Author: Theresa Haynes Page 2 of 4

Suddenly Spring in Sweden

On April 6, 2018

The bitter winter cold seems to have finally past, and the first signs of spring are visible everywhere: tree twigs burgeoning with swollen buds, flirting fowl, the late afternoon sun and the absence of heavy winter coats, caps and gloves — for at least a few of the pedestrians walking the streets of Malmö.

It snowed here on Tuesday, but on Wednesday it was so warm I unzipped my heavy winter coat as I walked home from the library. And then today I was so cold in the wind without my winter hat that I could not wait to get back home and brew a cup of coffee.

It is still cloudy more often then not, but when the sun is shining, warm light pours into our apartment, more than banishing the Nordic winter darkness. The cat sprawls out in the generous sunbeam, waking only to talk about the chirping birds so temptingly perched on the tree just beyond our balcony. It is spring in Sweden.

This morning I celebrated spring by going on a tour of the Botanical Gardens in Lund, a community event hosted by the International Citizens Hub.

Look carefully for some of the first spring flowers, purple crocuses.

These spring crocus flowers have a direct connection to Swedish baking by way of their crocus cousins which provide saffron for lussebullar, those yellow Christmas buns for Santa Lucia day.

I don’t know what I expected this morning. The last botanical garden I remember visiting might have been the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena or the LA Arboretum. So without sounding condescending, I have to say the Lund garden was interesting primarily in its historical context and its pre-season potential. The sun is out, but it seems that southern Sweden is still a long way yet from the lush green days of summer. In this early stage of spring, the botanical garden looked mostly like a barren park with plaques promising plants, a bed of small purple crocuses here, white snow drops there, a rare witch hazel tree in bloom and the first sprouts of rhubarb and nettle pushing their way through the garden dirt.

Not unlike so many other museums and historical cites I have encountered worldwide, the docent made the tour worth every minute of the nippy spring morning hour we spent walking around the garden. As an official Lund University botanist, she made history come alive with details about the garden which is, by the way, older than America. With fascinating details, she brought each tiny flower and budding plant into the greater story of Swedish life. Did you know that nettle soup was traditionally an important spring food, one of the first sources of vitamins and minerals after a winter of potatoes and meat? And the garden café affectionately dubbed the “castle” was once the coal house used to heat the greenhouses before electricity. I’ll wander through a sparse garden in a chilly spring wind any morning to hear those kinds of details. I’ll just take my hat next time.

We have our own indoor spring garden. Our Påsk daffodils bloomed on Easter morning. This picture was taken at almost 6 p.m. The days are already generously long, weeks before midsummer.

Do you like Malmö?

By Theresa Haynes

On March 22, 2018

In Uncategorized

Do you like Malmö?

I hear that question frequently. What do you think of Sweden? Do you like Malmö?

There is the tendency to talk about the weather first as this is universally the easiest small talk topic.

“Well, you know, we came from California and its sunny there all the time.”

“Yeah, so this is our first winter is 15 years.”

“You know, its ok.”

But all of that is true and completely beside the point. No one asked me what I thought about the weather in Malmö. Everyone, with the exception of one person I met from Northern Ireland, agrees that the weather in Malmö is less than pleasant, especially the long, dark, rainy winters.

But do I like Malmö?

This Sunday, a woman I met after church, awkwardly socializing over cup of post-church coffee, asked me this question. She was older, from a more rural part of Sweden, and she communicated through halting Swinglish that she understood English but did not speak it well.

I stopped, trying to articulate my words simply. I looked into her clear blue eyes in her face framed by wispy blond bangs, and I heard myself say, “I like Sweden.”

She smiled. Satisfied.

And I realized that I believed what I said.

I told her that just yesterday Kip and I had spent the afternoon with a neighbor we met on the street, a very un-Swedish connection. But even so he had invited us over for coffee, and so we sat in his beautifully Scandinavian styled apartment and had coffee and freshly baked, homemade cardamom rolls with his wife and toddler son. The candles on the table warmed the room and made me forget about the cold Saturday afternoon outside.

