Month: November 2017

Internal Life

On November 27, 2017

Late afternoon on a damp day

November in Malmö is ending just as gray as the locals predicted. In typical Scandinavian reliability, the weather is slogging steadily into colder, damper, deeper darkness. The trees are barren and the apartment buildings look as unapologetically uniform as any sample of mid century egalitarianism ever was. It is not particularly picturesque, and if it were not for the festive Christmas decorations popping up in apartment windows and dangling across cobblestone streets, Malmö might feel completely void of color in its November drizzle.

But that is just the world outside our doors. Inside is another story.

Inside our living space has never been warmer, cozier or more welcoming. Even the cars driving through the wet streets below amplify the peace inside. The Danish famously call it “hygge,” and it is a real thing. It is a winter home-life happiness in the form of evening candles, home cooked meals shared around the dining room table, books being read, guitars being played, new friends joining us for dinner and side-aching, hilarious stories shared. It is an interior happiness to match a soulful contentment, and it’s a whole new life I did not know was possible in the sun-drenched lands of Los Angeles busyness.

Christmas stars light up apartment windows all over Sweden. We got ours from IKEA, of course.

My November Survival Guide

By Theresa Haynes

On November 25, 2017

In Uncategorized

Before we moved to Sweden I had heard that November was the hardest month emotionally. As the trees drop the last of their golden leaves, the days get shorter and the temperatures plummet; it can be easy to develop a case of the winter blues.

A simple Google search back in May pulled up more than a few top ten type guides, most of them proposing the same kind of advice I would give to any friend struggling with a mild case of depression – exercise, make friends, dress up every once in a while, invest in yourself.

The articles all suggested November travel and one even specifically suggested going to California for the rest of the winter. When I read that, sitting at a computer in California, I didn’t laugh. I took a deep breath and started researching light lamps.

But here we are, more than half way through November, and I have to say, it does feel like winter. The days are short and getting shorter every day. The air is refreshingly crisp as I ride my bike to Swedish class, and the sun can actually be beautiful mid morning. (I have gotten more than one happy morning photo text from Kip riding the train to Älmhult.) But by mid afternoon the weather is often colder, sometimes grey and always darkening. On nice days, a uniquely warm, late afternoon light fills the space between apartment buildings, just before the world drops into total nighttime darkness, a few minutes before 4 p.m. It is winter in Scandanavia.

Sweden from the morning train to IKEA headquarters in Älmhult

So now that I am well on my way to being a veteran of the notorious November, what are my survival tips?

Exercise

It’s cold, sometimes raining, sometimes blustery, but there is no way around it, exercise is key, maybe THE key. And for someone who once ran marathons and had a daily running route involving running three miles up a mountain and through a hilly neighborhood in Malibu, I acutely know that I have not been following this advice enough. I need more exercise.

I still lace up and run a few times a week, and I try to get “every day” exercise by biking more places than I drive. And if I am being generous with myself, I might even count the squats I do while playing with our overactive kitten. But it is not enough. If I cannot convince myself to run or bike more, I might need to join a gym.

Invest in Friendship

I read this advice on all the blogs: Get out. Make friends. Be intentional about having a social life. This is all true, and ironically easier for us here in Sweden than it was in sunny California. From the first weekend we moved to Malmö we have met generous, hospitable people who have eagerly invited us into their homes.

We may have a bit of a social advantage in that we visited a couple of international English speaking churches, both of which were full of English-speaking internationals happy to have new potential friends arrive in Sweden. But it has not just been other expats who have welcomed us with open arms. On the second weekend that we were in Malmö our whole family was invited to an elaborate dinner party, hosted by an extraordinarily hospitable Swedish couple who wanted to include us in a midsummer family meal. And that was just the beginning. Our time here has been full of meeting new people, exchanging numbers and social media, and getting together for fika, lunch at a restaurant, dinner in homes or even just a run in the park. When we had a birthday party for Kip last month our apartment was full of new friends, none of which we knew this time last year.

