You are really very sick. She said.

-       I didn’t know what to expect, but you are really very sick.

I was at this meeting with my administrator at the Social Insurance Agency this week. My doctor has declared me ¾ sick, so I am on a ¾ sick leave. Which makes me connected to the Social Insurance Agency, and that’s why I was called in for this meeting.

Now, the Swedish right wing government doesn’t like sick people. They don’t like people who for different reasons can’t work or are out of work. And so the Swedish official social networks aren’t what they used to be. And the staff working with those agencies has to take on armor to protect themselves from being emotional about all these people they have to face, being in very difficult situations. So, they say their approach is, being professional. I say they are (forced to?) lacking empathy and staring strictly at their protocol.

So, I was expecting a not too pleasant appointment. And was met with a smile, a warm handshake and this really friendly woman. Who listened to my story. My 27 years of pain and suffering. My struggles to create myself a professional life outside the regular system and within my physical boundaries. My life situation today. And she looked at me and she said:

-       I didn’t know what to expect, but you are really very sick.

I interrupted her and told her I didn’t consider myself sick. I had cancer a few years back, that’s being sick. This is more of a condition. It’s painful, it drains all my energy, it’s limiting, it’s handicapping, and it makes me exposed and lonely, but sick, no. Then again, if she wants to use the word sick, be my guest.

-       Yes. I didn’t know what to expect when I read your diagnosis, which I don’t, by the way, understand, but you are really very sick.

It was a strange moment. I had armed myself for fighting for that ¾ sick leave and she was puzzled why I wasn’t on full time. And here she was, not an administrator but a human being seeing my situation clearer than I do myself. I told her that I wanted to keep those 25% of work because that’s my connection to the real world. The world where most people have their lives and their purpose. The busy world going on out there while I’m lying on my couch. A lot of days I can’t even do 25%, but taking on the little that I can do is still a skinny lifeline of energy.

We said goodbye. I left relieved. For now, I won’t have to fight the Social Insurance Agency. But there was also something else. Which I think I am still digesting.

She told me I was sick. She told me I was really very sick.

I have accepted the alarm on the wrist. I have accepted (and being very grateful for) the home care that I get. For years I was faking having a non-limited full professional life, and I don’t do that any more. That’s a relief.

But I still do more than I am coping with. I am struggling with the choir rehearsals although I can barely sit, and sometimes I have to give in and half lay half sing from some strange sofa down at the end of the room. And I get myself to downtown meetings with clients too important and prestigious for asking them to my couch office in the village. And every week I am expecting myself to walk the few meters to my neighbor Alida and sit with her for a couple of hours drinking our tea, talking. It’s going to happen this week. This week is when I can do it. How hard can it be?

Because I want to. Because I really want to. And if I stop trying for these things I feel like I will end up Facebook scrolling all day long. And that would be very very sad.

Bu now, a Social Insurance Agency administrator who spends her days convincing people that they, no matter how bad their health is, have the capacity of working (because that’s what our right wing government has assigned her to do), is telling me that I am sick. Really very sick.

And I quite don’t know what to do with that.

Four impressive red deer are grazing gracefully in the evening on the field next to my house. Two regular deer are having fun next to them. It’s mid May and the light is back telling us to expect summer.

I have this thing. I am dressing my bedroom in summer or winter clothes. It’s a stupid thing and a lot of work, but I really like marking the seasons in colors and textures. Of course I can’t do it myself anymore. In November, the day before my back crashed, my sister helped me make the winter room, latte colored and purple, kind of Seattleish. Today my friends Mats and Agneta dressed it in blue striped and white cotton, very Swedish. Half a year has passed, the part of year that I find heavy and dark no matter what, and this year, very long.

My white and blue bedroom makes my heart lighter. The deer leaving the safe and shady forest lured by the fresh grass on an open field makes me warm. A friendly Social Insurance Agency administrator tells me I am really very sick. But I want to feel like my summer dressed bedroom. And I want to be as courageous and foolish as the deer. I want to go outside. And reach for life.

You always have a choice. They say/part 2

One morning some years ago I woke up with this sentence in my head. Or, it was more like a banner. You know, those banners up in the air behind a chopper or a small airplane or glider. More common in Seattle than in Umeå. This morning was an Umeå morning, but maybe it was a Lake Union based airplane gliding through my head with this banner. Saying:

“Pain is the only thing tying me down.”

