Contemplations

Häromdagen pratade jag med en god vän i Sverige. Hon och hennes familj hade varit en vecka i ett varmare land. Vet du, sa hon, när jag kom hem och öppnade Facebook blev jag så ledsen. Nu har jag precis varit i ett land som kämpar hela tiden. Ett steg närmare demokrati. Ett steg närmare det vi har. Och här hemma...hon tystande ett slag. Det folk skriver är fruktansvärt och nu har de börjat att ta bort vänner som har andra åsikter än dem. Jag kan förstå, sa  hon, att man kanske blockerar deras flöde för att man mår dåligt av det de skriver. Men att ta bort någon man känt i kanske femton år... Jag hörde på hennes röst hur upprörd hon var. De var så vänliga mot oss hela tiden, fortsatte hon och berättade om landet hon precis varit i. Och här hemma är folk bara arga. Och nu säger Sverige Demokraterna att de ska tvångsinta kvinnor som röker under graviditeten. Fattar inte folk att ju mer vi bråkar desto mer makt får de och sedan är det försent. De kommer ta över polisen....h...

My son doesn't watch TV a great deal but he loves to watch videos on YouTube and for quite some time he has been watching grownups reviewing toys and especially Lego-sets. But suddenly one day he started to watch videos made by a man with the name Joseph Garrett aka known as Stampy Cat. This young man plays Minecraft a lot. So now I hear Stampy Cat in my house every day. He has a rather sweet voice and his videos are funny and sometimes very exciting. Many hours have been spent watching Stampy Cat create things, loosing dogs, getting help from Lee Bear and competing with Squid. Then I thought; why are we watching someone else playing? Perhaps we can try to play ourselves. I downloaded the Minecraft app to our IPad and we started. I have not played much at all since I overdosed on Doom many, many moons ago. I stopped because I couldn't sleep. Hard to fall peacefully to sleep when you hear monsters breathing down your neck. But this game is so innocent in comparison...

Tulips are beautiful but oh, so hard to grow. Hostas are easy but sort of boring. Some flowers you are supposed to prune, some need a lot of water, some only last a year. Here is my list of the best flowers for having continuous bloom in your garden with little work and less money. Spring Flowers  For spring flowers I recommend four different kinds. Snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and violas/pansies. Snowdrops are hardy, can bloom even in snow and spread by both seed and bulbs. Simply pull of the seed pod and put it somewhere you want to grow snowdrops and in a few years you will have new ones to brighten your early spring. Crocuses can grow almost anywhere and they are wonderful spots of color in early spring. They also spread by themselves. The only downside with these pretty flowers is that squirrels tend to like both the bulbs and the flowers. Daffodils , I absolutely love daffodils. They come in lots of different variations; yellow, white with orange middles, do...

I was eight years old and on my way to climb the neighbor’s cherry tree. The cherries were big, yellow and red and sweet as candy. I had my foot on the first branch. “You can’t climb up there,” the neighbor said, an old lady probably born around 1910. Confused I stopped, my brother and I had asked permission to pick from her tree and she had said   “yes”. “Why not?” “Because you are a girl. Come down from there!” I stared in disbelief. Was she serious?   She was, she even made my father tell me to come down and I was called a word I didn’t know. “Obstinate” was the word and I am not sure my father knew what it meant either. I was deeply hurt and humiliated when I had to stand on the ground and watch my brother climb around in the tree.   With a mother who refused to see her womanhood as a barrier, I carried a strong sense that I could do anything boys could do. I could do anything my brother did. I am not afraid of mice or spiders.   I love t...

If I was able I would have made a multisensory presentation of all the wonderful things we experienced in Sweden for the last three weeks. Because I wish that you also could smell the pine needles in the forest warmed from the sun, feel the smooth and slick lake water against your skin, taste the tart lingonberries and hold the tiny frog’s cold body in your hand.   And hear the wind in the old maples at the cemetery and the gravel under our shoes. See my mother’s hand rest on my son’s head for a moment longer before she had to leave. Hear the tiny voices call out in joy as they run down the path. But I can’t do magic, only write and take pictures.  So here are the top eight moments of the trip. One not more valuable than the other.   All rich and full and precious.   1.        First day we woke up to clear skies and a fresh, cool summer breeze.   Nothing cures jetlag as well as exercise so we went out to re-expl...