Spring-winter, a Swedish love affair

- Only a Swede does that.

It is Jannie helping me up on Saturday morning. The March sun is shining and I am mentioning I would love to sit outside this weekend, the forecast looks very promising. They say afternoon temperatures around 46°F (8°C).

Jannie is shaking her head. "Only a Swede does that". Jannie is Danish and came here by accident. She has lived in Turkey too. She likes it here, she does, but Swedes do things which are hard even for a Dane to grasp. Like wanting to sit outside in the sun at those temperatures.

But then you haven’t understood the beauty of the March sun on the 64th latitude.

March is what we call spring-winter. It is still winter in terms of snow and temperatures, even though it’s milder than January and February of course. But it’s the light. The light is back. We have just passed spring equinox, the day is finally longer than the night and today we switched to savings time, hallelujah! And the quality of the light… in combination with the snow… it’s a love affair.

March and April is when Swedes pilgrimage to the mountains close to the Norwegian border. To spend the days downhill in the slope or on a mountain lake cross country skiing. And an important ingredient on those days is to dig yourself down in the snow, make yourself comfortable on a sleeping mat or a rain deer skin, have hot chocolate and oranges and turn your face to the sun. Breath out. Close your eyes. Heart beat slows down. And you just love life.

You actually don’t even have to go to the mountains. You can do this on your own back yard. Which I wanted to this morning. I can’t sit in the snow on the ground of course, but I was thinking I could actually be in my sun chair against the west wall. Although there is snow there so…

I texted Magnus. Magnus is my dear neighbor at the beginning of the road. He is just the sweetest and he is the one who has been shoveling the snow for me this winter. I am so grateful to him. So right now, was he at the house? Could he possibly come over? Yes of course!

He was here in a few and so was his darling son Loke, 8. Together they made a path in the snow to the west wall for me, grabbed my sun chair in the baker’s cottage and put it in place next to the wall. I tucked myself in in my long thick fur coat and lay down in the chair. Facing the sun. Closed my eyes. Breath out. Heart beat slows down. It’s March 25 and I am actually siting outside in the snow and sun.

Every Swedish child with access to snow and nature grew up with spring-winter experiences like mine. It’s in our DNA. We crave this through our lives.There is no way a Dane can understand this. A child from Syria, Kurdistan or Afghanistan starting their Swedish life in the inlands of northern Sweden might though.

The March light lures us outside. It cries for you. It’s like a siren you just can’t resist.

Jannie was the one helping me buy the sun chair last May. She can’t understand why Swedes dress themselves in heavy winter clothes and choose to sit outside when it’s still cold, but she is the one making it possible for me. Thank you Jannie and thank you Magnus and Loke! 

I think I am getting stupider. Is that even a word? Yeah, you see…

I think it started already many years ago when I had to give up the main daily Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter as they stopped distributing the weekend edition outside Umeå. That’s when I didn’t have endless access to long in depths articles waiting for me on my kitchen table anymore.

The next step I would say was when I had to move my dinners from my kitchen to my couch. In my former life I always listened to Swedish National Radio while preparing dinner. Often I enjoyed music while eating, but a lot of times I got caught up in some interesting public service program and just stayed with it. At the same time I had to give up driving my car, and so my other slot for radio listening disappeared.

For a while now I have reluctantly noticed how I shy away from lengthy mind challenging texts in my local newspaper. Västerbottens Kuriren have the most amazing  editor for cultural arts. Sara Meidell is as sharp as a swordfish and her articles are always interesting and defiant. It used to be that I read everything, even if the subject wasn’t quiet my area of interest. Today I find myself selecting only the ones I feel connected to. And same goes for the op.ed. Ola Nordebro, also a bright mind and an excellent writer.

As company for my couch dinners I am choosing comfort TV. I first got aquatinted with Grey’s Anatomy during the season premiere season in Seattle September 2012. My Queen Anne penthouse city view identical to the one on the TV screen next to it. It was the season beginning with the horrible plain crash when Marc Sloan and Lexie Grey died. Back in Sweden I started following the series and have since then.