I was lying in my bed seeing, feeling this banner, and it was like a revelation. It was true! The pain is the only thing that ties me down! If I only could find the cure, the solution, the answer, the core to why my musculoskeletal system is so dysfunctional and causing all these problems and physical pain, nothing would tie me down!

And I was asking myself: “What would you do?” And the first picture that came to my mind was me in a summery dress throwing a very light luggage into the trunk, pushing the top down button on my Chrysler Le Baron convertible and driving all the way through Sweden smiling with the sun on my body and the wind in my hair and visit all my friends who I haven’t seen in years, scattered round the country. I might even had those little car gloves on. And definitely shades. The second image was taking off to Seattle without the slightest fear of anything bad happening, nothing going wrong, confident that this will be so much fun. So much fun!

And it’s still true. The pain is the only thing that ties me down. Well there might be a few other things, like lack of self-confidence and self esteem. On the other hand, I have that extreme will power and determination compensating. The bottom line is: if my musculoskeletal system was working like it was supposed to I could work more and make more money. Rephrasing: I am always working, but if I didn’t need to consider what my body allows me or doesn’t allow me to do, I could hunt for and take on different and more assignments.

Now, are all my dreams about what I could do based on money? No, certainly not. Most of them are simply about being able to move without pain. Simply… And then there are those who aren’t dreams, they are utopias if it wasn’t for heaven suddenly opening up for a downpour of obnoxious wealth right above my front yard.

So, just to let you know that my dreams haven’t drowned in my bitterness I will simply make a list. And these are dreams for myself. Of course wishing a healthy, happy and safe life for my children and then peace on earth and global warming and all that solved is above this. These listed wishes, dreams and utopias are only for my own pleasure, contentment and happiness. And they come in no specific order, very randomly nailed down. So, here we go!

·      Sit on the stairs of my front porch having breakfast.

·      Learn how to tango.

·      Make a beautiful pond with a curved wooden deck inside the stone base from the long gone barn on my front yard.

·      Open up a place: restaurant/stage/ library/coffee shop/gallery/ bar/ cultural scene (working title The Place) in Umeå bringing here the spirit and playfulness of Seattle.

·      Walk to Brunnsjön (an one hour walk) with my Nordic walking bungee poles, or around Green Lake (which used to be to short for my needs).

·      Scan my black & white photo exhibit of 42 selenium toned pictures about Seattle and my Swedish village, Away is Home, Home is Away, and make it a beautiful book.

·      Take a downtown stroll and look at everything being built (in Umeå and Seattle) while lying here on my couch.

·      Go to a concert.

·      Open up my great room upstairs to the south, building a small glass porch/add-on on top of the entry front porch.

·      Drive

·      Buy the Smith Tower and invite filmmakers, musicians, writers, artists, crafts people and all kinds of creative entrepreneurs to create the coolest work place in the world.

·      Do three heavy workouts at the gym a week.

·      Open up for a door and a balcony in my bedroom facing the precious morning sun.

·      Go to the movies.

·      Realize my plans for a downtown Umeå boutique selling my own line of quality souvenirs U.M.E.Å! during The European Capital of Culture 2014.

·      Stand on a chair (to reach things).

·      Take an impromptu trip with a friend, just like that!

·      Open up a downtown Seattle Studio Stolterman Storytelling office in the former Washington Mutual Tower, facing the Sound and the Olympics.

·      Move around without back support.

·      Sit for hours and hours with my beloved neighbor Alida, drinking our tea and talking about life and death.

·      Tell the Nordstrom story on film.

·      Hand-wash my cars.

·      Find my favorite place in Italy where I would bring my new video camera which is still to purchase and stay for three months, establish the Italian I am learning with reading the newspaper every day, and document people’s life stories giving to them as presents. And then I would go back there, again and again and again.

·      Pick something up from the floor.

·      Add on a room with beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows facing west, big enough for my great aunt’s beautiful furniture now somewhere else, a grand piano and the Christmas tree, a room letting the summer evening sun in. On top of that a patio outside the second floor great room.

·      Go downhill again. Black slopes. Yayy, yayy, yayy.

·      Have a (Seattle and Umeå) downtown shop till you drop afternoon with a friend.

·      Buy the little white wooden church in my village and together with all my children make it a unique and very special concert hall.

·      Curl up in a sofa chair with my legs underneath.

·      Put together my texts and mini short stories illustrated by Trouble 1 in a book.

·      Pick summer flowers from the ground.

·      Hunt for and take on now impossible assignments for work.

