All this time without words is weighing heavily on me. If I can't file a few moments and images into words then what will happen to them?
There's no theme or red thread I can see in my scattered thoughts. Too much coffee again and I must admit it's a feeling I like somewhat, a feeling that I need to race.
Last night, dinner with all the family at Linda and Dave's house. It had long since gotten dark, and we had finished the turkey dinner they'd made for American Thanksgiving. Everyone was sitting around sort of in a circle around the fireplace and coffee tables, eating pie, drinking wine.
The room was dimly lit and there was a warm glow from the fire. I suddenly saw the scene as if I was standing outside of the room, looking through the window. The group of faces I know so well were talking and laughing. It was a typical moment like many other family dinners before, but time and distance away from them let me see them from outside the window: fragile, balanced on the edge of time, gathered around a glowing light in the vast darkness of night.
They looked for a moment like what they would someday become: ancestors. So I felt for a moment like I was invisible, back from a future where nobody thought it possible to see those ancestors anymore. I saw something that family members not born yet might one day try to imagine, and only see dimly, (the way I see the ones before, in Scotland, in England, newly arrived in Canada...)through the mist of time and ideas formed from old letters and photographs. Here they are: it's the year 2006, they're together, they're laughing, they're dressed in clothing from that era. At least right now, in this moment I rip from times notebook to slip into my pocket.
Sometimes it hits me (yes, like the clichéd ton of bricks) how our section on the timeline here on earth is limited, finite. Remember learning timelines in school? Here is a timeline of all the kings and queens of France. Here is a timeline of early man: see how he walks more and more upright. Here is a timeline of your life: it started one day and it will end one day. See how what's in between becomes fragile and fleeting. And also how it isn't really like that drawn pencil line at all. It has loops, it has pauses, it has sidetrack after sidetrack, it has skips and repeats and it changes size and colour. Music changes it, weather changes it, a sudden landing of hundreds of birds outside the window changes it.
2006-11-27
2006-10-15
Letter
We had to yell, and the only way I could know how I felt was by yelling, blindly groping for words in the speed of anger. In that speed, that intensity of wanting so badly to describe what it was like,I found a splinter growing in my side, and gave it a name. Sometimes just describing the symptoms makes them shrink. Like looking one of your monsters in the face: they diminish.
But I don't want to be vague to you. I don't want to use a language that passes by everything in a blur, like highway driving with all the windows up. There's a call for openings, for letting things seep out and in, for unwrapping something, for narrowing things down into something visible. Don't narrow it down so that it's smaller, but clearer. A huge storm can be clear. A shell on a windowsill can be clear. And remember the opposite call for guarding, for keeping certain things in hidden rooms, in a secret garden...but there's that vagueness again, and I start to see it as a hurdle.
Is it a letter I want to write to you or to myself? Or is it simply the kind of letter I'd like to hide in a wall, for the people who hope to find something in walls? (the way I always hope to find things in walls, in cubby holes, in hollow trees...)
And if it's a letter it's easier, I can breathe out and say, to an old friend, to myself, to the finder-of-the-letter-in-the-wall: I hate the word hurdle. Yesterday talking to an old friend we agreed that Bernice Drive was an ugly name. There are the good things, and in the midst of fighting it out, again and again, reinventing and setting up new tries, let's remember them. Morning sunshine on skin. Waking up while paddling out to the waves and that clean forgiving scent of salt that says, kindly and gently, Start Over. Find new ways of building. Mend crossed communication lines and Start Over, and build it better.
But I don't want to be vague to you. I don't want to use a language that passes by everything in a blur, like highway driving with all the windows up. There's a call for openings, for letting things seep out and in, for unwrapping something, for narrowing things down into something visible. Don't narrow it down so that it's smaller, but clearer. A huge storm can be clear. A shell on a windowsill can be clear. And remember the opposite call for guarding, for keeping certain things in hidden rooms, in a secret garden...but there's that vagueness again, and I start to see it as a hurdle.
Is it a letter I want to write to you or to myself? Or is it simply the kind of letter I'd like to hide in a wall, for the people who hope to find something in walls? (the way I always hope to find things in walls, in cubby holes, in hollow trees...)
And if it's a letter it's easier, I can breathe out and say, to an old friend, to myself, to the finder-of-the-letter-in-the-wall: I hate the word hurdle. Yesterday talking to an old friend we agreed that Bernice Drive was an ugly name. There are the good things, and in the midst of fighting it out, again and again, reinventing and setting up new tries, let's remember them. Morning sunshine on skin. Waking up while paddling out to the waves and that clean forgiving scent of salt that says, kindly and gently, Start Over. Find new ways of building. Mend crossed communication lines and Start Over, and build it better.
2006-10-11
Raccoon
Now feels like a tangled twine, a first woodwork project, nails crooked and holding things in place vaguely, questionably. But it’s a beautiful day! And I want to learn to trust myself, to trust the day, to trust the tangles.
The trip to Maine is distilling itself, boiling itself down. Its images are wispier, and certain ones become more solid, growing roots. Why does only some of it grow roots?
