replacement.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The tunnel-bore has of course not been a stroll in the park (a story by itself) and there’s never been a clear public consensus around which path was wisest — a tunnel, an elevated replacement, street-level highway, surface road plus transit, or retrofitting the old viaduct but earth quake-secured. That debate might echo long after the sound of the concrete decks demolition.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which will happen in the next six months. Project demolition of the 66 year-old emblem of the age of happy motoring. The four-lane tunnel will open Monday February 4, and as many as 100 000 people are expected to return the weekend before for a celebration to say farewell to the viaduct and preview the tunnel!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Until then, good luck Seattle with the upcoming there weeks without a viaduct and no tunnel. In short, good luck with squeezing all the Highway 99 traffic into the already jam packed Interstate 5, for once I am not a bit envious!</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-86043005287700250862019-01-06T10:55:00.003-08:002019-01-06T12:56:03.753-08:002019: I want things!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is it the daylight-lamp accompanying my breakfast? The Italian trip back in September? My back being a tiny bit more stable? My spruced up kitchen?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today it’s Trettondagen, the 13th day after Christmas marking the end of the Swedish Holidays. I’ve spent it with Audreys big family, 13 people from four generations around my kitchen table, such great finale!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve had the best Holiday in years and I am so grateful. Furthermore, I actually feel happy about starting a new year!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A year ago I had come to a different level of acceptance regarding my situation. Entering a new year can be difficult when you know there is little room for improvement. It is what it is. But last year I felt like that was okay. A kind of contentedness related to resignation. It’s been peaceful. But grey.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Starting 2019 is different again. Already in December I felt like spring was around the corner. I am pretty sure that has to do with the terrific daylight lamp Fay lended me mid November. Spending 30 minutes in clear daylight in the morning has kept me out of that pitch black fall/winter tunnel always surrounding me this time of year, I can truly recommend it! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But what’s most remarkable is, I want things! For years and years (except for my 60th when my stars must have been lined up quite differently!) my will power has been stored in a locked drawer. Key thrown away. For the best. I am a strong-willed person and to keep my sanity I am better off not hanging out with my will power. Not a great companion when you also need to be friends with acceptance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think it’s the kitchen. It’s got to be my spruced up yellow kitchen. The fact that I could conduct such a face lift, as well as the result of it. It brought me happiness and self confidence: what more could I carry through?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/11/my-yellow-kitchen.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/11/my-yellow-kitchen.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The trip to Italy of course. Traveling has been absolutely out of the question since 2012, but there I was! With the help and assistance of dear and patient friends of course, but nevertheless, I’ve been out in the world again!</span></span><br />
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http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/09/can-you-believe-it-ive-been-traveling.html</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">None of these things had been possible though if my back hadn’t been cooperative. It was difficult of course, but doable. The summer heat was good to my body, and the benefits from it seem to still be lingering. I am incredibly grateful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that’s why the entrance of 2019 feels good. That’s why the locked away will-power is finding it’s way out. My mind is expanding in directions it hasn’t visited for a long time. Road blocks are being moved.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I won’t list the roads I am glancing at. The other day I slipped at a black-ice spot, it’s all so fragile and I can’t risk jinxing with saying things out loud. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Except for one thing. I am looking at my hallway/entrance. I have been for years. I know exactly which colors I would pick. And how happy they would make me…</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">A Happy New Year to all of you!</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-3989975519183679632018-12-30T12:16:00.003-08:002018-12-30T12:21:53.963-08:00It's been 20 years now<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was between Christmas and New Years 1998 that I separated. The yellow dream kitchen was just finished. I knew it would be hard. I had no idea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Correcting myself, I knew it would be hard initially. And for some time. But I pictured myself starting LIVING eventually. A different life. Happier. More me. A me I could sense deep inside me waiting to be let out. Soul. Body. I was so sure of it. Positive.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But completely wrong.