Winter = true!

Just as I lay down on my couch the sun reached the upper left corner of my big west window here in my great room where I am mostly living my life. It dazzles me and it’s really hard to write, but there is no way I am shutting it out. Here comes the sun!

2017 was the year of +11°C  (52°F and 0°C (32°F). Around freezing point most of the winter and pretty much 11/52 during the summer. I was wearing a wool coat in July! And the winter was covered in ice as precipitation came in rain and snow every other day. It was horrible. I felt like I was living on an island as the ground around my house was covered in ice and it was life threatening business for me and the people helping me out to get to and into the car when I had to leave my island. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so physically isolated.

Since I had to quit going downhill in 2000 I haven’t been a fan of snow. There is no point with it any more. Only worries about how to get it out of the way. But this season we actually had snow already in late fall, and it really helps with our struggle fighting the dark here on the 64th latitude. Even when there is hardly no light at all to reflect in the snow, it makes the ground brighter and so our souls. 

Frankly, I thought (and I’m not the only one) the days for real winters were over. 2015, -16 and -17 have surely pointed in that direction. It’s 5 years since we had a winter that followed what used to be a normal pattern. But here we are 2018 with lots of snow and really cold temperatures!

The white stuff has been falling continuously since even before the Holiday season kicked in and there has only occasionally been days around freezing point making the ground dangerous and the snow pack water filled. Temperatures mostly at -5° - -10°C (23-14F), which is pretty much perfect. The landscape has been white as a winter painting, and since it hasn’t even been windy the trees have been all covered most of the season. It’s been truly beautiful.

It’s not new the winters are unpredictable, but when people have been complaining my response has always been: well, we can always trust February. Which means however miserable December and January can be, we can rely on February bringing the real cold temperatures and our heat bills to rocket. Not even that was true for 2017!

But 2018! For some weeks now weather systems over Arctis have pushed high pressure from Siberia our way, and it’s really cold here! -25°C over night warming up to around -15°C (-13F - 5°F) during the day. And it’s even colder further north!

I don’t think I’ve seen this much snow (it’s about one meter /3,3 feet) since my sons were young, and March can sure bring a lot more. Jonas who is doing the plowing in the village hardly has anywhere to put the snow anymore, the piles are huge! And my brand new gutters at the house are demolished from the weight of the snow hanging from the roof…

Now, you might be wondering, when does spring arrive when there is such a snowpack? The funny thing is, it doesn’t really seem to make that much difference. 2017 there was hardly a feet of snow and mostly mild temperatures, yet spring was three weeks later than normal! And than the wool coat summer followed…

The sun has wondered over my window and is now disappearing at the bottom to the right and behind the forest. We have won exactly three hours since the winter solstice already! The snow mobiles are roaring crossing the fields towards Torrberget/Dry Mountain on the perfect bedding. In only a week the worst of the cold will let go and the winter will transform into springwinter, giving room for midday thaw and shades protecting our eyes from the sharp snow-reflecting sun. The season promising everything you hope will come!

My aunt Inga-Märta

Three children born in the nineteen twenties grew up in my house. My mother Kerstin who was the oldest, my uncle Arne and the baby sister Inga-Märta. Inga-Märta is now the family matriarch, and today we celebrated her 90th birthday!

Stories have been a vital ingredient in my family on my mother’s side. Stories from the village and stories from the family. I grew up with them and even the next generation is quoting them although not always aquatinted with the origin of them. Inga-Märta is one of the storytellers. And her dream was to be an author.

But life has it’s ways. In 1950 Inga-Märta became a single mother. At that time it wasn’t only difficult - as it often is - but a disgrace. The baby boy she gave birth to was beautiful of course and adored by his mother and grandmother with whom he grew up. He was also intelligent, clever and sporty and Inga-Märta has had every reason to be very proud of him through her life.

As a little girl I often visited Inga-Märta and grandma during school breaks. My cousin, at that time a teenager, oftentimes came home late into the night. I remember him waking is mother up. Sitting at her bedside they talked about how the day had been before it was time for sleep. I recall it as an agreement between the two of them. I am guessing the reason I remember this so well is that I was touched by the warm and special connection I felt they had to each other. I think I was a bit envious. 

