Cherry memories

I am told this weekend is the peak of the cherry trees blooming in Seattle, I wish I was there!

My first memory of the tree blossoming season in Seattle was 1993. We arrived March 22 and our first Seattle home was actually over at Eastside. The cherry tree blooms covered the ground for Trouble & Trouble 4 and 6 years old to play with outside our townhouse in Juanita, Kirkland. We had left the white spring-winter in Sweden for the great adventure, and the cherry trees were snowing!

For me, one of my most exotic Seattle memories is from spring 1997 when we had our home for the year at Portage Bay. Packing our downhill ski equipment on and in our 1981 silver Buick while the cherry trees in the alley told Swedes it was summer. Driving the one hour trip up to the Snoqualmie ski area. Met by tons of snow and great skiing. In the late afternoon heading back to Seattle welcomed by summer. I can still feel the fascinating magic of it.

To Seattleites that’s all spring. But to a Swede from the northern parts of the country it’s summer and winter in a wonderful and amazing package. 2 for the price of 1! I remember Trouble 2 (now 9) having a burger in the sun at one of the ski drive in restaurant porches announcing: this is life!

During my commuting years following I loved packing my bags here at the end of the road this time of year, crossing the ocean, landing in Seattle. Filling my lungs with the fresh sent of moist red cedar and my eyes with the white and pink color from the cherries blooming all over town. Still now, I can sense my body and mind expanding from joy of once again arriving in my second home so different from my first; Away is Home, Home is Away. Just wanting to stay there forever.

I celebrated my 45th birthday on one of those visits. It wasn’t a happy birthday, at least to start with. I was separated going for divorce. I felt old. I had a future in mind which I knew wouldn’t happen. But I had a new semi professional video camera!

I woke up in the morning feeling heavy and sad about my whole situation. But I made a conscious decision to pick myself up. And I started playing with my camera. As soon as I looked through the view finder my heart went pounding. I put the gear in my car and headed towards Seattle from Lynnwood where I stayed at my friend/sister Autumn’s. 

I still remember the footage I shot at the marina east of Gasworks Park. Lying on the docks composing the pictures with houseboats, water and blooming cherry treas. I felt a lot better!

Continuing to Seattle Center. The sun was out, and the colors and shapes of Frank Gehry’s Experience Music Project making me go on for hours, and yeah, catching the Monorail through it!

I remember someone calling me on my way to the parking lot, might it have been Craig? By now I felt so good about the day I told him it was my birthday. Like I had to share it with someone. And of course he congratulated me and I have this image of cherry trees surrounding me, is there even cherry trees at the Seattle Center parking lot?

In the evening my friends all gathered in a Madrona pub for me. It feels surreal now but they were all there: Matt and Elisabeth and daughter Becca, Terry and Doug and kids Reed and Zoe, Maria and little Niko, Annie and Harold, and of course my aunt Helen. My sister Autumn didn’t show though, she basically stood me up!

I was pretty darned disappointed and mad at her as I drew back to her house. Hours later she walked in. Well, the thing was, she had been delayed at work. Which I think had turned to a bar or pub thing. Because there was this new guy… and he was trouble…

I actually got to meet this new guy (shall we call him Trouble 3?) some days later. I frankly didn’t think that wold last. I was vey wrong. She stood me up for the Man in Her Life which she met on March 14, my 45th birthday, meanwhile the cherry trees were blooming on all of us.

Letting go of my dream life/part 2

It’s actually hard to grasp that it’s done. But it is!

Friday morning Trouble 2 and Audrey vacated my storage unit in Seattle. They brought the sack with the Tempure Pedic mattress and the three storage boxes to the room on 15th and Marion they are renting for their stay.

I had been preparing. Already a week ago I had digged out my Seattle note book. On the last page the list with everything I kept in Seattle.

This is one of my things. I need to prepare. I need to be as ready as I can be. This counts for difficult things as well as fun. But of course difficulties needs a higher level of preparation.