·      Make the fields west of the baker’s cottage a tucked in sweet little lake.

·      Clean my house.

·      Buy a city view penthouse in Seattle. Or a houseboat. Or both.

·      Climb a ladder (to get to The Treehouse/Kojan)

·      Travel, travel, travel!

·      Keep a Great Dane (Grand Danois).

·      Dry my clothes and linen outside on a clothesline.

·      Build a big porch outside the “window room”, facing west and the sweet little lake.

·      Stand up and sit down without the fear of being stabbed by a knife in my back.

·      Keep a sailboat. Or a Chris Craft. In Seattle.

·      Sing my songs so that people can hear them.

·      Do yoga, Pilates or any of those things that would make me feel and look good.

·      Lye on a beach.

·      Spend hours and hours in my darkroom.

·      Winterize and renovate the baker’s cottage, making it the cutest guesthouse.

·      Change linen in my bed.

·      Move to Seattle. Have a life in Seattle. Have a love in Seattle. Buy my Friday flowers at The Market. Be a Seattleite.

·      Clean up my cat’s litter box.

·      Cook. Although my home care angels Peter and Award’s dinners are so much nicer then mine, so that would actually be a loss.

·      Keep strawberry beds.

·      Dance, dance, dance!

·      Shoot my film work myself.

·      Making my grandfather’s dream of damming up the big creek to make a good size lake in the middle of the village come true.

·      Have my meals at the kitchen table.

·      Shovel snow. Or spend winters in Seattle

·      Wear high heels.

·      Make a romantic gate to my white picket fence.

·      Put together my songs – sheet music and lyrics – in a book illustrated by Trouble 1.

·      Take off the safety alarm from my wrist.

·      Lift the front of the wood shed/coach house that’s slowly sinking into the ground.

·      Mow the lawn. Or live in a penthouse or houseboat.

·      Repaint my kitchen and entry. Myself. I used to do all kinds of painting.

·      Go to a restaurant with a friend.

·      Sit down on the grass and get myself up from there.

·      Drive a white Mercedes SL convertible 450 1978 in Seattle.

·      Build a bay window with French doors facing east in my kitchen.

·      Record my songs

·      Make my place a gorgeous rose garden.

·      Light a fire in my ceramic stove.

·      Make a little happy creek running down the grove to the field east of my house – where there will be a lake when I realized my grandfather’s dream.

·      Return the walker to my friend Eva and say thank you!

·     Visit Trouble 2 in Paris. I mean, I have a son who lives in Paris and I can’t visit him. That sucks!

·      Tell the redesign project of the Seattle Waterfront on film.

·      Commercialize my white stained pine furniture line – Stolterman of Sweden.

·      Take Trouble 1’s, Lisa’s, Mats’ and my show Life in a Tiny Purse on the road and make it a contemplative success!

Many years ago I was doing the laundry down in the basement of our Boyer Avenue house. And I noticed I wasn’t in pain! I could do the laundry without a problem, I hummed on a tune and I wasn’t in pain! And I found myself thinking: “if I wasn’t in pain I could have another child!” This condition and state of mind lasted for a couple of hours and then it was gone. I was back to normal again. Jailed in to my locked body where dreams have very little chance surviving.

I didn’t even know I wanted another child. And listing all my dreams above has been an interesting experience. As my body has been extremely restricted for close to half my life now I have to dig deep to even find what I am needing, wishing and longing for. It’s to a large extent blocked out of my consciousness. And it’s the little dreams that are most hard to dig up, those everyday things.

When I grew up my dad taught me all those things that come in handy having on your repertoire: saw, nail, paint, chop wood, change tires. And I loved it. I loved feeling the power in my body and seeing the results of it. I even helped lifting the northwest corner of the baker’s cottage, and every time I am walking down the field noticing that the southwest corner now needs a lift, I am thinking about that Herculean moment with my dad and uncle.

You always have a choice. They say. Yes, there are a few things on my very long list (just to reassure you; this is not my bucket list!) that could come true, with some help from children and friends. But most are dreams. Or even utopias. Because, frankly, right now the idea of bending down, picking something up from the floor is as impossible as moving to Seattle or digging my grandfather’s dream of a village lake. Because this is not in my power. 

“Pain is the only thing tying me down.” I like that it sounds so simple. One little thing. Only one damned little thing.

You always have a choice. They say.