Selfies, fika and an international bouquet of new friends from the Ukraine, South Africa, Denmark and me.

Warm Clothes

I have heard more than one person in Malmö quip that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. And that is not true. Some days can only be described as “bad weather,” but the right clothing goes along way. In Malmö, the right clothing includes windproof, waterproof coats, hats, scarfs, gloves, wool socks, warm shoes; almost none of which we had after living 14 years in southern California.

The North Face coat I bought in LA made its debut the middle of October.

But I bought a few things in Los Angeles before we came here, and I have also had some luck at a few of the nicer thrift stores here. For a fraction of what I paid for the parka I bought at the North Face outlet in Camarillo, I found a perfect winter coat that is long enough to keep me warm and short enough to not get in the way of riding a bike. Even so, with every passing day of colder weather, I am making a list for Santa: longer running tights, warmer jeans, better gloves, maybe long underwear. The barefoot days of summer seem like a long time ago.

Sunshine Travel

I had read that it is a good idea to travel to sunnier places in November, but I thought it was an expat suggestion, not a cultural norm until we got a 7 a.m. flight out of Copenhagen on the first Saturday of “Fall Break.” The airport was packed like Disneyland in July. And that is when I learned that all school children in Sweden got that week off of school. Anyone who could afford to leave the winterlands headed south. We went to the island of Madeira, off the coast of Africa, and heard Swedish all week long.

Where to next November?

Vitamin D

Apparently human bodies really need vitamin D to stay healthy and avoid a whole host of chronic illnesses. Fortunately the body makes vitamin D on its own. It is one of the great things about being human, but with the sun barely shining directly on Sweden in the winter and 95 percent of my body covered with layers of clothing, I realized that I might not be getting enough. I had been strongly advised to take vitamin D, and I had been taking it earlier in the fall, but when I got busy with life I forgot to include it in my daily routine. Then I started noticing that I was tired, really tired. I started taking vitamin D supplement again and it seemed to help significantly.

Learn Something New

Swedish friends have told us that winter is the time you catch up on Netflix, and I can see how that might happen. I watched six episodes of Homeland over one weekend until I realized I was low on Vitamin D and feeling sad about not being in the US for Thanksgiving.

Entertainment induced brain slack is not a good November survival strategy. Taking on a new challenge is much more rewarding. Reading books, taking a class, trying new recipes, practicing a musical instrument all makes November a happier month.

In addition to my Swedish class, I have been reading an amazing biography on the German theologian, Hitler conspirator, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I can’t stop talking about how amazing it is. It takes more effort to pick up a biography than watch tv, but its totally worth it.

Light up the House

I met a Swedish girl at a party who told me November was her favorite month in Sweden because it was the time she pulled out all of her winter decorations, her candles and window lights. And I can totally understand that.

We finished furnishing our apartment just before Kip’s birthday in October, so winterizing our decorations was as simple as adding a few more candles and a giant IKEA star in the window. Even though the world is dark and cold outside we have created an oasis of warmth inside.

Family Dinner

This is my own addition to the November survival list. We eat dinner together almost every night. We had always wanted to do that in California, but it often seemed difficult to make a priority. There were too many opportunities and obligations on the calendar. Here there seems to be time to eat together, in the dining room. We talk about the day’s highlights, what I read, what someone said at work or on the train, what happened at school, what the crazy cat did. Its rich.

As I am making the list, it has occurred to me that our November life is far better than mere survival. It is full of simple pleasures — family dinners, hospitality, new friends, candles, books, Swedish class. Its simple stuff, really simple; but I think deep down it’s the life that most people wish they had. Who would have thought that life thrives in the cold?

And Thanksgiving! Hosting a thanksgiving feast and inviting Swedish friends should be included in any American’s November survival guide.