Here are Anne, Peter, and Per, playing croquet in the darkening evening. There’s the barbecue, with smoke and coals and warmth and I’m standing beside it talking to Dave and watching. The woods are standing all around us, except on the fourth side, where the lake meets the shore seamlessly. It gets darker, they can hardly see the croquet gates anymore, and finally not at all. I stand there liking that they’re playing croquet in the dark. The kind of thing that comes as a relief and a surprise, that things don’t have to work as usual, as expected, as is proper. The same feeling as when a big storm hits, and all the wind is a relief. You want to run out into it and yell.
Here is breakfast the next day. One clear snapshot of homemade doughnuts warming in a pan on the woodstove. Steam rising from our coffee cups. Quiet book pages turning, and glances up at the lake through the porch screen. Canoes gliding past, and that’s what canoes do, they glide.
Lying on the dock on my belly looking down into the water, which is clear. Looking at leaves on the bottom, red yellow and orange, not having lost their colour yet. I think about them being there all through the winter, freezing into the ice. Dry leaves float down and land on the surface. But now I’ve seen that there are spiders here along the edge of the dock, and I jump up. We’ll jump into the water after awhile, and the shocking cold of it will be so much different that gazing out at it or down into it.
Driving home through the forests full of October is a sleepy, monotonous blur of glorious colour. It’s colour so vivid it’s alive like light, like water. I took the last shift driving toward midnight, with headlights and trucks to pass. I hit a raccoon. I felt the selfishness of our cars and highways. I felt how fast a life can go out, with a non-descript bumping sound.
The trip to Maine is distilling itself, boiling itself down. Its images are wispier, and certain ones become more solid, growing roots. Why does only some of it grow roots?
Here are Anne, Peter, and Per, playing croquet in the darkening evening. There’s the barbecue, with smoke and coals and warmth and I’m standing beside it talking to Dave and watching. The woods are standing all around us, except on the fourth side, where the lake meets the shore seamlessly. It gets darker, they can hardly see the croquet gates anymore, and finally not at all. I stand there liking that they’re playing croquet in the dark. The kind of thing that comes as a relief and a surprise, that things don’t have to work as usual, as expected, as is proper. The same feeling as when a big storm hits, and all the wind is a relief. You want to run out into it and yell.
Here is breakfast the next day. One clear snapshot of homemade doughnuts warming in a pan on the woodstove. Steam rising from our coffee cups. Quiet book pages turning, and glances up at the lake through the porch screen. Canoes gliding past, and that’s what canoes do, they glide.
Lying on the dock on my belly looking down into the water, which is clear. Looking at leaves on the bottom, red yellow and orange, not having lost their colour yet. I think about them being there all through the winter, freezing into the ice. Dry leaves float down and land on the surface. But now I’ve seen that there are spiders here along the edge of the dock, and I jump up. We’ll jump into the water after awhile, and the shocking cold of it will be so much different that gazing out at it or down into it.
Driving home through the forests full of October is a sleepy, monotonous blur of glorious colour. It’s colour so vivid it’s alive like light, like water. I took the last shift driving toward midnight, with headlights and trucks to pass. I hit a raccoon. I felt the selfishness of our cars and highways. I felt how fast a life can go out, with a non-descript bumping sound.
2006-10-10
Pools
In the afternoon I planted bulbs. I’d never done that before. It was harder to dig into the ground than I thought. The wooden dibber, a tool for making holes for bulbs, wasn’t much help. I looked in the shed and in the tool cupboards for a trowel or a shovel. Finding none, I brought out a crowbar and an old screwdriver. It was hard work but the crowbar worked okay. I discovered moist, loose soil under the deck, and carried loads of it on a piece of wood to where I was planting. Tulips and crocus: tulips along the steps to the deck, crocus under a tree. Pushing a bulb into a hole in the ground before winter struck me as being an act of hope. An act of faith. I like the simplicity of playing in the dirt. I like the complexity of how many plant species there are, and all their different ways of growing.
At dusk we went down to the beach. It was low tide and there were tidal pools among the rocks. We walked out among them. The sky was a pastel pink and purple, reflecting in the pools. The greens and yellows of the seaweed had a muted way of belonging together. There were lots of little starfish resting in the water. There were periwinkles with spiky “hair” growing upward from their tops. When I picked them up they made a sucking sound. I looked into these pools for a long time, crouching down and picking up the occasional empty crab shell or odd rock. I wasn’t doing much of anything but it felt worthwhile. As we were leaving I found a surfboard fin among the rocks.
After that, at the grocery store, we talked about which kinds of apples were which: Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, sweet, sour, hard, soft. In aisle 4 we dropped a bottle of olive oil and it spread outwards on the floor into a yellow-green pool, slick and unreal under the florescent lights.
At dusk we went down to the beach. It was low tide and there were tidal pools among the rocks. We walked out among them. The sky was a pastel pink and purple, reflecting in the pools. The greens and yellows of the seaweed had a muted way of belonging together. There were lots of little starfish resting in the water. There were periwinkles with spiky “hair” growing upward from their tops. When I picked them up they made a sucking sound. I looked into these pools for a long time, crouching down and picking up the occasional empty crab shell or odd rock. I wasn’t doing much of anything but it felt worthwhile. As we were leaving I found a surfboard fin among the rocks.
After that, at the grocery store, we talked about which kinds of apples were which: Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, sweet, sour, hard, soft. In aisle 4 we dropped a bottle of olive oil and it spread outwards on the floor into a yellow-green pool, slick and unreal under the florescent lights.