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nothing went my way. Not in any sense. I was waiting for the turning point. Expecting it. Looking for it. Around every corner. That’s what they say, right? And that’s the story in every story. After rain comes sun. The turning point will come. When everything will be elucidated. The hardships explained. Making sense. Your ship comes in, someone offers you a hand to get onboard, you take it and you sail away in a good wind.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I made that move during the holidays 1998 I felt like I was standing on a diving board. The 10 meter one. I didn’t have a choice any more. I had to jump. Hoping there was water in-under.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t. I landed on the hard grey concrete and broke every bone in my body.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They don’t do that in the stories, do they? Or is it that those stories never get told. They are too painful. And too shameful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I became a hermit. Was for the longest time. Shying away from people. Avoiding questions. Eye contact. Until I got cancer and had to start asking for help. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was at Christmas time. As well. I’ve had very many dramatic Holidays. For a lot of years my anxiety started building up in November. What will happen this year? Which catastrophe is lurking in the weeks ahead? The colour red made me feel sick. I couldn’t listen to Christmas music. Decorations and tree for as short time as possible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year something is different though. I think it started already last year. It’s not that my ship has sailed in, finally. Nothing like that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They say time heals. I don’t think that’s entirely true. The place where grief is located in our brains doesn’t have a time perspective.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The expression “time heals” often includes a ship sailing in. A positive turning point facilitating healing. The winds changing in favour for you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you don’t get that kind of fortunate help from life circumstances, work is what’s needed. Therapeutic work. Which, of course, always is a good idea. I’ve worked a lot with most of my issues over the years. But something was missing. And I knew what.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I needed to write the story of me and my long time life partner. I needed to write our saga.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Late summer and fall 2016 I was sitting in my sun chair at my west wall. Listening to a piece of music written by a talented young man that I know. I had been singing that wordless music already, and I knew from the start I wanted to write lyrics for it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the late sun I struggled with finding the right words. Catching the images. The feeling of them. The narrative.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was hard work. Painful. Difficult. But there was also the lightness. The smiles.The good days. After many weeks I had written our story in all it’s complexity. From the beautiful beginning to the sad end. It was the closure I needed. Not until then, the story was complete. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the Holidays the same year I realized a different story project. For many years I had been dreaming about writing Swedish lyrics to the hauntingly beautiful Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Now. An impossible task. To lovely to touch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I found a way in. It was when I knew I needed to write that lyrics to myself. And maybe others who can’t dream of some day everyone being together again. A song as comfort and support. A song offering a shy light among the lingering shadows from before.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Formulating the saga of me and my childhood love helped time heal, finally. And sending myself comforting light and warmth disarmed the Holiday traumas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">At last I am at ease with Christmas. It’s taken me twenty years, and that’s sad of course and even shameful. But I am grateful and happy that I am finally there now.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-77791881400718678432018-12-23T09:43:00.003-08:002018-12-23T15:53:25.061-08:00Merry Christmas from a winter wonderland at the end of the road!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To be filling my lungs, lifting the tones of Christmas up under the church vaults, that’s food for the soul and stars for heaven!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One really fine thing with being a choral singer is the fact that Christmas doesn’t come as a surprise. Like, oh, is it here, it’s too soon, I can’t find my Christmas spirit! No, a choral singer starts feeling the spirit already mid fall when we begin rehearsing for the Christmas concerts, looking at well known favourites as well as having a first glance at new material.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The name of my choir is Kammarkören Sångkraft / Sångkraft Chamber Choir. I’ve been a member for 29 years, split over two periods of time. Choral and vocal group singing has been and is an important part of my life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Umeå is known as The City of Birches, the same way as Seattle goes by the name The Emerald City. That’s why Kammarkören Sångkraft’s Christmas concert is called Christmas in The City of Birches.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We usually give the show at three occasions, and this year in three different churches. Thus, this week turned out a Christmas tour in Umeå! Three concerts in just a couple of days is a lot to take for my body. As I can’t stand up for more than a little while I am sitting on a barstool while singing. Still, it’s difficult. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Therefor, I am so happy and grateful that I could do it. All three of them! My voice wasn’t letting me down either which is always nice. Landing on my couch last night after the final concert I was filled with joy and contentment, the way you feel only after a well done job. Surrounded by my US-inspired densely dressed Christmas tree from my woods, as well as the more minimalistic Swedish white stars in my windows. And embedded in the most perfect snow landscape you can ever imagine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s been snowing most every day this last week. Feather-light snowflakes slowly falling from the reservoir above us serving us the exact amount of white fluff we need and can handle. It’s a crisp -14°C/6,8°F outside tonight and the full moon lights the landscape up as the big spotlight it is.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">My need for carolling is satisfied, the outside setting is perfect and tomorrow my house will be filled with me and my sister’s families. The conditions for a successful Christmas Eve seem optimal, and so I am wishing all of you out there just the Christmas you need as well! </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-21680058501608626132018-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:002018-12-16T10:58:02.303-08:00And at the sight of it, my father is doing his little dance from above<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are entering the week leading up to Christmas. Ideally it would be a peaceful week. But four months after the election Sweden still doesn’t have a government and nobody knows how to get there. Brexit and Great Britain is in equal limbo. France is on fire in protests compared to 1968. And of course, in the US the White House Circus is spinning as usual.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But here at the end of the road the world is white and quiet. Sören, who takes care of my fields, drives his green tractor up the field road for feeding the wild life which hide in the forest on Dry Mountain. The trees are covered with frost, it’s cold and perfectly still.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the mornings my front yard is perforated with traces of deer. How many visited during the night? At least four, maybe even seven! Sometimes I see them up the field on their way to Sören’s food hide away in the grove right behind the flat rock my mother used to call the tiny mountain, it was her playground. A couple of weeks ago two of them crossed over my road right infront of me at my next door neighbour Melker’s. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The morning after Sorella’s funeral four beautiful deer gracefully jumped over her grave under the cherry tree, as paying her their respect. And one afternoon two stately red deer strolled over the fields in the dusk. Trouble 1 had been driving me back home and we caught them in the shady light. Hearing their hooves making their steps in the crisp snow crust. It’s a bit magical.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those of you who have been following me know I am in love (or possibly obsessed) with dressing my place here at the end of the road with lights. If I didn’t it would be pitch black here. And although that would make room for the Milky Way that darkness consumes me. So, I chase it away with spotlights and light strings. I make my place visible in the dark. I decorate it, making it an outside room.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, there is a fine line between tasteful and tacky. And I might just have passed it…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For years I have had this ridiculous vague fantasy about placing an illuminated deer somewhere in my surroundings. You know one of those animals shining with a frosty cold white light. Expensive, but going for half prize at the after Christmas sale. And last year I went for it… A red deer, but the size of a deer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The thing is, when I was a little girl, my father used to put together beautiful snow landscapes for me and my sister do admire and adore. Wooden cottages and mirrors as frozen lakes in white cotton snow. Deer at the lake, a fox hiding behind the cottage, even a bear at the edge of the forest. The landscape was placed at the top of a drawer and my sister and I could sit there for hours, fantasising, moving the animals around.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last Christmas it struck me: I am living in one of those landscapes! Snow, cottages, forest, animals! The only thing missing is a lake, I can’t do much about that unfortunately. Anyway, that’s when I realised I could allow myself a luminous deer!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s been siting at the back of the coach house since the sale, red tag still around the neck. I had an idea for the location in my full-size snow landscape. Deer are shy, so it might be a good idea to place it a bit aways. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the edge of the forest to the south there is an outhouse. My father built it when he tore down the barn, where the original homestead outhouse was located. It carries the signs of dad. It’s a sweet little house. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">And now an illuminated deer is peaking out from the dark of the back left corner of it. I can see my dad smiling from above. I can hear his laughter doing his little dance of joy at the sight of a full size frosty deer in my full size snow landscape. </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-28335113072682915532018-12-09T10:48:00.000-08:002018-12-09T10:48:02.994-08:00Dark and light on the Nobel Day - Jean-Claude Arnault convicted<div style="color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The classic sentence tossed between successful scientists all over the world hoping to one day achieve the most attractive of prizes. I wonder if it’s a say between authors too? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Tomorrow is the Nobel Day. December 10. The day for awarding the most accomplished of those scientists. They will see each other in Stockholm. However, no author will take the stage in 2018.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The reason is a man who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and his hands off women. His behaviour made The Swedish Academy shatter, implode and collapse. One of the finest (we thought) institutions in the world lay flat in pieces and was denied the assignment to appoint the Nobel Prize in Literature 2018. This is all a disgrace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The start of the fall of The Swedish Academy, was 18 women (as a part of Metoo), accusing a man in close connection to the Academy of sexual assault and rape. The name of this man is Jean-Claude Arnault, married to one of the Academy members.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">I have been following the tragic, dramatic, dirty and historic events of this filthy story and here is more to reed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-nobility-of-nobel-prize.html"><b>http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-nobility-of-nobel-prize.html</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/king-for-dayswedish-academy-part-2.html"><b>http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/king-for-dayswedish-academy-part-2.html</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-swedish-academy-and-2nd-amendment.html"><b>http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-swedish-academy-and-2nd-amendment.html</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-swedish-academy-and-2nd-amendment.html"><b>http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-swedish-academy-and-2nd-amendment.html</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/06/jean-claude-arnault-prosecuted-swedish.html"><b>http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.com/2018/06/jean-claude-arnault-prosecuted-swedish.html</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Out of all the accusations towards Jean-Claude Arnault - events which had been going on for decades - two held all the way up to court. The long timespan has been a negative factor for the victims. Arnault denied all allegations, but on October 1 he was convicted in the District Court of rape in one case. For that, he was sentenced to two years in prison. The verdict fell the same day as the Nobel Prize in Literature should have been announced. A coincident, nevertheless symbolic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The prosecutor pushed the second case to the Court of Appeal. Arnault has been held in custody since the first verdict. And on December 3 he was convicted on rape in the second case as well. For those two rapes he will spend 2,5 years in prison.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The Swedish Academy is undergoing some process of renovating itself. But this is a building which needs to be demolished. Although Arnault now is a convicted felon who will do time, there are still pals within the Academy who have his back, meaning it’s all gossip. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Tomorrow it’s December 10, the Nobel Day. Stockholm will be star spangled. Extraordinary minds. Extraordinary dresses. Extraordinary festivities. There will be a dark shadow clouding that starry sky though. The loss of the Literature Prize. And the reason for it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">But there will also be light. 18 women told there stories a little more than a year ago. And there are probably many more narratives which have not been heard. Two of all those stories have now gone through the Swedish juridical system. There is no doubt, Jean-Claude Arnault is a serial sex offender. And every woman he has laid his hands on can stand tall. Because the verdict tells the story. Just in time for the Nobel Day.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-68285090733250795362018-12-02T11:10:00.004-08:002018-12-02T13:21:05.462-08:00A change of perspective<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When you are spending most of your time on the couch, that couch might be a bit beaten up. You eat in it, you write in it, you drink in it, you watch TV in it, you have your cold in it, you cuddle with your cat in it, you live your life in it. No wonder.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1,5 years ago I had worn out the mattress cover. No wonder. An upholsterer took on the job to sew me a new one, and I’m not quite sure why but it kind of didn'</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">t happen. So for a very long time now I’ve had a bed sheet wrapped around the mattress. In the wait for the new cover. Which could happen any day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The sheet lived it’s own life on my mattress with me on top. Often a wrinkly hunch inunder my right shoulder. A loose piece of fabric floating around in constant need of adjustment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t like it when things are out of place. And I really do hate temporary solutions. The in betweens. Especially when transforming into a constant. So, 1,5 years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This week though, it happened. The upholsterer was ready to do his job. And I was out of mattress for two days. I put some replacement on the base of the couch but it didn't work at all and was bad for my back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s why I suddenly found myself sitting in my sofa chair.