Swedish governing in historic limbo

My eyes teared while Marianne read my name and Margareta slipped the three envelopes in the boxes at my neighborhood polling station in the village next to mine. I don’t think I have ever been moved while voting, but the election 2014 feels more important than anyone before in my life. September 14 2014, en election to look forward to and dare.

I will try to explain. Let’s start with a brief, general and imprecise information about the Swedish parliament and government: 

There are eight parties in the parliament: Moderaterna (the party most to the right), Folkpartiet, Kristdemokraterna (the Christian Democrats) and Centerpartiet, those are what we call the middle parties. There are also of course Socialdemokraterna (the Social Democrats), Miljöpartiet (the Swedish green party), Vänsterpartiet (the Left party), and Sverigedemokraterna (a nationalistic, social conservative and no doubt about it racist party).

Historically Sweden hasn’t been a country of block politics. But for the election 2006 Moderaterna and the three middle parties formed an alliance and won the election. They managed to stay in government even after 2010, (first time ever without the Social Democrats outside government for eight years) and the political scene in Sweden may now be cemented in two blocks, The Alliance and The Red/Green. It feels a bit like the U.S, and I don’t think it’s serving us well.

The election 2010 became a watershed in Swedish politics. Most of the Swedish people were in some kind of shock when Sverigedemokraterna managed to get 5,7% of the Swedish vote passing the 4% limit for entrance to the parliament. All our Nordic neighbors as well as most of Europe were already dealing with nationalistic and racist parties, Sweden was pretty much the last stronghold when it came to these issues, and we never thought it would come to this. But it did. We did. As if The Alliance governing wasn’t a problem big enough.

Sweden is a tiny little country in the world. Asking foreigners what they know about Sweden the answer is usually ABBA and IKEA. It used to be Volvo too, and even SAAB, but those days are gone. And Björn Borg is more or less forgotten. But there is one more brand, and it seems to be the strongest one: Sweden is the country where we are taking care of each other. Well, I have news for you: not so much anymore.

These last eight years The Alliance has decreased the taxes in Sweden more than we can see anywhere in the western world. What pays healthcare, schools, sick leave, unemployment periods, parental leave and infra structure? All those things people around the world envy us and look up to us for? Surprise surprise: taxes!! Actually there is one more thing Sweden is known for, our high taxes, but I can tell you there aren’t as high anymore (especially not for those with high income), and a lot of us have been proud to pay those taxes because we have been proud of living in a country where solidarity is the key word to a good society.

Solidarity? It’s eight years since anyone mentioned that word in Swedish government. Eight years of disassembling and dismantling our strongest brand. And transforming everyone with any kind of flaw or bad luck which makes it not possible to be a strong worker contributing to the GDP (BNP) to parasites in political terms. And it’s even worse. Because you aren’t even allowed to be a parasite. When you have hit the bottom you get kicked out of the state security systems (health care and unemployment insurances) without a penny and you find out there is one more bottom. 

The Swedish finances are good, in fact they are great! Our Minister of Treasury Anders Borg has numerous times been picked as the most successful financial politician internationally, but the number of people on welfare in Sweden is constantly increasing and the powerlessness and impotency among them who aren’t as strong as The Alliance requires is a wet blanket chilling shivering souls trapped in grey misty fog.

Sweden has become a country which I don’t recognize. And what’s most scary is the increasing popularity of Sverigedemokraterna. The last polls show they will get about 9,5% of the Swedish vote today, which is horrifying numbers. Sverigedemokraterna might be the third biggest party in Sweden which until now has been unthinkable.

There is one more player in the game in the 2014 election though. Feministiskt initiativ (the feminist party) sailed up for the EU election in May and managed to take a seat within the Union. They have done a strong campaign this summer and fall, so will they take a seat even in the Swedish parliament? We will soon know.

