Having hygge?

- We are thinking of taking some pictures in the beautiful weather and maybe swing by for a fika, how does that sound?

Sounds good to me! I wouldn’t agree on the weather being precisely beautiful because it’s overcast, but the landscape is like a story book of fluffy two feet cold white, the trees heavily covered with snow. I do agree with Trouble 2 and Audrey on the general feeling of a beautiful northern Swedish winter day.

So, the conditions for hygge is optimal. Like they also are in Seattle, the number 1 hygge city in the US! Never heard of hygge? Let me explain.

Hygge is a Danish word summing up the feeling of coziness, contentment, warmth and socials making you feel really good. You might curl up at the fire place with a book or a knitting, gather together with some friends for a board game or meet up at a coffee shop or a pub to hang out with your mates as pastime. It’s relaxed quality time designated for just being and feeling good, and a lot of times there are candles involved.

This is something people in the Nordic countries really have a talent for. I would say the Finnish saunas is there way of hygge. Swedes get together for a fika, a sit down social including coffee, cardamom buns and some cockies. And Norwegians go inside their hytte, cabin, after the cross country tour in the mountains. I’m not sure what the Icelandic hygge looks like, maybe someone can fill me in?

According to Bert Sperling, American demographic expert and founding of Sperling’s Best Places, there are certain factors required to achieve hygge. You need cozy weather, fun activities, fire places and gathering places. His idea of cozy weather is, rain, cold, snow etc, weather that pushes you to want a fireplace and candles.

It was my friend Jannie who works for my home care company making dinner for me today. As it so happens she is actually Danish, perfect for a reality check! She agreed on Sperling’s list, although not quite on the weather point. Hygge is not weather-dependent. Hygge happens in any weather all year around where people get together to hang out and enjoy each other during hyggelig conditions. So, hyggelig is the adjective meaning pretty much nice and cozy.

As the term hygge now is starting to spread outside Scandinavia, Sperling’s Best Places is naturally taking an interest in finding the best places for hygge in the US. They have made an inventory of American cities, listing cozy weather, fun activities, fire places and gathering places as ranking factors. Not too surprisingly they found that four of the top five cities are all in northern states. And Seattle is the hygge-ist of the hygge cities, taking home top honors with a first-place ranking!

Seattle earned it’s spot because of the book loving Seattleites and the fact that 58% of the homes have fire places, the most in the country. The runner up Portland OR, Seattle’s baby sister, has the most hygge venues in the US and a good overall hygge pastimes. And here are the top five!

Sperling’s top five hygge cities:

1. Seattle

2. Portland

3. Minneapolis

4. Salt Lake City

5. Denver

So do you want to know which cities are the least hygge in the US? Here they are:

46. Tuscon

47. San Antonio

48. Miami

49. Riverside

50.Los Angeles

Bert Sperling, who himself is Swedish-Norwegian means that Denmark and Miami is the most far from each other on the list when it comes to life styles. And Salt Lake City, which might come as a surprise as the nr. 4 hygge city in the US actually has a large Danish heritage, that would explain their hygge tradition.

So, Trouble 2 and Audrey stopped by for a cozy Sunday afternoon fika in my yellow kitchen. Jannie and I had good laughs as she fixed my dinner while light flurries started falling over my snow-covered perfectly still landscape. And tonight I am enjoying my candles while writing my story under my blanket. It’s been a hygge day.

Sweden in chock and love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grain by grain

- It’s like grains of sand, she said. You don’t notice the first one. Hardly the second and third. Then you start feeling them. But gradually you are getting used to the change.

Hédi Fried is 94 years old. Born in Rumania she survived both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen as a little girl and arrived on The White Buses in Sweden in 1945. Her first memory from here is the hot chocolate she was offered by the nurses welcoming her. 

Hédi Fried became a psychologist and author and has spent her life telling her story. Again and again. In books and lectures, most often in schools and among children and young people. The mission of corse is clear.

I am listening to her Friday night on the Scandinavian talk show Skavlan. Fredrik Skavlan is asking her how it happens. When it happens, how can it happen? And she responds:

- It’s like grains of sand. You don’t notice the first one. Hardly the second and third. Then you start feeling them. But gradually you are getting used to the change. It’s happening.

Sverigedemokraterna (The Sweden Democrats) a nationalistic, social conservative, rasist and xenophobic party was voted into the Swedish parliament in 2010 by 5,7 %. Sweden was in chock. Up until then our governing had been clean from brown boots and the fear that rules these opinions. And all the other political parties swore they would never even talk to them, even less give them any kind of power.

In the 2014 election Sverigedemokraterna had 12,9 % of the Swedish vote. Now the third largest party in the parliament. It’s hard to tell when the shock was more massiv, in 2010 or 2014.

Gradually most of the other parties have incorporated opinions which originally you did only find within Sverigedemokraterna. You can even recognize the rhetoric. Grain by grain. And by the massive stream of refugees during 2015 our fundamental Swedish values of solidarity went out the window and we closed our borders.

