The baker's cottage in my heart

It was when the radio was playing one of my mother’s favorite singers at the same time as I was holding the photo of my parents as a young and happy couple, I bursted into tears.

My place here at the end of the road is a setting of the house, the baker’s cottage and the coach house/wood shed. There used to be a barn too of course. This is my grandparents homestead, and at that time the baker’s cottage really was a place where you baked the bread for the family. The thin crust and the soft ones. In the winters it was may grandfather’s work shop for carpentry.

In my childhood the baker’s cottage was transformed to a summer cabin for my parents, my sister and me. The colors where blue and white. As grandparents my mom and dad spent a lot of time there, and Trouble & Trouble used to happily run between the two houses, their parents and their grand parents. Me myself survived my sons’ teens, house jam packed with tons of sweat-smelling incredibly loud boys, with fleeing into the tranquility of the baker’s cottage during the summer evenings. Trouble 2 made it his home over summers and falls during his post high school years when he travelled a lot. So, the little house has served four generations well, and we have all left our marks there.

For a lot of years now though, the baker’s cottage has been more of a storage unit. Shoveled in spare furniture. Film set and music studio. Firewood on the floor, old newspapers, “what to do with this? Well put it in the baker’s cottage for now”. In short, it has not been a nice place and even hard to enter as things have been piled up in front of the mud room door.

It’s interesting how you can carry a feeling of a place without even opening the door. These last few years, I am realizing, I haven’t wanted to look over at the baker’s cottage. Because I have been feeling the dark and the weight of it. And I think I had even given up the hope of it ever feeling light and warm again.

But I was wrong.

Three weeks ago Trouble 2 and Audrey, Emil and Disa made a heroic effort and restored the baker’s cottage to it’s former blue and white glory!

Emil is Trouble&Trouble’s second cousin and so Trouble 2’s grandmother’s father is Emil’s grandfathers’ father. In that sense Emil is related to the baker’s cottage as well, although he didn’t spend his childhood there. And Disa is Emil’s girlfriend.

It was a perfect summer sunday, 72°F (22,5°C), the best of circumstances for carrying everything out on the lawn while mopping the floors with green soap, dusting, and airing comforters and pillows. When it was all done, the little house smelled as fresh as if my mother would have done it herself, although she wouldn’t have been pleased about the fact the windows weren’t cleaned. Sloppy! Will you never learn how to do things properly!

In the evening my sense of the baker’s cottage was light. Blue and white. As it used to be. My eyes were drawn to it. Since then I have kept the door open during the warm summer weeks. And it was with great joy I took my aunt Inga-Märta, the only one left of the three children who were born here in the early days, for a little tour in there, the other day. Her eyes are failing her, but as many things are so familiar, they are still recognizable.

Today I was sitting at the dining table in the baker’s cottage big kitchen for a little while. The summer is already gone unfortunately, so it was chilly in there. I was painting a small piece of furniture from my mom and dad. Listening to Sommar-Summer, on the transistor radio. It was a very long time since I last dipped a brush into a paint tin. And put the brush to the wood. I do it with the skills my father taught me. Thin layers. “Yes, you will need to paint more coats, but it will look so much nicer. Always empty the brush on the wood, there is a lot more paint left there than you think.” I actually paint my nails with the same technique.

Sitting in the light baker’s cottage that doesn’t weigh on me anymore. Surrounded by memories and stories from four generations. Painting. The feel of the brush to the wood. Listening to the radio. Busk Margit Jonsson singing. Gammal fäbodpsalm (Hymn from the old pastures), one of my mother’s favorites. Watching the photo of my parents together on the couch in their first home. Smiling to the camera. They look happy. And I burst into tears.

I move over to my special place, the top of the blue firewood storage right next to the fireplace. I used to love sitting there as a little girl, feet not touching the floor, legs dangling. The heat from the fire. I sit down and realize the top is falling apart. The front plank is loose. A crack in the light picture. 

My successful staycation!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, how did I do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Political conventions/frightening entertainment

Superb Swedish summer and American political conventions. A strange mix.

I have CNN on my TV menu, but very rarely watching. These last two weeks though have been an exception. All the time I haven’t been spending in the sun working on my tan, the TV has been on. Watching the morning after summery for breakfast, and from dinner to late bed following the live coverage from the Republican and Democratic convention. Wishing I would have been in the U.S. of course, but happy that the extra dollars for CNN every month, for once is paying off.

