From accused terrorist to language book writer!

I haven’t mentioned his name before. It’s Moder Mothanna. And together with his Swedish friend Andreas Nilsson he just released an educational book giving Swedes a chance to learn Arabic! 

It was back in November 1915 that a 22 year old man who hade been living among the 1600 inhabitants of the small northern Swedish town Boliden with his name on the door at the asylum accommodation since September, was arrested by the Swedish Security Service. Could he really be a terrorist?

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/11/sweden-on-4-high.html

No. He wasn’t. It became clear after interrogation. The young man was released and promised support from Swedish authorities. To be arrested as a possible terrorist must be nothing less than a trauma. The Swedish Security Service claims though that the arrest, at that time, was the right thing to do. They had intel.

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2015/11/sweden-on-4high-back-in-boliden.html

The ground in Boliden was covered with snow as the young Iraqi man was back. He has no idea where the intel about him came from, he himself fled from ISIS and the war. The accusation is what’s hurts, how people could think that he was someone and something he wasn’t.

The weekend after, he and his friends rented a community center throwing a party to celebrate he was back, inviting everyone in Boliden, serving delicious Arabic food. They wanted to connect closer with the people of the small town, saying thank you, striving for creating a life together.

A winter has passed. Moder Mothanna still doesn’t have a residence permit. The promised support from Swedish authorities didn’t happen. And the Swedish Security Service never gave him any explanation what so ever to why he was arrested as a suspect terrorist. The story is hanging over him as a dark cloud which he will probably forever be living in under.

Moder Mothanna sued the Swedish state for 1million Swedish crowns (122 849,368 $) because of wrongly being suspected of particularly serious crime and additionally incurred mass media suffering. The outcome happened this week. The Attorney General has lowered the damages. Sweden will pay Moder Mothanna 12 000 crowns (1474,192 $). Very generous. 

But in spite of this huge disappointment, Moder Mothanna prefers to focus on something else this week. As a part of creating good energy for himself and the people around him, he and his native Swedish born friend Andreas Nilsson focused on a mutual project. Andreas, a Spanish teacher, and Mothana came up with an unusual idea: why not trying to build bridges between Swedes and Arabic speaking refugees with giving Swedes the possibility meeting their new neighbors in their native language?

What a great idea! There is nothing like learning a new language. Word by word. A new world slowly opening up. Widening the horizon. You become a baby taking your first steps. And in this case, steps to meeting and understanding people having fled for their lives wishing to create a new one in the cold north only hours from the polar circle.

And it would balance the situation. Learning a language, you are inferior to people already talking the language. The dynamic will shift in the grocery store when the Swedish cashier asks the Arabic speaking refugee for the words for milk, bread and coffee. Language units. Moder Mothanna and Andreas Nilsson knows this. And that’s their mission.

Viadoom II

I can’t even remember for how long we in Umeå have waited for “The Road Package” to be decided on and built. The main purpose for the package is to finally direct all the transit traffic through the city center of Umeå to routes outside town. E4 (European highway 4) used to pass through Umeå until just a few years ago, and although it doesn’t anymore, people still, out of habit maybe, prefers that often slow route. We had actually improved a bit, but since February when IKEA established and opened it’s blue and yellow box just outside Umeå, the downtown traffic has increased again.

Anyway, there are traffic problems and there are traffic problems.

The Seattle Road Package includes the demolition of Alaskan Way Viaduct, a part of Highway 99 that runs alongside Elliot Bay, ending downtown at the waterfront to the west. The replacement for the Viaduct will be a tunnel, and that’s a story by itself. The years leading up to the decision about the viaduct and the tunnel were at least as many as the ones in Umeå, and the debate even more infected.

In October 2011, commuters endured a nine-day viaduct closure as the state tore down the south end section of the aging, earthquake-prone structure. Traffic remained sluggish throughout the week of Viadoom and at the end, the backup on Interstate 5 stretched for 10 miles. It was pretty bad.

During the following years a gigantic drill named Bertha, has, even more sluggish, worked it’s way through the difficult Seattle underground. Well, that’s really an over statement since Bertha most of the time has been stuck in mud, not able to move at all.