It’s the reruns which are on in time for my dinners. By now, I have watched all seasons many times, but as they are so many, when they start all over again at season 1, it feels like long time no see George and Izzy who are also long dead and gone. Old friends who I have been missing. So I am in this loop which I have a hard time leaving. Not that it’s bad for me. But I can’t say it’s moving me forward making my mind sharper.

I haven’t really experienced my brain being soggy until this winter though. I think it has been a slow insidious process sneaking up on me. So what has changed recently?

It comes down to two words. Donald Trump.

As I have mentioned before I have been watching CNN most every weekday since the election. The purpose has been to keep track of the spider in the room. I am not a big consumer. 30 minutes a day, before the 7.30 PM Swedish National Television news. So I say.

The fact is those 30 minutes are often extended. Sometimes to a full hour. Frequently to a full hour I have to admit. Which means I am dropping the Swedish lo key sensible resonating view of the news world for Sean Spicer. Yeah.

Every day I am promising myself a more healthy diet, but I just can’t help myself! I mean, Wolf Blitzer announcing a press briefing will be coming up soon, there is no way I can not wait for that one! Even worse is that it’s hardly news anymore, it’s plain freaking entertainment!

I don't blame CNN, not at all. They are doing a good job, especially considering the circumstances. It’s not CNN’s fault that my brain has turned into a slow dough mixer. No, it’s the fact that the reporting has it’s core in a president who’s vocabulary is (according to language experts) at the level of a 9-year old. And his capacity for thinking in consequences has to be even lower on the scale. Analyzes, does he even know that word? And telling truth from lies?

This week a reporter asked Sean Spicer during a briefing if the they could trust the president. Is he telling the truth? Sean Spicer turned into Melissa McCarthy and screamed repeatedly OF COURSE HE DOES!!! UNLESS HE ISN’T JOKING!

Come on, there is no way I could trade a Swedish union leader for a moment like that! Let’s face it, this White House has really turned into a comedy TV series and I don’t want to miss a single episode. It becomes very clear though, as Angela Merkel stands beside Donald Trump for the press conference on Friday, that this is for real. And that, is both frightening and embarrassing.

Zapping back to Swedish TV after my daily CNN (half) hour I feel like I have been in a candy store to long. A little bit sick. Craving carrots.

So is there anything good for me coming out of this media diet? Well, I feel like I am more connected to the English language than I have been for a while. As I haven’ been back in Seattle for many years and I am not educated by my very articulate and verbally talented friends there any more, I can tell my English is turning poor. But in spite of Donald Trump and Sean Spicer I feel a slight improvement. For which I have to thank Wolf Blitzer, his panel and their engaged analyzes.

So what can I do about my soggy brain? Well I have decided on reading Sara Meidell’s and Ola Nordebro’s lengthy texts in my local news paper even when I feel a slight resistance. And there are days when I can definitely squeeze in the afternoon Swedish National Radio before the Grey’s Anatomy reruns. That’s a start. Let’s see what it brings.

Chatting with Lisabeta!

-Hello Lisabeta! How are you today?

Through Daniel who has been one of my home care people this winter I have learned her name is Lisabeta, not Elisabeta which my Swedish ear first heard. As I have mentioned before Lisabeta is the Romani woman earning her living outside my grocery store. We have met twice a week for 1,5 year now. Before Daniel came into my life I mostly bought her a grilled chicken, since that was what she asked for. Sometimes fruit.

It was really frustrating to me that I couldn’t communicate with Lisabeta. She knows a few words in English and three Swedish. And of course I don’t know any Rumanian. But then life brought me an interpreter! Daniel who himself comes from Rumania and has been here for about two years. His Swedish is impeccable, that young man really has a good ear for language!

So, I got to know Lisabeta lost her husband early. Her elderly mother is back in Bucharest while Lisabeta’s two children in their early twenties are here In Umeå with her, as well as her three young grandchildren. Daniel tells me it is rare for a Romani woman only having two children, which would be explained by her husbands death.