You can actually watch it melting. The snow. Winter has been long and cold again so there is still lot’s of snow here, at the end of the road. But the patches on my front yard are literary disappearing in front of my eyes. I took the first spring walk yesterday up the field in the late April sun, as far as the snow allowed me to. My darling cat Sorella and I did our premiere stroll for the year around our place and I threw away the old Christmas tree brusquely tossed from the second floor balcony when the holidays were over. Lovely. We are let out from the jail of frozen winter, and it’s lovely. It’s a big deep breath of life.

Exactly three months ago I could walk all the way to the creek, half a mile (800 meter) back and forth. I was so happy! I could do that already! Well, it was only that one time. Since then my walks have been very short, if at all. I am so sad that my beloved neighbor Alida, 96 soon to be, and I have been hibernating in our houses all winter long, and not one single time have I been able to sit at her kitchen table, drinking our tea, talking about all her lost and gone friends. My parents and grandparents. Alida providing me all those loose ends telling how everything is related in our village.

This spring she is letting me know that she wants to move in to an olds people’s home this fall if she I still alive. Her lonely days here in the house are way too long. So this was probably our last winter together at the end of the road. A few steps from each other during our long days, and yet we couldn’t be together. And it just breaks my heart. For the both of us. And though I can’t even imagine Alida not being here, the pain of thinking here gone is so strong it’s making me cry. I feel like a wall in my house will be gone leaving me exposed to unlimited dark and cold. I frankly don’t know how I will survive.

When I was cleared from cancer I decided to live life at it’s fullest, like most people facing death given a second chance do. I cleaned out a lot of closets determined to not any more suffer from blisters caused by anything chafing or scuffing. And before any choice, big or small, ask myself: is this what I want? Is this good for me? Is this helping me?

Because that’s what they say now, right? You always have a choice.

Make a wish. Follow your heart. Reach for the stars. Recognize your dreams. Set goals and make them happen. Choose your life. That’s what they say.

After the cancer and chemo my back problems increased for the worst. I was cancer free and couldn’t wait to live live live, but my body did limit that life strictly. The pain and the physical restrictions battled down the power and feeling of being invincible that is often gained by being a survivor. But hey, I don’t have cancer, I am basically healthy, this is just pain. It’s a drag but you won’t die from it. You need to be grateful.

You always have a choice. And when you feel like you don’t, you always have the choice how to relate to your situation. That’s what they say.

So, I am choosing not to complain. I am setting the goal to walk to the creek and as month after month pass and I can’t do it I am trying to be grateful that I can stroll through the grocery store. The choir rehearsals are like running a marathon and 95 % of my focus is controlling the pain, but I am truly happy that I can be there. I can’t make me dinner but I am enjoying that I some days am able to join my home care angel Peter giving him some little assistance in the kitchen. I can’t have my dinner sitting at the kitchen table, but I am looking forward to the late afternoons Grey’s Anatomy reruns keeping me company on my couch. And I am smiling and being nice and never whining. It could be worse. It truly could be so much worse. I know that for a fact.

So I don’t cry. I am accepting. And with that acceptance erasing the goals. I am a woman with a lot of will power. Most people would call me really stubborn when it comes to what I want to reach and accomplish. I used to be at the gym three times a week. I took one-hour power walks with dumbbells the days I wasn’t at the gym. I know how to do this. I want to do this. My body and soul knows the happiness and contentment of being in power, feeling strong and healthy, even looking a little bit good. And I love to dance! God how I long to dance!

So, did I choose this? No, I didn’t. The idea that we are in control of our lives is part illusion part bullshit. There is very little we can control. And for everyone less fortunate it’s an unbearable burden stacked upon whatever our trials are.

So, I am controlling myself, isn’t that what choosing how to handle your situation is about? I am smiling instead of crying. I am looking at the bright side instead of complaining. I am deciding that watching TV is an entertainment to be grateful about and blocking out my needs for seeing friends, going to a beautiful concert or watching an interesting exhibit. And I am happy about my nice home, as that’s the only place I can wish for. Erasing the goals. As they only lead to disappointment.

It’s not until I am realizing this is probably mine and Alida’s last winter together and I missed it that it breaks through. The anger, the despair, the rage, the grief, the loneliness, the incomprehensibility, the WHY WHY WHY???!!! Why did we have to miss it just because I can’t walk and sit?