Now though, Bertha is going to chug her way the next 385 feet of the future Highway 99 tunnel under the viaduct. Which will be closed for two weeks. Two whole weeks. And 90 000 vehicles a day will have to find different routes to transit through Seattle. Since October 2011 Seattle has gained 45 000 people. Good luck.

At Viadoom I 2011, Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom wrote: “Traffic entering Seattle on I-5 was stop-and-go from Shoreline to downtown, starting as early as 3 p.m. and continuing past 6 p.m.,” He added: “Drivers had a hard time leaving South Lake Union in late afternoon, as actual gridlock — cars stuck at intersections blocking the cross-traffic during a green light — spread from Mercer Street to Denny Way.” 

In other words, 2011’s Viadoom sounds like 2016’s nearly-every-day doom, as a growing economy, a construction boom and rising population stress Seattle’s transportation infrastructure. Add on that Viadoom II.

How does Seattle cope with a two-week traffic crisis? By starting the business day at 6 a.m. 

It seems like Seattle is a bit more prepared for Viadoom II though.Eight downtown office buildings, including the 76-story Columbia Tower, will run their heating and ventilation two hours longer during the shutdown of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, to make the workday more flexible for as many as 15,000 employees and clients. King County government is encouraging its 13,000 employees to use networking software and video at home or outlying areas where that would improve productivity. And Mayor Ed Murray will allow many of the 10,000 city staff to make teleconferencing arrangements with department supervisors, so long as customer service and operating hours are maintained.

Two dozen Seattle police traffic officers will aim to keep intersections and bus lanes moving. King County Metro Transit will pay 22 transit operators to drive 11 more buses than usual on weekdays. And 2016 light rail extends from the University of Washington to downtown and all the way to SeaTac airport. Hopefully that will help.

But the two coming weeks will be an experience for sure. Thousands will try a bus, train, water taxi or the adventurous bike lanes. Some will work from home. Or spend even more time in traffic. Viadoom II is here.

The photo album/holding life in my hands

A time machine. An emotional staircase downwards. And self therapy.

Trouble 1 is turning 30! That’s amazing. Not that I feel like it was yesterday and time has gone by like a blink of an eye, not at all.  I am not surprised 30 years have passed. But the fact that my first born baby is a grown up man. That’s pretty amazing.

I have been a diligent photographer ever since I bought my first camera at age 12. I used to put together photo albums and I have a cupbord full of them, my life documented in pictures up until I was 30. And then what happened? Well Trouble 1 happened and then Trouble 2, and there simply wasn’t time for albums. 

I didn’t slow down on my actual photographing though. Still using B&W as a base. Which was optimistic of course, because my time in the dark room was down to zero those first years and then only used for more arty projects. So my color pictures became more frequent instead.

I’ve kept them in boxes, like most people do. Waiting for that peaceful time to come when I would quietly sit down and enjoy the pleasure of making albums for my two little boys. It’s funny how peaceful times have a tendency of never showing up. Then I put up a goal: for their graduation. Didn’t happen. When they were turning 20. Didn’t happen. Now, goddamn’t, my first born is turning 30, it has to happen!!!

And it is happening. It hasn’t been peaceful. Nor quiet. Because of an intense job winter and then myself turning 60 it hasn’t been any breathing space what so ever, but for the last 2,5 weeks I’ve been spending all the time I could scrape up digging deep down in memories and emotions.

As I am a well organized person the practical aspect of the whole thing hasn’t been a problem. All the pictures are archived in years and events. Christmases, vacations, birthdays. It’s just picking them, one after one. No, the real work has been the emotional part.

To, 30 years later, be looking at my growing belly and swelling breasts (naked of course, this was Sweden in the eighties), a new born baby, renovating and adding on the house, building a home, the start of a family, all the close friends always around…

…is exhausting. Where did it all go?

