A happy story featuring my number 100 posting!

The day was close to miraculous! This is what happened this week:

October 24 has been in my calendar for a while. It’s been noted with an exclamation mark although in my mind with quite some unease. What I was to do was in every sense fantastic but required me on my feet for a whole day. Something that's been feeling absolutely impossible for the last month.

I used to be a TV reporter and producer. And later I started my business in storytelling, which included telling stories as film. And I loved it. I loved every part of it: research, shooting and editing. Research is a lonely job; you do it yourself. Shooting is teamwork with cameraman and sound engineer. And editing is tem work with an editor. This is when you have a budget for a crew of course. A lot of times I have been doing the photo and sound myself.

So, I love the whole process. But most of all I love being on the field shooting with a crew. I love the feeling of three persons doing their job together. Trusting each other. To work with a cameraman who I know will provide me the footage I have in mind and even surprise me with some  that I didn’t picture myself. And a sound guy (man and guy are expressions here, from time to time they are women but I must admit it’s not that common) that will add to those shots an enhanced experience, which a mono camera microphone can never give. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. To be on a shoot confident that all links are equally strong is nothing but pure happiness.

Now, as I have been physically challenged for the last five years I haven’t been able to hunt for or take on film productions and documentary work. Except for a little thing last summer I haven’t been out on the field with a crew since 2007. 2007!

October 24 2013. In my calendar: Shoot the opening day for the new downtown mall Utopia, the new Winn Choice hotel, and research the cultural arts building Väven, still very much work in progress.

I will get back to the reason for all this in a posting ahead; for now let’s just leave it at the fact of a crew shoot in my calendar.

Trouble 2 and Audrey have stayed here for the last three weeks, that’s how bad my back has been. Which was such bad timing (is there ever a good timing for a back being out?) as I had just landed a big documentary storytelling project. The thing was, I had been doing so much better during the summer, and throughout the process of writing the synopsis and working on the budget I really felt like it would be possible for me to do this! That I could pull off a documentary story even including traveling! Ha!

Ha yeah… I turned acute same week as I landed the project. I prepared cameraman Martin and sound guy Johannes for doing the Thursday October 24 shoot on their own. They have been working together before, and I felt safe they would do a good job.

Wednesday my body felt different. Not twisted. No cramps. More even and leveled. Some pain of course, but tolerable. And I went to bed feeling the shoot wouldn’t only be possible but fun! I fell asleep not only looking forward to waking up in the morning but, I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to start!

I am stopping myself right there. This is such an unfamiliar feeling I need to look into myself in search of when I last couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

I am searching. I am looking. I can’t find it. There must be? No. I cannot remember falling asleep desiring the day to come. My days are putting up with. Bearing. Coping. Holding up. Endure. Abide. Breathing in and out. Surviving.

And hear I am, lying in my bed, my chest happy and high like the night before summer camp when I was a girl!

My body didn’t fail me. I was on my feet all day. The opening of the mall. The walkthrough the vast and tall Väven including ten stories (!) downstairs. And then, as a finale, getting access to the corner room on the top floor of Hotel Winn. Thursday had been foggy end heavily overcast like a Seattle fall day, but as the remote controlled blinds came up with a buzzing sound, the sun peeped out under the low clouds and transformed the east to west city view over the Umeå River to something we haven’t really experienced before.

Umeå isn’t a pretty city. It’s not bad or ugly, but it’s not pretty by regular standards. It’s flat and it doesn’t have an interesting architecture. It looks like any other northern Swedish coast town; they are actually hard to separate from each other.

From the 12^th floor we experienced something different though. Martin, Johannes and I, all three of us, had the same reaction: Look at that! Umeå looks good! Umeå is quite pretty! Umeå is surprising us!

And we are realizing that we can’t really see Umeå because there isn’t a viewpoint to watch it from! We need a constructed height like a tall building to give us some perspective! The old City Hall (1889) to Väven (2013) and everything in between (most of Umeå was lost in the big fire 1888) actually makes the city architectural diverse and colorful!

2007. I hadn’t been on the field with a crew since 2007. But it was as natural as rain. Like it was yesterday. And every day before that. I knew I missed it, but I didn’t know how much. I knew not being able to do it is a big loss, but I didn’t realize how repressed my grief and my needs were.

I felt let out of the closet. I felt real. I felt true. My blurred eyes took a shower and started framing pictures. My plugged ears popped and became aware of the city sounds. My shut down mind came to life and I remembered how to do this. My methods, my signature. And my love for being a part of a film crew, trusting the creative process we are composing together.