2006-09-23
The sun
I was driving. We switched places as the sun was getting low in the sky. I'm learning to drive a standard so I was freaking out over this and that mistake at pretty close intervals. Yelling and swearing and whining how much I hate driving standard as I stalled in front of another car. The sun was getting lower and the visor no longer blocked it. I was staring into the sun, an abstract reddish yellow ball burning my eyes. We must have been heading west. I squinted at a set of traffic lights in the distance, but the sun seemed to cancel out their colour. Are they red or green? Are they red or green?
---
Eva was painting the trim on our house outside. It was that time of day when the sun was getting low in the sky. I thought about that the back of the house faced west. She was outside of the kitchen, painting the trim of the triple windows above the sink. I was in the living room and saw her shadow on the opposite wall. A simplified black and white silhouette of an arm and hand drawing a brush up and down, rhythmically. I watched it for awhile, and then I
went into the kitchen and looked at her through the window. The sun was flooding into the kitchen like water and the plants on the windowsill were lit up. She was concentrating and her hair was lit from behind and golden.
---
Eva was painting the trim on our house outside. It was that time of day when the sun was getting low in the sky. I thought about that the back of the house faced west. She was outside of the kitchen, painting the trim of the triple windows above the sink. I was in the living room and saw her shadow on the opposite wall. A simplified black and white silhouette of an arm and hand drawing a brush up and down, rhythmically. I watched it for awhile, and then I
went into the kitchen and looked at her through the window. The sun was flooding into the kitchen like water and the plants on the windowsill were lit up. She was concentrating and her hair was lit from behind and golden.
2006-09-22
Moods
We go watch the waves a lot. The beach smells clean. When bigger waves come we watch in awe. Even from the windows I watch them. It’s mesmerizing. It’s something bigger. It’s always different. It makes the idea of moods seem natural and necessary.
2006-09-14
Wood and waves
Yesterday we stacked half of the four cords of wood that were delivered on Tuesday. It was a brilliant sunny day with the kind of deep blue sky that only comes in September and October. I loved the smell of the wood and the wind, or "the howlin' gale", as Linda describes the Seaforth wind. Later on we went down to the cove where Dad was surfing and mom was stretched out on a rock in the sun. There were some nice hurricane waves and about 8 people out. I got my suit on and went in but kept getting knocked down. It was fun rolling around in the beach break though.
Dad was happy like he is after a good surf. I missed a good picture of him holding his longboard above his head.
Things feel messy in a lot of ways these days, but I love waking up and looking out at the ocean. Seeing waves through the windows. I also love the mostly empty rooms of our house. You get to imagine them in all different ways when they're empty like this. They're full of potential.
I want this house to be a place for art, writing, music, coziness, activity, rest, solace. I want the seasons to be fully enjoyed and observed here.
We can rise up, we can have our cobwebs blown away by the wind.
2006-08-28
2006-08-27
Cookie sheets, bees and a bat
All the depth and heaviness of action and busy-ness and not-having-gotten-dones and false starts and freezing-ups. The tiredness after clearing out communication lines again. Clutter of misunderstandings cleared away through the work of talking it out, over and over. The exhaustion that effort has left me with, mixed with the relief and hope of fresh starts. Can I not criticize myself for a minute? Not start the list of excuses and whys? Can I ignore the apologies and the figuring out and the making of new promises for a second? Let go of the guilt and weight of unwritten everythings and undone work? Swipe it aside and have the strength to ignore all that clutter for a minute? Zoom in on one thing? Focus for half a second? Forgive myself everything for today?
It's quiet. Wonderfully quiet in a way that it hasn't been quiet in a long time. Per is sleeping. The cat is sleeping. The wind is softly blowing through the trees outside. No one else is here. I'm finally getting over my cold. Taking deep breaths for the first time in days.
I know there are a few things I meant to keep. When I was at Canadian Tire yesterday paying for some cookie sheets, the cashier pointed to the picture of perfect chocolate chip cookies on the label and asked "Do your cookies look like that?" "No", I answered. "But maybe they will now with these new pans." She smiled. I liked this for two reasons. One, I like it when strangers, especially within a conventional or business situation, talk to each other. I'm still having culture shock every time this happens. It's much more common here than in Stockholm (maybe not in all of Canada, but this is a smaller place). The first time we noticed it Per and I were standing in a hotel elevator and a man in there with us made a joke about us wanting to press the button for the basement, even though there was no basement. After he left: "That guy just like, talked to us for no reason." "Yeah, I know. Weird." "Yeah, weird. And nice."
The other reason was that just at that moment I was feeling stressed, having an argument, tired, out of it. Simply the fact that a stranger would ask me out of the blue if my cookies looked like that was funny and comforting.
Other things to keep:
The sound of the wind blowing through Linda and Dave’s empty house (where we'll soon move in). It was a sunny day. All of the windows were open. The floors were newly sanded and varnished, the walls freshly painted. The freshness of new beginning was blowing through. The wonderful new energy empty rooms create. The soul of an old house perceptible when emptied of things. The way old houses know how to hold their inhabitants. Their way of holding all the events of lives. This one wondering about us, waiting for us.
Cactus plants and their bright flowers and sideways, unbalanced postures. Succulent plants and the clarity of their shapes and points. I was looking at them at the grocery store. Coming across them and staring at their simple colours and shapes for a minute made me thrill with happiness.