Actually, gorgeous summer weather and conventions is a normal, as the conventions happen when Seattle is at it’s best. 2012 I was spending my days on a balcony at lower Queen Anne with a killer view of downtown Seattle, Mount Rainier and Elliot Bay. What miss matches 2016 is the CNN frenzy mixed with the serenity of pine trees, spruce, birches and green fields as a back drop.

Now, one could see the conventions as great entertainment if it was a movie. Or, they would easily be imagined as one of the White House/Washington TV series. But they aren’t. They are real. They are reality, and the outcome of them don’t only affect the U.S., they affect the whole world. Sometimes, over here, we ask ourselves why the American election gets so much media attention, and why we seem so obsessed with it. And I would say the answer would be it really is great entertainment, but even more that it has such an impact on all of us.

If I was an American I would be a democrat. And 2016 I would be a Bernie Sanders supporter. But you don’t have to be either a regular democrat or a Bernie Scandinavian Socialist to be scared to death by Donald Trump.

The man who started out as a joke has become someone who no one is joking about anymore. The fact that he himself doesn’t seem to know when he is serious or joking makes it’s even harder to smile. Was asking Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s emails a joke or not? Is the threat to lock her up a joke? Will he punch “that little man so hard”? To mention a few of those things lining up, only during the convention.

I could make a never ending list of all the things which would be devastating not only to the U.S. but to the world and for generations ahead, if Donald Trump would get to be the next president of the United States. But in a contemporary context I find one particular issue very alarming.

Why is it that in 2016 there are countries which perceive themselves doing better on their own? Why is it that Boris Johnson had the majority of Great Britain vote for the isle kingdom to float by themselves outside the European Union? Why is it that Donald Trump is able to incite Americans shouting “America first!”

Is it that Great Britain has the history of colonial power? And that the U.S. (note, not only Trump) sees itself as the leader of the free world? A hubris of national self confidence? Making believe that they need no one else but themselves? Great Britain a  federation of islands. United States a continent. Well, no man is an island.

Brexit was a joke until it happened. No one thought it would. Not even the Britons  themselves. People voted Brexit just for fun. But it turned out votes are not a joke. Boris Johnson and his crew left the ship immediately, the fight had been the fun, the execution and the managing wasn’t their cup of tea. And now Britain is stalling the exit from the E.U.

A clown with a funny hair do had a good time and altered the politics and the market in Europe and thereby the world. Now there is another clown with a funny hair do having a good time, and the consequences of that are likely to be devastating. And I have a feeling the managing won’t be his cup of tea either. Or rather his six pack of bear.

I can’t vote, so I have to ask you, fellow Americans, to make this scenario not happen. First Ladies are the future. So, let’s vote for Hillary Clinton this time around. And make her pave the way for the next one 2020. The outstanding Michelle Obama for president.

Loneliness, the weapon for mass destruction / rerun 2

How many weeks will this same posting feel like the only one to publish? To express my thoughts about the tragic event in Munich I would need to use the exact same words as a week ago. And the week before. So here is something so exceptional as a rerun of the rerun, what else is there to do? With only a few words added.

The lone wolf. The hermit.

Have you ever heard reports about the super social woman with tons of friends, going berserk, shooting people in public places? Didn’t think so.

It’s happened again. And again and again. This week in Munich. A lonely and mentally troubled 18-year old fascinated by mass shootings had planned it for a year. On the 5 year anniversary of Utöya Norway he killed 9 people, most of them children and teenagers and 27 more are injured. No political motive is known.

I am not forgetting the attack in Kabul yesterday towards a peaceful demonstration where more than 80 people were killed, but I don’t have information about the ISIS suicide bombers’ state of mind.

Last week a truck attack in Nice, 84 people dead and more still in critical condition, many children. Two weeks ago police shootings in Dallas. Orlando, a gay night club just about a month ago. And every school shooting I can remember, not only in the U.S.: the perpetuator is described in the same terms: he was a lone wolf.

The terror attacks in Brussels in March. Utöya, Norway 2011.

Anders Behring Breivik executed the execution of 69 young Norwegians by himself out from his own plans constructed in his sick hermit brain. Other terror attacks are mostly conducted within some evil organization, but the executors oftentimes young men recruited among lonely lost souls. Some women, I know, but extremely rarely.

Since 9/11 the world has turned a restricted place strictly regulated to prevent mass death. We are encouraged, and in some cases imposed, to spy on each other and report any kind of deviation from what’s considered the norm. We are not allowed to bring more than 100 ml of liquid on an air plane. European borders are closed.

For every terror act, we come up with some new ridiculous rule to avoid it happening again. Ridiculous, because the brains behind the acts will always be one step ahead. There is no way we can ensure us from evil acts of this kind. Plastic cutlery on board and taking our shoes off at the security won’t do it. Forbid trucks?