And that was that day. Thursday October 24. Friday I was still high from being out in the world, doing what I feel I am meant to do. Saturday I woke up with my pelvic screaming “danger ahead!” That Thursday was miraculous. And I am so incredibly happy and grateful that it happened. A blessed bliss.

Happy boys/professional men

-       Scene 1:2b, take 1, cat out the door!

My house smells from hot fall soup and fresh baked bread. Another Maria is doing the catering for the film shoot happening at my place this weekend. A crew of about ten trying to follow the schedule for the three-day shoot is having lunch at my kitchen table, eating themselves warm.

They were 10 years old when the first film was shot here, at the end of the road. Christina Arneback was the DP, I the producer. It was a documentary about a rare, difficult and deadly disease. Not an entertaining subject, but Trouble 2 and his friend Martin were having fun running around, learning how to stay out of the shooting angle and away from the expensive camera. At one point, when Christina had to change location for the camera, she let Martin and Trouble 2 move it for her.

-       Really?

-       Yes, but remember, it’s worth 350 000  Skr.

So, that was the two boys first encounter with professional film producing. A couple of years later our family bought a video camera. Trouble & Trouble had saved up 1000 Skr each, and their dad and I added 8000 for the silver JVC I picked out. Boy, video cameras coasted a fortune back then! As my sons had many friends who were all fascinated by the new family member we had one simple rule for the camera: only Trouble & Trouble were allowed to do the shooting. Reason: I didn’t want to end up being all crazy mad at more sons then my biological ones when they ruined the camera. There wasn’t an “if”; it was just a matter of when.

I don’t know if it was related to the price, but that camera surprised us all with lasting forever. Forever! I taught my children to treat it with care. I marked the batteries with numbers so they could separate them from each other to keep track of the charging. They learned how to write on tapes and cases to know what was on them. With pencil though, as the tapes were recycled after loading the computer with footage.

The favorite topic for sons and friends when it came to shooting was jumping. Jumping from the swings. Jumping from trees. Jumping from big rocks. Jumping in water. Jumping in snow. And most of all, jumping in sand pits. How do you think the camera liked being in sand pits?

I don’t have a clue how many times that camera was in for service and the message coming out of it was: we found a lot of sand in it. Really?! Again, I don’t know if it was related to the price, but we never paid anything for those services. It must have been one hell of an insurance coming with that camera!

The video camera was a Christmas present to all of us, although I bought my Sony PD 150 right after, and the camera became the kids. But it really was a gift to all of us. Not just my family, but all the kids from the neighborhood (which was about five villages) hanging here.

Once, at the age of about 16, Trouble 2 and Martin was shooting some kind of chasing each other over the front yard and down in the grove. I watched them from my bedroom window noticing they jumped the 180-degree line while shooting.

The 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line connects the characters and by keeping the camera on one side of this the line, the axis, for every shot in the scene, the first character will always be frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. If the camera passes over the axis, it is called jumping the line or crossing the line. And it makes the audience confused.

And you can’t have the audience confused right? So I went outside to perform an important film lecture to the young moviemakers. They stopped for a sec, shrugged their shoulders with an “oh well”, and continued their interrupted chase.

That spring, going with them to the introduction for the special film program they submitted to at high school, my smile was big and a bit smug when the teacher Fernando Altamirano stood before them emphasizing the importance of learning the art of depth of field, white balancing and the 180-degree rule. Two young men were making funny faces at me over their shoulders from their desk, and my smile grew even bigger.

That evening they didn’t know they would be accepted at the program and that high school would be three years of uninterrupted happiness, education and friends for life. They didn’t know that their future would be in film.

-       Scene 7:x, take 5!

The maples let go of the brilliantly colored leaves Wednesday night; the sound of the snaps was magical in the cold evening. Today is a beautiful fall day. There is ice on the water ditches, the grass is crisp under the boots. Even a day with mild weather turns chilly when you need to stand perfectly still as the camera and sound is rolling. And, at freezing point a film crew definitely is cold at Scene 7:x, take 5.

The clapperboard makes it’s sound, does its job. There are two names in red on the board: director Trouble 2, camera Martin Gärdemalm. Looking at those names, together, in capital letters, I am picturing two 6-year olds, just getting to know each other. Out of thirteen years in school, Trouble 2 and Martin spent ten of them in the same classroom. They really go way back. The childhood film crew on my field today is added on with friends and alumni of different ages from the film program.

The small silver JVC camera is exchanged for a heavy black RED. Martin’s focus in his professional life as a filmmaker is on photo. Trouble 2 is the editor. So what’s happening at the set this weekend is a big thing. The idea for this short (film) is Trouble 2’s. The script is his. And he is the director. This is my youngest son’s first film as an originator and director. I am listening to him giving directions and cheering everyone to do their very best. He is doing a good job.