And last Friday night, despite the cold snap that brought the temperature well below freezing, Kip and I rode our bicycles across town to meet up with another couple and discuss our lives over imported wine and olives. After a wonderful evening of discovering common hearts in uncommon narratives, we rode our bikes back through town and stopped near Möllevången for midnight falafel from a middle eastern restaurant that keeps very unSwedish business hours. And I kept thinking about how, just a year ago, I could not have even imagined such a night.

The real Malmö … late night kebabs paid with Swedish kroner under a Swedish flag. (Note: This picture is not from Möllevången, but from our neighborhood kebab shack. These popup stands offer the best “fast” food in Sweden.)

I like our life and adventure here.

I love that Malmö is an international city, a baby city where you can ride bikes from one end to the other, but a multicultural hub where you can get to know people from around the world who have chosen to make this tip of Sweden their home.

I like the indoor winter culture.

I like the hospitality.

I like the massive bike roads and the fact that we bike everywhere, even in the middle of the night in the cold of winter.

I love the people we have met, the friends who feel like real friends, the kind that I will keep in touch with for a long, long time.

I like the coffee culture, and dangerously so, I like all the freshly baked bread and bakery treats. It’s the best I have had in the world, and there always seems to be opportunities to partake.

Swedish semla and salad, a perfect spontaneous lunch date with my friend Jennifer. Semla is the Swedish response to “fat Tuesday,” a traditionally pre-lent delight that somehow arrives in bakeries early and lingers after the beginning of lent.

I love the tree that grows just outside our balcony. I have watched it change from green, to yellow, then barren, then white with snow and now dripping with freezing rain and the pre-spring promise of budding tips. I like the reality of seasons and the rhythm it brings to people’s lives.

Our tree, exactly five months ago, the last of the green leaves.

Today, no new leaves yet, but tiny rain-dripped buds, birds and a curious cat experiencing his first spring ever.

So yes, sweet lady from Sweden with your careful worded English and your hospitable smile, I like Sweden.

The Road Trip Continues

By Theresa Haynes

On March 19, 2018

In Uncategorized

One of the main reasons we chose to live in Sweden was not Sweden at all. It was Europe itself and the opportunity to take a weekend in Berlin, discover the beaches of southern France or experience a family ski holiday in the Alps – not the Disney version or the over-priced California mega-resort version, but the real Alps, covered in snow, twinkling with real half-timbered, Old World charm.

Like good Americans, we want to do it all, which means, unfortunately, as we have settled into the reality of actually living in Europe; we will need to explore Europe budget style, including all the aspects of shoe-string traveling — planning ahead, packing a few lunches, staying at little-family run hotels and, in some cases, driving ourselves.

When Kip began researching budget options for family skiing, one thing became clear to him; Austria is a good deal. We looked at several options and settled on Mayrhofen, a small Tirol town with a massive ski resort and enough lodging variety to stay in whatever level of luxury a skier’s wallet allows.

You can arrive by train.

We rented skis, got multi-day passes and stayed in a small family-run hotel for far less than we would have spent in Tahoe, Mammoth or even Big Bear for that matter. In fact, at around 80 Euros ($90) a night for lodging including breakfast for three people and 140 Euros ($172) for an adult, 3-day ski lift, it was far cheaper than a California ski vacation. Of course, with European gas taxes, the big price tag is the gasoline to get there. Priced around 1.34 Euros per liter, its not too shocking until you do the math and realize its about $6.25 a gallon.

I’m not a great skier. I learned to ski as an adult. I took a few random, isolated lessons at Mount Baldy one winter and Yosemite another, but my real skiing education began a few years ago on the slushy slopes of Mountain High, just 80 miles East of LA, overlooking the smog-filled Antelope Valley. For a few consecutive seasons I took my kids up to Wrightwood every January for a weekday school special that included a lesson and six weekly ski lift tickets. The persistent California drought inevitably caused the season to be cut short, and by the end of February we were skiing over gravel and watching the ski runs revert into mud and brown grass.