These first years were so happy. They really were. I had to fight hard for my children (complicated pregnancies and deliveries) and was incredibly grateful for them. They had a loving, responsible and present father and we lived this idyllic life on the countryside  surrounded by friends in the same phase of life, lots of babies. Like every toddler family we were constantly tired, sick from colds and slept in shift to get by. But the pictures are mostly sunny summers, naked little kids running around in the grass, grandma feeding them blueberries and milk on the bakers cottage doorstep.

So what happened? Well, to be prosaic, time passed, the kids grew up, their parents grew apart, most of the friends did the same, grand parents died and that’s that. To say it is all gone is neither true nor fair. But it’s changed. Of course. The baker’s cottage has been a storage instead of a summer house for many years now, but I am hoping to get a chance to change that some day. My sons are around, for which I am incredibly grateful, so are their girlfriends, new family members. I am still here, taking care of the place myself, which is a challenge in my physically restricted situation, but a challenge of my choice.

I am going through those photos. Filling page after page in the album. I can only do a few at a time. Then I have to take a break. Breath. Process. Go back. Write. Write Trouble 1’s story. As well as mine. Hold our story in my hands. Literary. Look at it. Touch it.

The 2,5 weeks only gave time for Trouble 1’s first five years. I have barely started. The boxes are filled with pictures up until 2007, when I went digital. I will continue. Imagine when I have turned all those pictures into a story. My children's story. My grown up life’s story. And I can hold it in my hands.

Following your heart?

They say what you regret the most at the end of your life, is those things you didn’t do. I am not sure that will be true for me.

I have taken all the chances I have been given, personally and professionally. I have definitely said yes more often than no. And if that’s how you are wandering through life, you will most certain have the experience of taking a few punches. I know I have. They can be painful and they can be shameful. And they might stick with you until the very end.

How do we make our choices? By brain? By heart? By will power? By gut feeling?

Sense and sensibility. Reason and emotion. Brain and heart. For me, these are often in conflict. Sometimes so severe it’s tearing me apart.

And if it only was brain and heart. Then will power is entering. What’s will power? For me (I’m sure someone with more knowledge in this department would have a different explanation), often the same as heart. This is what I want! This is where my heart and soul is leading me! This is the road I need to take! This feels right!

Feels right? Now that’s an even more tricky advisor. Yes, something can feel really right, but hidden in under that feeling you might feel something totally contradictory, telling you the opposite. If I do this, which is a big yes right now, there is a huge risk it will lead to regret and pain, and nothing good will come out of it. And I’m not talking about shots of tequila here.

To me all these, which are supposed to lead us right, is a big tangled ball of yarn with lose ends I am pulling, trying to entangle. Sometimes I am finding the right end to pull, and the knot dissolves. But often the pull just makes it worse. If I was a child I might end up throwing the ball of yarn into a corner and in the best of worlds a grown up would pick it up and help solve the problem.

But I am not. I have to find a way myself. And not even as a child I threw the yarn away. 

In this time and age we are advised following our hearts. That hasn’t always been the case. A controlled sense I am sure has been more frequent through the human history. Following ones heart (in any sense, personally and professionally) must be a luxury condition only possible when economically independent and surrounding environment’s judgment can’t affect your daily life.

Being judged to your heart and soul is a different story. Universal and timeless.

Follow your heart. Such an alluring call. It sounds so easy. Like someone is waiving at you from a peaceful and sunny morning beach. Come come! Here is your haven. Everything will be fine. Just walk through the dawn dew grass and arrive here, safe and sound.

Following your heart is an act conducted by love. By passion. And passion and peace are most often incompatible. Whether the goal for your passion is a job, a person, a hobby, a place, an assignment, a life, it will not be a quiet walk in the dawn dew grass. Going for a passion is risky business. A lot at stake. The travel towards a passion is more likely to be rowing in dangerous waters and gusty winds for a tiny island far out in the ocean.

Listening to your brain might be a good thing. It is protecting yourself, which we absolutely need to do. But it’s also playing safe.

So, what is it that I will regret, when it is my time? Out of all the chances I have taken and the pain, suffering, regrets and lost dignity coming out of them? Thinking about them now, while writing, to my surprise I am finding, not much! At the time for the choice, it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. At the end of the day I can’t regret the pain. Being alone on that stormy ocean fighting for my heart. Because I tried for something. I was courageous. I was me. I lived.