I am, again, watching them from my window. They are playing on the field, like they always have. The baker’s cottage is occupied by a gang of creative people like it always was. Today though, they know everything about depth of field, white balance and the 180-degree angle. My hallway is covered with shoes and clothes like it used to be. A crowd of boys and a couple of girls are gathered round my kitchen table like they used to do.

I have a new kitchen table though. And Trouble & Trouble’s old cluttered room is transformed into my airy office. Funny though, hearing their loud and excited voices from my office which they made theirs for the extended weekend, discussing the scenes yet to shoot. Like they used to. Like they always have.

I need to keep myself from joining them. I have to stay out of there. Not to interfere. Not to ask questions. Not to accidentally slip some good advice they don’t need. Because they know what they are doing. The happy boys running around have grown up and become skilled and confident men in their field. And I am so happy and grateful that I am here to watch it. And that they are letting me be a part of that.

Back out-giving in/Backbone-will power

I am giving it one hour, I told Trouble 2. I was on my feet for the whole four-hour session.

I am trying out a different strategy this time. Because, damn it, I am not going to be flat on my back one more winter!

He dropped me off at Backenkyrkan, the Backen church, where my choir was lining up for the first out of three Wednesday evenings, recording a CD. I was linking my arm in his and he carried my bag with the sheet music binder and a thermos with hot tea. And I told him that I probably couldn’t do more than an hour, I would call him.

Trouble 2 and Audrey moved in with me on Monday. That’s when I called them and told them I had turned acute. Again. I managed to get myself some breakfast, but that was all I could do. I was on my back again.

I have been so much better this summer. Even had the confidence to say it out loud: I am better! I am doing a lot better! Starting to trust a real turn around. But September came with more pain and body restrictions, I actually got worse by the day. Two weeks ago the first sharp pain said hello, hasn’t happened since April. And this Monday morning I had to put on my “back-out-pants”, comfortable sweat pants that are the only thing I can manage by myself when I get this bad.

I still have home care, and they make my meals for me when I can’t do it myself. But when I get really acute, the nights are my nightmare. When I get this acute it is not safe for me to spend the nights alone. There is the night patrol. The city home care night patrol, they see to old or handicapped people who can’t take care of themselves during the night. It is a good thing. And for a month last December they put the key in my door every night. I was grateful and I hated it. I was brave and smiled and chatted cheerfully with different people every night, and I hated it.

This Monday morning struggling to put the back-out-pants on, I was thinking, I couldn’t take it. The sweat broke out only from the very thought of having foreign people come up my stairs putting their rubber gloves on. And I am realizing last years experience is a trauma. I just have to do everything I can to not put myself through that again.

So. I am calling Trouble 2. A year ago I couldn’t because he was in Paris. Now I can. And I do. And he says: it’s a beautiful day. Audrey and I were talking about driving over looking for chanterelles anyway. We can make dinner and then we go from there.

A couple of hours later they came up my stairs carrying a beautiful fall bouquet of yellow roses. Oh how I prefer yellow roses over rubber gloves!

I was served chanterelle pizza for dinner and hot fruit with vanilla ice cream and coconut flakes as dessert. And they said: we will stay here for the night. Don’t worry.

My children. My beautiful caring children. I cried. The relief. To postpone the night patrol. And maybe I will be better in a few days? I was half lying, there on my couch, having to tell myself out loud to be able to trust it. To relax and enjoy the dinner and my children: I won’t be alone tonight. I am safe for now. They have stayed six nights now. Trouble 2 brought his big screen computer and is cutting a short (film). Audrey caught a cold and is studying for her class wrapped in blankets and hot tea. My yellow kitchen is warm. It’s nice and cozy. It’s safe.

And, then, in the middle of all that I am standing on a hard and cold church floor singing for four hours. What’s that all about?

It’s about not giving in. For years now I have been listening to my body. Cause that’ what you are supposed to do, right? Now, to be clear; most of the time there hasn’t been any other option. You can’t negotiate with a knife in your back; it’s as simple as that. And you can’t walk if you can’t walk. You can’t sit if you can’t sit. You can’t drive if you can’t drive.

Before I became a weak and to some degree crippled person, I was a woman driven by will power, ideas and tons of energy. It took those worst-case scenario flues to stop me from whatever was on my mind and in my calendar. Although I woke up stiff like an iron rod every morning I went to the gym three times a week and at the age of 50 I looked like a super fit 19-year old. Although it was way too much for my from pain exhausted mind I anchored public radio all day hourly news casts and returned back home in the evening too tired to be a good mom. Although my back was bad I crossed the ocean several times a year, dragging along my super heavy Tempur-Pedic mattress, which was the only bed I could sleep on.