When it comes to mass shootings though, there are real actions to take. Shootings are executed with guns of some kind. Take them away. Just take them away. And it will make a difference. 

But, the common denominator among the executors, when it comes to terror attacks as well as mass shootings, seems to be loneliness. The motives varies, but loneliness, exclusion, isolation, hopelessness, lack of purpose and meaning as well as sense of being violated and betrayed, seem to be the breeding ground for execution of mass death.

So. Register every lonely person. Don’t let violated people on board a plane. Close the boarders for everyone feeling betrayed. Expel each one sensing excluded out of the country.

You see? No. The only way to prevent executed mass death is a sense of community and context, the inclusion, respect, warmth, friendship and love. Let’s legislate on that.

Loneliness, the weapon for mass destruction / rerun

There is no way I can write about the topic I had in mind for this week. But to express my thoughts about the tragic event in Nice I would need to use the exact same words as a week ago. So here is something so exceptional as a rerun, what else is there to do? With only a few words added.

The lone wolf. The hermit.

Have you ever heard reports about the super social woman with tons of friends going berserk, shooting people in public places? Didn’t think so.

It’s happened again. And again and again. This week a truck attack in Nice, 84 people dead and 18 still in critical condition, many children. Last week police shootings in Dallas. Orlando, a gay night club just about a month ago. And every school shooting I can remember, not only in the U.S.: the perpetuator is described in the same terms: he was a lone wolf.

The terror attacks in Brussels in March. Utöya, Norway 2011.

Anders Behring Breivik executed the execution of 69 young Norwegians by himself out from his own plans constructed in his sick hermit brain. Other terror attacks are mostly conducted within some evil organization, but the executors oftentimes young men recruited among lonely lost souls. Some women, I know, but extremely rarely.

Since 9/11 the world has turned a restricted place strictly regulated to prevent mass death. We are encouraged, and in some cases imposed, to spy on each other and report any kind of deviation from what’s considered the norm. We are not allowed to bring more than 100 ml of liquid on an air plane. European borders are closed.

For every terror act, we come up with some new ridiculous rule to avoid it happening again. Ridiculous, because the brains behind the acts will always be one step ahead. There is no way we can ensure us from evil acts. Only plastic cutlery on board and taking our shoes off at the security won’t do it. Forbid trucks?

When it comes to mass shootings though, there are real actions to take. Shootings are executed with guns of some kind. Take them away. Just take them away. And it will make a difference. 

But, the common denominator among the executors, when it comes to terror attacks as well as mass shootings, seems to be loneliness. Loneliness, exclusion, isolation, hopelessness, lack of purpose and meaning as well as sense of being violated and betrayed. That’s the breeding ground for execution of mass death.

So. Register every lonely person. Don’t let violated people on board a plane. Close the boarders for everyone feeling betrayed. Expel each one sensing excluded out of the country.

You see? No. The only way to prevent executed mass death is a sense of community and context, the inclusion, respect, warmth, friendship and love. Let’s legislate on that.

Loneliness, the weapon for mass destruction

The lone wolf. The hermit.

Have you ever heard reports about the super social woman with tons of friends going berserk, shooting people in public places? Didn’t think so.

It’s happened again. And again and again. This week in Dallas. In Orlando not even a month ago. And every school shooting I can remember, not only in the U.S.: the perpetuator is described in the same terms: he was a lone wolf.

The terror attacks in Brussels in March. Utöya, Norway 2011.

Anders Behring Breivik executed the execution of 69 young Norwegians by himself out from his own plans constructed in his sick hermit brain. Other terror attacks are mostly conducted within some evil organization, but the executors oftentimes young men recruited among lonely lost souls. Some women, I know, but extremely rarely.

Since 9/11 the world has turned a restricted place strictly regulated to prevent mass death. We are encouraged, and in some cases imposed, to spy on each other and report any kind of deviation from what’s considered the norm. We are not allowed to bring more than 100 ml of liquid on an air plane. European borders are closed.

For every terror act, we come up with some new ridiculous rule to avoid it happening again. Ridiculous, because the brains behind the acts will always be a step ahead. There is no way we can ensure us from evil acts. Plastic cutlery on board and taking our shoes off at the security won’t do it.

When it comes to mass shootings though, there are real actions to take. Shootings are executed with guns of some kind. Take them away. Just take them away. And it will make a difference. 