There are bees in the bathroom. They are getting in somehow. There must be a bee hive outside the window. Every time I take one outside with a glass and piece of paper, another one appears. They want to go back outside. They get tired and slow down, crawling around the window or on the floor. I can't get the window to open. I'll just have to keep moving them outside, one by one. This is a cycle going on right now. The bees come in, we move them out.
A bat came into the house a few nights ago. It flew around and around trying to get out. mom, dad, Per and I were here, all hunched over, our heads down to avoid it, mom and I shrieking a bit when it came to close to us. We turned all the lights off and watched it circle around, land on the rafters, swoop down. It finally found the door and went out.
It's quiet. Wonderfully quiet in a way that it hasn't been quiet in a long time. Per is sleeping. The cat is sleeping. The wind is softly blowing through the trees outside. No one else is here. I'm finally getting over my cold. Taking deep breaths for the first time in days.
I know there are a few things I meant to keep. When I was at Canadian Tire yesterday paying for some cookie sheets, the cashier pointed to the picture of perfect chocolate chip cookies on the label and asked "Do your cookies look like that?" "No", I answered. "But maybe they will now with these new pans." She smiled. I liked this for two reasons. One, I like it when strangers, especially within a conventional or business situation, talk to each other. I'm still having culture shock every time this happens. It's much more common here than in Stockholm (maybe not in all of Canada, but this is a smaller place). The first time we noticed it Per and I were standing in a hotel elevator and a man in there with us made a joke about us wanting to press the button for the basement, even though there was no basement. After he left: "That guy just like, talked to us for no reason." "Yeah, I know. Weird." "Yeah, weird. And nice."
The other reason was that just at that moment I was feeling stressed, having an argument, tired, out of it. Simply the fact that a stranger would ask me out of the blue if my cookies looked like that was funny and comforting.
Other things to keep:
The sound of the wind blowing through Linda and Dave’s empty house (where we'll soon move in). It was a sunny day. All of the windows were open. The floors were newly sanded and varnished, the walls freshly painted. The freshness of new beginning was blowing through. The wonderful new energy empty rooms create. The soul of an old house perceptible when emptied of things. The way old houses know how to hold their inhabitants. Their way of holding all the events of lives. This one wondering about us, waiting for us.
Cactus plants and their bright flowers and sideways, unbalanced postures. Succulent plants and the clarity of their shapes and points. I was looking at them at the grocery store. Coming across them and staring at their simple colours and shapes for a minute made me thrill with happiness.
There are bees in the bathroom. They are getting in somehow. There must be a bee hive outside the window. Every time I take one outside with a glass and piece of paper, another one appears. They want to go back outside. They get tired and slow down, crawling around the window or on the floor. I can't get the window to open. I'll just have to keep moving them outside, one by one. This is a cycle going on right now. The bees come in, we move them out.
A bat came into the house a few nights ago. It flew around and around trying to get out. mom, dad, Per and I were here, all hunched over, our heads down to avoid it, mom and I shrieking a bit when it came to close to us. We turned all the lights off and watched it circle around, land on the rafters, swoop down. It finally found the door and went out.
2006-08-13
Squirrels
No, there's no way to put down this messy pocket of time. Just hope to leave traces. No need to map out all the corners of this here and now. For one thing, there's the squirrel or squirrels running around in the walls in our room at night. It's not practical in the long run, but so far their presence simply feels festive. They wake me up and I lie listening to them. They scramble around so earnestly and urgently. And what are they really doing, running back and forth in the dark like that?
There's a sort of quiet joy and thrill in things like using Canadian money again (which looked like a foreign currency to me at first), going to Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire, and talking in my Eastern Shore dialect again.
The first bike ride on the new bikes we passed through the starkness of scrubby growth and said something about the Canadian Shield and really being out in the wilderness. The usual discussion followed about the pronunciation of wilderness, which is so charming said as wild-erness. Then it started to rain in the quiet first few drops way, and we went faster and faster home as it started to pour. In the moment of racing down the hill of the Shore Road there were all the moments racing there as a kid. The wind rushing past your ears and whipping your hair around until you're going so fast nothing can stop you, and you might fall but you don't and you'll coast the last bit home and then you'll be home and home is still there having arms in that way it has arms.
There's a sort of quiet joy and thrill in things like using Canadian money again (which looked like a foreign currency to me at first), going to Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire, and talking in my Eastern Shore dialect again.
The first bike ride on the new bikes we passed through the starkness of scrubby growth and said something about the Canadian Shield and really being out in the wilderness. The usual discussion followed about the pronunciation of wilderness, which is so charming said as wild-erness. Then it started to rain in the quiet first few drops way, and we went faster and faster home as it started to pour. In the moment of racing down the hill of the Shore Road there were all the moments racing there as a kid. The wind rushing past your ears and whipping your hair around until you're going so fast nothing can stop you, and you might fall but you don't and you'll coast the last bit home and then you'll be home and home is still there having arms in that way it has arms.
2006-07-14
Tapioca
It's becoming sparser and simpler around here. Cluttered shelves are becoming bare, surfaces are becoming white and blank, full of potential and possibilities again.
It's starting to feel like we live at a hotel. The funny thing is that I didn't really need all of that stuff. I still know who I am, and am who I am, without it.