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/09/have-you-forgotten-your-history-how-is.html
http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/10/the-end-of-one-journey-and-beginning-of.html
http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/12/sweden-becoming-fortress.html

The next election will be in 2018. And a couple of weeks ago the Swedish right wing party Moderaterna started talks with Sverigedemokraterna. Grain by grain.

Since January 4th 2016 all travelers crossing the border between Denmark and Sweden  must show an ID card. I don't have the most recent numbers, but in 2014 95800 persons were commuting between the two countries every day. Their commute is now, due to the ID check, 30-40 minutes longer, making at least an extra hour a day.

The other day I was watching a news clip on the subject. For a year now people have had to go through this process every day to get to their job and back home. Quiet and patiently waiting in line. Most of them of course looking very Scandinavian born and bred. And this will continue. People have adapted. Grain by grain.

A week ago I was stating Donald Trump’s hyper active manic behavior might cause so much disturbance in society that even people different to Seattle mayor Ed Murray and Washington governor Jay Inslee could realize the country might collapse. Well, the republican U.S. District Judge James Robart, appointed by President George W. Bush, Friday ordered a national halt to enforcement of President Trump’s controversial travel ban, arguing it as “unlawful and unconstitutional. This also happened in Seattle. I am a very proud in heart Seattleite.

I am thinking about the grain by grain theory though, watching Donald Trump. His behavior sure isn’t grain by grain. It’s an earthquake no one can escape. It’s a volcano erupting. Yet, listening to CNN’s chief political analyst Gloria Borger at the end of the week I am wondering.

Was it last Saturday when he was on phone with eight world leaders on the same day, I think so. Hearing this I was stunned. Thinking there was clearly no time for contemplation between those calls. No time for taking in. No time for processing. No time for other than shooting from the hip. So it wasn’t surprising hearing Gloria Borger reporting how Donald Trump had been so rude and aggressive during those calls some of the experienced White House staff had gone white faced.

But what worried me the most was Gloria Borger discussing in terms of the nation and the world getting used to this. His behavior. His actions. Getting used to the change. Getting numb.

Can an earthquake be one grain of sand? A volcano erupting the second? A tsunami a third? Is what’s going on right now the little grains of sand? Then what will The Big One be?

Where Swedish is being the wrong kind

I can’t really find a word for the feeling this weeks news from Finland is bringing me. Might it be fear?

Of the five Nordic countries, Sweden is the big brother. It has the largest area and a population of 9 million compared to Finland, Norway and Denmark 5-5,5 million people. And then there is Island of course, only about 320 000 inhabitants.

The countries share history and partly culture as well. We also share language community since one of the Nordic languages is spoken in each country. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic all have the same origin, the Old Norse. Finnish though, is a Finno-Ugric language, not at all relate to the Old Norse.

However, Finland is officially bilingual, Finnish and Swedish are both national languages. Finnish is the majority language and Swedish a minority language spoken by about 5 %, the Swedish speaking Finns.

Now, the status about Swedish in Finland is questioned by some, especially by Sannfinländarna (The True Finns), a nationalistic and right wing party. As in too many countries around the world, the protectionism is on the march and the tolerance for minorities, wether being there forever or new to the culture, is vanishing. 

What happened in Finland this week is a new healthcare reform decided on by the government. The reform means that emergency care won’t be available in Swedish at some hospitals in Finland, among them Vasa right across the Gulf of Bothnia from Umeå. Vasa is the county seat in the region Österbotten inhabited by a majority of Swedish speaking Finns.

The situation is of corse upsetting to the Swedish speaking Finns who argue this is a human rights issue. Being denied emergency care in their mother tongue is downgrading them to second category citizen.

Now, why is this stirring up uncomfortable feelings in me? A tiny cramp in my stomach. Besides that it’s a bad decision.

Sweden wasn’t always the politically neutral peace loving country we are perceived as. Breeding skilled diplomats sent to troublesome hot spots of the world. Sweden once was a violent European super power and this is something we are very quiet about these days. The Swedish Empire. It doesn’t fit our today self image. And the reason to why Swedish is a national language in Finland is that Finland once was a part of Sweden.

Sweden is the big brother. Not only by area and population, but by history. This is not something we are walking around thinking about. This is our natural DNA. I am a white woman living here, self-evident as someone who knows her family tree by names and dates seven generations back. Aware of the many generations even before that. Speaking the language that is my country.

I think, realizing my language, four hours from here by ferry, in one of our brother-countries, is considered unwanted and problematic, feels…unreal. I am reacting like the safe ignorant majority woman I am. How can my language be disturbing?

But that tiny cramp in my stomach. I vaguely recognize it. From where? Then it comes back. An emergency stop for gas in Oakland California. The off ramp from the freeway and the gas station in the shadows under the ramp. People with empty eyes and frightening body language hanging around the place.

For me, a white woman born to walk safely in this world, it takes a documented dangerous place like an off ramp gas station in Oakland to feel the scare of being the one that’s different and out of place. To be the wrong kind. This week I am getting to know someone four hours from here, speaking my language, is the wrong kind.