And I miss that person! Not the no good mom (well, it wasn’t that bad), but the person who performed and completed most everything she decided on and put her mind to. Since my first big back collapse in Seattle 2008 (that’s when the back-out-pants were purchased at Old Navy) I feel like I have been forced to put my will power in a drawer and lock it hard. Like this is not up to me. Like I have no say in this. It’s been more than five years. It’s been a very long time.

So, on Wednesday afternoon, knowing that my friends and colleagues of the Sångkraft Chamber Choir are preparing for making beautiful music together out of our fall rehearsals, my heart and soul are screaming: I want to be there! I want to be a part of that!

Maybe it’s time to speak up! Trouble 2, Audrey and I are having dinner. I am having problems even half sitting on my couch, but my mind is set on the recording. Trouble 2 is questioning me: is this a really good idea mom, aren’t you supposed to listen to your body? Yeah, but I haven’t done anything but listen to my body for five years now, maybe it’s time for a different strategy! Maybe it’s time for an alternative mind-set!

So, we arrive at the church. I am giving it an hour. I take my place between my alto colleagues Agneta and Ulrika. I sing. 95% focus is on standing up right. 3% is on not triggering a knife in my back while standing up right. 2% focus is on singing. But I am singing. I am there and I am singing. For four whole hours.

Last night my amazing neighbors Jenny and Hannes came over making a delicious dinner, and we had a great Saturday evening together. And they just left after cocking me a hot potato and leek Sunday soup. I am so grateful to them for food and wonderful weekend company, they are the best! Tomorrow it’s a week since I had to give in to asking for more help. I am hoping that I will feel strong enough sleeping by myself in a few days. It’s such a wonderful treat having Trouble 2 and Audrey here, but they need to get back to their lives.

I am thinking I need to find a way to visualize the Maria I once was. To remember what she felt like. I know she was always scared. Yet courageous the way she jumped from her mental diving boards, not always knowing there was water underneath. My body is scared now, but maybe I can find that Maria-will power somewhere deep inside me. Or unlock that drawer I put it in five years ago, gently take it out, put my hand over my heart, incorporate it in my body and make it my backbone. Ah, I like that. With a backbone made out of will power, there can’t be any more back outs, right?

Little girls in a safe universe

We have known each other since we were 2 and 3. But it must have been a couple of years now. Maybe even three. This week though, we finally met again, my very oldest friend Ulrika and me.

I grew up in Nordmaling, a small town of then 3000 people 40 minutes south of Umeå. My father was a pastry chef, and the first five years of my life we lived at the roof top floor in a three-story building where the bakery was in the basement. The first floor hosted the café and the city post office. Across the street (which at that time was the coast highway) a similar building with a hardware store. The gas station at the left and a flower shop down the road. The yellow brick public school 1-9 grade complex (which of course was the only school) right in the neighborhood and the white 1500-century stone church to the right up the road.

My family was mom, dad, my two-year younger sister and I. Our apartment a two bedroom with a tiny kitchen under a sloping ceiling. Right across the hall was Olle and Gun-Britt and their son Michael who was the same age as my sister. On the second floor right under my family was Karin and Arnold who owned the bakery and the café, Näslunds Konditori. And to the left, below Olle, Gun-Britt and Michael was Olga and Frans Näslund, Karin’s parents who started the bakery.

The hardware store across the street was Näslunds Järnaffär, started by G A Näslund, Frans brother. Managing the store did Oskar and Erik who lived with their wives Ida and Elsie on the second and third floor. Erik and Elsie had a son, Gunnar, who was my age.

This was my universe before I could walk.

I am sure Ulrika, one year older than me, was the one who found me. Her grandparents lived in the house next to ours, and they owned the flower shop. Ulrika’s house was down from the flower shop, very far away for a two year old.

And when I was about three, my universe was extended all the way to her house, including her family and a little barn with sheep and cows.

Does this sound idyllic? It was.

Moving myself back in time the all-embracing feeling is safety. My family’s small home was a part of a bigger home. Four family cubicles in a house smelling from fresh baked bread. As everyone who lived in the building except for my mother (who was a nurse) and Olle and Gun-Britt (gold smith and teacher) worked in the building, it was never empty. There was always someone there. And with the café and post office there was life, commerce, sounds, smells, people coming and going, noise, laughter, joy and excitement. And above all, there were always grown ups around.