Now, I wanted to find out how to communicate the most basic with Lisabeta. Daniel became my teacher, and I learned Rumanian is a mix of latin base language, slavic and also some rests from old Daccia, the original Rumania. This was so exciting!

As I am a little bit familiar with Italian I jumped on everything that was related to that language, it was easy to learn, and fun, I loved it!. But the slavic heritage… I just can’t wrap my head around it! It’s interesting how difficult a word can be when you can’t connect it to anything at all, no matter how bad you want to learn it. Thanks for example, I just had to drop that one. Lisabeta knows thank you in Swedish though, so it isn’t the end of the world.

Lisabeta's and mine twice a week dates now are so much fun. And this is how are conversations goes, in Rumanian:

-Hello Lisabeta!

-Hello Maria!

-How are you doing today?

-Good. (Or sometimes not good). How are you doing?

-Not good (way to often). What do you want today?

-Meat. Or fish. Or potatoes and oil. Or baguette and butter. Or eggs. Or fruit. Once pizza

I pick up my groceries as well as her’s and handing them over afterwords I say:

-There you go (which is with pleasure)

-Thank you Maria (which she says in Swedish)

-Stay well!

-Thank you. Stay well you too

-Bye bye! (which is until we see each other again, like Italian)

I don’t think I have bought Lisabeta chicken since she was able to tell me what she really wants.  Chicken was probably the only word she could express in English. And of course I feel ashamed about responding to her “How are you doing” with “Not good”. At least I am not on my knees on a purple cushion in a cold and dark country far away from home. But I consider us friends and I can’t lie to a friend.

Did I mention we are laughing a lot? So happy to chat with each other even though quite restricted. And Daniel complimented my pronunciation the other day saying “Now you don’t need me any more” But of course I do, I want to learn more!

…then I will never ever complain again

When I discovered a tumor in my breast (it was a November Saturday morning 2008) I went back to bed. And in a nameless fear I promised my ceiling, the naked trees outside my window and myself that if I survived this I would never ever complain about anything in life. The negotiating phase. That didn’t last of course.

I survived. I got lucky in life’s lottery. And during what I call my year of reclaiming life l did not complain. I was filled with that life-enhanced feeling only experienced by people who have stared death in it’s eyes.

I don’t think it is possible though to stay in that feeling. Not because we forget how bad it was and that the ending could have been different, but because everyday life is just that and suddenly a back out or a dead car is a major obstacle we are not only complaining about but cursing. I don’t think human beings are built to be any other way.

My back problems are severe. But the situation and pain varies. Worst case scenario is excruciating pain from knifes running through my pelvis and sacrum, leaving me totally immobilized and terrified. In those moments I am promising myself (and my ceiling and the trees outside my window) to never ever complain about anything if it would just go away. I will be fully happy and satisfied with my life just lying on my couch in a more regular pain - which is still handicapping and weighty. I will be fully content as long as I don’t need to be terrified out of pain, surviving minute by minute!

Tomorrow it’s a month since my first acute situation this period. They have been about twice a week leaving me paralyzed and petrified. Friday morning I woke up lying on my left side. When turning over on my back there was a shooting in my left lower back. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed. And so Friday I was more or less apathetic from the worst muscle cramp I’ve had in a couple of years, and those knifes just waiting for me to make the wrong move, stabbing me. I would say my brain focus on my back was at 99% on the scale. And the negotiating starts. If only… 

So why is it that as soon I am feeling just a little bit better I want more? Why am I not satisfied with just not being terrified - as I promised? My trees and everything.

Is it in the human nature to always strive forward? Develop? To not rest in place? The will-power to kick in and do it’s job? I am thinking it is. A survivor default. I know it is certainly true for me.

 I have a friend and a relative who are struggling with cancer and chemo right now.  I don’t have an illness. I don't see myself as sick. I know what sick is. I have been sick.