It’s 7.57 PM. In 3 minutes Swedish National Television will announce the first numbers from the election today, the poll station analysis, pointing out the direction for the next four years. I am so nervous I feel sick. If we don’t have a new government tomorrow I don’t know what I will do with myself.

And there it is! It is giving me mixed feelings. Really. For now it looks like there will be a change of government and Feministiskt initiativ is right on the verge of making it! But Sverigedemokraterna has 10,5% of the Swedish vote and will be the third biggest party in parliament and my stomach is cramping of discomfort.

I have always voted with my heart, never played safe or strategically. Up until today. My heart would have gone with the feminist party. But I am one of those who are not strong enough for The Alliance. I will be kicked out of the health care insurance next summer. To me a change of government was the most important mission and I gave my vote to Miljöpartiet, the green party, hoping to help them be third biggest party. They would have needed many many more votes though. And playing safe isn’t my true nature. But. It looks like we will have a new government tomorrow!

9.57 PM. The first prognosis is announced. Yes, still a new government, but the feminist party is below 4% and the populistic racist Sverigedeomkraterna 13%. This is not good. This is so bad. A populistic racist party having 13% of the Swedish vote. This is horrifying.

Socialdemokraterna, the green and the left party won’t have a majority. The social conservative racist party Sverigedemokraterna will have the balance of power. It won’t be an easy task to govern the country known in the world for ABBA, IKEA and taking care of each other.

10.43 PM. Jimmie Åkesson, the leader of Sverigedekokraterna makes his speech. The party has hijacked the blue and yellow Swedish flag, waving it, making it filthy. I am feeling a heavy weight over my chest, the trace of panic.

00.00 Stefan Lövén, the leader of the Social Democrats finally makes his entrance, declaring that he will take on the assignment of forming the new government, reaching out to every party except the right party and Sverigedemokraterna, and making it very clear that he will have nothing what so ever with the latter to do. And for the first time since 2006 I hear the word solidarity. Thank you!!

It was Trouble 1 and Fay who picked me up for going to our poll station facing the little lake at the village next to mine this beautiful sunny warm afternoon. We barely found parking and it was a line to the voting booths. I was greeted by Trouble 2’s friend from primary school Rickard working in the election. Marianne and Margareta taking my vote are sisters from my village, they didn’t need to see my ID. The room was full of people who I know or recognize from my life here. I was taken by the moment. By everyone doing the drive, showing up, believing their vote being important, wanting to have a say in how their country being governed the next four years. At least 86% of the Swedish people made their voice heard in the 2014 election.

I was dreaming of being able to wake up tomorrow morning breathing more easily. I am relieved that The Alliance is done governing. And I am so happy and grateful to find solidarity in the governing vocabulary again. But I am not breathing easily. I am not.

A home for little girls

Little girls playing on the back yard!

Fall ten years ago my sister and I started looking at our childhood home with different eyes, knowing it wouldn’t be there that much longer. The summer after it was all empty and we locked the front door one last time. 

Our parents passed away only five months apart from each other. Winter 2005 my sister and I emptied the red brick house our dad built behind the elementary school 1961, 44 years of life put into boxes, shared with family and friends, transported to antique stores and second hand, or simply dumped in the garbage.

The house wasn’t charming but functional and nice, no, it was the garden which made the place special. Both our parents were interested in gardening, but it was our father’s lifeblood. Most of his afternoons and evenings were spent working in the garden and my sister and I had lovely lawns for badminton, cart wheeling, somersaults, high jumping, tanning and running around with our friends.

The old couple which bought the house didn’t agree with the three big linden our dad planted at the front yard in the sixties. The trees that made the place look special although the red brick house looked like nothing really. They cut down the lindens, and we felt that’s when our parents souls left the house.

