I own a wonderful book called On My Swedish Island, Discovering The Secrets Of Scandinavian Well-Being, by Julie Catterson Lindahl.
The author is American and British; when she wrote the book she lived with her Swedish husband and twins on a Swedish island outside Stockholm.
I read the book right before I moved to the mountains and I was delighted to discover how much we get right in terms of lifestyle, health, food, design, and so on in Scandinavia.
Reading the book, I discovered a concept new to me: The long view. I had never heard that having a long view is really good for human beings. But Ms. Lindahl says that she actually discovered this from living in Sweden; that Swedes are obsessed with it and work very hard to achieve it. The author writes that since living on this island, she has come to understand that having a long view into nature is to live well.
Thinking back to our home in a Stockholm suburb, I remember my bedroom window had a view right into our neighbors huge cherry tree; beautiful in cherry blossom time, successfully tempting me with thievery in cherry time, but not much to look at for the rest of the year. But our kitchen window had a long view, and I loved to sit at our kitchen table and look up the road to the hill in the background. Two very tall trees on the hill would sway in the wind and their crowns would touch. I loved that view, a good long view into nature.
I'm thinking right now, that maybe it was not only the Baltic herring that prompted our dad to take us out on the Baltic Sea in a small boat every summer. Maybe he, good Swede that he was, also longed for that long view of the open water.
Of course I realize that not everyone is able to get a property with a long view. While this may be a huge priority for Swedes, I doubt it is one here. Our Los Angeles house is a good example, sitting as it does right by the sidewalk. I always thought of it as a townhouse. To protect us from the sights and sounds of the street, we let the bougainvillea hedge grow out of control. It became home to many generations of mockingbirds; it drew many ohs and ahs from bypassers; and the hedge even served as backdrop for photo shoots. This was Los Angeles, after all.
I almost forgot, my Y word, YONDER. Isn't it a marvelous old fashioned word? Yonder: In the distance, afar, far away. So, to sum this way too long post up: The view yonder is a very good thing, indeed.
P.S.
Thank you so much for your complimentary comments on my X post. I wasn't sure if I cheated or not, coming up with just a picture. Glad you liked it.
And Wordpress bloggers, I still can't leave comments on Wordpress blogs. Will check into it after the A to Z is over later this week.