This morning I felt really good. I could move better than I have in months. I had energy. I felt happy for no particular reason. I think I even hummed on a little tune. I planned on running some errands that would need a little bit of walking in between treatments tomorrow. Then it happened again. During the afternoon a slight shooting pinched me across the sacrum. I was sitting at a chair. Just sitting straight up. And there it was. The needle. Not a knife, but still, a needle. I haven’t had that kind of pain since November. Since this lying down life started. And now I’m there again.

Am I choosing this? This completely unpredictable life where nothing is certain and there is zero to trust? Where I need to be prepared for anything at anytime. Where my situation can change on a split of a second? Where unexpected hope on a good morning is a dangerous enemy that strikes back on you for seeing a window where the light finds you? Where most things are chafing and scuffing? Do I sound bitter? Yes, I am. Deep down under my choice of smiles and no complaints and looking at the bright side I am tonight finding bitterness. Deep down under controlling myself to fit in to what’s expected of me in this day and age 2013. And it doesn’t make me look good, I am aware.

I don’t know how to end this posting. I don’t have anything encouraging closing up with. I am not choosing this. That’s all I know. I am not choosing this.

Kojan/The Treehouse

Bang bang! Those familiar sounds of spring!

It started in middle school. Trouble & Trouble and their friends from the villages around here picked up some left over planks and nails and built a platform way up in the trees. Then walls came up of course, a roof, and hey, Kojan – the Treehouse was born! Koja means hideaway, kind of, and it really was the perfect hide away for boys in their early teens. It’s located in a grove not too far from the house, but enough tucked away for privacy. The parents kept in the house or the front yard leaving them to their adventures, but also made them feel safe.

My sons have a wonderful talent. They make friends with the sweetest, most adventurous and craziest people. And they stay friends. Through thick and thin. So the original group of about ten loud boys is still around. And as they moved on and new friends entered their lives they’ve been added in the Koja project. As they have added trees! What to start with was a studio connecting four-five trees is today more of a complex compound 15 feet above ground involving about thirty firs and pine trees!

You might be asking: how old are they now? Well, that’s a legitimate question. Trouble & Trouble just turned 27 and 25. The next question might be: aren’t they too old for building on a treehouse? The answer is no.

My sons have this ability that earlier on to a mother could be pretty annoying, but has turned quite charming the older they get. They are carrying their child contained within themselves. They still love playing the way children do, and there hasn’t even been a period over time when they in embarrassment did hide that away. I am not sure if the reason for this is that they didn’t have an enough playful childhood, are clinging to a lost childhood or simply had a childhood so safe and happy-go-luck that they are still enjoying it!

Either way, Kojan still is an adventure. All year around. Even when it’s five feet of snow (1,5 meter) and -15°F  (-26°C) cold outside. Some years ago they installed an army stove in the center of the tree house so they are keeping themselves warm even in the middle of the winter. And I don’t know if hot dogs ever taste better than up in the Koja!

The treehouse is now more of an open source project. The Facebook group has 77 members, and they are seriously thinking about crowd funding to improve the economy, a thirty some tree compound is a pretty costly business, especially keeping it winter proof. And of course, Kojan is a story around here. Little kids want to sneak up there (but are not allowed except supervised by the senior Koja members!) and sometimes families come by to watch a legend still in progress.

Bang bang! Yes, it’s spring! I hear the cars parking outside my house, doors opening and closing, happy grown up kids laughing their way to the grove. And then the sound of the work starting. Bang bang! Last summer they extended the center room for grandma Gerd’s big left over leather couch to fit in and inserted a panorama window. I was actually asked to be the interior designer, very honored! This spring they already improved one of the suspension bridges between the platforms and added a new one connecting the Dance platform with the roof of the center room, which will be added on with a second floor. The plans are endless, creative, and for parents less tolerant than me when it comes to heights, slightly dangerous.

I am the mother of two sons, but I am blessed with so many more children. Growing up, our place was the hang out for all the boys in the villages around here. There were times when I felt I was running some kind of bed and breakfast and I must admit, most of the time it was pretty exhausting and I just wanted to throw them all out. Oh how I enjoyed the few moments all alone in a quite house! Oh how I wished for more of that! Little did I know that I would come to a point in life when my house would be all empty except for me day after day, month after month lying on the couch listening to the seldom interrupted silence. Be careful what you wish for…

So, when I hear those springtime sounds of hammers and nails I smile. And I love when they include me in their visit, coming running up my slate path giving me those big bear hugs. And of course, now there are girls in the project too, so finally I also have a bunch of lovely daughters!