Every first weekend in September my choir Kammarkören Sångkraft (Sångkraft Chamber Choir) does a full weekend rehearsing the fall concert program. This year the weekend happened in Nordmaling 45 minutes south of Umeå, the small town where I grew up. Riding down there yesterday I knew we would be rehearsing at the school and I was slightly prepared for a trip down memory lane. I wasn’t prepared though for having my childhood home as a view above the Rachmaninoff sheet music in my hands.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny and warm day, summer came back for a surprise visit this week. The room where we were rehearsing was as sunny and warm as the day, the choir in a good and joyful mood. A full day of sitting singing is way too much for my body, but my soul and my brain really needed it. 

To give it a chance I brought a special chair and a folding bed where I could lie down if necessary. And thanks to all my good friends and colleagues in the choir helping me out with driving me, carrying all my stuff, unfolding and folding chair and music-stand, putting all the pillows where I needed them, helping me to the bath room, finding the elevator, and simply being there for me I could actually do it. And oh how I enjoyed it!

Looking up from Rachmaninoff I am watching my childhood home through the window right in front of me. The lindens and the picket fence gone. I know the old couple isn’t there any more but I don’t know who lives there now. There is a car in front of the garage though. And a bicycle parked next to it. The front door is open. And is that a swing at the back yard? I am not sure, it might be at the neighbors.

And that’s when I see them. Only partly, but they are definitely there. Children playing at the back yard! I think they are girls, there are little girls jumping on my dads lawn, on me and my sister’s green somersault lawn!

In the process of cleaning out our childhood and putting it to rest we were wishing for new children moving in. The red brick house was a good place for a family, a good place for children. We later grieved the cut down linden and were grateful our parents didn’t have to experience that transformation.

My parents married September 4 1954. 60 years later there are little girls playing in the garden they made for themselves and their daughters. It makes me very happy.

The art of Doing it Yourself

It was my view for my first year in high school. The YMCA dorm where I was living was right across the street, and the desk where my room mate Catarina and I did our freshman home work was at the window facing lokstallarna. 

Googling that word, roundhouses come up, as well as depot and engine sheds. I don’t know what the right one is, but what was on the other side of the street and the railroad was that red brick building with a curved shape and separate garages where the locomotives had their rest while not in work. A direct translation would be locomotive stables, and I really like the idea of locomotives sleeping in stables, so let’s go for the word loco stables from here.

I have always felt that building was intriguing. The brick, the curved shape, the beautiful windows, the floor to roof doors sometimes open reviling the secret inside. The exterior was dark and heavy, but I remember the interior as yellow. A warm bright light welcoming the locomotives when it was time for bed. Children’s book material in my mind.

This weekend the loco stables have been vibrating from light, sound, color, music, poetry, dance, art, installations, performance, food and people of all ages. Come to think about it, a mini version of Seattle’s Bumbershoot which is happening the very same weekend!

Some weeks ago posters and Facebook sharing around Umeå delivered the message Kulturhusfestival, another word that doesn’t translate easily. Kulturhus = a building for cultural arts. So, a festival in a house for cultural arts.

Now, in the seventies, when Catarina and I were watching the loco stables from our home work desk a kulturhus was = a building for all sorts of cultural arts and all kinds of people, free of charge and free from over head power. Basically, what everyone wanted was for the City to provide some more or less deserted place and say, hey, here you are, have fun!

Which didn’t really happen, but over the years numerous more or less deserted houses were occupied by young activists living that dream until the police eventually won the battle.

In 1986 a big building was built right in the city center, under the name of kulturhus. Nobody trusted it to be that though and we were marching the streets protesting against it, the building was, we were sure, way too big and fancy for garage bands and community choirs. Which was proved to be right. 

But. A then (it’s just been remodeled and added on) 700 seat theatre, several smaller venues, restaurants, conference rooms and great lobbies turned out to serve Umeå well. Folkets hus (the Peoples House, it’s related to the Swedish labor movement) is where all the Umeå festivals take place and it’s been voted best convention place in Sweden several times. My friend Maria Gargiulo from Seattle was here with her film The Year of My Japanese Cousin at the Umeå Filmfestival 1995. She has been visiting festivals all over and had never experienced a facility serving the needs for a festival that well. So, it didn’t become a kulurhus to our preferences, it became something else and I don’t think anyone would like to see it gone today.