This is not being sick. But for now I am trapped in this vicious circle of excruciating pain-paralyzing fear- and twice a week treatments. I am telling my now white snow covered trees every morning how healthy I am. I am perfectly healthy I am telling them. And myself. It’s just, sometimes it’s really hard to take that in. To believe my own words. Sometimes I still want something more.

Who would believe? A reflection from Sweden

To quote Donald Trump: who would believe?

Who would believe Sweden would be thrown into the Trump rhetoric? Who would believe the Swedes would turn into a weapon in his dangerous xenophobia hand? It makes me sick to the stomach to out of nowhere be a part of this.

It was last weekend that Donald Trump twisted an already twisted Fox news story, telling the world something horrible - and very vague - had happened in Sweden the night before. We woke up stunned by these ridiculous news. Which would have been fine if we could only respond by a laugh brushing it off our shoulders with some funny videos as a reply. But we can’t can we? Because this man (and the brains behind him) does anything to create fear, and his populist politician fellows around Europe are going high on the success among his crowd.

Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats), the Swedish nationalistic xenophobic party, is growing and on the brink of being the second largest party in Sweden after the Social Democrats. At the Trump gambit they played the card writing an article of opinon in the Wall Street Journal seconding Trump. We have come to a point where Sverigedemokraterna consciously is hurting their own country in international media!

Which forces the Swedish government to take to countermeasures, conveying their view and facts in American media, writing articles and giving as many interviews as possible. So, Swedish politicians are at war with each other in foreign media! Good job Trump!

It is not that Sweden is vaccinated against problems. Of course not. And here, as in any other country they occur the most in neighborhoods where the unemployment numbers are high and people feel like they don’t have a purpose. Which is true whether you are born in Sweden or has come here because the option to stay in your native country or return there really isn’t an option at all.

Monday evening a riot happened in the Stockholm suburb Rinkeby. Due to drug dealing the police has increased their presence which annoyed criminal groups. During an intervention the police was attacked and cars were set on fire. A police officer was cornered and fired off a gun. Nobody was injured from the shot. 

This shouldn’t happen of course. Neither the gun shot nor the riot. Or the drug dealing.  Or criminality. Or being unemployed. Or having to flee your country. Or wars. Whether they are between countries, peoples, religions or beliefs. It shouldn’t but it does. And what we can do is to help each other out. Not throw up hate and fear from tribuns around the world.

Now, I don’t agree with the Swedish government who has closed our borders and are sending people back (among them unaccompanied children) to war zones and in many cases countries where they have no connections since they have spent years in refugee camps elsewhere or are even born there. But I am happy to see former PM Fredrik Reinfeldt and also PM as well ass secretary of state Carl Bildt (who I didn't agree with either as they are right wing) speak up firmly against Donald Trump. And the Washington Post publishing an article with enlightening facts about Sweden, crime, immigration and integration, read it please.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/24/no-sweden-isnt-hiding-an-immigrant-crime-problem-this-is-the-real-story/?utm_term=.1511ddc56266

And to end this post from a confused, frightened and outraged Swede spurred by the presumably most dangerous American president of all times, I will quote the official message on Swedish Foreign Policy News by our Minister of Justice and immigration Morgan Johansson:

Who would I be?

The other day I had the strangest experience. 

My mornings are always fragile. Especially those after a treatment the day before. I wake up and navigate in my pain to get a grip on where it is centered. How scared I need to be. And sometimes it takes a while to figure out where my body is at and where my protection needs to be focused.

Friday morning I woke up and the scanning happens automatically. I didn't notice a cramp anywhere though. And I did not feel like I was locked either. What was this? It was Jannie helping me out of bed and back after my start of the day. I told her how puzzled I was. The whole thing was odd and unfamiliar. A feeling of my pelvis being open. Free. Not framed. Liberated as well as unprotected.

And the really weird thing was how my brain was kind of up in the air. Like it had lost it’s focus. I could actually sense it soaring above my head. Like a butterfly waving it’s wings randomly (it seems) changing directions in search for something. 

In that moment I am realizing my brain’s normal position is always pointing downwards. Focused on controlling the pain and keeping my pelvis from not going totally over board, leaving me unmovable in a scream of fear.