How satisfying to use things up in the kitchen! To have empty cupboards and an increasingly empty fridge! I had underestimated the power of starting over.
But I sort of have to take all that back. There are still boxes and junk everywhere. Certain areas are prematurely causing a sparse hotel feeling. Or perhaps I am slightly delirious.
I made some pudding. From a mix we brought from Nova Scotia and never used up. Coconut pudding. It was odd to make pudding, since I never do. It reminded me of how mom sometimes made tapioca or custard pudding, when we least expected it, for dessert. We weren't much of a dessert household, mostly just on weekends or special occasions. But when mom made pudding it was always on a weekday. It strikes me now as sort of delightfully out of character of her. Carrot cake would have been much more predictable. But no, there were the random, joyous pudding nights.
It's starting to feel like we live at a hotel. The funny thing is that I didn't really need all of that stuff. I still know who I am, and am who I am, without it.
How satisfying to use things up in the kitchen! To have empty cupboards and an increasingly empty fridge! I had underestimated the power of starting over.
But I sort of have to take all that back. There are still boxes and junk everywhere. Certain areas are prematurely causing a sparse hotel feeling. Or perhaps I am slightly delirious.
I made some pudding. From a mix we brought from Nova Scotia and never used up. Coconut pudding. It was odd to make pudding, since I never do. It reminded me of how mom sometimes made tapioca or custard pudding, when we least expected it, for dessert. We weren't much of a dessert household, mostly just on weekends or special occasions. But when mom made pudding it was always on a weekday. It strikes me now as sort of delightfully out of character of her. Carrot cake would have been much more predictable. But no, there were the random, joyous pudding nights.
2006-07-05
July settles in
There's the water with the boats or the boats with the water under them and a sleepy kind of evening. A bike got fixed, dinner got made, and the sound of the fan is becoming a kind of soundtrack for these weeks.
Let's slink away from our practicalities for awhile. Let's slink under and over the fence and feel grass under our feet like a whispered confidence.
There are so many same old ways we're tired of saying things, so let's not. Let's just say let's go, let's see, let's take it in, let's sit still and notice the treetops.
If we can get better, let's get better. If we can see clearer, let's see clearer.
As usual things are a mixture. High tones and low tones, warm hues and cool hues. When the water's open I remember it frozen. When it's frozen I remember it moving.
Let's eat another popsicle and let the summer sink in, melting all those hard edges away. We can read it and let it read us, with pauses to smell the pages.
Let's slink away from our practicalities for awhile. Let's slink under and over the fence and feel grass under our feet like a whispered confidence.
There are so many same old ways we're tired of saying things, so let's not. Let's just say let's go, let's see, let's take it in, let's sit still and notice the treetops.
If we can get better, let's get better. If we can see clearer, let's see clearer.
As usual things are a mixture. High tones and low tones, warm hues and cool hues. When the water's open I remember it frozen. When it's frozen I remember it moving.
Let's eat another popsicle and let the summer sink in, melting all those hard edges away. We can read it and let it read us, with pauses to smell the pages.
2006-07-04
Light and airy
"Just try and make it look light and airy," was Per's mothers advice regarding getting ready to show our apartment to a potential tenant. Which seems like reasonable enough advice, except if you had seen the state of this place yesterday.
"Light and airy" would have been the last words you would have chosen to describe it. You would have laughed, loud and long, at the irony of trying to apply that phrase to our home. You could hardly walk in here. There were half-filled boxes everywhere, cords criss-crossing the floor. Every available surface (couches, windowsills, counters) was covered in piles of STUFF. We had been hauling things down from the attic all day, sorting and throwing things away. We were repeatedly tripping over things, knocking over stacks of things, and generally swearing and shaking our fists at things. I am ashamed how much stuff we have dragged into this apartment over the years. Ashamed. But it was such a gradual process, it was hard to see it happening.
Anyway, we got the call yesterday evening- the perfect tenant wanted to come see the place at 11 am today. Why the perfect tenant, you may ask? Because he rented the flat in Uppsala from Per's parents for the past 4 years, and was RELIABLE. The number one characteristic one looks for in a tenant. Also, it may bear mentioning that we are supposed to move in exactly one month and had not addressed the tenant-finding problem as of yet. Our mission became clear, in a heavy instant of resignation. It was to convert these 38.5 square metres of chaos into a restful, LIGHT, and AIRY space during the following 14 hours. (minus a considerable chunk of those for sleep)
The running around like maniacs/chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off commenced. Numerous trips to the "grovsoprum" ("the big garbage room")were made. Things were stuffed, shoved, pushed and crammed into cupboards. Grimy finger-printed surfaces were scrubbed with Jif cleaner, which, as an aside, I must say I cannot sing the praises of loud enough. Every time I use Jif to clean away some dirt that seems impossible to remove, it confounds me by doing the job ten-fold, and cheerfully. I find myself saying things like "I love Jif. This Jif is really something. What would I do without Jif? Wow, it REALLY works. The grime just melts away! Thank you Jif, once again." You get the picture. (end of the Jif aside)
We fell asleep at some point, mid-work. Per got up at 5:30 am and continued. I stumbled out of bed at 7, and began vacuuming in my sleep.
Somehow, by 11:00 when Potential Reliable Tenant walked up the stairs and through the door, we had managed, with seconds to spare, (and I do mean seconds) to be clean and wearing clean clothes and standing in what could, miraculously, almost be described as a "light and airy" flat.
