hej igen! hi again...

kanner nastan for att skriva lite pa svenska nu efter att ha just varit dar, men da forstar inte manga vad jag skriver...

i'm back from sweden. while i was there the leaves started turning from green to yellow. the weather was perfect. clear blue skies and sun, though not hot.

so many things i love and miss about sweden. the first things are, flying in, the green and lack of ugly grey buildings everywhere. stepping into the airport, the air. it's amazing how different the air is. and the light. the air and the light are two elements that are strangely significant for me. those and the language. i feel at home in this air, light and language. i wish this other home were not so far away and didn't require a planeride to get there...

i've always struggled between choosing to live here or in sweden. over the years i've just become more entrenched in the U.S. and i can't write well in swedish, which frustrates me. and the lack of queer visibility is also stifling in sweden. but here, i feel so cut off from sweden. there aren't a lot of swedes around to talk to. i don't know any here. i love that i can read swedish blogs (like camilla's, karin's, tuula's, hanna's, jenny's, and sara's) and see bits of sweden/swedish culture/swedish people through the computer.

some other things i love about sweden:
*the moss on the stones (which i think happens farther north here too, like in washington)
*the general sensibility of the people
*allemannsratt
*lack of an overwhelming amount of massproduced products (although that is changing each year that passes)
*the small size of the country - makes government and everyday life seem so much more manageable. more possibility to effect change, keep track of news, more possibility of connection...
*swedish design
*fika


mom and mormor

and of course my mormor is a huge connection for me to sweden. she is the reason i've gone the past four years to visit. she is not doing so well now. it was very hard during this visit to see her suffer. she has become very quiet and tired. i spent many hours each day sitting with her in her quiet. but even so, she still managed to tell me the things that matter.

(more pics to come... may have a fika series and a self portrait series and an entry about my aunt's artwork among other things.)

(soundtrack to the visit was death cab for cutie's transatlanticism. so good!)

looking forward to checking out all your blogs that i've missed while away...