In the two Näslund buildings cross the street from each other there were four kids and twelve grown ups. That is only counting the people who lived there, with the businesses of course, many more. And the bakery in the basement was the grounding, pounding warm heart of life, kindness, presence, support and love. It was a small town Bullerbyn (not translatable, an idyllic village from an Astrid Lindgren story), and I am not idealizing.

In the extended universe Ulrika and I were running around. Two little girls jumping in the hayloft scared of spiders, visiting Oskar and Erik in the hardware store smelling the rubber from the bicycle spring arrivals picking our favorites, saying hi to Grandma and Grandpa busy in the flower shop, staying away from the big post buses trafficking the street, and most of all running up and down the stairs to the bakery. Cause there wasn’t only my dad and Arnold, there were also teenage boys cleaning the baking trays and making deliveries with the scooters. And those young men were our first love.

Being a little girl, having daily access to twelve descent and responsible grown ups + Ulrica’s parents and grandparents, I wonder how that has affected me. I wonder who I would have been without them. As in most families and communities there was some dysfunctional elements of course, but I would say I was blessed with care and kindness. Twenty-four eyes and ears saw me and listened too me. Twenty-four arms and hands were ready to catch me if I fell. There was presence.

Ulrika and I have kept in contact most of our lives. We know each other the way siblings or cousins do. Because we share backgrounds. Because we fed the lambs with baby bottles. Because we were forced to Sunday school in the beautiful medieval church when no one else was. Because we had annoying baby sisters. Because I learned to ride my bike before she did although she was a year older. Because her birthday presents always were more expensive than mine. Because she had a dog and I a cat. We know everything there is to know about our families, and the small town where we grew up is our shared anchor: heavy and safe.

And now it was some years since we last saw each other. We are emailing quite frequently, but we haven’t met in person. Now we finally do. Having a light lunch at a coffee shop. Ulrika had two strokes within about a year and has to think about not eating too much fat. I am sitting on a cushion fighting to focus on my lunch date instead of the pain. This is the reason to why we haven’t been able to get together. We are two, to some degree crippled middle age women. Older than Ulrika’s grandmother, when little girls in our safe universe.

But we look good! We have nice haircuts and great smiles and no one could tell our physical weaknesses. We complain about gaining belly fat more than stroke and cancer.

Sitting there, we realize we are survivors. We could both have been dead from sickness. We might very well have our final rest at the Nordmaling cemetery, but right now we are sitting together at a light lunch talking about what’s closest to our hearts.

Trouble 1 dropped me off at the coffee shop. He last met Ulrika when he was just a child. They say hello and hug and we tell him about feeding lambs with baby bottles and the running up and down the stairs of his Grandpa’s bakery. He watches two childhood friends very happy to see each other. 

Out of the twelve grown ups in my first universe, only two remains. And Ulrika’s mom is still there. I wish I could tell them all how important they have been to me. And maybe I have, there have been a lot of funerals. And I wish that every child would be graced by not only one or two parents, but by a community of grown ups hearing then, seeing them, catching them when they fall. Making and keeping them safe and warm. 

A conflicted 2-year annivarsery, and please let me say hello!

I have to say I find it annoying. And quite frustrating.

Home is Away Away is Home; Two Stories Worth Being Told is celebrating its 2-year anniversary this weekend! Two years and 96 postings! Trouble 1’s lovely Space Needle and Kolbäcksbro illustrations imaging my two cities. Most every week I have been writing my stories and according to the Blogger statistics there are some people out there reading them. I don’t know them. I don’t know you. But I am so curious about you!

My very first posting was entering cyberspace in the Seattle Montlake neighborhood in the lovely apartment I was renting from the equally lovely Dita, only one block up from where me and my family was living 1996-97. The 1-year anniversary posting was written on the Iceland Air flight taking me from the lower Queen Anne penthouse Seattle view back to Sweden. And my 2-year posting is happening on my couch here at the end of the road in my little village next to Umeå. My back turned acute again yesterday, and I am humbled by life.

The purpose for my blog was to share stories from my two hometowns Umeå and Seattle. Stories about two very different cities with a lot of things in common. The northern locations in their countries, the cultural arts scene, the Waterfront design, the building cranes, the tolerance and open minded Seattleites and Umebor, the moving forward spirits.

And I have. I have been telling about the Waterfront projects in both cities. About the Seattle process and the Umeå process (democracy is strong and we take our time). The traffic situations, architecture, the bicyclists, Refused and Nirvana, developers and preservers, spectacular out door venues and Swedish politics verses American. To name a few.