The kids fell in love with the mountain sport those years, Micah with skiing, River, snowboarding; but I never really progressed much beyond the wobble of a beginner. I learned how to navigate the beginner hill, how to gracefully disembark from a ski lift, and, most importantly, how to pep talk myself down a steeper slope. It was here that I learned the surprising truth that if I actively avoided imagining myself wiping out, my chances of staying upright were greatly increased.

So it was not without apprehension that I took the gondola up the Alpine mountain to the ski slopes our first day in Mayrhofen. By the end of the day I realized I needed to put myself in remedial school. I bought a pass for the kiddie slope and spent a few hours there the second day reforming my don’t-get-in-my-way-or-we-might-both-die to a respectable beginner’s stance. By the end of day three I was enjoying the blue runs, although it did not take much to talk me into a beer and apple strudel stop at the mountain top lodge. Yes, they go together.

Alpine beer and Austrian pretzels in the ski lodge. Yes, please.

After our three days skiing in Mayrhofen we took the long road through Austria back towards Germany, stopping for coffee, stopping to run up random snow-covered mountain roads, stopping to take pictures of small towns we want to return to.

Cool guys don’t need their jackets for those quick, side of the road snowball fight stops.

We stopped here for a coffee and potty break, and we would love to come back here to ski. Rural, beautiful Austria.

Road trips are defined by the driving but remember by the stopping.

And sometimes you have to jump off the car.

Our goal was to get to Hallstatt, possibly one of the most picturesque mountain villages ever built, but we arrived at sunset and ended up exploring the mostly closed historic district in the fading daylight. Like so many places quickly passed through, it left us with a longing to come back and see and taste and be.

Hallstatt in twighlight

It is way too cold to walk around Hallstatt, Austria after dark in February.

From Austria we drove through the Czech Republic.

Checkered roads in the Czech Republic.

Once again arriving just before sunset, we walked around a historic area of Prague, sampling a taste of all that city has to offer — history, music, art, good food and beer. It was freezing beyond what I would have ever been able to handle a year ago, but somehow it was still fun to be out on a Saturday night, exploring a new place together, and I was left with the impression that we really should return to Prague — maybe in the summer next time.

Helping cold tourists remember their Saturday night in Prague.

Staying at little family run pensions like this one near Gosau, Austria make a road trip more affordable.

After a few short hours we were back on the road, this time driving as far as Berlin where we stayed at an unmemorable chain motel. It made me appreciate all of the little family run pensions we stayed at along the way.

Roaming Berlin on Sunday morning before grabbing coffee for the road

The next morning Kip was disappointed to discover that almost all grocery stores are closed in Germany on Sundays; so we drove to Sassnitz without loading up on cheap German beer, took a choppy ferry back to Sweden and were home for an early bedtime before school started back on Monday morning — grateful to be home, grateful to have gone on an adventure.

Sassnitz, Germany. Photo credit River Haynes

The Winter Road Trip Begins

By Theresa Haynes

On March 5, 2018

In Uncategorized

I love a good family road trip – the packed car, the audio books, the long conversations, the music, the wide open road, the avalanche of backseat snacks, the coffee stops and obligatory midnight McDonald’s sundaes.

Our family has had some great American road trips. Once we pulled an all-nighter to drive from California to Oklahoma, arriving at my parents’ house just in time for Easter morning. Then there was the spontaneous weekend trip to Utah that took us through Vegas, the Hover Dam and to the unexpected beauty of Zion National Park.

One summer we drove to Seattle, stopping near Shasta, California at a motel consisting entirely of train cars, a dream for our little boy who loved and still loves trains. Then a few summers later we left the safety of American highways and ventured into the rough, wild deserts and coastal towns of Baja California on a trip to Cabo San Lucas. It was that first international family trip that opened our hearts to the wild adventure of exploring Mexico and the rest of the world.

So when we left Malmö, headed south towards the snowy Alps and the prospect of a few days skiing, I was looking forward to the road trip as much as the destination. And I was not disappointed.