One other thing I remember from those visits is how when the morning newspaper was delivered at about 4AM Inga-Märta woke up, picked it up and read it before she went to sleep again. That’s of course when she didn’t have a really early start at the hotel where she worked. I think I found that odd, at the same time she gave me the message you can do what you want as long as it works and doesn’t harm anyone.

A couple of years ago I found this very special story. It was about Värner, my next door neighbor who was Alida’s husband and passed away 2008 at the age of 98. The story was about his childhood, a poor home with struggling grown ups and children. It was beautifully and giftedly written and it touched my heart in a profound way.

When I realized the writer was Inga-Märta I amazed called her to talk about the story and the writing. That’s when she told me. Yes, my plan was to be a writer. But then it all went downhill. She said.

Inga-Märta’s life has in many ways been challenging. And she has had a special place in her heart for single mothers. For children without fathers being present. But her existence has also been populated with friends friends friends! People she has been loyal to from early years as well as guests at the hotel for whom she was a warm and fun fix point at the front desk, always there. Her true life companion has been her bicycle on which she up in her late years swiftly navigated through Umeå for shopping and visiting friends.

Although Inga-Märta’s eyesight is very poor now she still reads the newspaper. It takes her hours. Word by word. Her son has been her pride and joy. And he has given her three much loved grandsons. And two adorable great grandchildren.

Today all of us celebrated our 90 year old matriarch. I read to her and us the story about Värner and also one about our grandmother. Many of us were moved to tears and unaware about Inga-Märta’s writing talent. We talked about her dream to become an author and how hard it is for anyone to pursue a profession as any kind of artist. But agreed on the fact that a young woman in rural northern Sweden in the forties listening to the voice of that dream was really special. As she is. 

Going to bed with Italian

I thought I was covered for the rest of my life. But the duration surprisingly wasn’t more than 1, 5 years!

I wouldn’t say I am studying Italian. Study is in my mind something you go to school for, or take a class. And I actually did, to start with.

2002, after an extremely difficult winter, I took off to Florence to study beginners Italian for two spring weeks. It was an intense adventure as I didn’t know a single word except si and no and the class moved forward exhaustingly rapid. For about 4-5 semesters later on I took evening classes back home to learn more.

My next move was ordering a self study package, which turned out to be a course from the fifties, true to that time illustrated with pencil drawings. Also, the language was kind of dated my friend Agneta, an Italian teacher, told me. It was an Italian nowadays mostly spoken in Sicily. 

The study pace I chose was pretty slow so the 16 jam-packed yellow booklets lasted for many years. In addition, somewhere in the middle of the course the instruction part was lost (it wasn’t in the package), so the grammar help wasn’t there any more. But as I like to finish what I start I persistently continued reading, figuring it would at least not do me any harm.

I love the Italian language. The sounds, the intensity. Just listening to it makes me smile and my heart beat. I hardly understand anything at all as the Italians speak insanely battering fast, still…

In May 2007 my friend Eva and I spent a week in Rome. Many years ago I had read Susanna Tamaro’s Va’ dove ti porta il cuore /Follow your heart /Gå dit hjärtat leder dig, in Swedish. One pleasant evening I stumbled over that book in one of the Rome book stores. And I told Eva while feeling the weight of it in my hand, one day I am going to read this Italian novel. 

It sat on my bookshelf for the longest time. All those years it took to stubbornly finish up the 16 yellow booklets. My routine was to read them in bed right before lights out. The last thing I did for the day was to figure out long complicated sentences in Italian, to take every word I didn’t understand and decipher until it all made sense to me, what a joy!

Now, in August 2016 it was finally time for Va’ dove ti porta il cuore to move from my bookshelf to my bedside table. Along with the Swedish version of it and a dictionary. It’s not one of those really thick novels, pretty ordinary, still I actually thought I wouldn't have to worry about Italian literature for the rest of my life. I mean, I was in fact taking on an Italian novel!

So, I continued my routine. At about an average of ten minutes a day (night) I filled my brain with a foreign language. Dissecting the sentences. Going back and forth between the original and the Swedish translation, peeking in the dictionary when necessary. And this week I finished the last paragraph. It didn’t take me the rest of my life, only 1,5 years!