So, that first evening with the list in my Seattle note book I was reading every item. Slowly. Feeling them. The Kalaloch sweatshirt bought on our first stay at the lodge. The cereal bowl from my Boyer Avenue home. The multicolor thick beach blanket - how many afternoons in Gaswork Park? The grayish green knitted halter neck tank from the Fremont market, so special to me.The ice tea pitcher, brand new from my last stay telling I was planning on coming back many times. And so on. My itinerant Seattle home.

Swedes dress in light colors in the summer. We completely change our wardrobe in a way Seattleites don’t. Personally I love white. I’m a white lady. Complemented with pastels and some bright surprises.

Wearing those colors in Seattle makes you an exclamation mark in the beige/grey wardrobe of the Emerald City. I’ve always found it odd how bright the city is and how dimmed the inhabitants dress. But my home grown analyzes is that the nine months a year of wet and grey skies and ground sticks in the soul, reflecting the dress code.

The first years in Seattle I stuck to my Swedish summer colors. I was still a tourist. But as time went by I noticed myself picking up beige tanks at Nordstrom Brass Plum as well the finest latte shades of silk blends at Banana Republic. I was becoming a Seattleite. I wasn’t comfortable being an exclamation mark in my new home town any more.

The clothes I’ve been keeping in my storage have all been the Seattle palette. I wouldn’t even wear them in Sweden. It’s something about the quality of the summer light here that doesn’t work with fifty shades of beige.

Therefore, in this separation I was about to go through, I was thinking of giving away my favorite Seattle clothes. That’s what I was preparing for. Going through the list once more. But in the hours before the actual clean out this Friday I changed my mind. What if? What if I at some point will be able to return to Seattle one last time? And my Seattle clothes are gone. There is always that hope… No, I would have Trouble 2 and Audrey bring them back to Sweden, I would put them in a special box and just keep them.

At my 8PM I waived to Trouble 2 and Audrey over Skype. Hi there! Look at that downtown view from you window, wow! And then: okay, lets do this!

We sorted all my things in four piles: back to Sweden, throw away, Zoe and Becca - would they like this?, and keep in Seattle. Oh, yes, I forgot, my dearest Matt and Elizabeth had most kindly offered a corner somewhere in their Capitol Hill home to store my mattress!!

Trouble 2 is a quite slow and methodical young man, Audrey the exact opposite. Together we went through box after box. The U.S. domestic mail sack where I am keeping my mattress is a magical storage, this I know since before. And in the end “we” managed to squeeze in not only the blow dryer, electric tooth brush and the beach blanket, but also the top 5 of my Seattle summer wardrobe into the sack!

So this was successful indeed! Also, I did not go all emotional but went through this event cheery and without shedding a tear. I was quiet proud of myself I have to say.

I know for sure this would not have been possible without my mental preparation. Grieving my things in beforehand, so to speak. And of course not without Trouble 2 and Audrey’s good spirit, for which I am very grateful.

So, now I don’t have a storage in Seattle anymore. Check! And I feel lighter. But there is more to come…

My successful staycation!

My balcony door is open to the warm evening. A few light cirrus clouds in the sky. Wind calming down for the day. My skin is sun kissed from afternoon hours facing west.

After delivering 43 minutes of bonus material accompanying the documentary of the Umeå entrepreneur Krister Olsson at the end of June, I decided on taking July off. Like vacation. Last summer was all intense work because of the documentary, and the summer before filled with personal and private difficulties. It was time for some time off, finally!

Vacation. In my case staycation, as I can’t move around and transport myself anywhere. So, how to have vacation at the place where I spend all my regular time and within the home care routines regulating my days?

Well, first of all, no work. No work within my profession and no work that’s very similar to my profession, although voluntary.

Number 2. No digging into difficulties. I have this thing. Whenever I (very rarely) am entering a quite period, I feel this need to pick one of the tough topics on my Difficult List and do something about it. Oftentimes unsolved conflicts or difficult relationships eating me. But no, nothing from my Difficult List was allowed on my summer vacation 2016. 

Those were the No. So what about the Yes?! And what did I want to do?

Well, it turned out the question wasn’t that easy to answer. Most things I long for are impossible because of my situation. So I had to look for it through my close up glasses.