When leaving Sweden and heading to Germany, unless you are in an airplane, the first thing you have to do is either cross a couple of expensive bridges into Denmark and then Germany, or take a ferry. As it turns out, the ferry from Malmö to Lübeck, Germany is significantly cheaper than the sum of European gas prices and exorbitant bridge tolls.

And so we started our road trip by driving our Swedish car onto a ferry.

Drive aboard the ferry

Winter wind makes this cruise an indoor affair save a few quick obligatory photos for mom’s blog.

Goodbye, Malmö, for now.

The ferry, which was mostly occupied by truck drivers and a handful of families leaving Sweden for the “sport’s break,” an annual February week-long school holiday universally seen as a great week for skiing; contained a cafeteria, bar and lounge with children’s toys and a TV, a very small swimming pool, and oddly enough, a very Swedish sauna.

It is a bit unnerving to walk into a public restroom, open the cedar-lined door in the back of the restroom area, and see a completely naked woman stretched out on the sauna step, “Hej, hej.” I shut the door too quickly, forgetting my polite, “hej, hej,” in return. To be fair, we were still in Swedish waters.

Sightseeing in Hamburg, Germany

We spent our first night in Lübeck, and our first day exploring that historic port city and then, further down the road, Hamburg. Both places were fascinating, brimming with untold stories and historical connections; but as the nature of road trips are brief breaks with more miles to travel before resting, we moved on too quickly, leaving most of these interesting cities untouched.

Welcome to our castle.

Our second night was in Eisenach, city of Martin Luther fame; and we ate our first proper German meal in a German restaurant and spent the next day hiking up to the Castle Wartburg to explore all of the history there.

Kip examines the door of Luther’s study where the great Reformer translated the New Testament into German.

Life inside the castle walls looks like Disneyland.

Castle doves (photo credit River Haynes)

In 1817 German students gathered here in what become the beginnings of German unification.

That night we made it as far as the Bavarian alps, quite randomly staying in a delightful family-run bed and breakfast in Obermmergau, a village dominated by its nearly 400-year-long tradition of Passion play performances. The host proudly displayed generational pictures of her family costumed in Biblical garb, including pictures of her son as Jesus, her grandchild as baby Jesus and her husband both as an old man in recent color and a child in black and white.

A neighborhood of family run hotels in Obermmergau, Germany

Our host’s hospitality was beyond charming, and to add to the delight she told us that our breakfast cheese came from a local monastery that also made beer. So of course, we had to go there too. The little village monastery turned out to be the famous Ettal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery established in the 14th century.

Ettal Abbey

Frescoes under the church dome

Wall plaque cites Bonhoeffer’s time at Ettal

As a little historical note for my fellow Dietrich Bonhoeffer devotees, the German pastor spent time here in the winter of 1940-41 where he worked on his book Ethics. Several members of the Ettal community were also involved in the conspiracy against Hitler.

Up next, skiing in Austria…

The Beauty of Unexpected Snow

By Theresa Haynes

On March 2, 2018

In Uncategorized

February Snow

The world is bathed in cold beauty,

a redemptive white dressing covering bare city streets,

snow reflecting winter light,

illuminating the world with hope,

as if to say,

it may be winter,

but it is no longer

Dark.

This rare snowy week in Malmö feels like a late February gift, a little welcome-back surprise for all the “sports break” travelers last week, a package tied up in a happy white bow.

The snow started Tuesday night and has been steadily falling all week, and it has been glorious. It does not snow often here in Malmö, and when it does it typically melts within an hour and almost never sticks to the road.

But this week has been an exception with snow falling all night Tuesday and into the day Wednesday, piling up in fluffy, light piles on cars and streets and bike paths. It’s Friday morning as I write, and it has begun snowing again — big fat flakes falling gently on the partly cleared streets below.

Beach bikes are not made for grocery store runs in the snow

Wednesday afternoon, I tried to ride Micah’s bike to the grocery store, a mistake I realized immediately as I tried to navigate the beach cruiser on slick uncleared bike paths. I rode slowly and carefully, too slowly and carefully, dangerously wobbly, riding on parts of the cleared street, eventually walking the bike on the cleared sidewalk. It was worth getting out to see the snow-covered, frozen canals and the barren trees dressed in white regalia. But today when I go out I think I’ll just wear my snow boots and walk.