And is there anything at all I didn’t do that I will regret? Well, there was this man who I once loved, and I never told him. Classic. Would I do that again? Brain and heart. Reason and emotion. Sense and sensibility. I hope not. Because that’s dignity. That’s self respect. To stand up for your heart. What ever the outcome will be, pain and regret at the time. At the end of the day, I want to know I have put my heart out there. That’s where I want to be. That’s where I want to end.

In my case, it was Lundgren

It’s unusually early in the year for me being struck by the summer season panic. But it’s because the snow already is barely covering what’s hidden inunder. January was very cold with temperatures around -13°F (-25°C) for a month. But February, on the other hand, was unusually mild and we haven’t had much snowfall this winter so the snow pack hasn’t been that thick, only about a foot.

And now it’s April, temperatures are mostly above freezing point even through the night. And this week there was this heavy rain helping the snow transform into liquid, making the basement under my kitchen a swimmingpool and revealing all the must-do, can’t-wait-one-more-year around my place painfully visible.

Generally and basically I have a fundamental love for this time of the year, here in the north, the spring-winter. So do most every Swede. When the light returns and the sun is finding us. When the promise of nature coming out of hibernation is real, once again. 

They say Sweden is the most secularized country in the world. That might be true, by conventional meaning. But we worship our nature. The forests, fields, meadows, lakes and the sea is our church. That’s where you will find us on a Sunday. And that’s where we found our family names.

Every third Swede, 3,4 million people carry a family name connected to nature. And it’s a type of name you don’t find anywhere else in the world. Unless it’s been migrating of course.

Lindberg, Marklund, Ekdahl, Rönnberg, Ahlgren, Grankvist, Barrlund, Furmark, Björkman, Ängström, Strömgren, Sandberg, Asplund, Holmkvist, Ögren, Sjölund, Blomgren, the list of combinations from two words out of nature for a name is pretty much endless. 

And then we have the monosyllabic ones like Berg = Mountain, Lind = Linden, Holm = Islet, Björk = Birch, Lund = Grove, Ström = Stream, Ek = Oak, Blom = Bloom, Dahl = Valley and so on. These types of name are actually more common than names ending on -son. And they are even more frequent in northern Sweden where 60% are carrying names inspired by nature!

Why is this? Well, a lot of people moved north during the 18th and 19th century, and most often they took themselves a new name, related to nature or place of origin. And during the urbanization in the 19th century people left their peasant tradition -son names behind for a new life. But maybe they couldn’t leave nature behind?

And is there anywhere else in the world where the political parties’ logos are all flowers?! Let me know if there is. So here are all the Swedish parties and their symbols:

The Social Democrats - a red rose (that’s common in other countries too)

The Green Party/Miljöpartiet - dandelion

The Left Party/Vänsterpartiet - a white V in a red carnation

The Liberals - cornflower

The Center Party/Centerpartiet - four-leaf clover

The Christian Democrats - wood anemone

The Sweden Democrats - hepatica

The right party/Moderaterna - a blue M (the exception that proves the rule)

Isn’t it cute? No banners, no coats of arms, no geometrical shapes. Only a simple flower for this nature worshipping people when it comes to politics and running a country. Although I wish the xenophobic and racist Sweden Democrats would be more honest than choosing the innocent hepatica as a deceptive logo.

I was born Lundgren = Grovebranch. My boyfriend’s name was Bergkvist = Mountain twig. When we married neither of us wanted to take the other ones name. Same same but different. So we kept our different versions of nature. But when Trouble 1 was born we felt we all wanted the same name. And I found Stolterman on my father’s side in the family tree back in the early 1700. We left nature behind for an old typical soldier’s name, Proudman = Stolterman. And today it’s only Trouble & Trouble and me carrying that proud name in the nature worshipping Sweden.

Being backed up on the new longest floating bridge in the world!

Imagine 30 000 people on a  2,35 kilometer ( 7710 feet) long floating bridge, the world’s longest!

