Soderala, Sweden, Monday June 26
Only thing that keeps us apart
Is seven thousand miles, running like a mad dog
Only thing that keeps us apart
Is a different timezone
-Maneskin, Timezone
Hot showers have got to be the absolute best thing in the entire freaking world. Chocolate is tasty, money would be nice, love is desirable.
But.
When your hair is so greasy from hathead that it reflects off fluorescent lights, and your clothes have a stickiness from the sweat of manual laboring in the sun? Then the heat of the water relaxes your body, from the outside in. And you put on warm, dry clothes afterwards, the shampoo releasing its almond milk fragrance as your hair dries softly in the air.
Now that is the sublime. And an attainable one, at that.
Since taking a hot shower this afternoon after a work shift (and nap) I feel like a new person. Ready to take on the world with at least a slightly better grasp of what’s going on in it. Today was a special day – Today was my first official full day at a work stay.
When Olov messaged me weeks ago about what I would like to do, I was straight up with him: I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, just leave me instructions. Last night he picked me up from the train station, after more than a few texts from me indicating I was not finding a suitable train ticket. Fortunately he knows both the trains and Swedish, so he was able to fix my error, which was not noticing I was going to the wrong train station, for starters. After that it was cake. The train ride was surprisingly spacious with quite a bit of leg room, which I thought was a nice extra. Until I realized this was Scandiland, and seats were meant to be accommodate Viking-size limbs, and my child-size legs found the seat roomy in what had to be average for them.
Olov showed me around the place briefly last night. A handful of red buildings once a small village, now all are owned by the same family. The cows lowing in nearby pastures attest to the milk production aspect of the farm, while the other half is a family-run garden. Even in the evening twilight, I could tell the gardens were overgrown with weeds, though the colorful flowers lining the beds were cheerful.
He showed me upstairs. Up a steep staircase and past a formal dining room straight from a ghost haunting movie, he showed me to my room: an old grandfather study, it was in a quiet part of the upstairs, looking out over the garden and and veranda. The pale blue and ivory wallpaper repeated a Grecian motif. The furniture was antique, a desk and chair made of actual wood. Though I write substantially, I haven’t used the grandfather desk due to the proximity of the outlet to my bed. (. . .But also, if anything in this room is haunted, it’s definitely the desk. That, or the rocking chair in the corner.)
. . .
plants
scary movie vibe
stayed up making cinnamon rolls
. . .
table talk
like October Sky
following a road, what you’re born to do
compassion for Ana’s meltdown
work party
listening to italian tarantela music
jamming out to Maneskin
there is something can feel but not see
but you can see it, too
this was home
the paintings were no longer scary, (okay, except for one…)
. . .
Highlights:
dinner together
work parties
listening to Maneskin
Meals:
-A curry (?) of beans, tomato sauce, chicken, and mystery spices with rice and corn/peas. Olov pulled out coffee and tea to share the cinnamon buns. A grand feast, if ever there was.
After the meal, Francesco, Olov and I chatted. He was working on his thesis for school, for mathematics. He was going to be a teacher. With his cheery demeanor and solid work ethic, I had no doubt he would be well-liked by the students.
-Olov showed me photos comparing Stockholm 70 years ago compared to now – the colored, wooden houses (similar to what make Gamla Stan and Bryggen so famous) were torn down. Allegedly it was to lessen the presence of rats in the city (insert shudder here) so buildings were voted to be modernized into boxy, concrete structures. The pull between preserving culture and modernizing for the future isn’t a new concept, nor will it be – standardizing electricity in houses, for example, is a standardization I’m more than happy occurred all over the world. But there’s a balance, too. One look at the differentiating photos of the city over time will show you everything you need to know. The aesthetic was stark – one showed a culture rich in history and warmth, the other a kind of cold, sterile superiority. Remaining in the past vs. skyrocketing towards the future, neither are good or personal progression. But I have to believe there’s a way for both to be in harmony. But that’s perhaps a problem, and solution, for another day.