In a few months now a new kulturhus will be opening. Väven (originally Kulturväven = a weave for cultural arts) facing the Umeå River in shiny glass exterior inspired by the graphic stem of the birch, contains the new City Library, the Women’s History Museum, a black box, two digital movie theaters, work shops, restaurant, hotels, cafés, a new concept for education meeting and conferences, and much more.

The talk around town now is exactly like 1986. There is strong criticism against the City for spending an incredible amount of money on a super flashy building which only a few will have access to. The skepticism is huge and deep. As everything in Umeå that is initiated from above and not coming from the grass roots.

Watching the posters for the Kulturhusfestival these last few weeks brings me back to the seventies. Not only because it is taking place in the loco stables across the street from my high school dorm. But because of the process.

I asked my children who are close to the young grass roots, who started it, and they didn’t really now. Like…nobody. It just happened. Someone laid eyes on the old loco stables which have been empty and dead for a long time. And “as the City owns them, we all do”. I love that, so seventies, so my youth! And suddenly, the stables were filled with people and paint and tools which transformed the raw industrial interior to gallery, stage, juice bar, library, dance floor and of course free WiFi.

What’s really interesting here is how the City has acted. Or not acted. Legally this is an occupation. But nobody has lifted a finger to stop it. I would say this is because of Umeå being the European Capital of Culture 2014. That title is won to a large extent on the Umeå culture coming from under neath, from the grass roots rather than from above. Umeå being a Do it Yourself City. So, who can stop anyone Doing it Themselves 2014? 

Well, the police did a vague try to do their job. As the festival doesn’t have a permit from the City to be in the stables, the police can’t give a permit for the festival. So the thousands of people spending the weekend in the stables are formally violators. The police patrolling during the festival though, are reporting a calm and clean event and nobody has been arrested.

What do I think about Väven as a kulturhus? Well, after som initial grunting and frowning I think it will be a success, and letting Folkets bio (the Peoples Movie Theatre) which has resided in a venue so shabby, moldy and cold it can compete with the Seattle fringe scene, is a City master stroke, it will change the mind set about the building.  Väven will eventually find it’s purpose and we will agree. Yes, it’s shiny, well, let it be! Because 40 years after Catarina and I sitting at our highschool dorm desk watching the loco stables, finally that more or less deserted place exists and all the City has to say is, hey, here you are, have fun!

http://www.vk.se/1264013/kulturhusfestivalen-ar-igang

https://www.facebook.com/umeakulturhus
väven umeå

Seattle has The Ring, Umeå has Elektra!

I am sitting on the front row on a handicap seat. I am wearing my downhill ski set, gloves, winter shoes and my back isn’t nice to me. In a strained situation like this my focus is usually 80-95% on my body, coping and surviving until it’s over, no matter how much I want to be there. But not this time. I am captivated. All my senses are wide open. I have the eyes and ears of a child. I am watching, no I am a part of Elektra, Norrlandsoperan’s (the Umeå Opera House) performance of the Richard Strauss opera from 1909. 

The Elektra production is a part of the European Capital of Culture 2014, and the venue is a parking lot of what once was a military infantry regiment, now transformed into a business park. I have known about it for months of course, but as it’s my back ruling my life I had very little hope of being able to be there. The week before though, I was thinking it might be possible. And because of Norrlandsoperan’s extreme generosity when it comes to people with physical handicaps, and my friend Agneta as my assistent, on Tuesday evening we folded up my special chair, filled it with cushions and myself and praised the weather gods that they held up with the intense rain for a few hours.

I am thinking while sitting there, do I need to see another opera after this? Can anyone involved in this production feel okay with a regular opera stage ever again? What can possibly, for the audience and everyone on and back this stage, outdo this?