The 520 Bridge was our neighbor the year we lived at Boyer Avenue. It connects Seattle to East Side, that’s east side of Lake Washington, Suburbia. At that time it traveled 130 000 cars a day, a massive commute artery. A detail in our living room window scenery where Portage Bay, Montlake Cut, University Hospital and sailboats competed about the attention. I loved our view, so much life and so beautiful!

The bridge was built in 1963 and wasn’t safe any more. After nearly 31 years of arguments, planning and construction, the people of Washington finally got to walk Saturday morning on their new Highway 520 floating bridge, and will drive on it by mid-April.

Floating bridges aren’t that common around the world, and the reason for it in Seattle is Lake Washington’s 61 meter (200-foot) depth and silty bottom which makes it nearly impossible to build solid columns underwater. 

The new Lake Washington crossing is located next to - and south - of the old one, and arrives just in time for crews to remove the former crossing, instead of Mother Nature downing it with an earthquake or windstorm.  Tougher components should make it resilient against gusts and waves. The road deck is high above the lake, so waves won’t slap cars on the highway like on the old one. Windstorms often shut it down as the deck was covered with water, as late as a few weeks ago.

So, Saturday morning Seattleites premiered the new 520 Bridge. Not by driving but by walking! Governor Jay Inslee spoke, a ribbon was cut, and crowds packed the place. Event planners had anticipated up to 40,000 people, but a few hours after the start they ran into an issue: Thousands wanted to leave at the same time, and there weren’t enough shuttle buses. Visitors waited as long as an hour for one of the 51 buses, each able to carry 100 people. Shortly after 3 p.m., officials announced no more visitors would be admitted onto the bridge.

The new bridge started off like the old one always was, a bottle neck. There was a backup getting off 520, nothing new there! Anxiety spread among the thousands on the bridge, but there were food trucks, and people in line for the buses were provided water. It wasn’t as if the circumstances were dire on this nice, 60s-ish day.

Would I still see the new 520 Bridge through our Portage Bay panorama window? I guess so. And Bill Gates, who’s residence is located just south of the bridge landing on the East Side, probably is some meters closer to the on ramp, taking him to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Headquarters in Seattle in the mornings. 

Hommage to Peter

- Thank you for everything.

That’s how he started to end our phone calls the last years. I used to yell at him, “don’t you dare saying that!” Like he was going to die on me. From me.

I have a very distinct memory from the first time I saw Peter. Not like in meet, but saw. It was my first day of the TV Production Program. He was sitting down at the door, the room filled with students. Tall. Stone faced. Straight back. The head of the entire Journalist Program said “We will treat you like you are at work. We will require the devotion and ambition as will be expected of you in the news room at a news paper, radio- or TV station. Right Peter?” He responded in one word. “Yes”.

I was thinking: who is that man?

Peter was never my teacher. I was set on TV and he was in charge of the Radio Program. That might be why we became such friends and worked so well together.

I am not expressing “such a special friendship”. Because everybody who Peter touched with his life and presens can witness about a special friendship. That’s just how it was. And I can only tell mine and Peter’s story.

Peter was a radio producer at Swedish National Radio. His field was religion, concept of life, reflection. He asked me to contribute to his shows with my writing and my voice. I developed a special format for Peter’s shows. Short texts. With no agenda. Most often open endings. Leaving to the audience to feel and react whiteout me telling them how to.

We set a date for the recordings. As I recall every other week. How can I not remember which weekday it used to be? Was it Mondays? Same place and time. 7 PM. In the radio studio or the little chapel at the school. We never checked in with another in before hand. Totally trusting we would both be there. We were a solid partnership.

Peter and I loved working together. Every moment of our collaboration was pure joy. And over the many years we developed a strong and close relationship. Our perspectives were very similar. We believed life was a serious task. We bothed aspired perfection in work. We were soul mates in the sense that we in that way were different from others. 

We were both used to being criticized for taking everything too seriously. For over working things. “Nobody can tell the difference, cut yourself som slack, lower your bar!” But Peter and I knew that even though people couldn’t tell the difference, they would feel the difference. And what about ourselves as originators, shouldn’t we be respectful to ourselves? The fact that Peter and I together never ever compromised in our art was unsullied bliss.