I love that. I love doing a good research and get the story right. I used to be a journalist. A public service broadcast journalist. Therefore, every time I am reporting about a high-rise discussion or a traffic gridlock situation I am feeling like I am doing my job. In two aspects. I am telling about something real and important, hard facts. And I am following my original purpose for Home is Away, Away is Home.

Imagine then my frustration when checking in with the Blogger statistics. Telling me only a few are interested reading about that subject! My extremely important topic from last week, the Neo Nazis marching in, only made an imprint as a little bump on the statistical curve!

The statistics is hard to figure out though. It’s numbers and different numbers, it’s diagrams and curves. And they don’t match. It’s actually impossible to get a grip. So I’ve decided to go with the curve. It’s clear and easy to follow. It speaks for itself. And this is what the curve is telling me:

You guys, out there, like reading about when my personal life is really miserable! That’s when the curve is peaking! And the tallest of the tall miserable peaks is the 2012 late fall one when I couldn’t move what so ever because of a giant knife in my back, I had to accept an alarm on my wrist, foreign people in my house 24-7 and a life a dozen times more restricted and lonely than my 96-year old neighbor Alida! That’s what you like folks!

Don’t get me wrong. Really. It is moving and it is touching. And it actually brings me a great deal of comfort in difficult times. I am truly very grateful. But hey, my journalist soul is revolting!

When I started Home is Away, Away is Home, I wasn’t planning on being personal at all, except for stories connected to the original purpose of the blog. But as time passed, life provided me material with great impact on myself, and therefore close to my heart and easily transferred to my fingers tapping the computer keyboard.

Telling stories about Seattle and Umeå is catching floating material from outside in a cone connected to my Mac Book, transforming to an informative, interesting and at times even entertaining piece hopefully providing aha knowledge and insights in foreign matters.

Telling my personal stories is quite the opposite. It’s looking into my heart and soul for a feeling, fish it up, transfer to my head and give it letters, syllables, words, images and colors. And the Blogger curve tells me, that’s when my audience is caught by the story.

Am I surprised? Not really. This is what I am teaching when I am preaching storytelling professionally. Fill your story with people, emotions, images, and stay true. That’s how you can reach someone’s heart.

So why am I annoyed? Why frustrated? Well, I could come up with something heartwarming or heartbreaking to tell most every week. But I just find it too…easy. A facile point win (does that work in this context?). And I don’t want Home is Away, Away is Home to be an all mushy porridge of emotions and sentiments.

I must admit it’s a conflict though. I am embarrassed to tell those really high peaks on the statistics curve makes my heart race. Why embarrassed? Because I am a public service journalist at heart, goddamn it! I am trained not going for the big crowd by cheap tricks!

So. Therefore I am still determined to stay focused on parallel city planning and Swedish-American analyzes. But I have also learned to love sharing my personal stories, safe that they will be received and embraced by you. And although my perspective nowadays is somewhat restricted by my physics, my life is yet remarkably eventful. So, I am convinced that there will be many stories still to tell and to wait for.

Now, the Blogger statistics also tells where my readers are located! Sweden, US, Russia, China, Brazil, UK, France, Japan a s o. This I have very hard to believe! Sweden and the US, yes, but I can’t figure out why someone in Russia or UK would be interested in my Umeå-Seattle stories. My guess would be some blog scan computer program checking in giving false information.

I am really curious though! It’s a very special feeling following that magic curve, knowing that you are out there but not who and where you are. I am so grateful for your presence and feel safe to ask you for an anniversary present: could you please come out from that anonymous statistical curve, transform to people in flesh and blood and let me say hello to you? That would totally make my Two Year Day and inspire me to continue sharing my Home is Away, Away is Home stories with you. Thank you for being there! And I am planning on the 3-year anniversary in Seattle…

A city stabbed in it's heart speaks up

It was two weeks ago. Although fall, 68° F (20°C) blue skies, a low sun and no wind. Downtown Umeå filled with happy Saturday shoppers, people having one more summer vanilla sundae with their choice of favorite topping at Rådhustorget, the big square named after the former City Hall at the heart of downtown.

Then, the peaceful weekend was stabbed in the heart. Out of the bleu thirty armed Neo Nazis came walking with their flags, occupying the common area, sucking the air out of the Umeå lung.

Now, from the Umeå perspective this really came from nowhere. Some weeks ago, another woman at a bus stop harassed a Muslim woman with her head covered. The headlines were big and the joint Umeå soul was badly ashamed. But these things happen. As the fact that we have our share of back yard racism: “well, I am not a racist but…” Rightwing extremism though doesn’t have a home here. And we probably haven’t seen a Neo Nazi in our town since the mid nineties.