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sitting is usually hard for me, but at this point the only place to lie down was worse. So I came up with a way of doing it. Legs and feet on the ottoman. And found it really interesting.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First. It’s a big difference between lying and sitting, even though in a cozy sofa chair. You feel stronger. More upright. Of corse. More normal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Secondly. Spending some hours at a different place in the room gives you a different perspective.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For seven years now I’ve been lying on the couch in my upstairs great room. I know every angle of the room looking at it from the east corner of my day bed. The sofa chair on the opposite side of the coffee table is mostly empty. Sometimes there might be laundry waiting to be folded. And occasionally someone is sitting there. A visitor, or one of my home care people. But the sofa chair is not a place inhabited by me. Has never been, actually.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sitting in the sofa chair that first evening I felt like a guest in my home. I looked over at the couch. All the pillows for my support. The walker - which in Sweden has four wheels and is called a rollator, I can never understand how old and disabled people are helped by a walker which you have to lift to move forward! The eaten dinner tray on the table. The pile of news papers and magazines. The throw. My calendar. The chargers for the different technical devises. I am looking at my life over there. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am taking a good look at it. And sitting upright makes me mentally able to take a step back from it. I am liking being in this new place. Wanting to do it again. Which I did the second evening. Liking it as much.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Wednesday I got the mattress back! Upholstered. Looking good. Feeling good. Clean, in one piece, solid, nothing even remotely temporary about it. Everything about it was right! I love it, and I love lying down on it. And I can finally cross it out from my eternal list of big and small things to attend to and fix, how wonderful!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">I also love my new perspective from the sofa chair. I am actually sitting there writing this posting and it feels really good. I want to spend more time here, when I can. Three feet away from my life on the couch. I feel like I am on a vitalising trip.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-78830304038316965112018-11-25T11:33:00.001-08:002018-11-25T13:37:56.283-08:00Sorella in memoriam June 24 2007 - November 16 2018 / In the aftermath<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">- It’s so easy. Like Sorella herself, everything about her was easy. Trouble 2 said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am finding that what’s the most difficult is the transitions. Getting up from the couch. Moving between the rooms. Especially the change of floors. Coming down in to the mudroom. Opening the front door. And she isn’t there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s been a week now. I see her in the corner of my eye when passing her favourite spots. I here her at my every move.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Sorella became more of a dog she always heard my moves and reacted on it. Getting up from the couch she got up too, wherever she was. Walking down the stairs she followed me. And if already downstairs she met me in the mudroom. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As long as I am on my couch working on something, I am quite okay. But moving and the house is yet still, that’s painful. The absence of her gentle steps.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorella was such a gentle soul. Her body little even with that long and fluffy fur of hers. Her approaches to people were shy. Her love and affection was subtle. Her territory was small, calling for her she was never far away, the front yard and the nearby fields her queendom. And she backed out of every fight with fellow neighbour cats crying for my help. But boy, what a hunter she was!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was on Tuesday that Trouble & Trouble and I buried Sorella. We picked one of her favourite spots. On the brink of the ditch separating the front yard from the fields to the west. When the old mountain ashes were still there she used to sit in them getting the perfect overview of her grounds. Later, a bit desperate, on the stumps of them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now mountain ashes replaced by the young cherry trees, she always could tell when I was watering them. Wherever she was, her ears found the sound of running water and came drinking from out of the craters around the trees. The most appreciated was the one next to the baker’s cottage. It’s also the most beautiful of the three trees.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s the place we chose for Sorella’s grave.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, digging in the ground at my place here at the end of the road is tough business. Almost impossible. Stone, stone, stone. Wherever you put a sharp pointed iron bar to the ground it says “klonk”. My poor sons have never experienced putting a shovel in the ground, the soil giving way for it. Until this Tuesday afternoon. They kind of went all in, just kept on digging until I stopped them: i think it’s deep enough now. Yeah, but it’s just so easy!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">- It’s so easy. Like Sorella herself, everything about her was easy. Trouble 2 said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The shovels dug a perfect shape for Sorella’s coffin. Yes, I don’t call it a box anymore since Cathrine had wrapped it in beautiful white wallpaper. We covered the coffin with the clump of grass we first took out. It’s looking good. Perfect even.