Peter worked in three places spread all over Sweden and lived in a fourth. His car was to some degree his home. This man, 6,5 feet tall, who was everybody’s mentor and rock, was extremely sensible, even fragile. He put himself under a lot of pressure and was always waiting for being kicked out from his different jobs because of his strong integrity when it came to his work. He never felt safe.

Did we ever just chit chat? I don’t think so. Life and death were real to us. We used to ponder over our funerals. How we wanted them to be. What we would do for each other. Peter wanted me to read one of my texts, Let Life - Låta livet. I told him he’d better die before me, as he would probably not be at my funeral, surely sitting re editing a show he wasn’t entirely happy with.

The last years we didn’t see each other that often. I was going back and forth between Seattle and my little Swedish village. We were both divorced by then and he had a new love in his life. We still worked together, but not as frequently. We talked on the phone, but sometimes only every six months or even less. When we did though, it was as close and inspiring as ever.

But I was worried about him. His life was too intense. He was burning his candle at both ends. And he knew it. Once, on the phone, when I was leaving for Seattle, I ended with saying “Peter, do you understand how much I love you?” He responded, I remember it as a bit shaken, “Maria, you can not just say such a thing!” 

I feel like we were always carrying each other within us. Our phone talks became more rare, and he was was constantly short on time, what he had to say came out intense, and then he started ending with

- Thank you for everything. I hated it. “Stop it, just stop it!”

And then he was gone. It happened March 21 2006. We had just decided on going out for dinner the week after, celebrating my 50 year birthday. But he was gone. I got the message from a friend calling me saying “Maria, are you sitting down? You need to sit down. Peter is dead.”

I was in my big yellow sofa chair in the Honey Chamber. The chair which rocks a bit. The phone on the wall right beside. How many hours had I been sitting in that chair talking to Peter over the years?

Peter collapsed in a meeting at Swedish National Radio in Stockholm. His heart stopped. Maybe that’s how he wanted to go. At the heart of his work. But he was only 57 years old.

This monday it was ten years ago. I still haven’t grieved Peter properly. The year before both my parents passed away. The first years after, I still kind of expected him to call. Sometimes, when I am in the middle of a project, I miss him terribly. Miss that voice reassuring me that I am not done until I love what I have created. And that that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be. For me. 

And I don’t write the kind of texts I used to any more. My life continues to ceaselessly provide experiences that would work so much better as art than real life, but there is no one to receive and cherish them. And they remain inside me, unedited and in too strong colors.

For Peter’s funeral I arranged a bouquet of blue monkshood and white roses. He was the tall monkshood and I was the white flower next to him. And at the memorial I read my poem Let Life - Låta livet, as we had agreed on.

Let Life

Oh so let my life well happen

let it come and let it dare

And with all my mind wide open 

let my body feel the air

Oh so let my life find streets 

which I have never walked before,

where my heart ventures to meet

hands with keys to secret doors

Oh so let my life play joy and

happiness I sense is here

Living dreams, though wild and weak,

now when my soul is breathing near

Oh so let my life well guide me,

- wishing not to interfere -

longing foreign needs to find me,

in my dread and with my fear

Oh so let my life live freely

living strong and out of will

Rather let my life reveal me

than a life that's doubting still

https://soundcloud.com/maria-stolterman/lata-livet

Låta livet

Om jag låter livet hända

här och nu just där jag finns

och med alla sinnen vända

mot den kropp som inte minns

Om jag låter livet vandra

vägar som jag inte går

och min vilja vågar famna

det jag möter det jag får

Om jag låter livet leka

glädje som jag anar här

och bejakar vilda veka

drömmar som jag ber och bär

Om jag låter livet styra

utan att alls gripa in

och jag längtar detta nya

med den rädsla som är min

Om jag låter livet leva

och det lever som det vill

Låt då hellre tanken tveka

än att livet stannar still

https://soundcloud.com/maria-stolterman/lata-livet