Friday Trouble 1 turned 27. The birthday party happened in Kojan of course. And as for a present they built a long time planned and much looked forward to cableway from the center of the compound up in the trees all the way down to the field! It’s about a 160 feet (50 meter) ride for anyone who has the gut to do it! Take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGIcNsqsFmk

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=609080772454322&set=o.427206857313258&type=2&theater

I very rarely get to see Kojan other than from the ground; it’s most of the time impossible for me to get myself up there. Last summer though I had two good days when I could and it was so great after a lot of years sitting in the center room with my kids, all warm from the stove reading the guestbook. I don’t have a lot of hopes for an encore this summer but I am dreaming of course. And I am so happy and grateful to be allowed being a part of all my children’s playfulness, unlimited creativity and determination. Adam, Ludvig, Erik, Martin, Lars, Ingrid, Vilma, AnnSofie, Ida, Sarah, Andreas, Fredrik and everyone else who shows up here off and on; I love you guys, I think this is the pay off for my bed and breakfast days, and being your landlord is pure and simple joy!

Kitchen secrets

It was a very special kitchen. The heart of the place, of course, as kitchens often are. But the heart in this case had a name and it was Agneta. Agneta was the much-loved cook in the preschool/day care where I was a preschool teacher. It wasn’t just the kitchen that was special; the preschool in itself was too. It was located in an apartment, the staff was four people including Agneta, taking care of only ten children. As a lot of those children were siblings, the total amount of households involved was often only five or six. We really were like one big family, and we liked parent-teacher conferences so much that we scheduled them once a month! Then we all got together for a fika (a sit down coffee with a little something), talked about the children and their activities and enjoyed each other! Sounds like paradise? Yes, it truly was and I am carrying those children and their parents close to my heart.

As the kitchen wasn’t away in the back somewhere but right in the middle of everything, it was a hang out. The children loved being close to Agneta preparing the meals, and the emergencies and daily big decisions, which are continuously happening at a preschool, were all taken care of in the kitchen. And it would be very interesting knowing how many hours during those ten years Agneta and I worked together we chatted away between breakfast porridge, lunch meat loafs and afternoon snacks.

I have been keeping a journal since I was thirteen, writing every single day. I remember telling Agneta that if I died, I wanted my journals to stay with her. That’s how much I trusted her. And, of course, she already knew what was in those journals. All my special secrets told to a very special friend.

We shared everything, Agneta and I. What those walls in that kitchen didn’t hear in those ten years didn’t happen. Then I moved on. Trouble & Trouble were born and I became an overworked journalist and we kind of lost track of each other. A couple of years ago we reunited on Facebook, and in November last year we finally had a date planned. Then my back crashed, that damn Sunday morning. Lying in my bed not being able to move I started calling around for someone to help me, and the one that in an hour showed up like an angel fixing me breakfast was Agneta. We hadn’t seen each other in about twenty years, and there she was, in my kitchen!

It really was a moment. Boy, did we have some catching up to do, and yet it felt like we had never been apart! But what a waste of those twenty years of missed life together. I know this happens all the time, people’s lives take different routes and sometimes they are so jam-packed it seems like we don’t have time for even those who we love and enjoy.

Then again, our lives can bring us to places we didn’t know existed. We might be dropped off at stops we didn’t choose ourselves. They can be dark, scary and extremely lonely. It might be that we don’t have a lot of numbers to call when in need. And it might be that none of those numbers can make it to you. Or are even picking up. But that dark scary November Sunday morning Agneta’s familiar comforting voice answered my call. And came rescued me. She really did.

Now, I’m not a cook. I really suck and I don’t like it. I admire and envy anyone who can fix just anything in a kitchen. I have this special granola I’m making though. It’s stuffed with nuts, seeds, ginger, cardamom, coconut flakes and goji berries and I am roasting it in the oven. I am making three batches at a time to secure my breakfast for more than a month, it’s a lot of work and it takes like an afternoon to get it all done. And now of course, in my condition; impossible. I needed help. Today again, Agneta was my rescuer.

Here we were again, together in a kitchen. No children around this time though. Agneta actually had a limp from some temporarily knee problem making us feel a bit like little old ladies which is kind of funny as we both are unusually tall women. Together we got the granola done though, as the homely smell from the cardamom filled the room. Although being a cook, it turns out Agneta has never been mastering the granola, and I was very happy and proud that I could actually treat her with a recipe of my own! Ha!