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I sang my favourite evening hymn to her again. It didn’t go that well. But I told her I would sing to her all summer when watering her tree. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Afterwords we all went inside. We lit a fire in my yellow kitchen. The candles at the table. And had a funeral fika. We talked about how bad we (people in general) are at taking care of death. How we are shying away from it, and studies show we are even doing it more and more. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Funerals aren’t an efficient contribution to society. Coffins are getting more rare which is not helping the grieving process. Memorial parks are often beautiful and soothing but your loved ones are thin air and hard to grasp. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To take half a day off from work for saying goodbye to someone close should be a natural priority. To face the body shaped coffin is painful but that’s where we need to be. To design a tomb stone for the past and the future is hard work but it is an important one. And to take care of it is an act of love and respect. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I told Trouble & Trouble those hours with the passed away Sorella in my arms right after her death, that’s what I would have needed with my father. To be with the body who carried his soul through my life. The body I knew so well. Now empty and still. Quite. To stay with his death. To not be moderate and sensible and well-behaved. But to feel his death on my skin. Until I could let go.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">The first two weeks of November was all Seattle weather here at the 64th latitude. Hazy, foggy, humid, rainy. Dark. Horrible. The day Sorella passed away the sun came out. And it has stayed that way. It sets early of course. Today 1.13PM behind Dry Mountain. But the mornings are clear and crisp. Frost on our grounds. When taking my brief morning stroll I am greeting Sorella. As I do locking my door for the night. I feel at ease. Because I know where she is. On her favourite spot. And we are still here together. </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-45805050090620200832018-11-18T12:15:00.000-08:002018-11-18T14:18:38.658-08:00Sorella in memoriam. June 24, 2007 - November 16, 2018<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Waking up the first morning of a new reality. That.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today is my second day. I lost her on Friday. My Sorella. Sorellina. Principessa. My best friend. A brushy grey little ball of fur on white paws and a tail like a waiving plume. The cutest face. And the most adorable cat the world has ever seen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorella (which means sister in Italian) and her brother Piccolo (he was so tiny) moved in with me when Trouble 2 moved out. I needed a family. When the siblings became sexually mature Sorella didn’t tolerate her brother any more and Piccolo moved in with Trouble 1. A perfect solution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorella and I didn’t have the best of starts. The two little kittens left their mom and seven other cats jam-packed in a one bedroom apartment. The switch to a large house in two floors was overwhelming. Those little creatures were totally lost and so unsafe, especially Sorella. I can still feel the pain that first August evening, trying to make them tuck themselves in on my couch under the blanket with me. Sorella crawled away in-under the couch and I couldn't reach her. For the longest time she was afraid of my hands and me and I felt like the worst of mothers, I couldn’t even make the tiniest kitten safe. My self confident as a human being was at the very bottom.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually she started seeking my company. At the breakfast table - which I of course let her since I was so flattered. At my desk. It suited her well since I needed to be working and wouldn’t bother her that much. I waited her out and with time she chose me. And she wanted me to herself. Never really liked when there was people around. Her behaviour became more like a dog. She followed me around the house. To start with I found it really annoying. I got used to it though and it changed to be something nice that I appreciated.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorella has been my companion for eleven years. With me through all the difficulties and every life change. She has listened to my cries and seen my tears. Been happy for me (I think) when things have gone well. I’ve shared everything with her and she has been a patient listener. Mostly quiet herself.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been dreading the day I would loose her. That’s eventually bound to happen. This fall I’ve been worried about her. She hasn’t been up to speed. Her behaviour changed. I think. Or was I paranoid? Out of fear of loosing her.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Friday morning something was definitely wrong. I needed to get her to the vet. I called my friend Cathrine who lives a couple of villages from here and luckily she could help me out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The vet was as adorable as Sorella. So compassionate. When the labs were back he delivered the result. As I expected, he said, it is a kidney failure. That’s actually the precis words as he was Irish and we spoke English. His name was Oliver.