I wanted to be in the sun! So that’s my first promise, stay in the sun every minute possible and enjoy it! What more? Why not listen to music? Due to how my days are layed out, keeping music on doesn’t have natural space anymore, I could change that. 

I am peaking into my summer closet. All those cloths I just love! Summer 2015 was really crappy weather wise so I didn’t get to wear any of it. Ok, that will be my next promise - no walking around in old spotted t-shirts because it’s just me here, no, every day wearing something nice for myself!

What more? Well, there is this Swedish summer institution. A radio program. Simply called Sommar - Summer. Every day, 1PM-2.30PM from Midsummer’s Day until late August, a carefully selected person is hosting her/his own program. Every episode is personal, and the host also picks the music accompanying the story. Swedish National Radio has run this series since 1959, and to be selected as a Summer Host in Sweden, is a bit like being ennobled, it is an honor and the ultimate recognition.

So, I was going to listen to as many Summer as I wanted and felt like. Very important not to promise listening to all of them, that would turn something enjoyable to a must do. And preferably outside while working on my tan, delivered from a transistor radio in real broadcast time. No computers.Yes!

Now, my last promise was to do something fun for myself every day. Something that would make my heart tick and give me energy!

So, how did I do?

After years and years spending the sun hours delivered to us on the 64th latitude in an uncomfortable wooden chair really bad for my back, I invested early June in a real sun chair. And boy did that investment match the summer! I have spent so many days lying in that chair I can’t keep track anymore, and my tan looks like I have been on a blanket in Gasworks Park for a month! So, yeah, every possible minute in the sun!

Did I listen to music? Well… kind of. I sometimes have remembered to put music on, although not as much as I was thinking. But, the times I did gave me a lot.

How about the summer clothes? I have been doing a lot better in that area! At Midsummers I picked my most romantic summer outfits, hanging them on my bedroom closet doors as an inspiration. And I have been wearing most of them! Sometimes with people visiting, sometimes only going for a treatment, but a lot of times just for myself. And they have made me feel pretty and in good spirits!

Did I listen to Sommar? Yes I did, and always outside and most of the time on the air!

So what about doing something making me tick? A failure. Only once. I took all those romantic outfits, I hang them in my grand father’s apple tree and made a photo shoot! It was so incredibly fun, I can’t even remember when I last composed a picture! And I literary felt life running into my veins! That’s actually when I felt something like this is what I need to do every day.

So I asked myself, what would I like to do? And couldn’t come up with anything… Well, I could of course, but all those creative desires are impossible due to my physical restrictions. Pretty much all I can do by myself is writing, and I am honestly a bit fed up with it. It’s also on the border to work and I’m shying away from it in a healthy way.

That’s only half the truth though. The other half is that just having fun isn’t my strongest department. I am not that well trained when it comes to playing.

In total though, my staycation has been a success. Thanks to the Weather Gods. They have given me all those days in the sun charging my body battery I so badly need, Sommar in the transistor radio and plenty of warmth to wear my sheer summer clothes. My body is happy when it is warm, and when my body is warm I am happy. And if we are lucky we might even have a few weeks more feeling like summer!

Missing Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving and 4^th of July. The two days on the year when I miss Seattle and the US the most.

It might have been 1998, my second Thanksgiving in Seattle. Visiting with my family, living a hotel downtown life. My sons and their dad headed back to Sweden when dad was done with his work, and I stayed for another week or so to get my job for the Swedish National Radio done. This was the regular pattern for our shorter stays during a lot of years.

It was perfect. Family time with family friends added on with time for myself in the big city.

Only. My sons and their dad departing Seattle leaving me behind was the worst. I loved staying at what’s now Homewood Suites at Pike Street. I loved my downtown life. I loved doing my journalist freelance work. I loved the feeling of temporary freedom. But I hated the moment for separation from my family. I knew I would be fine in a day or two, but I just couldn’t bare them leaving me. Yet I chose to go through that, time after time.

So, 1998 (or was it -97?) they kissed me goodbye and headed back to Sweden on Thanksgiving. I was deserted. Downtown deserted. I cried. I cried my eyes out in my Homewood suite. This was my choice and I cried. Knowing that nice people would surround me in just a few hours didn’t help. I cried.