One would never have known, as a Potential Reliable Tenant, could never have imagined, the events of the preceding hours. It makes me think all kinds of thoughts about appearances and reality. Also about a silly old saying about a duck "gliding along smoothly on the surface but paddling like mad underneath."
So we are celebrating. He wants to rent the place, and we are relieved and overjoyed. We drank some wine and ate some chocolate. We need a nap. Especially since all that stuff we crammed, shoved, pushed and stuffed into cupboards needs to be un-crammed and dealt with...
But it will be the last time, since I vowed solemnly today to never again own anything more than one little green pea.
"Light and airy" would have been the last words you would have chosen to describe it. You would have laughed, loud and long, at the irony of trying to apply that phrase to our home. You could hardly walk in here. There were half-filled boxes everywhere, cords criss-crossing the floor. Every available surface (couches, windowsills, counters) was covered in piles of STUFF. We had been hauling things down from the attic all day, sorting and throwing things away. We were repeatedly tripping over things, knocking over stacks of things, and generally swearing and shaking our fists at things. I am ashamed how much stuff we have dragged into this apartment over the years. Ashamed. But it was such a gradual process, it was hard to see it happening.
Anyway, we got the call yesterday evening- the perfect tenant wanted to come see the place at 11 am today. Why the perfect tenant, you may ask? Because he rented the flat in Uppsala from Per's parents for the past 4 years, and was RELIABLE. The number one characteristic one looks for in a tenant. Also, it may bear mentioning that we are supposed to move in exactly one month and had not addressed the tenant-finding problem as of yet. Our mission became clear, in a heavy instant of resignation. It was to convert these 38.5 square metres of chaos into a restful, LIGHT, and AIRY space during the following 14 hours. (minus a considerable chunk of those for sleep)
The running around like maniacs/chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off commenced. Numerous trips to the "grovsoprum" ("the big garbage room")were made. Things were stuffed, shoved, pushed and crammed into cupboards. Grimy finger-printed surfaces were scrubbed with Jif cleaner, which, as an aside, I must say I cannot sing the praises of loud enough. Every time I use Jif to clean away some dirt that seems impossible to remove, it confounds me by doing the job ten-fold, and cheerfully. I find myself saying things like "I love Jif. This Jif is really something. What would I do without Jif? Wow, it REALLY works. The grime just melts away! Thank you Jif, once again." You get the picture. (end of the Jif aside)
We fell asleep at some point, mid-work. Per got up at 5:30 am and continued. I stumbled out of bed at 7, and began vacuuming in my sleep.
Somehow, by 11:00 when Potential Reliable Tenant walked up the stairs and through the door, we had managed, with seconds to spare, (and I do mean seconds) to be clean and wearing clean clothes and standing in what could, miraculously, almost be described as a "light and airy" flat.
One would never have known, as a Potential Reliable Tenant, could never have imagined, the events of the preceding hours. It makes me think all kinds of thoughts about appearances and reality. Also about a silly old saying about a duck "gliding along smoothly on the surface but paddling like mad underneath."
So we are celebrating. He wants to rent the place, and we are relieved and overjoyed. We drank some wine and ate some chocolate. We need a nap. Especially since all that stuff we crammed, shoved, pushed and stuffed into cupboards needs to be un-crammed and dealt with...
But it will be the last time, since I vowed solemnly today to never again own anything more than one little green pea.
2006-06-28
London Part 1: Aliens at Kew Gardens
I'm back from a week in London, my first time there. I stayed with my friend Liz who's from there but lives in Stockholm.
I got yelled at at the British Museum by a teacher who snapped "Read! Read! The answers are all there, but you have to READ." Only when she directed "Not YOU" at my startled face did I see her class of children behind me.
While walking on the Hampstead Heath (a huge green space) we came across masses of blue dragonflies hovering over a pond. They were other-worldly, zipping and flitting about in a blue cloud. They were mating very busily.
They were not the only other-worldly creatures we saw. In one of the greenhouses at Kew Gardens (which houses the largest living plant collection in the world!) there were ponds in and among the plants. In one of these ponds there was the ugliest, most alien aquatic creature I have ever seen. It was pinkish white and had white eyes. Yes, WHITE eyes. It was sort of part fish, part reptile. It had 4 legs that it used to swim around with, and also what looked like small extra arms dangling out from its head. In another separate pond, there were about 20 baby aliens. They had to live in a different pond than their parents, otherwise they would be eaten by them. Not a very practical design for the continuation of the species, which may be a good thing. They were very creepy, Gollum-like creatures.
The gardens were chock full of interesting collections. There were Alice in Wonderland rose gardens which were very organized and prim. There was a huge steamy greenhouse called the Palm House, so full of trees and plants it seemed to bulge. You could walk up stairs to a walkway that went along the top of the trees.
There was a cactus house, which housed the comedy group of the plant world. And there was a carnivorous plant collection, where the clever design was astounding. Plants that are traps! Plants that have built-in umbrellas so the rain can't ruin their traps! Plants that trap bugs with the sticky liquids they are covered in!And then slowly digest them with enzymes! We read about them on the information plaques, which, as Liz pointed out, it was too bad the flies buzzing around couldn't read, or they would have known they were seriously in the wrong place.