Back to School

By Theresa Haynes

On November 15, 2017

In Uncategorized

First day of Swedish class

Monday was back to school day for me, the first back to school day in as long as I can remember. I got up early, made coffee, grabbed a half-filled notebook that I last used for an online screenwriting course, grabbed my bike and rode through the crisp fall morning to class. It felt amazing. I hardly noticed that it was about 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

The class, a four-week intensive Swedish course taught daily for three hours, was everything I had hoped for; and I came home the first day with pages of notes and the first real bit of faith that I might actually learn Swedish.

The class and the instructor came highly recommend to me by two different people, a Ukrainian and a Brazilian, that I met at Hillsong, an international English speaking church in Malmö. I decided I needed something to get me going again in my language learning, so I enrolled.

The class is intense. The teacher speaks mostly in Swedish. She says something, writes it on the white board, waits eagerly through the blank stares, gives us a few clues and then sometimes just says it in English. Sometimes she doesn’t have to translate at all, and that makes the class both challenging and interesting.

After living in Sweden for several months and grasping bits and pieces of the language, I’m discovering that the class is filling in the missing pieces, the little bits of information that I needed to bring it all together.

For one thing, I have found that written and spoken Swedish can seem almost unrelated as the Swedish speaker often excludes parts of written words and seems to blur others together in phrases that sound like one sing-song muddle. When I have pointed this out to Swedish speakers they often say, “Oh, but Danish is much worse.” (There should be a Swedish word for Danish blame shifting.)

My first attempt to learn Swedish began in Malibu when I bought Rosetta Stone for Swedish and sat in the kitchen with my open laptop. At that time moving to Sweden still felt like a hypothetical possibility and I needed something to motivate me to begin the work of preparing for the move.

Rosetta Stone was a great start and I learned my first bits of vocabulary, pojken (the boy), flickan (the girl), but Rosetta Stone is built on inductive reasoning, educated guessing, and the program only took me so far. I was totally confused by the grammar until July when I met a German hiker on our trek in Abisko, in the far north of Sweden, in the arctic circle. In a rustic hikers’ cabin with no electricity or running water, over a candlelight dinner of freeze-dried stew, she mentioned that German and Swedish are very similar and that learning Swedish had not been too difficult for her. The biggest difference was that the articles were at the end of the nouns instead of the beginning, for instance “katt” and “katten” in Swedish versus “die Katz” in German. When she said that it was like a light went on. I had been struggling for weeks and had no idea why the nouns changed without warning, and I suddenly understood. I wanted to immediately trek back to civilization, boot up my computer and get back into Rosetta Stone.

I also used Duolingo, which is a fun free app that I have on my phone. But just like Rosetta Stone, it is not enough. Sometimes you just need a human instructor who can said, “yes, that is right,” or “not exactly,” or even give physical tips like how to hold your mouth when you say the vowel sounds or the very odd sound that is the word for “seven.” It is written “sju,” and sounds a bit like a lazy, “ch” and “who?” I am sure that I don’t have it right yet. It is a good thing that I have three and a half more weeks.

Kip is having a work-from-home week, much to the delight of katten. Kip sent me this while I was at class today. Our Swedish cat says, “Det är mycket bra.” It is very good.

Random Saturday Road Trip through Skåne

By Theresa Haynes

On November 12, 2017

In Uncategorized

Mid afternoon light on the Eastern shore in November.

This morning we woke up late, sleeping like teenagers on a Saturday morning. The sun woke me up, breaking through the cloud cover for the first time in days, shining through the heavy curtains.

“Wake up! The sun is shining!”

It was 10 a.m. and with the curtains thrown back the light poured, I mean, poured, into the bedroom like warm liquid joy.

Within an hour we were talking about getting in the car and getting out, seeing a little bit more of Skåne County. Coffee and showers and cat chores later, we were on the road, just as the clouds were beginning to reconvene. We headed North and East anyway, toward the Baltic Sea.