-Told everyone I might stay three weeks since my sister is having a meltdown. This isn’t to besmirch the character of my sister, who happens to be one of my most often traveling companion. Ana is great, and I am lucky to count her as both a sister and a best friend. While we have many differences, one is how we process distress – when I meltdown, the fallout is internal; when she melts down, the fallout is external. She’s worried about finances and travel, and at several points has changes her travel plans. I understand finances change, plans change, heck, and our choices change with the weather. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t annoyed she had decided to change our mutual plans without me. I had planned where I was and what I was doing around her timeline, and now I was dropped at the fall of a dime. ( I feel like I merged serval idioms into one, but hey, I’ll roll with it for now).
A few days ago she told me she couldn’t do the Camino de Santiago with me after all. Which wouldn’t have affected my plans to continue to do it without her. Except she was supposed to bring key items for us, or even just me, as tools and supplies on the hike.
Anyway, I brought this up at lunch to Francesco and Olov. It was interesting how Francesco brought up how there were maybe some things that were going on with her that were difficult. It was a simple sentiment, but not untrue. And it made me ashamed of not understanding her position. To be afraid of what the future may hold, to feel there in only cruelty and struggle lying ahead, blocking every road – that deserves more than my frustration. It deserves understanding and compassion. I had told Ana it was fine, and plans changed. But I resolved to encourage her to travel with me, if even for one week, because if there is anything that can reset your heart and mind than wandering for a bit to find your way, it’s becoming a traveler, if only for a bit. There’s flexibility to the mindset that comes with it that leaks into every other aspect of your life. Abd if anyone needed the possibility of positive change and the reality of flexibility, it was her.
-Dinner was Bolognese sauce and spaghetti pasta. I made tea long before my shower, but definitely didn’t come back for it until dinnertime. . .but the peppermint passionfruit (now iced) herbal tea was delightful. May have started a war mentioning Swedes put kiwi on their pizza, and it was trending on social media. One article read the man had received death threats from Italy. As in the country. As in on behalf of the entire country. Francesco agreed Italians take their pizza and coffee seriously. Starbucks he said had to close, because the American Frappuccino was an ungodly monster of the Underworld. And coffee was to be enjoyed in mugs and glass, not in paper, since only students would drink to go coffee in paper.
“Once in my town, there was a Domino’s pizza. It closed down in two weeks because nobody liked it, and it got death threats. I am pretty proud of that,” he chimed, positively gleeful in what he must have seen as a just punishment of God on an unholy pestilence.
-Victor is a fantastic dinnertime DJ, and his playlist choices never cease to delight before and during the meal. He chose some goofy tarantella Italian music for Francesco, and its campy tune made us all cringe and laugh in turns. We switched to Maneskin on my suggestion, which was a good choice – turns out Francesco knew every lyric of every one of their songs.
“Coralina” was his starting suggestion. “It’s about a girl going through emotional troubles,” he explained. The song “Timezones” I hadn’t heard before, but I mentally marked it to add to a few playlists later on.
I thought back to one night in Dehab. The band alternated songs in Arabic and English. The lead singer had a nice rasp to his voice, so his cover of Maneskin’s “Begging You” resounded into the night across the still waters of the Sinai peninsula. I never thought I’d be listening to an Egyptian band’s English cover of an Italian band with a Danish name. What a wild, global, yet intimate world we live in.
While the boys worked on their laptops, I worked on mine in a combined productive party. Listening to music as a group yet working in silence on our individual things brought back the productive parties I world have with roommates and friends for school assignments. I think we had up to seven or people one night in the library, all at the same oval table in the Asian history section.
There was a nice feeling about this little group out here in Soderala. It may be a bit in the middle of nowhere, but I can’t help but recognize something here a lot closer to home than I would have thought. Maybe our timezones aren’t that far apart after all. The paintings on the walls no longer look haunted; the cluttered rooms are cozier and worn with familiarity. Two weeks at first seemed like a long time, but I have a feeling it will fly by fast.