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m so sorry, he continued, but we have to put her to rest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s what I had been thinking all morning. The worst case scenario. I was prepared. I hade been preparering all fall. I had already showered her with gratitude for wanting to share her life with me and everything she does for me. But you are never prepared.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She was sedated from the examination. Wrapped in a blanket to keep warm. On my lap while waiting for the labs. I had buried my fingers in her long fur, feeling her breathing and warm body. Knowing it might be the last time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the table again she opened her eyes. They looked dim. I caressed her flaggy fur and beautiful face. Thanked her again. Oliver walked me through the procedure. Then he gave her the injections. Checked her breathing. Listened to her heart. Is she gone, I asked. He nodded.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I hugged him. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us. I am so sorry, he said again. I think she had a good life. Oliver.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My hands were on her body all the way home. Fingers in her fur. The sun shining. I am so happy it was. Cathrine driving. A rock. She is an animal person with her own kennel. I couldn’t have had a better person at my side this day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back home I lied down on my couch. I placed Sorella at my chest. In my arms. Her face and nose to my neck. We lay there as the sun set behind Dry Mountain. I talked to her. Buried my face in her fur. That stillness. Her body not warm anymore. Flaccid. I sang to her. My favourite evening hymn. I sang to her. I sang to me. I sang to us. And I cried.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know it all might sound morbide, but it was the right thing for me to do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cathrine was back when the room was dark. She had been home seeing to her six dogs. For the last time I told Sorella we had to move. To get up from the couch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I found a beautiful brown cloth of plush in my fabric storage. Lighting the candles on the dining table in my yellow kitchen we placed Sorella on the plush. I kissed her adorable face one last time. Thanked her one last time. I said my goodbye. Bid her my farewell. My love. She wasn’t flaccid anymore. We wrapped her in the cloth. It matched her colors. And put her in a box Cathrine brought. It was the perfect size.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then Cathrine made me dinner before she returned to her dogs. I was by myself.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A week ago I felt such contentment. I was good. Finally filling my house up all by myself. Happy in every room, even my yellow kitchen. But I had forgotten about Sorella. My companion. We were such a happy couple. I haven’t been by myself. Now I am. And my rooms are all empty.</span></span></div>
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-68517013779443993152018-11-11T11:12:00.004-08:002018-11-11T13:28:24.699-08:00My yellow kitchen<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other night fragments from a couple of songs for children suddenly on TV, washed over me. And I needed to let my tears out for a moment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is the story.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After 17 years in our house here at the end of the road we were finally ready for our dream kitchen. I designed it to work with the house finished about 1920. Skilled carpenters would build it and the colour would be yellow. As the sun. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At that point we realised we needed to divorce.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As the work was already in progress we couldn’t back out of it. For many months we lead the project while not knowing who would live in this kitchen, if any of us. The room turned out the way I had imagined and designed. It was gorgeous and the cosiest and most welcoming you could ever dream of. And a trauma.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The years passed. Husband and kids moved out. Moved on. I was by myself in the yellow kitchen. That wasn’t what I had pictured in my dream. It was wrong.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the years I have turned room by room in the house into mine. It’s been a process. But the yellow kitchen has been an unhealed wound. A heavy weight. Too tight on me as well as too spacious.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unexpectedly, this spring the old water leak from some years back became the key for change in the kitchen aspect. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It turned out the insurance company would pay a grinding of the floor! The pine planks were marked from a twenty year long life, as well as damaged from the water, so that was indeed a treat. And while I was at it I had that dirty old wall paper painted, as well as the ceiling and the fireplace. Mohammed worked all last winter to clean the sea-stone tile above the stove and then covered it with glass. And my friend Irene is this dark November scrubbing the yellow woodwork from grease and sot, building up during twenty years. I tell you, it takes a 70 year old lady to know how to do that!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So what happened the other night? That thing with the songs? I will tell you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was these two musicians, Karin Ljungman and James Hollingworth. In the seventies they released two albums with songs for children. The songs were different from anything you’ve heard before and became hugely popular among children as well as their parents. Hear, at the end of the road, those tapes were played over and over again year after year. As well as in the car. They’ve even been in Seattle, a fun company traveling the Olympic Peninsula and Highway 1 down to San Fransisco. Did the tapes eventually brake? Or are they in a box at the baker’s cottage attic? I don’t really know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This week Karin Ljungman passed away. And it was in the news coverage fragments of those songs were played. And I had to take a moment. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Music is such a powerful tool. For traveling in time and age. Heart and soul. Mind and body. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Suddenly my house was full of life. I could here Trouble & Trouble's happy high pitched voices singing, running around. I smelled my husbands dinner cooking. The wet winter clothes drying on the heated mud room tile floor. The annoying sound of the washing machine doing it’s job. The sounds and smell of a family.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I took my glasses off. To make room for the tears. There were some. But not as many as I was preparing for. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I made room for all those feelings and images. But within minutes a different room came up. My yellow kitchen. MY yellow kitchen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The kitchen that now has the most beautiful white stained pine floor looking like new. A white ceiling as well as fire place with no traces of sot. Light-haze-pinkish walls, perfect for creating the gallery that’s been on my mind for so long. And the yellow wood work is actually yellow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For all these years I’ve been wanting to repaint the woodwork in a different colour. That yellow was making me sick. The original dream turned into a bad one and I’ve been feeling the need of wiping it away. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">And in the aftermath of the fragments of those songs, the fragments of a vivid memory, I am realising that’s what I’ve been doing these past months. I am good now. I am lighting the candles in the morning while having breakfast. Listening to Sting, Mercury Falling. There is no need for change of colour anymore. After all, yellow was my choice. For the kitchen. My yellow kitchen.</span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7509264811866087679.post-23670219920302860582018-11-04T10:46:00.000-08:002018-11-04T13:06:16.670-08:00The new normal<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A photo lens capturing an object at it’s natural shape has o focal length of 50mm. It sees pretty much what your eyes see. It doesn’t tweak or twist in any way. The lens is often called Normal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A regular mobile phone lens is about 28mm, also called Wide Angle. It’s perfect for shooting landscapes as it catches a wide perspective. It stretches the picture. But a landscape is forgiving. The photographer doesn’t mind, nor does the object.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shooting portrait with a wide angle is a different story. As a straight forward portrait stretches to the sides, your nose looks wider. And a profile shot gives you a long nose. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this case the object is not as forgiving, it turns out. And the plastic surgery industry is flourishing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Do you remember when the era of group selfies started, how weird people looked? This was before pretty much every individual went narcissistic and turned the camera towards him/herself. Yes, this was when we realised we could document a fun gathering with everyone in the picture, even the photographer, how amazing!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But to squeeze everyone in we are on different distances to the lens and we all look tweaked and twisted. Distorted. Or should I say, looked, because we have now gotten so used to these distorted pictures we hardly notice it any more. The Wide Angle shot has turned Normal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But. When it comes to noses on portraits I would say our brains have gone distorted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I could of course write a whole chapter on the subject selfies. How we have gone from shying away from cameras to being obsessed by documenting ourselves from every angle and in every situation. How even children at an early age learn how to pose in front of a mobile phone. Does this sound healthy?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back to the nose. As most photos in this time and age are shot by a phone, most pictures are captured by a wide angle lens. That’s pretty much all we see. Younger people who have never owned a camera don’t know of anything else. All they are aware of is a world in a wide angle view.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Including themselves. Noses captured by a 28mm lens. Distorted. Long. Or wide. And as their phones are jam packed with long nosed selfies, that’s how they perceive themselves. The 28mm lens has distorted their brains. And they have no idea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That's why the plastic surgery industry is going through the roof. Because that’s where the distorted brains end up. There is nothing (in most cases) wrong with the nose. It’s the new Normal Wide Angle playing an ugly trick with our brains.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">I wonder how short of a nose you need to make it look normal on a profil-posed mobile shot. Will the world be inhabited by people who look normal on their selfies but distorted In Real Life? How distorted is that? </span><br />
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Maria Stoltermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08075775114736454648noreply@blogger.com0