The stage is on the ground, 656 feet long and covered with gravel and water. The opera singers are performing Richard Strauss’ extremely challenging music partly from mechanical giants 20 feet up maneuvered by building cranes while the forest is on fire and blood is rushing in container water falls. 

Elektra is NorrlandsOperan’s biggest production ever. The opera is based on the ancient myth of the woman who will do anything to avenge the murder of her father, King Agamemnon. It’s the Catalan performing arts collective La Fura dels Baus, which global breakthrough came with the staging of the Olympic opening ceremony in Barcelona 1992, that is responsible for the bold and incredible staging.

It’s dark, it’s beautiful, it’s brutal, it’s fiery, it’s huge, it’s electrifying rock and roll from start to finish and it’s absolutely overwhelming and dazing.

There has been five sold-out shows. A total of 10 000 people have seen the performance. Umeå has 118 000 inhabitants and a lot of them didn’t get a ticket. Or couldn’t afford one. And that’s only Umeå.

The reviews have been over the moon, local, national, and international. Trouble & Trouble didn’t get to see it and I can’t believe they never will. And that’s when I come to think about…Seattle.

Seattle has The Ring. Why shouldn’t Umeå have Electra?

The Seattle Opera started the development of Richard Wagner’s epic mastodon piece  The Ring Cycle in 1975, first as an annual event performing one cycle per year. Today The Ring is a every four year recurrent festival taking place in August, giving four performances of every cycle. The most current production, “The Green Ring” was award-winning, inspired by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, unveiled in 2001 to wide acclaim, and revived for sold-out audiences in 2005, 2009 and 2013. 

2013 eager opera fans came to Seattle from all 50 states and 22 countries to hear and see the four operas, creating an economic impact described by a recent Seattle Opera study as $39 million (in ticket sales, travel costs and related expenditures).

Umeå is the European Capital of Culture 2014, and we are doing a good job, much better than anyone (including I dare to say the City organization) thought we would. We have the European eye now, even the eye of the world in some cases. I am saying, let’s keep it!

I don’t think the following years will be a backlash within the cultural arts in Umeå. We might have a slight hangover 2015 which is okay, it will be one of those after a fun inspiring party, you wake up in the morning exhausted but energized. I think Umeå is gaining self confidence and self esteem because we are finding something new out about ourselves and our city. We might be remote, but hey, we are doing it!

Seattle is remote too but is now in competition with Bayreuth when it comes to attracting Ringheads from all over the map. 

Umeå is delivering en masse this year, but Elektra is no doubt about it the absolute peak performance. Thousands and thousands, in Umeå, Sweden, Europe and further away is still to come as an audience of this spectacular art work. Put the majestic mechanic giants Elektra and her dysfunctional family in storage and bring them out another year! As with every event the really hard work is the first one. The second, half the job is done, no even 2/3. 

Until now, Umeå has culturally gone to sleep during the summers. That changed 2014. A Choral Midsummer Light’s Dream - Umeå International Choir Festival was a success on the first try and hopefully it will be a recurrent event. Success is an understatement when it comes to Elektra. Elektra was an electrifying mind-blowing musical and scenic experience that has the potential drawing crowds, opera  and rock and roll fans from all over to Umeå. Make Umeå a cyclic epic opera summer event! Make the building cranes rise Elektra again! And again! And again!

Into the woods/Out of the woods

Friday night brought me unexpected and not so comfortable adventure which threw me back to a similar experience, only much more scary 21 years ago. One was in the woods of Umeå, the other in the northern Californian forests.

It was May 1993, our premiere stay in Seattle, and we were driving down to San Fransisco to visit Swedish friends who stayed there for a year. We drove I5 to Albany Oregon, and then out to the coast for a three day scenic route along magnificent 101. We had no idea it would take that long, but it did…

Trouble & Trouble had just turned 5 and 7, not an optimal age for a long road trip. Certainly not on winding roads. Trouble 2 was constantly car sick and we had to stop and throw away plastic bags along the road, scared to be heavily fined for littering, but what do you do?