So, what was this? What happened? There are brown boots marching in Europe. Ultra-nationalistic movements are growing, in Sweden too unfortunately. When Sverigedemokraterna (The Swedish Democrats), a nationalistic party, 2010 took seats in the Swedish Parliament I wood say Sweden was in chock. But they don’t take hold in Northern Sweden, and certainly not in Umeå. The thirty angry young men came from other parts of the country on a mission to reach angry young men in this area. Well, did they take a right at the wrong corner…

So, people are shopping, families are having their sundae facing the sun. Nobody knows about the upcoming stab in the heart. There isn’t a testosterone mob waiting to attack.

Yet, that’s what’s happening. People, unprepared and with little connection to each other react from the bottom of their heart and soul, defending the square and their city. There is a violent battle and the police have to do their job. The peaceful sunny Umeå Saturday is transformed into a scary and foreign place.

Within 24 hours people from various political, religious and cultural backgrounds teamed up in social media to organize a counteraction to the Neo Nazi violation. Monday evening between 3 and 4000 people came together at Rådhustorget for a peaceful rally with only one goal: to keep Nazis away from our streets. That’s how well the 30 armed young men from other parts of Sweden with their flags succeeded in Umeå: they brought at least a 100 x 30 to demonstrate against them and their opinions.

So, how is this possible?

I grew up in Umeå during the seventies. It was a very political time and age. Most every weekend there was something to march for or against and Rådhustorget watched them all. To all of us, young at that time, speaking up for what we believed in was as natural as rain. During the nineties Umeå was the heart for the straight edge movement, and the animal right’s activists managed to put Mc Donald’s out of business, I actually think that’s the only example in the world. So, don’t come here and mess with us!

Umeå is perceived as an open, solidary and tolerant place. It has a long history of liberalism and the university provides the city young, people eager to debate and discuss most everything that is on the table. There is a nutritious soil here for social movements like feminism, animal rights, left, anti war and queer. Resistance against racism is a natural ingredient in this mix. And so as thirty armed men with flags walks into the Indian summer Saturday it comes as somewhat of a moral chock to all of us.

Now, you might object that a city of about 115 000 people four hours south of the Polar Circle probably is a pretty homogeneous place and racism not really something to be worried about. True. But you might be surprised to know that 99 nationalities with more then 10 people each have their home here. When it comes to languages the last number I heard was 111. The largest immigrant population is Finnish, 2nd Iran, 3rd Iraq, 4th China, 5^th India and 6^th Somalia. These are numbers from 2009.

Rådhustorget in Umeå is about the size of the square at Westlake Mall in Seattle. As Westlake has the concrete thing in different levels across Pine Street, Rådhustorget has the Monkey Mountain. A concrete construction in levels perfect for having that vanilla sundae, watching people and rubbing your best friends back.

Only, the top level of the Monkey Mountain (a name from popular speech) works as a stage. And on that stage there is a pulpit. And that’s where the speeches are hold. Those that end the marching pro or con. The demonstrations. The Monkey Mountain is right across the former City Hall, the pulpit facing it. Quite symbolic come to think about it.

Now it so happened the same week as the Neo Nazi tumult, it turns out that the City is going to dismantle the Monkey Mountain. Imagine the reactions! To take away the very symbol for freedom of speech right at the time for a city trauma.

It had nothing to do with anything, only a move to access plumbing and power under ground, but the timing was unfortunate. And the communication from the City poor. A Save the Monkey Mountain group was organized of course, but on Monday the beloved downtown centerpiece was gone.

Now, the concrete parts are put in storage. And the pulpit is moved across the square, but still there. And the City has promised the inhabitants of Umeå to participate in the design of the future square.

It’s interesting though. Moving away the Monkey Mountain at Rådhustorget is like taking out the dinner table from a dining room. Where is the center now? Where shall we gather? Where can we all hang out together? Especially when we have something to say. It makes us…lost.

Between 3 and 4000 people got together in Umeå to speak up against racism two weeks ago. It was a long time since something engaged that many people. I can’t find the figures now, but I think the last time was March 22 2003. Most of the world stood up that day against the US invading Iraq. So did Umeå. I remember freezing my feet off. And forcing my 14 and 16 year-old sons to participate. We marched through downtown and finished for speeches at the Monkey Mountain at Rådhustorget. It felt really good bringing our piece to the giant puzzle. Being a part of the world.

Two weeks ago an unexpected and scary armed war happened in our own front-yard. And we did what we had to do. We spoke up.