Maybe other people have this snow biking thing down.

Swedish snow cycling

Winter Sun in Malmö

By Theresa Haynes

On February 5, 2018

In Uncategorized

Kip snapped this picture on his train commute this morning.

The sun shone victoriously under a cold February sky today. It was a gorgeous celebration of the rapidly lengthening days and no one in our family went without mentioning it.

A layer of frost and snow glistened under the rare morning sun. River took this picture.

I rode across town in the late afternoon. It was still cold, very cold, but nice to be outside.

And even the twilight was clear as I crossed one of the partially frozen Malmö canals. Is it too much to hope for a few more days like this?

In Defense of a Forgettable Weekend

By Theresa Haynes

On February 5, 2018

In Uncategorized

He thinks I should paws for his edits. An open laptop is a laptop needing his touch.

This weekend was a blur of quiet family life, the kind of weekend that I suspect will be vaguely remembered. There were no major events, no milestones, no memorable travel. It was the kind of weekend lived once but repeated often; forgettable, but beautiful in the simplicity of its own existence.

Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Saturday morning we made family breakfast — Kip, with the bacon that I always complain about but love to eat, me, with a Trader Joe’s pumpkin bread mix that I stashed in my luggage when we were in Los Angeles last month. (I still miss Micah every time I set the Saturday morning breakfast table for three, but I talked to her Friday night and she seems to be doing really well in college, genuinely enjoying her classes, excitedly recounting details of her church history class.)

Saturday we also cleaned the apartment, so much easier now that we live in a two-bedroom apartment instead of a three-story, four-bedroom, four-bathroom house in California. (That sounded like a complaint. It really is a bonus to clean up faster. Simplicity.)

Then Kip and I went grocery shopping together. I like to stock up on nuts and veggies, fresh bakery bread, and a boxed soup that I eat for lunch on cold days when I am home alone. I try to keep the processed food to a few “emergency” frozen pizzas and boxes of cereal for our ever-hungry teenage boy. Of course an occasional carton of ice cream or Swedish chocolate bar makes its way into the basket too.

Kip usually picks out the cheeses and meats, and he does a good job of it. Had we been in Los Angeles he would have gotten wine and beer too, but they are not sold in the grocery stores in Sweden. The only retail store allowed to sell alcohol in Sweden is the state-sanctioned monopoly Systembolaget.

Recently I got a very small bottle of tequila that was more than twice the price I would have paid in a grocery store in the US. Most Swedes will defend this government-controlled monopoly, saying the government has its people’s best interests at heart with its prohibition-style regulations. Systembolaget claims to be taking the negative aspects of alcohol out of society by eliminating the profit. Of course at $30 for a small bottle of budget tequila, I think someone is making a profit.

One memorable moment of the weekend was Saturday night when we invited friends over for dinner to celebrate one of their birthdays. I made dinner. They brought drinks. We had my childhood-favorite American apple crisp with ice cream, and we talked about living in Sweden. One of them is Swedish, the other from the UK. They have only lived in Malmö for a few years so they still see life here with both an insider and outsider perspective.

Easy like Saturday morning.

Sunday afternoon we made a quick family trip to IKEA. It was mostly River’s idea, as Kip can easily get to IKEA any day he works in Älmhult. But I was more than happy to go because I had not been to our favorite Swedish mega store since before Christmas. I realized when we were walking into the store that River mostly wanted to go because he was craving IKEA’s mashed potatoes, a soothing comfort food for his newly braced teeth.

We decided to start orthodontia for River this week. It is something that has been on the to-do list for awhile now, but for the last few years we have never felt settled enough to commit the time to braces. You don’t start orthodontia if you are planning to leave town. I have known too many friends who had to make unplanned trips back to LA to finish their teenager’s orthodontia treatment.

So as River starts this new dental treatment, I know it will also be a solid reminder that we are planning to be in Sweden for at least the next year, maybe a few months more or even longer. And what else will happen during that time?