In Eureka 101 takes the inland route through Humboldt Redwoods State Park (yes we drove through the tree) on it’s way south before you finally can take a right out to the coast and even more scenic Highway 1 taking you along the California coast.

Now, at the junction to that right there was as I remember it a small general store with gas combined with a pizza place. We have been in the woods for a long time now and are heavily desiring to see the water again. The map looks like it wouldn’t be too far at all, but it might be a good thing to stop for a bathroom and even a pizza, yes, why not?

Here is where my heart makes a little stop while remembering the scene. We entered something more Twin Peaks than the Twin Peaks country back in Washington. Or, even more a dark gloomy scene of some film you wouldn’t like to watch because it gave you the creeps. 

I remember it in black and white with a a dark grey base tone. The pick up trucks around the place where loaded with people who looked like they hadn’t seen a shower in weeks, and guns sticking out from the packed truck beds. I don’t remember the pizza (although I know we had one) but only that it was dead quiet inside. Nobody in there said a word.

I am looking for a name of this place at the map now, but can’t find one. It might have been a ghost town. All I know is that we put the kids in the car as fast as we could and headed west towards the Pacific, looking for the release from this dark and threatening place. What we didn’t know was this was just the prolog…

The distance to the coast on the map looked like around 10 miles, about 15 km. It was around dinner time when we started, gas and bellies full, everybody happy to be on the road again, Pacific Ocean, here we come!

What then followed was the longest and most scary 10 miles in my life. The road was narrow and extremely winding going through dense dark choking forest. Scattered with canyons at the roadside so deep you didn’t even want to look. After a while we had no compass sense at all, no sense of direction, we might as well have been driving in circles or back or…meanwhile the light faded and it became dark.

My husband and I pretty much stopped talking. Totally focused on the next curve. Meanwhile Trouble & Trouble listened to their favorite cassette tape in the back, singing loud, giggling, laughing, going nuts the way a 5 and 7-year old can do when it’s close to bed time. Heaving no idea their mom and dad were really scared and felt totally lost on foreign land with their little sons.

Of course it wasn’t 10 miles. I don’t know how many miles but that serpentine road added up, and I can’t tell you the relief, happiness and gratitude we felt when we after hours spotted a bleak light and the forest gave away for a dark blue heaven above a black sea, late a night. We could breath again.

Looking at the map now I am surprised at the twice the distance drive from where we found the cost, to Fort Bragg where we found a shelter for the night. I guess I was so happy to be out of the woods that the rest was just a walk in the park.

This horrifying memory came back to me Friday night when I was taking a cab from my friend Lena’s house in Umeå to my village, a 20 minute drive. Not this time. Now, in 1993 a paper map was the only tool to navigate, and your inner compass checking in with the sun. Today there is the almighty GPS.

I could tell the GPS was tricking the cab driver to take a longer and more inconvenient route than necessary, so I told him. In his intention to correct his wrong doings he obeyed his GPS leading him on roads I have never been before. As I didn’t want to be a besserwisser bitch I didn’t question his professionalism until he abandoned one dirt road for an even more narrow one, covered with grass and over grown by undergrowth. 

When the marks for snowmobile, red crosses on poles on the road, showed up I asked him where we were. “Only two minutes from a main road. Says the GPS”. Okay. In one more minute there was a huge pile of dirt blocking the road, and there we were. Stop. I guess the GPS didn’t now about the dirt. Nor did it know about the tree blocks of stone that covered the road when he had managed to back the car in a different direction, directed by his friend on the screen.

I guess a normal person would have been a bit scared at this point. But I wasn’t. After all, my inner compass told me we were somewhere between E4 and my village. I mean, I was pretty much home, just a little geographically lost at the moment. And I was happy that I followed my instinct to visit the bath room before I left Lena’s.