What happened this morning was my brain was suddenly out of work. It was unemployed. And everyone who has been in that situation knows it really throws you up in the air.

In half an hour it was over. An intense cramp to the right of my left sit bone occurred. Order was restored. My brain found it’s focus. It’s assignment. This I know how to do.

I am wondering how many percent of my brain capacity 24-7 is occupied by pain and body control. This experience makes me think 97%.

The soaring brain above my head had the shape and the feeling of a light summer cloud. The colors white and blue. Transparent. Flexible. Receivable. Open for… what?

What would my brain do if it wasn’t pointed downwards? With what would it make itself busy? Who would I be? 

Closing my eyes recapturing the feeling of that half an hour the sense of my pelvis and my brain is very similar. Open. Nonrestricted. Free for any impulse. And room for that impulse to expand and happen. So who would I be? What would I do? And how would I feel? 

It will be okay, she said

She is giving me her hand and she says it’s going to be okay. I am closing my eyes asking her to say it again. It’s going to be okay. Her words are landing in the little girl within me.

I am lying on my right side in my bed. I am acute and shivering from fear. We have to get me out of bed. And I am reaching for Josephine’s hand to pull me up. She takes it and tells me it is going to be okay. I am listening. And she pulls.

I am acute in a way I haven’t been for a long time. And it all comes back. Passing out out of pain in a hotel room in Seattle. Being stuck at my kitchen sink not able move. Stuck at the Nordstrom entrance. Crawling up my stairs. Stuck in a Montlake apartment. My son putting his feet under mine walking me to the bathroom. Stuck in a Queen Anne condo. Stuck in the car. Not being able to move.

When acute, it’s not only the present pain that takes a grip on you. It’s all the traumatic body memories flooding your senses with a nameless fear and there is no way you can control it. 

I am pondering a lot about feeling safe/unsafe these days. My situation since four years now is that I am quite exposed and vulnerable since I am physically restricted, having to rely on others for my daily survival. I think most people during those circumstances feel more or less unsafe.

I have come to understand though there are people harboring all the safety they need within them. People who don’t need other people. For feeling safe. For support. For loneliness. They might enjoy other people. For fun. For inspiration. For company. For friendship. For love. But they don’t depend on anyone else for feeling good and safe. They fill their own needs.

I though, am ridden by a general feeling of being unsafe and has been so all my life as I recall. It’s a feeling of existential character I would say. Growing up, I didn’t have access to a voice telling me it was going to be okay. So here I am, a 60 year old woman scared in my bed, being offered those words by a 25 year old girl. And I can feel my little child inside receiving them. Like my body is hungering for the sunbeams in the summer. I wonder who I had been if cradled with those words?

I have a sense. There are good days. There has been good times. When I feel anchored. Strong. Solid. Safe and content by myself. Here, alone at the end of the road. Or driving I5 in the Seattle rush hour traffic. Knowing my way around. Trusting myself. Confident relying on having the capacity to handle most every situation. 

And I have a picture that’s what it is like being a grown up? Mastering your life. Always. And the fact that I don’t every day, makes me feel I am still a child. I didn't make it all the way.

For a long time now I have been only me. And I have learned to master most things coming up in a regular life with a homestead and home care personal. There is plenty I can’t do myself but I find the people to hire and help me out. I take care of things to the extent that I have come to think sharing shores and troubles with someone would be cheating. If there was a partner or a best friend at my side for everyday challenges or life dito that would be like escaping reality.

Last week one of the home care people who hasn’t been with me for a long time was back. It was wonderful seeing each other again. We laughed. And we even shed a tear. We had missed each other a lot and finally had the chance to share up dates on our lives for the past five months. During that afternoon I could feel myself relaxing in the company of someone who I feel safe and comfortable with.

And I am thinking I will start trying saying to myself things will be okay. Telling the mature woman as well as the little girl. It will be okay. Meanwhile mastering my life. And allowing myself to relax and laugh and cry when there is company who want to share those moments with me.