One afternoon was enough for three granola batches but of course not for everything that was on our mind. It’s something very special reliving forgotten memories, laughing about now and then and just clicking into each others lives as natural as rain. More than twenty years later I was given the gift once again sharing what’s closest to my heart with Agneta. Who I trust completely. My journals could still stay with her. And of course, after today she already knows what’s in there. All the special secrets told to a very special friend.

A Seventies remedy for making it to the top

I can actually feel it in my body. The excitement. At those times always being just a little bit cold. The pushing crowds at the standing stands. The taste of the hot dog. The smell from the ice and the sound of the aggressive skates working it. The sticks fighting for the puck, cracking from the collisions. The whistles. The electric organ. The crowds wooing and booing.

This was in the Seventies, but just the other day the intensity at the Umeå Arena was quite the same. Björklöven, the Umeå hockey team won their series and the loyal supporters were finally paid off after years of losses and doubts that this team would ever make it to the top again.

Now, to be clear, this is the situation: Björklöven (The Birch Leaves – the name is related to the fact that Umeå is known as The City of Birches, just as Seattle is The Emerald City) is not playing the major league Elitserien. Not even the league beneath (would that be the minor?) Allsvenskan, but the one even one more step down, Division 1. And what happened this week was that Björklöven won Division 1 and will next year be playing Allsvenskan. This is great of course, but still: it’s a long way back to Elitserien (the major league) where old people like me feel they should be. Because we remember. We know what it feels like. When it’s for real. Being at the top.

Very few people in Seattle remember when Seattle was The American Hockey City. For the simple reason that it’s nearly a century ago. But in 1917 Seattle actually became the first American city to win the holy grail of hockey — the Stanley Cup! In nine mostly memorable years, the Seattle Metropolitans established a rich hockey tradition in Seattle, which unfortunately eventually died away. Today, when a new basketball arena is on the agenda major league hockey is also considering establishing in Seattle, so maybe we are looking at a 100-year anniversary in 2017!

The Eighties was the golden years for Björklöven with three Swedish Championship Finals and one gold medal, 1987. My golden years with Björklöven though, were in the Seventies. I was in high school, and I had so much fun ruining my grades on hockey and movies. Well, not entirely fun, I was wandering those years with the constant nagging feeling of being a bad student (which I was), but I just couldn’t keep away from the hockey arena and movie theatres. I know, there are worse things to ruin your grades on than hockey...

And it didn’t help dating a hockey player… Gunnar was my high school sweet heart, and a defender in the Björklöven junior team. He was a tall blond Viking and I didn’t mind at all the tight crowds being on the stands together watching the senior team scoring Brynäs, Modo or one of the other teams in the Swedish major league. And the fact that it was quite cold in the arena about 40 years ago wasn’t all that bad when you wanted to be close to someone.

The golden moment in my hockey career was the Björklöven family camp a mid Seventies summer. Hockey players spend a lot of time away from their families, and that’s the reason for this family camp that took place in Hemavan in the Swedish mountains not far from the Norwegian border. And even girlfriends were allowed!

 I remember feeling a bit foreign in this environment although more excited I must admit. I had seen these players on ice so many times, their names were as well-known in Umeå as Mariners players are in Seattle: Lars Dallas Dahlgren, Ulf Lundström, Åke Byström, John Andersson (Sletvoll), Ulf Barrefjord.... And then the juniors who were just starting being allowed on ice with the senior team, on the verge of the real thing: Torbjörn Andersson, Roger Johansson, Stig Nilsson and boyfriend Gunnar. If I remember it right, this trip was the first appearance for Tore Öqvist in Björklöven. I can be wrong though; it’s been a while…

My longest lasting memory from this trip though was a very physical one; an ugly sore, a shafe on my left heal caused by a brisk walk down the mountain led by Ulf Lundström. I was the only girl and as always aiming for being one of the guys, I didn’t say a word about the red warm stuff spreading in my shoe. And this wasn’t just being one of the guys: this was being one of the Swedish elite hockey players! Gosh Maria!

Oh yes, there is one more memory, and this is an up hill one. Of course an ambitious hockey player takes every opportunity for a real work out. So, on one of the fieldtrips during that family camp the guys carried not only their back pack, their girlfriends back pack, but their girlfriend… running up the hill…

Well, I walked the hill myself, of course. But perhaps this is the remedy for Björklöven 2013 to sail through Allsvenskan next season all the way to the major league Elitserien: grab as many back packs you can find, then put your family on top of that and run up a really high mountain! It might just be what’s been lacking for the last 20 years for making it to the top!