At this point though, in front of the three blocks of stone I happened to look to the right at my window when the driver repeatedly stepped out of the car to check the rear as he was again backing. And I realized there was a huge sandpit right at the car on my side. A steep quarry. One tiny maneuver error at this point…

He finally managed to get us from the dangerous spot. But I tell you, we were inches from tipping over and down. And that would have been the end of Home is Away, Away is Home.

I have to say though, in the brushwood on the winding snowmobile trail I felt pretty much as geographically lost as in the northern Californian woods, only on a different scale. And I wasn’t scared until I was at the rim of the sand pit.

What about the cab driver? Well, I think he did a good job hiding some panic. And out of the woods he had no problem letting me guide him back to my place where we ended after an hour, abandoning his wingman the GPS. And what’s the moral of this story? Well, never enter a journey on an empty stomach and a full bladder.

Le Baron

You think you know yourself and your needs, but hey, you might be surprised!

In 2003 the 7-seated Mitsubishi Space Wagon I had been transporting kids in for 15 years died. I had seen it coming and been researching for a new car. What did I desire? Well, I wanted a car that could pretty much only seat me. I needed my space!

My dream car is a Mercedes SL 450 1978 or so. Out of the question because of the winter conditions on the 64th latitude. An Audi TT Quattro would work though! But I had to let that one go too, the used ones were still way too much money for me.

Shopping around at the car dealers in Umeå I bumped into something unexpected. Sleek lines, beautiful navy blue and… a convertible. Now, my mind had never even been close to a convertible. I am a very cold person. I easily get cold and am constantly wearing more clothes than anyone else. Driving without a roof? Never. Why?!

The thing I laid my eye on that day was a Chrysler Le Baron 1990. I just fell in love. And I bought it. On my 47th birthday. My first own car. In March. Lots of snow still on the ground. Crazy.

Summer came and delivered convertible weather. A normal 64th latitude summer I am driving my Le Baron top down about 5 days. Yeah, it’s way too little but still, those days are worth it. Summer 2003 I didn’t push the top up button for three weeks in a row! And I got to know unexpected things about myself.

To drive an open car to me is a sensual experience. The wind in your hair, the birds singing, the smell from the harvested fields, the sun on your bare arms, the joy of the total experience, I just love it and I had no idea I would! I had no idea a convertible was what I needed!

2011 was another record summer, and the transmission broke during the first heat wave in May. The Baron was in a garage parking lot all summer while I was trapped in my winter Subaru trying to fix a new transmission for my darling. Which I knew would be a costly business and probably take time. I had no idea…

It turned out there were no pre owned transmissions in the country. And no new ones. Okay, I need to check over seas. It turned out there were no pre owned transmissions in the U.S. And no new ones. They weren’t manufactured anymore.

So, that’s when a normal person would have given in. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. I should be grateful for the years we had together. It’s time to move on.

But not me. Sometimes I drove by the garage parking lot and just watched it. I mean, it looked perfectly healthy! I just couldn’t accept that it was dead.

To make an extremely long story short, I finally managed to get someone in the U.S to BUILD me a new transmission and ship it over to Sweden! I won’t tell you the costs, but I can tell you that in early October, when it was time to put my Le Baron in winter storage it had a new transmission and ran like a a happy cat!

The money fro a new transmission on a 21 year old car was of course inexcusable. The car wouldn’t be worth the costs on the market. But for me it was. I learned that heat wave summer while being canned in a winter car that I absolutely needed a convertible. And there was no way I would find a different one for that money. I had also put a new top on some years earlier and I kept it in mint condition.

Filling up the tank on my way home that October day a man stopped and admired my car. I told him the story and was astonished at his story back. He had owned a Le Baron earlier but the transmission broke. As they do on this car, I learned. That’s why it was impossible to find a used working transmission anywhere. “You have no idea what you’ve accomplished” the man said, “I’ve never heard anything like it. And the engine will run forever, you lucky woman!”.

Wow, I had done the right thing being stubborn and persistent! Boy, was I happy when I drove back home and made the car all set for winter storage!