So what to do now? Was it time to end my day differently? And maybe “study” Italian at some other point of the day when I am not that tired? It would be a really good thing to focus on the grammar which got lost on the way, study from out of a high school book which Agneta has provided me.

Yes, it would definitely be the right thing to do. If my goal was to speak Italian. It was of course when I started out 15 years ago. But I will probably never spend time in Italy any more. So I actually don’t have to be capable in this sense. I can continue reading Italian just for fun!

Agneta told me about a novel by Alessandro Baricco, Seta/Silk. It’s the fascinating story of a French silk worm merchant falling helplessly in love with a Japanese concubine on one of his trips to the country. It landed on my bedside stand two days ago. Already on the first page I loved the way it was written. Seta is not translated to Swedish, so my help this time around is the English version Silk. It’s a thin little book so I am estimating not more than half a year.

Studying Italian is my brain work out. My crossword or Sudoku. And doing it at lights out is cleansing my brain from whatever the day might have been. It’s also my joy. My smiling heartbeat. And the proud satisfaction of learning something new every day. Slowly and patiently conquering new territory. 

Bidding Alida a last farewell/epilog

Monday morning in the shower an unexpected feeling of panic tapped my naked body from inside.

At my visit to Alida on her hundred years in June I posed myself in front of her. She was in her wheel chair. I knew she could barely see at all. And her hearing was as dim as her eyes. Also, we hadn’t met in about three years.

- Alida, I said, hello.

She lit up. Hardly could she hear me and barley could she see me. Yet, there must have been something in my presence bringing memories back, making her smile. 

The panic in the shower two days after my farewell to Alida was the sudden understanding of having lost someone who loved me. Someone who had known me all my life and unconditionally just loved me.

I remember a summer afternoon when Trouble & Trouble were young. We were all on the front yard playing in the greenery. Värner and Alida came by and Värner was mentioning how lucky I was, having such a nice husband and sons.

I got that a lot. Yes, I had a very nice husband, and of course my little boys were as cute as they could be.

Then Alida responded: and how about E, isn’t he lucky having such a lovely wife?

There is a reason I remember this so well. There is no way a woman can compete with a nice husband when it comes to being appreciated among friends, family and I would say society. Marry a nice man (and you should of course, anything else is just plain darn stupid) but be prepared of him wearing an aureole, being treated like a hero while you are fortunate and not much more. Or let me put it this way, you need to be impeccable in every way to balance up a nice husband.  

Anyway. Alida’s comment that Sunday afternoon was such a gesture of love. Not that she didn’t like my husband, she really did of course. But she saw me. I have never perceived myself as lovely, but Alida did. And she wanted Värner to see what she saw.

How many people do we have in our lives who lit up in our presence? Who look at you as you were the sun itself?

I know I lost someone to whom I got to be a sun. Someone who received and embraced me at every aspect of the multifaceted being that I am.

I am stepping out of the shower, putting my clothes on. I feel like I need a lot of clothes. And a blanket.

Bidding Alida a last farewell

So. Now it’s here. The day when I am writing my last chapter about Alida. 

100 years, 5 months and 15 days. That’s how long Alida’s life came to be. That’s how long she walked on this earth. Caring for us. December 27, 8.20 PM she passed away. Quietly and peacefully. That’s how long she stayed with us. 

Alida was my neighbor. The woman next door. She has been there all my life. All my children’s lives. All my mother’s life. And half my grandmother’s life. Alida carries all generations within her.

When I was a very young girl I used to take my little tricycle the 80 meters to the hot baker’s cottage where Alida and her husband Värner were making their delicious thin crust flat bred. It was my assignment to pick up the fresh warm morning bread for our front yard summer breakfasts. At that time, this place at the end of the road, was my family’s summer house. The bike ride was also a safe adventure for a little girl.

At 25 I moved here with my boyfriend who became my husband. At 30 Trouble 1 arrived, and at 32 Trouble 2 joined us. Alida and Värner were still baking their bread and little boys were now riding the tricycles. 

The foundation for Alida’s and mine friendship was founded when I was a tiny girl and she a woman in her forties. When I started my home here she was about the same age as I am now. Taking care of our cats and plants when my husband and I were gone, which we were a lot. Later being a fix point for Trouble & Trouble growing up. 