When it was time for it I crawled out of my self-inflicted misery, put some casual nice clothes on and made my face. I drove my rental through a quiet city and in a little while I was welcomed into a warm house by warm people. Close friends, friends, and friend’s friends. It was Thanksgiving.

My inside was still grieving. Knowing that Trouble 1 would be in pain on the long flight, his ears all clogged up. And maybe Trouble 2 was a little bit sad going back home without his mom. I don’t know how I was perceived that evening. Distracted. Uptight. Shy. Rude. Not quite there. Everyone was truly friendly and nice to me though, making me a part of their Thanksgiving spirit, which was still fairly new to me. The table was long and at my turn, saying the thanksgiving, made it a very special evening.

Late that night I drove back to my downtown home. I’ve never seen the usually 24-7 lit up Seattle skyline that dark. Understanding that most everyone at that time was sitting at a table somewhere surrounded by family or friends. And that some had a very lonely evening. You are never as lonely as when you know you are not supposed to be.

This year I am watching my playwright friend Elizabeth posting video clips on Facebook. Act 1 is already in the morning, someone starting preparing the food. The clips and different acts moves through the day at Grandma Betty’s house in the Catholic part of Capitol Hill where about 30 people from different generations are getting together.

Oh how I miss them. Oh how I miss all my Seattle friends on a day like this. I miss how they are loud and warm and crazy and witty and fun and smart and caring and… I miss them so it hurts. They are a part of me.

And I miss the little bit of American life that I once had. And wanted a lot more of. During those years when I was commuting between US and Sweden I often got the question: so where would you prefer living? A tricky one to answer. I remember responding that if I had to sell my place at the end of the road in my village to become a Seattleite, the choice would be very hard.

For many years though, I had the best of both worlds. But I always wished for more of Seattle. And that’s what I also always pictured. I can still hear myself driving my routes across University Bridge, Downtown, Arboretum, down to Lake Washington, Montlake Cut, Wallingford and U Village, saying out loud: someday I am going to live here! For real! Tanning in Gasworks Park, power walking around Greenlake, watching the sun set in the skyline from Kerry Park, strolling among the house boats in Portage Bay feeling it deep down in the core of my body: someday I am going to live here! For real! Just watch me!

In 2007 I took a first step for more Seattle life. Trouble & Trouble were 19 and 21, big boys already, and I felt that the stretches in Seattle could be extended. I bought a car! Yes I did! I would have my own car waiting for me whenever I landed in The Emerald City! And I invested in a storage unit for my Tempur Pedic mattress, my special Seattle clothes and other essential necessities, which until then had been dragged between tolerant friends basements. The storage even had a view of the new light rail! Yayy!

But life had different plans for me. And today I am thinking that I might have to find a way bringing back all my things to Sweden. It is not likely that I will be able to come back to Seattle. Even if I at some point could do the trip, I couldn’t do it by myself and I couldn’t stay by myself. If I am very lucky maybe my sons will go with me and visit if my body can do it. But a life in Seattle, as it once was and even more as I pictured it, longed for and wanted, no, my hopes for that is buried deep down in me.

So, hearing Elizabeth’s voice and laughter on her Thanksgiving morning makes me sad for myself. I know, it’s not a pretty feeling. But I love that laughter and miss it so much! And only hearing the North West Coast American English that happened to become my language is unlocking a piece of myself, (yes, go ahead and laugh my friends, I am aware of my accent and all my quirky slips, it is still one of my languages!). And I want to be in that language! I want to share 4^th of July with 30 000 people at Gasworks Park (yes friends, laugh on, I will still love it!) and I want to be a part of Thanksgiving, I want it to be one of my Holidays.

I have tried introducing the thanksgiving into one of my Swedish holiday traditions. Not the turkey, the stuffing or the pumpkin pie, but the thanksgiving. I am finding the ritual everyone around a holiday table expressing their gratitude one of the truly most beautiful. My efforts, so far, hasn’t been glorious. But maybe I just have to be persistent. Maybe I need to give it a few more years. If Maria won’t come to Thanksgiving, then Thanksgiving must come to Maria.