With a car, or a train, it is possible to escape the city in just a few minutes. Malmö stops abruptly and expansive farm fields takes its place. Modern wind turbines dot the fields, alongside the stout remnants of traditional windmills that once dominated the windy landscape. And when the farmland stops, thick Swedish woods gather around lakes and cabins. Then the woods gives way to orderly little small towns with modern cottages and red tiled roofs and Volvos parked out front, and then the whole pattern repeats itself.

River picked the music, his 90s Spotify playlist, and everything out the window began to look familiar, like little bits of Wisconsin, West Virginia or Pennsylvania, the places I spent time in the 90s.

We saw several apple stands, and I lamented that we had not brought cash, until we passed a self-serve, Swish payment apple stand. We turned around and bought a bag. That would not have happened in California!

This requires a moment of recognition for my US readers. In Sweden, an almost cashless society, there is an electronic money exchange system that works with smart phones. You just open an app, type in a phone number and money amount, and your payment is made. It is as fast as swiping your card and signing a receipt. And the beauty of this apple stand experience is that it was also self-serve. The farmer, based on traditional Swedish culture values and modern technology, set his bags of apples in front of his apple orchards with a Swish payment sign. In a small way it represents the best of Swedish culture – cutting-edge technology, local-grown produce, self-service and an expectation of honesty. Amazing!

We drove until we found a national park along the sea. We walked to the water, watched a family in winter coats and hats running along the sand, two little girls walking out in the waves in their snow boots, laughing when the waves chased them back into the shore. It looked so much like kids in Malibu in winter, wanting to be in the waves that are too cold to swim in.

When the sun went down, around 4, we began heading back home, promising ourselves to do it again. It’s good to get out.

Darkness is Coming

By Theresa Haynes

On November 6, 2017

In Uncategorized

The tree is almost bare by November 6.

I don’t know why people who have lived here a long time, Swedes and expats alike, feel the need to tell us that the winter is coming and that it is going to be bad, very bad. I think we know. We would not have moved here without doing that research.

I know that we are from California, but we are not unaware of what snow looks like or how to wear wool socks. In fact, the last time I went to Costco I stocked up on new wool socks. They are waiting for me, unopened in the closet. I think we are mentally prepared for a little chilly weather.

But it’s not the cold, I’ve heard.

It’s the darkness.

The first time somebody told me that, they said it with such ominousness that I thought it was a joke. Be afraid, very afraid. Darkness is a real thing. But then I kept hearing the same comment, “Be prepared. It’s not the cold, or even the wind and rain. It’s the darkness.”

We had a nasty summer here. Numerous people assured me that it was the worst summer in 100 years here. It rained constantly, and I thought it was a tragic waste of 17-hour days to have cold rain blotting out the sun. It really felt like extra-long January days in southern California. I wore my light weight jacket almost every day.

So when people talked about the coming winter darkness, I thought it was a bit of an exaggeration. How can it be worse than rainy summer days?

I understood that the days would be short, very short. I had images of poor little school children walking to school in the dark, crunching snow under their boots, coming home in the dark. I lived for a year in Wisconsin. I am familiar with the concept of winter.

But by late October when the beautiful autumn leaves were just past their peak, I began to understand what my Swedish friends meant by darkness.

It is not that the days are short or that winter clouds block the precious bit of sunshine that dares to rise. The “problem” is that the sun, on the sunniest of days, simply does not climb very high above the horizon. Last week, the last time the clouds were thin enough to see the partially masked sun, I could see that at noon it looked like the sun was at a 45 degree angle from the horizon. And that was October.

It is going to get dark by late December.

But….

I refuse to give in to fear.

Light always shines brightly in the darkness. I look forward to experiencing how Swedish people light up their world on the darkest of winter days. It sounds cliche, but it is a serious hope. Sweden may have long, dark winters, but they are not cold, depressed people. They are a people of generosity and hospitality, Fika and great baking, music and design, technology breakthroughs and political stability. I believe there is something bright here, and I will have patience to discover it.

: Going

: Going

: Going

: Gone