Farmhouse-Penthouse

I am thinking, watching Trouble 1 and Hannes in the hole created where the rusting tin plates and the rotted shingle roof just came off, that this is very far from a penthouse.

It has always been referred to as the Big Barn. It used to be a hay barn, and it sits in between my place and Alida’s. In more modern days it served as storage for farming equipment and later my garden furniture and a lot of things kept just because there is room for them. The old tin roof has been looking sad for many years though and this spring it was a fact: the ridge is giving in. So the question was, do I need to tear it down or should I leave it to simply collapse?

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the work and effort it is keeping a place like mine. The main house, the baker’s cottage, the woodshed/coach house and the Big Barn. This summer there have been three major concerns heavy on my shoulders: the Big Barn, the south wall of the baker’s cottage (are the ants eating it and do I need to replace the whole wall, not only the boarding suffering from the sun and wind?) and the main house roof.

My place is my maternal grandparents homestead, built 1915-20. It’s my heart and my roots. I am the seventh generation in my village, that’s how far the family tree goes, my sons the eighth. The fields and the forests, planted by my grandfather, is the map I am navigating by. The creek is the blood in my veins.

It is a gift and I am very grateful. But it is also an anchor sometimes too heavy. That’s why I need a penthouse with a view in the place where my lungs are.

Seattle is water and mountains, skies and tall glass buildings. It is the smell of red cedar and the ocean, new memories and those yet to come. My history here is only twenty years old.

It used to be taking off to Seattle was diving into the sky. It was running away from my life in the woods. From the gravity of generations and preconceived notions laid upon me. And even if I was in a really bad place when leaving here, I could trust life running into my body as soon as I was waiting for my welcome-back ride at SeaTac. Filling my lungs with that cedar-ocean spray that lifted my spirits  like a colorful balloon.

Seattle isn’t that quick fix anymore though. Twenty years isn’t seven generations, but it is pretty much 1/3 of my life. And it’s most of my sons’ lives. It is a divorce and the loss of a happy family. It is friends passed away and moving out of town. It is restrained passion and love lost in failed hopes. It is cancer. And it’s a traumatized body from countless back episodes, bedridden stays and nightmare overseas flights.

I live in the woods on an old homestead that used to be a farmhouse. It’s as much on the ground as it can be. It is as much grounded as I can be. The antipode is a penthouse in Seattle. To live in the sky with an unrestricted view of mountains and water, a big city and a tiny home, easy to maintain. It’s as much up in the air as it can be. It’s as high as I can be.

When I returned to Seattle after the cancer, I hadn’t been back for three years. I was a different person. I walked the Northwest soil with baby steps. And I had found the penthouse to fill my lungs.

Opening the door to Main Condo at the corner of Main and 23rd took my breath away. I was in heaven. Literally. The place swam in light and air from the floor-to-ceiling windows facing south and west, and sitting at the 700 square feet patio was like being on a mountaintop overlooking the city and the Sound. The place had Maria written all over, everything was perfect, even the parking; the best spots in the garage! And it was for sale!!

I was renting from the lovely Debra who wouldn’t mind selling to me. I didn’t have the money of course, but my dear friend Randi and I bought lottery tickets, convinced that this was meant to be! I am not a lottery person, I am not lucky in that way, and of course the money didn’t come my way. But I had a great experience, and it turned out I was right: I was a penthouse woman as much as I am a farmhouse girl!

And yesterday the farmhouse girl was leading the Saving the Big Barn project. In the morning already Alida’s son Melker started the chainsaw. Hannes down the road joined with the hammer drill and the team was completed with Trouble & Trouble who used to keep the barn as their hut and climbing wall when they grew up.

The plan was to strengthen the two rotting roof beams with new ones attached to the old. Then remove the rusting tin plates and dig out the soft shingles underneath. The next step would be to replace the decayed crossbars. Would the plan work?

It did! It was exciting I have to say, because the barn is tall and the roof neither accessible nor safe to work. But the Big Barn rescue team was just perfect for the mission as Hannes is a climber and Trouble & Trouble Parkour seniors with height experience, not to talk about the Koja/Treehouse project!

It is mid September. We’ve had lots of summer days although fall is officially here. And I have taken care of two of my three major concerns. I’ve had the main house roof inspected and assured that it’s okay and will last for 10, maybe 15 more years!! And yesterday my fantastic neighbors and sons saved the Big Barn for at least this winter and I am so grateful.

The south wall of the baker’s cottage I am letting go for now. Next summer new missions. And, yes, I am aiming for another penthouse experience. The roots need the air. The heart needs the lungs. The antipodes need each other.