That's my little girl, Molly. We're spending the summer in Sweden. My wife, Caroline, is from here and Molly was born here 15 months ago. Thought I'd post something I wrote about Sweden a while back. In it I wrote that Sweden and I "haven't exactly clicked" but I have to say, I'm really getting into this Swedish summer thing!
You can order any or all of my 3 books in my Blurb Bookstore. The following is an excerpt from my first book, B E R K E L A N D: Original Oil Paintings 1997-2008:
I married into Sweden. There's a little bit of Norwegian blood coursing through my veins, but even so, there's no telling if I would have otherwise made it to Scandinavia had I not met Caroline. There are places where you really feel like you are in the thick of things. New York and Rome come to mind. Then there are places where you know you are on the fringe. Sweden sometimes feels like it is halfway to the moon.
It's a weird place. Not what you'd expect, if you do, in fact, expect something. First off, there is no Matterhorn there. That's Switzerland. Whole other country. No, I haven't seen any bikini teams, and, for that matter, haven't seen much of anyone at all. There are almost no people in Sweden and that sparseness is tangible. There are candles and wooden horses and little gnome things everywhere. These people eat more candy and drink more coffee than anyone else in the world. They're a bunch of hot rod driving, RV enthusiasts who listen to home brewed polka-rock based on American standards and then dance around a pole like frogs on the longest day of the year. Their hospitals birth their babies for free (relatively speaking) and when you set off for such disease-riddled destinations as, say, the United States, they'll ask if you've protected yourself with all the right shots.
I'll be honest. Sweden and I haven't exactly clicked, yet. It's funny. The people who look most like me on earth and the meat and potato diet that most resembles that of my childhood still leaves me feeling like something of an interloper best regarded with skepticism. But there are two factors that do redeem Sweden for me. Actually the first one alone would have been enough. Family. Sweden could have been on the moon and the fact that my wife's family lives there would have been all the reason I'd need to spend significant amounts of time there.
But Sweden is not on the moon, which leads to the second factor - that Sweden is actually very beautiful. The harshness of the dark, cold winter is balanced by the chilly brilliance of the afternoon sun perforating the leafless birch woods as it sets into any one of a thousand Swedish lakes. In the summer, the sun never really sets at all. It just glides behind the trees and along the horizon for hours before settling in for a dusklike power nap.
I have no choice. Sweden is part of my life now and I will be going back often. I will learn the language and I will eat fermented herring respectfully. I will dance like a frog and I will watch Pippi Longstocking DVD's with my daughter. And I will earn it all by digesting my Swedish experiences onto canvas, as I've done wherever I've ended up over the years.
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