Sunday Morning Reflections

 

Today is the National Day of Sweden, celebrating the coronation of King Gustav Vasa in 1523 and the date of a new constitution in 1809. 

Gustav Vasa was instrumental in freeing Sweden from Danish rule in the early 16th century. From what I remember from school, he was quite a guy. 

June is such a lovely month in Sweden and a time that I'm quite homesick. Not to go back and live for good, but in a perfect world though, how wonderful it would be to go back every year for just the month of June. 

The last time I was there was in June 2005. My friends Inga and Christina were wonderful, as always, and made sure I had an unforgettable time. 

So many good memories, the best birthday ever, and those lovely light nights. 

I'm so grateful for these two good friends. If you read this, thank you for always being there for me. 

Riddarholmen, Stockholm, Sweden

Someone, fishducky perhaps (?), sent this pictures to me last year. I posted it to my blog as a draft and never revisited it.  I thought it was so beautiful and I'm glad I found it again. 

That paragraph pretty much describes my lack of blogging initiative during the past year. Life provides us with one thing after another, some good, some not so good. A lot was accomplished here during the year. The home renovations went, for the most part, very well. As home renovations always are, they were noisy and took time. Somehow, all of that, combined with two falls, one where I hit my head, one kidney infection, one cold from hell, and one bad case of bronchitis, may explain my lack of motivation. 

And, as always, going on in the background of my life, my Type 1 diabetes, which makes even the slightest little cold just so much worse. 

But something very good has happened with my diabetes: I now have a continuous glucose monitoring system. It's helping me feel better and I will devote a future post to what it is and what it's doing for me. Feeling better is the main thing though. 

So now I'm ready to post to my blog again. I'm not sure where this will take me. I have my new camera and I want to learn it and use it. I would love to drive around again, like I used to do, and just take pictures, write a few things and post here. That was so much fun.

Oh, about the picture: Riddarholmen translates to Knights' Islet. It's part of Gamla Stan (Old Town, Stockholm) and houses many private palaces dating back to the 17th century, the old Parliament Building, the old National Archive, as well as a statue of Birger Jarl, who is considered to be the founder of Stockholm.

Some of the old palaces are now used by Swedish Government Agencies and courts, including the Supreme Court.

The church, Riddarholms kyrkan, dates back to the Middle Ages, and is one of the oldest buildings in Stockholm. Until 1950, it was used as a burial place for Swedish monarchs and nobility.  

Earlier history, according to Wikipedia, and according to the Erik Chronicles from around 1325, the islet's was known as Kid Skerry or Kidaskaer in Swedish, indicating it may have been a place where goats were raised. King Magnus Ladulas (yes, I do remember him from school) 1240-1290, built a Greyfriers monastery there and the islet's name was changed to Grey Monks Islet. The monastery was closed after the Protestant Reformation and the islet became Riddarholmen, Knights' Islet. 

Please Keep Sweden Out Of It!

Dear President Trump and Fox News:

Swedes were left scratching their heads for the second time in less than a week as their country continues to enjoy an unlikely turn at the national spotlight. The latest culprit? A man interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News on Thursday identified as a “Swedish Defense and National Security Advisor” who turns out to be completely unknown to pretty much anybody in the country’s security or defense circles.
Read the rest here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/26/fox_news_interviews_fake_expert_on_sweden_to_warn_about_immigration_threat.html

According to Dagens Nyheter,  Sweden’s largest newspaper, this so-called (yes, I know, the president’s favorite phrase) this so-called expert left Sweden in 1994 and no one has heard of him since. Just like no one heard of the riots that the president said had recently taken place in Sweden.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm getting really, really tired of this nonsense. For the first time in my 54 years in this country, I'm getting homesick, yes, for Sweden. A country of caring people, a country that has taken in more refugees per capita than any other nation. Of course there are problems, but not of the magnitude this administration and its preferred TV-station, Fox News, are claiming. Overall, Sweden's refugee program is considered to be a success. And the Swedish crime rate is declining.

So, would you please leave Sweden out of your attempts to scare us all. Is it too much to ask for empathy and respect for those who are different from us? Is it too much to ask for protection of the civil rights of all people in this country? Is it too much to ask for affordable health care for all? Is it too much to ask for fair treatment of refugees and immigrants from countries that scare you? 

Home of the Brave!

Wild Sweden

Wild Sweden is a gorgeous video, and I'm not just saying that because I was born there. If you love nature and its wild inhabitants, please take a moment and watch Wild Sweden, you will not be sorry, I promise.....


https://www.youtube.com/embed/SB8WlqfJJRE?feature=player_detailpage

My Swedish friend at Lindsjo Taxar  found the video on a blog that I have by now lost track of. Thanks, M, for sharing it. 

Midsummer in Sweden ~ Summertime in America

I'm a bit late for Midsummer's Eve, so let me wish my friends and family in Sweden a happy summer with lots of sunshine and warm weather. The latter is not always a sure thing over there. 

And for my friends and family in America ~ well, it is hard and difficult to read about one horror after another, tornadoes, tropical storms, hurricanes, floods, and fires. My heart goes out to my family, friends, blogger friends, and the people of Colorado, which so far has been the hardest hit by fires. 

I hope for a peaceful summer here in the U. S., like the ones I remember from my childhood in Sweden. Should this not be the case, remember:

The human spirit is stronger that anything that happens to it. ~ Unknown

Wednesday's Story: Friends for Life

Every week I look forward to reading Dee Ready's blog memoir, coming home to myself. Dee is a gifted writer so I was not surprised when after reading a few posts about her childhood in the 1940s, I began to think back to that time in my own life. Right before falling asleep at night, I saw myself dressed in a crisp cotton dress with little puff sleeves, bouncing two tennis balls against the outside walls of our house. I had on sandals with white socks, big feet for my age, tall and scrawny, not yet aware that this would be a problem at first, but a benefit later in life. After the scrawny wore off. 

I searched for pictures of the dress I half-way dreamed about and found this: 

My friend Barbro and I outside her house. I remember the first time I met her. She lived on a lovely street where most houses were old, made of wood, and surrounded by pretty gardens. A forested hill with huge granite boulders and ancient trees separated her street from mine. It wasn't far and you could walk around on a road at the foot of the hill. 

On Barbro's side, there grew a tree with a branch just the right height for me to grab. I could hang from this branch and play at gymnastics. I could swing my legs over the branch and hang upside down with my knees bent around it or I could pull myself up and sit on it. I was only six, but the tree was tempting and I would often wander over there and play. I was a solitary creature even then and enjoyed playing by myself. 

I met Barbro for the first time by this tree. We became really good friends right away and her mom was my best grownup friend for the rest of her life. Barbro and I started first grade together and spent the first four years of school in the same class. Then our lives took different turns, we went to different schools, she married early and had two daughters, and I left Sweden. 

Our friendship remains strong and I always see Barbro and her daughters when I go back to Stockholm. When we see each other, all the years, the distances and our very different life experiences are not important. We connect just like we did when we were six. 

Barbro just had her 72nd birthday and I emailed her the picture of the two of us in our little cotton dresses. Being friends for 66 years is remarkable; to sustain a friendship over a distance of thousands of miles all these years is a wonderful gift. 

I know Dee will enjoy knowing that her writing evoked memories of a crisp cotton dress, white socks and sandals ~~ leading to a picture found, and later mailed to an old friend.