At IKEA I also got a green plant for the apartment. As the last remaining Christmas decorations make it into the clearance bins, little green windowsill plants are popping up like the first promise of spring.

I put the plant on our bedroom windowsill, next to the crocuses Kip picked up at IKEA last week. I’m hoping our kitten-cat who does not seem to be able to resist temptation of any kind, will not find them. Plants have not fared well under his teeth and claws, but I really like these little green reminders of new life and I plan to keep them shut behind our bedroom door until we have trained the cat to respect the plant life. Coexist kitty.

In November this plant met its end under the kitty’s paws. I am hoping a couple of months has matured our feline friend.

Off Season Off Road

By Theresa Haynes

On January 29, 2018

In Uncategorized

It’s a rainy Monday and I think I have come to terms with this. It rains in Malmö — a lot. I don’t know if this is true all year or just summer, fall and winter. We have been here almost 7 months, and so far it has rained constantly. Hardly two days in a row pass without rain.

My friend who visited us from the UK last week said it was similar there too. We both lived in California for a decade and we are intimately aware of our need for sunshine. While we were walking through Malmö, the sun burst through the cloud cover, and I got excited.

“I haven’t seen the sun in weeks!” It might have been a gross exaggeration for the benefit of someone who would understand, but it had been days at least.

But as I have mentioned in this blog before, weather is not a show stopper in Sweden. People bike, walk, run, and even push baby strollers through the wind, rain and drizzle. I have even heard of people jumping into the ocean in January. It is a bit of a macho Viking thing, but still, it happens. I have seen pictures.

While weather is not a show stopper, observing correct activities for correct seasons might be.

It is kind of like an LA friend once told me, “There is beach season and hiking season in southern California.” You can go to the beach in winter, but it will be too cold to swim, and you can hike in the heat of summer, but that can be hot, dry and miserable too. In Sweden it seems to be both a matter of practicality and tradition. Seasons are not just for weather. Swedish life is organized into seasons for work and food and apparently, motorcycling too.

Saturday I dropped Kip and River off near a known motorcross trail, which was really a series of dirt roads, in Skåne. I drove the car up to Markaryd, left it there and caught a couple of trains back to Malmö. It was great for me to get out of the city, drive through farmland and deep woods, and remember that Sweden is much bigger than our beloved grey Malmö. It is rural with small towns and mid-sized cities, connected by roads and trains.

It was also great for me to navigate the trains myself. Kip commutes by train several times a week to Älmhult, but I rarely use them as we live and work in Malmö. On the weekends we use the car if we need to get somewhere further away than our feet will carry us in 20 minutes.

When the train stopped in Hässleholm I walked around to get a look-and-see at this charming mid-sized city. Its the last weekend of January and it still looks like Christmas there.

I like using public transit, even if no one speaks to each other, it brings people together in a way that traveling in cars cannot. As we sit, side by side, we are traveling together, a common goal of moving through space and time, a common need to commute spawned by an infinite number of personal needs – to go to work, to shop, to get to school, to visit someone in the hospital, to get out.

It gives me time to be philosophical about people riding in trains.

The men found the car where I left it, and made it back home hungry and cold; and when I told my Swedish friend later Saturday night, she laughed.

“You know, in Sweden we have a saying, ‘When you hear motorcycles, its time for spring.’”

Kip seemed to agree. It was fun, but too cold, too soon. It might be a couple of months before the bikes make it back on the trail. In the meantime I have seen him scoping out the possibilities of a summer, Baja style, European motorcross trip.

Cool Runnings

By Theresa Haynes

On January 26, 2018

In Uncategorized

I think there are people who love to run, but I have not met many of them.

I think most runners are like me. They look out the window, observe that it is too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy or whatever, and then they lace up and head out the door anyway. It’s never an easy start, but I almost always feel better after the run, sometimes even during the run.

Winter in Malmö is no exception.

Even with my hat, gloves, long-sleeve outer running shell and new running tights that cover my legs to the ankle, I still brace for the cold, especially if it is windy. And I find myself thinking about easier options.