But, the common denominator among the executors, when it comes to terror attacks as well as mass shootings, seems to be loneliness. Loneliness, exclusion, isolation, hopelessness, lack of purpose and meaning as well as sense of being violated and betrayed. That’s the breeding ground for execution of mass death.

So. Register every lonely person. Don’t let violated people on board a plane. Close the boarders for everyone feeling betrayed. Expel each one sensing excluded, out of the country.

You see? No. The only way to prevent executed mass death is a sense of community and context, the inclusion, respect, warmth, friendship and love. Let’s legislate on that.

4th of July in my heart

First time was such an experience we were forever hooked!

There are some occasions during the year when my longing for Seattle aches even more. Thanksgiving. Holiday Season with the Christmas Ships. The cherry blossom for my birthday in March. The boat season Opening Day. The Outdoor Cinemas. But most of all, 4th of July.

Our second stay in Seattle was summer 1995. First week in July our Swedish friends Erik and Monica and their three young sons were visiting, not from Sweden though but from San Fransisco. They had lived in Livermore for a year a few years back, and this summer they were back there for a summer stay. So, they made a 16-hour intense roadtrip Livermore-Seattle to visit us. A bit of a pay back visit for the one we made in the other direction in 1993 when they had their year in Northern California and we did our first Seattle stay.

And so it happened that we came to spend our first and their second 4th of July together. We had a  really nice afternoon at the wineries. Snoqualmie, Columbia. Chateau Ste. Michelle. Picnic on the lawn somewhere, five little boys running around while their parents enjoyed the scenery, waiting for the evening event to start.

We knew from our Seattle friends that Gasworks Park at the north end of Lake Union was the place to be for the fire works in the evening. They also informed us that parking would be a problem, but luckily Steven and Lisa lived in Wallingford and they had saved two spots on the street for us.

I don’t know though how it happened that the two Swedish families actually got a spot at the (what I call) Kite Hill in Gasworks Park, although we weren’t there early in the day. But we did! We spread our blankets and had a tough job keeping our five sons together, I tell you, you don’t want them wondering away in a 30 000 people crowd!

I don’t think we had any idea going there, how big the Gasworks Park 4th of July celebration was. And how amazing. 30 000 people gathered around the old gas work, nowadays a rusty kind of funky installation. Lake Union packed with boats around the giant barge from where the fireworks are fired. Downtown shining on the opposite side of the lake. And everything in a very family friendly environment where no alcohol is allowed. 

I quite don’t know how to describe in what way this evening was so special to two Swedish families. We were tourists in an event we had no roots in. In the same time, we had come to know and like the American culture which had been so welcoming and open to us. We were, to some extant, a part of it. 

Sweden didn’t have a National Day until 1983. By 1995 it still was something we found kind of ridiculous, something constructed laid upon us which we (Swedes) had no heart in - in a way we still do. So, national days in general, was something we didn’t quite understand. Waiving flags hasn’t been in the Swedish soul I guess since we finally stopped being at war with our neighbors in Europe in 1809. It’s a foreign thing to us, a bit frightening and hard to grasp.

For the two Swedish families, surrounded by 30 000 people honoring and celebrating their country, it was a cautiously overwhelming experience. Being a part of The Star Spangled Banner, people singing out loud their national anthem with full voice and without embarrassment was dazing. We were intrigued and I would say seduced. To express that much positive feelings about your country was to us a bit… wow… this is kind of nice…

It was also very special doing this together. Knowing the evening was something we shared, and no one of our friends back in Sweden would never understand. Telling about it would raise judgmental eye brows and the story would be received with question marks. No, this was ours. Then, part of the adventure was the drive back from Wallingford to Madrona (normally a 20 minute ride) where we stayed that summer, which took us two hours through a jam packed 4th of July night, five boys down and out sleeping in the back seats.

I have spent many 4th of July in Gasworks Park since then. We learned that the trick for the full experience was to be there early in the afternoon to get a good spot at the front of the hill, facing Lake Union and Downtown. To bring food for the whole day, watch the sun set sparkle in the high rises, the boats cruising the lake, and finally the amazing fireworks in the dark evening, accompanied by orchestrated music, up until 2001 always starting off with Jimi Hendrix’s version of Star Spangled Banner. After 9/11 though, not even Seattle was allowed to have fun with the anthem, and Jimi Hendrix was out.

For tomorrow the forecast says overcast skies in Seattle and 65° F, about the same temperature as for Umeå. I would bet on sun though. And Gasworks Park packed with people flying kites and having fun all through the day, closing the celebration in wonder over the fire works. And starting the summer, which takes off at 4th of July.