I think though, the most important time together for the two of us has been the last eighteen years. My husband and I separated and divorced. Värner, who was older than Alida turned fragile and had to move in to a nursing home. It was hard times for both of us and we found strength and companionship in each other. The day Värner passed away in 2008 at the age of 98, she called me. Now he is dead, she said. 

I used to walk the 80 meters trough the grove in the dark fall and winter afternoons to Alida’s house. We sat at her kitchen table drinking tea, having biscuits and coockies. I liked those with chocolate, she preferred the strawberry ones. We talked. We sighed. We laughed. Trouble & Trouble grew up and moved away, and we had even more tea. She was actually a coffee drinker but with me, she had tea.

Aren’t you afraid of the darkness, she asked me - as it’s pretty dark where we are at. No, I said, there is a lot of things I am afraid of, but not the darkness. Really she said, well in that case I won’t be either.

When Värner had to move away from home she was beating herself up of course, as most everyone does when it finally is impossible to take care of the spouse and life companion any more. I asked her to not be so hard on herself. You have done absolutely everything in your power for Värner all these years, I said. Is that so, she responded. Well, in that case I will let that one go.

That’s Alida.

When my back entered the level of acute back out phases starting in 2004, she picked up the mail and news paper for me as I couldn’t get to the mailbox myself. Even in her nineties she was looking out for me. 

At around 95 Alida still took her speedy walks in the forests and visiting her friends around the village most every day. Eventually she turned more fragile and her strolls became limited to our road. We used to meet between our houses, she supported by her walker and me on my Nordic Walking poles. We hugged and smiled and sighed. 

When it finally was time for Alida to be assisted by home care, they checked on her ones a day and she didn’t like it a bit. It was pretty much at the same time as my life ended the way I knew it to be, and I needed assistance six times a day.

When Alida for some reason was away, I felt like my backbone was gone. When her house was empty I was unguarded. I dreaded the day she would be gone, and it happened a little more than three years ago. She moved away, into a nursing home. 97 years old. And I had to learn to live without her. And to let go of her.

In June Alida turned a hundred years old. She had reached the goal we weren’t quite aware she had set up for herself. And I am so incredibly grateful for the beautiful summer afternoon her granddaughter Josephine and I had together with her a couple of days later. I got to meet her one last time. Holding her hand. Caressing her face. Singing her songs. And remembering together.

On Friday we bid our farewell to Alida. The mother. The grandmother. The great grandmother. The mother in law. And the friend. The sun was shining on the snowy landscape for the first time in weeks.

At the goodbye to Värner I sang Bliv kvar hos mig - Abide with me, the beautiful and poetic evening hymn also so right at the end of a life. And I promised Alida I would sing the same song at the end of her life as well. I’ve dreaded it though. How would I do it? In that moment?

It was a beautiful ceremony. It was sweet. And I wanted to contribute with what I had been given, my voice. I sang for Alida. I sang for her family. I sang for me. For Trouble & Trouble, my mother and my grandmother. For my extended family. I sang for all of us and for the moment. 

Back at my seat afterwords I could let go. Meanwhile the organ was reflecting, the pictures came to me. All the hours at her kitchen table in the winter darkness. Our brief meetings at the road. The deserted feeling returning to my empty home, knowing Alida was still in the house next door. Keeping me safe and sane.

Thank you Alida for everything you gave us. Thank you for staying with us much longer than we asked for. Thank yo for being such a presence in my life. I will always carry you with me. As I also carry your name.

Earlier chapters about Alida:

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2012/06/being-alida.html

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2014/09/loosing-alida.html

http://homeisawayawayishome.blogspot.se/2017/06/alida-hundred-years.html

Having hygge?

- We are thinking of taking some pictures in the beautiful weather and maybe swing by for a fika, how does that sound?

Sounds good to me! I wouldn’t agree on the weather being precisely beautiful because it’s overcast, but the landscape is like a story book of fluffy two feet cold white, the trees heavily covered with snow. I do agree with Trouble 2 and Audrey on the general feeling of a beautiful northern Swedish winter day.

