Reverse Migration Experience

Castles and Coffee

“You’ve been there so many times – do you still do the tourist-y things?”

Yes. Yes, I do. The approach has changed. I’ve changed. I’m looking for the ancient ruin I can walk through, dance in or where I can listen to people sing or children laugh. I’m stopping by the church I see from a distance, built long before Columbus discovered America, where I can light a candle in honor or memory of someone I love, where I’m welcome to sit and stare up through the stained-glass window and…breathe. I want to drive to a random “badplats”, swimming place, and jump in the sea to taste the salt and watch families and friends having summer fun. I find out when new art exhibits open and when the local choir has its’ annual concert. To be frank, sometimes the musical or technical delivery during those concerts leaves some talent at the door. But culture and the arts are well respected here whatever the level of training, education, age, ethnicity or renown.

I’m not so fascinated with the ancient paintings at the castle, or the garments worn by Erik XIV.   Today I bought my entry ticket and took a slow walk across the drawbridge onto the castle property. I noticed the Swedes basking in the sun, those who carried their picnics, they had thermoses and baskets and real coffee cups, some spread blankets and two young moms had a bouquet of fresh flowers set between them while their children chased each other and rolled on the hill. Other internationals were there too, and I heard both German and French from the tourists gathered at the canons and outcroppings. Inside I stopped for a moment near the tour, the period dressed guides told stories of the deep well, the dungeon and what may have been prepared by servants in the kitchen, just a mere 800 years ago. At our “local” castle, there is a delightful café through a super heavy planked walkway and thick stone walls in a room surely used for something entirely different so long ago – it’s a comfortable place to pause – watching the ins and outs of modern day castle life. The tourists take copious amounts of photos, watch reenactments by costume clad history buffs or college students who landed the perfect summer job. I’m generally up for experiencing and thinking about the history, watching who else finds it interesting (and who doesn’t at all) and giving the castle coffee a try. I admit to taking a fair amount of photos as well.

Next week, I’ll drive through the Crystal Kingdom. My stops will include the smaller glasshytta, glass blowing retail businesses with a hot shop. Art glass, hand blown by amazingly talented men and women from Sweden, Denmark and Brazil is featured in these small art boutiques. I won’t miss the summer exhibit at Kosta Boda, and I’m excited to see what’s new in the town of Orrefors where my favorite vintage shop is filled floor to ceiling with local pieces from the 1950s and 60s and where the proprietor knows the stories and origins of every piece. My friends and family here have introduced me to the glass works, to the people and the talent. My eye for this art is stronger than it once was, but it feels like there’s no end to what a person can learn about the technique and skill, the production and history of what has been a surprisingly volatile industry. I had no idea! And each visit makes a different but lasting impression.

In southern Sweden, as in all popular destinations, new places always crop up. I read this morning of a “butik” that stocks home décor, gift items and clothes with a rustic feel. It’s in a renovated former stable where I will supposedly find everything from iron door fittings to linen shirts and yoga mats. I can’t wait!

My perfect coffee stop will be one in which the brew is fresh, served in a ceramic cup, there will be almond tarts, seasonal berries and something lemon. As has been said, fika is a noun, it’s a pause, it’s also a verb. It’s an experience celebrated by locals and families and friends, in formal ways and casual ways and as a means to care for one another. Fika stops can sometimes be designed just for tourists with a touch of history and something freshly baked.

I have a routine here with work and gardening and spending time with my family, so there are many days that I don’t consider myself a tourist at all – and then, Don and I are stopping on the side of the road, leaning our bikes against a fence and climbing into an old, old building with the housings of an historically protected mill next to a river. Or, I finally make the stop at the loppis (second hand) storefront that I’ve driven by a hundred times.

The answer is yes. Yes. I still do tourist-y things. Call it adventure or exploring, or touring or observing. The answer will always be yes.

No Mortar Board or Tassle

Be Like Lynne.

“Write a book.” Sure, and for the 1,000 time, I recognize that it is way more complicated than a lot of people think. I liken it to when my eldest daughter was writing music and accompanying herself with her guitar, “Are you going to be on ‘American Idol”?, or when our youngest daughter started alpine ski racing on a small hill here in southeast, Michigan. “Will we watch you at the Olympics?” Well not exactly. And writing a book often felt the same. Just because I can put words together in a meaningful way sometimes, doesn’t put me on the bestseller lists.

My first book would have been titled “Rocks for Sale” – but I never got around to that one. I self-published a couple children’s books; a project that brought more happiness than I deserved. And I would have loved to write a book entitled Be Like Lynne about how to live like my sister. It would have been a best seller, and people would have worn t-shirts, attended seminars, and the world would have become a kinder place. #belikelynne. In fact, I started an Instagram writing project during the pandemic that I dreamed would take off. For a long while I thought it would. I was writing and posting often, and I was processing the life and death of my sister. I did my best to write her legacy using her love and my words, I think I gained 23 followers that I didn’t personally know – and while the project served me beautifully as I grieved, it fell flat for the rest of the world. No hard feelings.