Last week I tried an indoor gym a few times. Running on the treadmill was boring, although it offered me the unique opportunity to watch American reruns with Swedish subtitles. At no time in my previous life could I have predicted that in January 2018 I would be watching Murder She Wrote, picking through the Swedish words I know, while running on a treadmill — sweating inside to avoid the wintery elements outside.

They had free coffee at the gym, but not a single drinking fountain. When I asked the attendant where the water fountain was, he told me to get water from the toilet. That’s what he said, toilet. At least I have been here long enough to know that toilet is a general word for restroom, which is comforting, but when my free trial week ended, I decided to go back to outside running.

Earlier this month, when we returned from California and started running in the Malmö parks again, I noticed that the birds were standing in the middle of the lake. They were standing on partially submerged ice, surrounded by warmer water, and it looked like they were frozen statues floating on liquid.

But that was just one or two mornings.

Every other day that we have run the lake and ponds have been ice free. It is just not cold enough for them to freeze, and really, that surprises me. Here we are in January, one of the coldest months of the northern hemisphere, and it is so warm in southern Sweden that the ponds don’t freeze.

It has barely snowed this winter either. We had a dusting in December and last week there was snow mixed in the rain, dissolving on the streets below. People have told us that it is typical, but my Malmö friends also tell me that when they were children they remember snow sledding in Pildammsparken. I can’t imagine.

Is this what global warming looks like?

It could be. A few degrees difference would make a big difference in allowing the ponds to freeze and snow to fall. As it is, the temperatures have hovered just above freezing. No snow, just grey clouds and cold drizzle, but ironically, once you warm up, its not bad running weather though.

Today the air was the warmest yet, and deep fog hovered over the lake in an ethereal kind of beauty. Like so many things in this Swedish immersion experience, its different from what life was like before, different, but beautiful.

Awake in the Dark

By Theresa Haynes

On January 16, 2018

In Uncategorized

Awake in the darkness.

Thinking. Writing with eyes shut.

Quiet. Still. Maybe it will pass if I stop thinking.

No. Every waking thought propels me higher out of sleep. I am no longer hovering over my barely conscious dreams. I am awake.

I check the time. Just past 4 a.m.

“It’s four in the morning
I can’t sleep and it feels like a warning
Oh oh….”

Thank you, Switchfoot for the soundtrack of my life. It is the second week we have been back in Sweden and I still can not get the night sleep right. Is it jet lag? Is it taking melatonin at night and being too tired during the day to stay awake, power napping and waking up at night after too few hours?

Is it that I feel suspended between directions again, not working on a big goal, restless? At night my mind wakes up. The tyranny of choice. What to do? What should be a blessing feels like a curse. Freedom. Responsibility. Opportunity slipping away.

I am naturally a morning person, so when I wake up at night I think it is especially difficult to get back to sleep. All my intellectual energy pours into problem solving mode. Sometimes the unabashed, illogical dream consciousness holds on just long enough to make thoughts creative. I see in color. I solve in color.

If I did not think it would hurt my family/social life, I could just wake up every morning at 4 a.m. for a private writing session, followed by a long midday nap. Maybe that is what winter should look like in Sweden, for me.

This morning after I got up I walked out into the living room, stretched and watched the blowing snow in the suspended street lights. In a city that stays dark for so many hours in January, the street lighting systems are evidence of Sweden’s strong, stable government. Miles of public lights illuminate the streets and sidewalks, bike paths and even parks. Its easy and relatively safe to get around after dark. But sometimes it’s hard to sleep with the light pressing into the apartment, especially at 4 in the morning.

Snow and light and I really need to learn how to use my camera better

I can hear the wind and I am glad I don’t have to go anywhere this morning. The snow seems to turn to rain before it hits the pavement below. There is no picturesque accumulation of snow, just driving, wet precipitation. Snow and rain and ice and wind.

We were told it would be this way, but this is the first week it has been cold enough to experience it. You have to leave Malmö to see snow in winter. It just does not get cold enough here with the marine layer to support snow. It is winter without snow, like Narnia without Christmas.

What should I do with it?