So, the conditions for hygge is optimal. Like they also are in Seattle, the number 1 hygge city in the US! Never heard of hygge? Let me explain.

Hygge is a Danish word summing up the feeling of coziness, contentment, warmth and socials making you feel really good. You might curl up at the fire place with a book or a knitting, gather together with some friends for a board game or meet up at a coffee shop or a pub to hang out with your mates as pastime. It’s relaxed quality time designated for just being and feeling good, and a lot of times there are candles involved.

This is something people in the Nordic countries really have a talent for. I would say the Finnish saunas is there way of hygge. Swedes get together for a fika, a sit down social including coffee, cardamom buns and some cockies. And Norwegians go inside their hytte, cabin, after the cross country tour in the mountains. I’m not sure what the Icelandic hygge looks like, maybe someone can fill me in?

According to Bert Sperling, American demographic expert and founding of Sperling’s Best Places, there are certain factors required to achieve hygge. You need cozy weather, fun activities, fire places and gathering places. His idea of cozy weather is, rain, cold, snow etc, weather that pushes you to want a fireplace and candles.

It was my friend Jannie who works for my home care company making dinner for me today. As it so happens she is actually Danish, perfect for a reality check! She agreed on Sperling’s list, although not quite on the weather point. Hygge is not weather-dependent. Hygge happens in any weather all year around where people get together to hang out and enjoy each other during hyggelig conditions. So, hyggelig is the adjective meaning pretty much nice and cozy.

As the term hygge now is starting to spread outside Scandinavia, Sperling’s Best Places is naturally taking an interest in finding the best places for hygge in the US. They have made an inventory of American cities, listing cozy weather, fun activities, fire places and gathering places as ranking factors. Not too surprisingly they found that four of the top five cities are all in northern states. And Seattle is the hygge-ist of the hygge cities, taking home top honors with a first-place ranking!

Seattle earned it’s spot because of the book loving Seattleites and the fact that 58% of the homes have fire places, the most in the country. The runner up Portland OR, Seattle’s baby sister, has the most hygge venues in the US and a good overall hygge pastimes. And here are the top five!

Sperling’s top five hygge cities:

1. Seattle

2. Portland

3. Minneapolis

4. Salt Lake City

5. Denver

So do you want to know which cities are the least hygge in the US? Here they are:

46. Tuscon

47. San Antonio

48. Miami

49. Riverside

50.Los Angeles

Bert Sperling, who himself is Swedish-Norwegian means that Denmark and Miami is the most far from each other on the list when it comes to life styles. And Salt Lake City, which might come as a surprise as the nr. 4 hygge city in the US actually has a large Danish heritage, that would explain their hygge tradition.

So, Trouble 2 and Audrey stopped by for a cozy Sunday afternoon fika in my yellow kitchen. Jannie and I had good laughs as she fixed my dinner while light flurries started falling over my snow-covered perfectly still landscape. And tonight I am enjoying my candles while writing my story under my blanket. It’s been a hygge day.

Paramparça - my dramatic dinner company

The 85th episode of the second season chocked me. Well, not a real chock but a TV-series chock. No, it’s not possible, how can the story even go on with one of the main characters dead?! Heads up, spoiler alert, if you are following the series and haven’t watched season 2, stop reading here!

During the extremely sad summer 2017 weather wise, I bumped into the Turkish soap opera Paramparça. The Swedish names is The exchange (obviously not, that’s English, but you know what I mean. In Swedish Förväxlingen), and it’s the story about two girls born at the same time at the same hospital and with very similar family names. They get exchanged at the hospital, grow up in the wrong family, and the mix up doesn’t get revealed until the girls are in their teens. !

The plot is very simple. One family is obscenely rich and live in a luxury home at Bosporen. The other one poor and their home is a moldy rental in what’s in the story is called the slum. So, the poor girl Hazal should have had her life in the wealth at Bosporen and the rich Cansu should have grown up in the Istanbul slum.

The characters in the story are extremely easy to read, kind of like caricatures of themselves. To a western eye they are way over dramatized, but my Middle Eastern friends tell me that’s the way it is. Up until episode 90 of 100 in the first season the characters also stays true to how they are first presented.