We also read about the plant hunters who originally collected species for the gardens. Then we saw a collection of plants that looked like antlers and moose heads growing out of soil swatches on the wall. There was an entire wall of them, proving that the plant hunters could be just as ruthless as animal hunters with their trophy rooms.
I am pleased to say that I just answered a question I was about to post here about giant Amazonian water lilies. I spent quite some time looking at them. I was impressed by their size and sturdiness but driven crazy wondering why they grow with turned up rims around their edges. My fruitful internet search revealed that the rims are thought to serve as a bumper preventing the leaves from overlapping one another and blocking their access to sunlight. So there, now we all know.
I got yelled at at the British Museum by a teacher who snapped "Read! Read! The answers are all there, but you have to READ." Only when she directed "Not YOU" at my startled face did I see her class of children behind me.
While walking on the Hampstead Heath (a huge green space) we came across masses of blue dragonflies hovering over a pond. They were other-worldly, zipping and flitting about in a blue cloud. They were mating very busily.
They were not the only other-worldly creatures we saw. In one of the greenhouses at Kew Gardens (which houses the largest living plant collection in the world!) there were ponds in and among the plants. In one of these ponds there was the ugliest, most alien aquatic creature I have ever seen. It was pinkish white and had white eyes. Yes, WHITE eyes. It was sort of part fish, part reptile. It had 4 legs that it used to swim around with, and also what looked like small extra arms dangling out from its head. In another separate pond, there were about 20 baby aliens. They had to live in a different pond than their parents, otherwise they would be eaten by them. Not a very practical design for the continuation of the species, which may be a good thing. They were very creepy, Gollum-like creatures.
The gardens were chock full of interesting collections. There were Alice in Wonderland rose gardens which were very organized and prim. There was a huge steamy greenhouse called the Palm House, so full of trees and plants it seemed to bulge. You could walk up stairs to a walkway that went along the top of the trees.
There was a cactus house, which housed the comedy group of the plant world. And there was a carnivorous plant collection, where the clever design was astounding. Plants that are traps! Plants that have built-in umbrellas so the rain can't ruin their traps! Plants that trap bugs with the sticky liquids they are covered in!And then slowly digest them with enzymes! We read about them on the information plaques, which, as Liz pointed out, it was too bad the flies buzzing around couldn't read, or they would have known they were seriously in the wrong place.
We also read about the plant hunters who originally collected species for the gardens. Then we saw a collection of plants that looked like antlers and moose heads growing out of soil swatches on the wall. There was an entire wall of them, proving that the plant hunters could be just as ruthless as animal hunters with their trophy rooms.
I am pleased to say that I just answered a question I was about to post here about giant Amazonian water lilies. I spent quite some time looking at them. I was impressed by their size and sturdiness but driven crazy wondering why they grow with turned up rims around their edges. My fruitful internet search revealed that the rims are thought to serve as a bumper preventing the leaves from overlapping one another and blocking their access to sunlight. So there, now we all know.
2006-06-19
The fan
I stood beside the oscillating fan, letting it blow past my calves at timed intervals. There's something soothing about a thing that's timed and repetitive. Walking, and the time every 2 steps take. Repetitive music. Waves. It brings me back to the simplicity of a heartbeat or breathing. Those simple things underneath it all. Hugely simple. Simply huge.
From the balcony of our hotel on the island of Amorgos in Greece we could see a lighthouse on the other side of the water. It blinked on in the darkness every 4 seconds exactly. I counted, repeatedly, somehow expecting it to falter, but it never did. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand.
From the balcony of our hotel on the island of Amorgos in Greece we could see a lighthouse on the other side of the water. It blinked on in the darkness every 4 seconds exactly. I counted, repeatedly, somehow expecting it to falter, but it never did. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand.
2006-06-18
The striped dress
We sold clothes at Street (a market) on Friday. It was their vintage themed evening and we had a lot of clothes to sell, stuff we gradually imported from Nova Scotia over the past few years.
We were open for business from 4-9, and during this time a certain green and white striped dress became the main character of the soirée.
It was a real winner, a beauty: cotton polyester mix, nice cut, bright and slightly but not too 70's. Picked it up at Value Village last summer. I would have kept it but it wasn't quite my colour. We hung it up in the front. From the start it was being admired and caressed and held up in front of different girls. Then a girl asked to try it on, and I said sure, the changing room is over there. Go straight and it'll be on the right.
Time passed; an hour passed. We had a busy spell and only gradually realized that nobody had come back with the dress. The change room was pretty far away so I couldn't see if the girl came out with it or not. We started to speculate that maybe it had been stolen, which dampened our mood. All the work to set up and be there and then some bratty punk walks off with whatever they want.
Except that...it wasn't stolen. A woman from another booth walked by, holding up the dress and yelling "Does anybody recognize this?" "Me!" I yelled waving my arm like an idiot."I do! Over here!" I ran over and retrieved it. We hung it back up.
Next a blond woman came and tried the dress. It looked good; it seemed to be made for her. She went to the change room to have a better look. She was gone a long time and then her friend came back and returned it to us. We hung it back up and then another girl asked if she could put it on hold for an hour. Having never sold clothes at a market before, we foolishly said yes. (Now we know that 20 minutes would be more reasonable.) Just after that the blond girl came rushing back and asked where the dress was. I told her we had just put it on hold and she was really disappointed because she had kids with her and couldn't wait an hour but she had decided she really wanted the dress. She sighed and said she might be back and wandered off.