Diving into it/The presence from an Easter review mirror

It was a sunny Easter Day, just as it is today in Seattle. The cherry trees were floating like white overwhelming clouds all over the city. But this was 20 years ago. I had landed in Seattle for the first time a little more than two weeks before, and here I was on Salish Lodge at the top of Snoqualmie Falls, the big room packed with dressed up people having Easter brunch. Not me though, I was in company with a KIRO news team covering the Easter story.

Now, for those of you who aren’t Seattleites: Salish Lodge and Snoqualmie Falls is Twin Peaks country. Snoqualmie Falls is the impressive waterfall pretty much a character in the TV series, and Salish Lodge the Great Northern Hotel where Agent Cooper stayed through his unforgettable investigations of the murder of Laura Palmer. So this is historic land, and back in 1993 still warm from David Lynch presence.

It’s funny; suddenly I can feel the smell of waffles. Yeah, I remember the big waffles served with I think maple syrup at the tables of the lodge that Easter day. Big families together. Little girls in cute dresses playing with their Easter bunnies. I felt impressed, a bit unreal, estranged but at home. Since my company was a TV crew.

It’s interesting reading my journal from these early weeks of my first Seattle stay that would last for three months. I was an overworked stressed out TV reporter back in Sweden, and since Christmas I had been looking forward to having oceans of time off with my young sons who at home hardly saw their mom, picturing us just lying in bed reading children’s books, cuddling and sleeping. At this Easter Day Trouble 2 had just turned 5 and Trouble 1 would turn 7 in a couple of weeks.

So, what happened? What did I do? Well, on my second day in this foreign city in a foreign land on a foreign continent I walk up to a TV crew that we happen to run in to on our first visit at Seattle Center and asked them if I could come visit at the station and maybe go with them on a story. That’s what happened. That’s what I did. On my second day.

Now, note, that I am also every day in my journal expressing my discontent about my English. How I am struggling with the language. How I constantly stumble and fall as soon as I am trying to express anything. Anything. And how American English feels totally foreign to my pretty little British school English, which in combination with my Swedish accent makes people just don’t understand what I am saying. My everyday English lesson is picking one article in Seattle Times, reading it top to bottom and looking up every single word I didn’t understand. Every single one.

Yet, here I am, on Easter day at Easter brunch on famous Salish Lodge on top of the falls with reporter Bob Branom and cameraman John Sherman from KIRO. And during those first three months in Seattle I am lining up visits at KING, KOMO and PBS Channel 9, all the TV stations in Seattle. I am also doing freelance work for Swedish National Television SVT, enjoying the crew feeling with KIRO cameraman John Sherman, bless you John! And participating in an underground live broadcasting with some young Nirvana-Soundgarden grunge siblings. Yes, 20 years ago was sure land marking times in modern Seattle history.

Now, was this a good thing or not? Yes, I would say it was. I am very conflicted about my constant urge for being productive. My drive and my power to act on what makes me move forward. My pulse for all kinds of creativity. Even today, on my couch handicapped from pain I am constantly active. Now, it’s a lifeline. But “just being”, now and back then, is a skill I can’t say I am mastering.

So, did I screw that whole stay up? No, I didn’t. I can honestly say. My sons and I had lots of cuddling time. And we did everything two little boys could possibly wish for in Seattle. The Zoo, the Space Needle, the Monorail, the Fun Forest, the Aquarium, Snoqualmie falls, swimming in Lake Washington, eating tons of pizza and burgers, and playing and flying kites in Gasworks Park. And we laid the ground for the love of a city that’s been in our harts and lives for 20 years now, and continuously will.

And for myself? Well, I remember exactly the moment when I switched from my cute awkward school English and became an American, as much as I could. Although I (on a very good day) am even mistaken for being one, I am still struggling with the language, always wanting to express more than I am able to. And I know, if I ever had the chance arriving in a new city in a new country with a new language, I would do it all over again. Just dive right into it.

Trouble 2 turned 25 two days ago. He lives in Paris now, where the cheery trees are floating like white overwhelming clouds. He moved there not knowing one single word of French. One of his jobs is as an afternoon nanny in a family where the children don’t know any English. Trouble 2 is, at 25 learning French the same way that he as a 5-year old learned English. He has dived into a new city, a new country and a new language. And he likes it. And is doing good. Did I screw up our first Seattle stay exactly 20 years ago? No, I don’t think so. I think I did good.