So, this is the cast:

The rich family: mother Dilara who is evil, going crazy all the time. Father Cihan, the good, wise, always balanced head of the family who only occasionally in the heat of the moment knocks someone down. Brother Ozan, a light soul in his late teens most often frustrated and mad about what’s going on in his family. Then of course Cansu, the sweetest teenage girl with a golden heart always open for everyone. 

The poor family: father Özkan who took of to Germany when his daughter was only little, leaving his wife with his debts, he is in German prison when the story starts. Gülseren, the mother with a heart and soul like an angel but also a will power and fighting spirit that can make mountains move. The daughter Hazal is hard to like. She is ungrateful, manipulating and plainly mean. 

These two families of course get entangled when it turns out they have raised the wrong daughters. There is nothing but drama here and in the center of it the good father Cihan and the good mother Gülseren who fall in love with each other. 

I have spent most dinners together with these families for about half a year now. The episodes are only half an hour here in Sweden so they are easy to fit in. Pretty often I watch two though. Three, no, when I do I feel like I have eaten too much candy or something.

It’s interesting watching a story which is differently shaped than the western template I am used to and fed up on. The dramaturgy is pretty much the same, but so much more of everything. It’s constantly over the top and most of the time totally predictable. Once I accepted that, it stopped being annoying and these people became my dinner friends.

I also find it fascinating watching something in a language which is absolutely foreign to me. No words related to anything I am familiar with. Not quite true, they often say bye bye, surprise is the same word pronounced in French, euro of course and taxi, taksi. Other than that it’s just sounds. I love it! And I now even have a few turkish words in my vocabulary.

The story this far has moved over a few years. Cihan and Gülseren’s love is of course inconvenient, to Gülseren even impossible. Cihan is persistent though. His marriage to Dilara is unhappy and unfriendly, although Dilara for the longest time wants to keep it for the status and the honor. Aside of this the dramas within and between the families just keeps coming. Now and then someone is in the hospital in life threatening conditions after severe accidents or shootings. They always survive miraculously and without complications though.

For the longest time you can’t tell if the actors are talented or not, as they keep acting the stereotype of the character, always being the same. But at around episode 90 of the first season something is happening. 

The dad Özkan, who has been mean and pretty much stupid, is showing a vulnerable, exposed and very sad part of himself. You feel sorry for him and even start liking him. Dilara’s character is developing as well. She starts questioning herself, becomes softer, and realizes she is a very lonely woman. 

There is especially one part of this story that really touches me. At Cihan and Dilara’s divorce they are thanking each other for the 20 years they had together, for better and for worse. And for being good parents to their children. Cihan, who is the one moving on, expresses time and time again how he will always be there for Dilara should she need it. And how crucial it is for him knowing what’s going on in her life, because that is what’s going on in his children’s life. In their children’s life. “Dilara, we will always be parents together”. He shows unusual responsibility and awareness about what it is being a parent.

Now, back to episode 85 season 2. I watch it the day before Christmas. Just one more before the Holidays. This is the episode where Cihan and Gülseren after years of back and fourth is finally marrying. The daughters are excited and Dilara has accepted the situation. Özkan is drinking heavily crying, as he wants his ex-wife back.

In the middle of the after-ceremony reception joy the usual drama continues and someone steps in with a gun. The room is filled with guests, but the bullet which is planned for Cihan’s son Ozan, hits Gülsüren as she in her goodness covers the son and gets shot in the stomach. 

We didn’t see this one coming, but why not, this is Paramparça after all. Thinking their marriage will start with some month at the hospital. But that’s not what happens.

Gülseren dies. She dies. Just like that. She really dies. I can’t believe it. You can’t let the main female character get shot and die without planting it in some way, that’s not right!

The day before Christmas Gülseren dies, I don’t have any hot water and Christmas Eve morning my house is cold. And I can’t even see how the story is going to go on with Gülseren dead, that’s not even possible!

But as season 2 is120 episodes, the story continues. After the Holidays I took a deep breath and started watching again. Yes, it continues.

I have grown very fond of my dinner friends. And also the actors who I now can tell has depth and skills. But I will miss Gülseren. The warm angel with the good soul and the big heart. I will miss her dearly.