"That dress is nothing but trouble," I said. "Nothing but trouble, " agreed Per.
An hour passed, and the hold girl didn't come back. In the end the blond girl came back. She was thrilled to see the dress still there, and bought it. Which seemed like the proper fate of the dress. And here my knowledge of the history of the green and white striped dress ends.
We were open for business from 4-9, and during this time a certain green and white striped dress became the main character of the soirée.
It was a real winner, a beauty: cotton polyester mix, nice cut, bright and slightly but not too 70's. Picked it up at Value Village last summer. I would have kept it but it wasn't quite my colour. We hung it up in the front. From the start it was being admired and caressed and held up in front of different girls. Then a girl asked to try it on, and I said sure, the changing room is over there. Go straight and it'll be on the right.
Time passed; an hour passed. We had a busy spell and only gradually realized that nobody had come back with the dress. The change room was pretty far away so I couldn't see if the girl came out with it or not. We started to speculate that maybe it had been stolen, which dampened our mood. All the work to set up and be there and then some bratty punk walks off with whatever they want.
Except that...it wasn't stolen. A woman from another booth walked by, holding up the dress and yelling "Does anybody recognize this?" "Me!" I yelled waving my arm like an idiot."I do! Over here!" I ran over and retrieved it. We hung it back up.
Next a blond woman came and tried the dress. It looked good; it seemed to be made for her. She went to the change room to have a better look. She was gone a long time and then her friend came back and returned it to us. We hung it back up and then another girl asked if she could put it on hold for an hour. Having never sold clothes at a market before, we foolishly said yes. (Now we know that 20 minutes would be more reasonable.) Just after that the blond girl came rushing back and asked where the dress was. I told her we had just put it on hold and she was really disappointed because she had kids with her and couldn't wait an hour but she had decided she really wanted the dress. She sighed and said she might be back and wandered off.
"That dress is nothing but trouble," I said. "Nothing but trouble, " agreed Per.
An hour passed, and the hold girl didn't come back. In the end the blond girl came back. She was thrilled to see the dress still there, and bought it. Which seemed like the proper fate of the dress. And here my knowledge of the history of the green and white striped dress ends.
2006-06-14
Halloween
I didn't realize that I've been missing Halloween these past few years. I just accepted, each fall when I found myself still here, that Halloween wouldn't be much more than some expensive pumpkins at the grocery store and the occasional half-assed party for the kids at school. Halloween isn't the same in Sweden. It isn't one of the traditional holidays (they have All Saints Day, Allhelgonadagen, instead, where you visit the graves of loved ones and light candles etc.) and has only started to appear here due to the prompting of commercial forces hoping to cash in on it. Kids go door to door asking for candy at Easter instead, dressed as "witches": red circles on their cheeks, flowered skirts with aprons, and kerchiefs on their heads.
But now, as we're packing up and sorting through clothes, I find myself repeatedly holding up some skirt or belt or hat or nail polish and saying "This is definitely going in the Get-Rid-Ofs pile..." Then I pause, stare at the item distractedly, and say, "But it could be good as part of a Halloween costume. Maybe I'd better keep it." This Halloween reasoning/planning has led me to keep items for possible hippie, acrobat, coureur de bois, ghost, and queen costumes. I guess I've missed dressing up. I'll probably be so excited this Halloween that I won't be able to decide on just one costume, so I'll be like, 5 things at once.
But now, as we're packing up and sorting through clothes, I find myself repeatedly holding up some skirt or belt or hat or nail polish and saying "This is definitely going in the Get-Rid-Ofs pile..." Then I pause, stare at the item distractedly, and say, "But it could be good as part of a Halloween costume. Maybe I'd better keep it." This Halloween reasoning/planning has led me to keep items for possible hippie, acrobat, coureur de bois, ghost, and queen costumes. I guess I've missed dressing up. I'll probably be so excited this Halloween that I won't be able to decide on just one costume, so I'll be like, 5 things at once.
2006-06-13
Art + Truck parties
Went to see the group show EnVar (One Each) at Kulturhuset with Liz. My collage Vykort från Stockholm (Postcards from Stockholm) is in the show. Kulturhuset is in the centre of the city, in the main square. It's the time of year when all the kids who've just graduated from high school are driven around town on the back of trucks, blaring music, dressed up, yelling, screaming, and partying.We got to see many of these trucks drive by today, since the main square is their main destination. It was quite a sight. I watched with a mixture of amusement, joy, disgust, shock, and admiration. My favorite part about it is that the trucks are decked out with fresh new birch branches, Swedish flags, and yellow and blue balloons. The birch branches are tradition, and a detail that keeps the whole thing on the better side of the fine line between pleasing and ridiculous. Without those birch branches, things would be different. I would see it as a bunch of kids riding around in the back of trucks yelling and waving. Silly, easily dismissed. But with the branches it becomes festive, exciting, maybe even touching. The branches are new and fresh, the kids are new and fresh, and they're right at the very beginning, new leaves, not having encountered the storms, the messiness, the surprises of life.
A truck stops. Kids jump off and run into the fountain in the main square, dancing and singing and yelling and drinking. It's a spectacle. You can't tear your eyes away.
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