I told Audrey this story the other day as we were cruising through Umeå. For three weeks now we have been driving top down to all my treatments and appointments. And she is carved out for the job as a Le Baron driver in her French hair cut and head scarves. 

This record hot summer when my convertible has been our sanctuary and relief has given us uncountable moments with the wind in our hair, the birds singing, the smell from the harvested fields and the sun against our bare arms. Oh how we will cherish those memories when snowed in the coming winter. An oh how happy I am about my stubbornness and persistence. At least when it comes to my precious Le Baron.  

McMansions in Tjänna

I am not quite sure about the word. The Swedish tjärn is a small lake tucked into the forest, sometimes in marshland or swamp. Tarn, woodland lake? Let’s decide on woodland lake, that sounds nice.

Sweden is sprinkled with 96 000 lakes. How many of them being woodland lakes (tjärnar) I don’t know, but one of them is located next to the road between my village and Umeå, 7 minutes from here. For years it’s been invisible from the road because of brushwood taking over the site, but this spring the area has been thinned out leaving only slim birch stems offering a pretty view over the tiny tjärn and… the weird development of McMansions on the opposite side!

Now, who is in favor of McMansions anywhere? Didn’t think so. 

Wikipedia about McMansions; McMansion is a pejorative for a type of large, new luxury house which is judged to be oversized for the parcel or incongruous and out-of-place for its neighborhood.

I can understand the reason for them in Seattle neighborhoods. I am not defending them, but I can understand the circumstances. There is limited space within a city. You can’t create more on the ground. People buy a lot with a house on. Maybe it’s a small crummy old house, it’s considered a tear down and it’s replaced with a new one. A big one taking up most every square feet of the lot, and hey, you’ve got yourself a McMansion! Next to another McMansion next to another McMansion and there is only room for the garbage cans in between, and how can people breath in there?

Rephrasing myself: I can’t really understand the reason, who needs that much inside living area? Well, who am I to speak, living on 2000 square feet by myself, having no problem dreaming about adding on for needs I think I have, or just for the fun and esthetics of it.

Anyway, the development I am talking about, Tjänna (local dialect for tjärn) is located in the middle of the woods. By Seattle standards in the middle of nowhere, but by northern Sweden standards in perfect commuting distance to Umeå (15 minutes). Still in the middle of the woods. There is forest forest forest, the McMansion development Tjänna and then forest forest forest.

To me, the thing about living in the woods like I do is that there is a lot of outdoor space. My place is in a village so there are neighbors, but not in my face. I have the safety and comfort of people within walking distance (and I can’t walk very far), but the freedom and solitude of only fields, greenery, Josephine’s horses and at seasons wild life around my house.

What’s the point of moving out to a tiny woodland lake on a dirt road living jammed up like in the McMansioned parts of Wallingford? I just don’t get it! And why did they choose building such big homes on those tiny spots? I am sure the land owner who cut the part of his property on the pretty slope facing the tjärn into 14 lots made a good deal though.

In Seattle neighborhoods once signatured by Craftsman homes and bungalows people live in fear that any property may be razed, sliced and diced and replaced by some creation that looks nothing like what’s already in the neighborhood. And one of the main concerns has been new houses that loom over those around them and eliminate the lawns, trees and open space that make a neighborhood pleasant. You might live in a one floor home with a water view and the next thing you know you are surrounded by new neighbors adding on a second floor blocking it, or a developer filling the lot next to you to the rim.

In May though, a majority of Seattle City Council members sided with neighborhood activists and agreed to set lower height limits for homes built on small lots in single-family zones. The council also voted down a provision known as the “100 percent rule” that would have allowed developers to build on undersized parcels if the property was the average size of others on the block.

Sometimes I have people drive me around the tjärn to get myself a good look at Tjänna. It’s like a field trip. You know, those you take to watch something peculiar or foreign. Those who make you say wow and shake your head.