The message is the same even now, Be like Lynne. Lynne was born with a mental handicap; what we called “retarded” when we were growing up in the 60s and 70s. I’m so grateful for new words; handicapped, differently abled, special needs… Our family enabled her and our other handicapped sister as best we knew how to in those years.

 As I missed her, reflected on her life, and told her stories, a few lessons came into clear view –  it took my life experience, so impacted by how she lived, to name them. What it didn’t take to learn these lessons was a mortar and tassel. No college lectures necessary.

Show up with a smile. The girl could literally light up any room.

Earnestly ask questions. I never doubted for one minute that she was sincere and that she cared about the smaller details of my life, my family and my friends, who became her friends too, of course. And she remembered the details. “How did things go for Andrew at the game last night?”, “Did Susie do okay with her surgery?”

Celebrate. She loved life. And holidays. No one has wished me a “Happy Groundhog’s Day” since she passed. She was the first to call on birthdays, Mother’s Day; even though I was her sister, not her mom, and she shopped for gifts for Samaritan’s purse Christmas Shoeboxes in September.

Go Home. This was often a hard theme in her life. But the idea here is that she knew that home should always be safe and secure. Sometimes when she got real frustrated, she would just announce, “I’m going home.” So be it.

Work hard. She had a job handing out bread sticks at Fazoli’s Restaurant in her home town. Locals would joke about how many breadsticks they would get each time they visited. She was never late. Wore her uniform with pride. Collected those service pins like they were medals. I’m not sure she ever missed work for being sick. She always found one more thing to do to help others before leaving her shift.

Be a noticer. She did this. She noticed new clothes, fresh hairstyles, an unusual route, different cars. Mary Oliver is known to have said it best, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Lynne lived like this.

Try new things.

Give more.
Be loyal.

Be up for FUN.

Let music do its’ work. Engelbert Humperdink. He was her guy. If you know, you know.

Leave a legacy of love. When people sent their condolences around the time of her funeral, they mentioned her smile, her friendship, her love, and how she valued them... “I always knew Lynne loved me.”

#belikelynne

If only.

Reverse Migration

The berries are ripe, go eat them.

Focusing just now not on my longings to return to Småland, but on one more of many lessons learned in going to and coming home from the land of “my people”. I’ve been known to say, “It’s not all fika and flowers, but it’s close.” Here’s one more lesson I’ve been contemplating: The berries are ripe, go eat them.

Ask any resident of or visitor to Sweden in June what they envision about the first month of summer, and they are sure to comment on midsommar celebrations which will, of course, include strawberries. The color! It’s not fire engine red, nor Crayola crayon red, nor that of a red poppy. Ripe Swedish strawberries are a version of red all their own. The smell! If it was created as a fragrance, I’d wear it! And the taste! No need to compare that one plucked from the bush today to the one in the large clear plastic container picked and packaged too soon. Those first berries of the year delight every tastebud and launch each of us, to a person, back to a summer moment on grandma’s porch. Yes, it’s all immediately reminiscent of childhood with laughter, stained fingers, and quite possibly a wee stomach ache from eating one handful too many. During recent years, my experiences in Sweden in June include many an afternoon fika featuring strawberry cake, or “efterrätt’s” (dessert) best seasonal menu feature: strawberries served with fresh whipped cream (and take as much as you like, because…lagom is in play after all, but that’s a different lesson). There’s no denying the flavorful, mouth-watering sweet joy of summer in a bowl.

Strawberry celebrations can last for weeks…and this is where the lesson comes to light. Just when I consider what dessert will bring an end to an early July dinner; just when I think, “Oh, I should make one last strawberry cake before I can’t.”, I show up at the market only to find that there are no more jordgubbar stands, no more trays of farm-fresh, picked-today boxes of strawberries. There may be a few over-ripe, sat-in-the-sun too long, mushy liter containers, but none like I found just a few short weeks ago.

It hits me. I was almost tired of strawberry desserts, beginning to want the taste of berries from the next season; blueberries, cloud berries, lingonberries. I was thinking about picking cherries from the tree outside my window and wondering what kind of apple crop there might be. I was just about tired of strawberries. And then they were gone.

Certainly, my Swedes are teaching me a metaphor here. Eat what’s ripe in season. Live in the here and now; stop longing to move forward, celebrate this day, savor these tastes. They’ll be gone. Late summer will come. There will be mountains of apple pies, blueberry muffins and plenty of lingonberry flavored drinks. Tomorrow is coming.

This is quite literally a commentary on where we’ve been in 2020 and 21. Most of us long for a return to “normal”. It may sound trite really, but preaching to myself here, if I don’t eat what’s ripe and savor where I am, tomorrow will still come.

Here’s to the season! Let’s go pick up some fresh-from-the market berries and savor this moment; this one. This. The berries are ripe, go eat them.