Finnish Pancakes & Swedish Silence

Last week we ate Swedish pancakes, but this week I wanted to try a new recipe for Finnish pancakes. In all honesty, I don’t know if this is what Finns would consider pancakes or even eat, but it was a yummy dish. I served mine with apple slices sautéed in butter, sugar, and plenty of Saigon cinnamon, and fresh blueberries. The recipe can be found here.

With the snow coming down in sheets outside, I find myself thinking of my childhood winters. The darkness that lay siege for months, the wet snow pants flung over the heater to dry overnight, the woolly mittens that turned stiff with ice, the hot chocolate we drank from thermoses at the foot of the ski slope, and the rose-scented Nivea cream that my mother rubbed into my face every morning. But most of all I think of the silence. The vast silence.

Perhaps Swedes are quiet by temperament. Perhaps it’s the weather. Perhaps it’s because it’s such a sparsely populated country. Perhaps it is due to some inherited sense of doom and gloom, passed down for generations since the glory days of the Vikings, when energy could not be wasted on small talk and niceties.

Many a non-Swede has complained to me about the frostiness of my people. Our lack of warmth and spontaneity, the way we keep ourselves at a distance. I used to spread my hands and shake my head in some sort of apology. I used to think to myself:
“How terrible! What a strange people we are!”

As Swedes, we admit to being reserved:

“Well, that’s what we are like,” we sigh.

This feeble expression of regret is generally delivered with a slight blush of the cheek. Out of either shame or guilt or a sincere wish that it could be different. But alas it can’t. We aren’t as easy-going as the Danes, as elegant as the Finns, as historic as the Icelanders, or as jolly as the Norwegians. And we will never be.

The fact is, that Swedes are a little embarrassed about being Swedes. Most Americans I know are very happy to be Americans, without the slightest doubt they exclaim:

 “This is the greatest nation in the world!”

A Swede would never do such a thing. Ever. Honesty is valued very highly by Swedes, and can we honestly stand up and say that Sweden is better than any other country? Of course not.

I don’t know of any other country where it’s considered shameful to sing the national anthem on the national day. Last year when I was in Sweden, a great number of songs were sung on the national day (June 6) but when the band tentatively began playing the national anthem, the audience fell quiet. As Swedes, we cringe and turn beet red, uncomfortable at having to profess love for our native country in a song. We worry that others are going to think we’re racists. And what others think is of utmost importance in Sweden.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh here. I don’t mean to. I love and understand my fellow Swedes. After all, we are the only people in the world who really understand what Ingmar Bergman’s movies are about.

I am inclined to believe our frostiness has to do with the nature of our country. It is after all a calm and quiet kind of nature. Sweden won’t give you noisy beaches; Sweden will give you clear lakes. You won’t be shaking your maracas in a carnival in Sweden; you will be sitting under a tree in a forest. A Swedish friend may not overwhelm you with cries of “I LOVE you!” but he will be there when you need him. That I can guarantee.

Next time a Swede seems frosty or unfriendly to you, don’t take it personally. Think of it this way, by giving you silence and space, we are giving you the most precious things we know.

Have a lovely weekend!

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Rarely do I have time to make a beautiful breakfast like the one above on a weekday. A dish like that is usually reserved for an elegant weekend brunch. But sometimes it is worth getting up a bit earlier to cook breakfast. Your family will pay you back with smiling faces. I found the recipe for these Portuguese baked eggs here. 

“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all.”

Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

A writer writes. So the writer who doesn’t is no longer a writer, he is a non-writer. This is quite frustrating and actually a potential nightmare for anyone making a living by stringing words together.

I want to share how I think writer’s block can be solved. But first, let’s examine the deceptive ways of inspiration.

One night not too long ago, just as I was about to drift off to sleep, I got this itching notion that I really ought to get up instead and write. I opened my eyes to the inky darkness of the bedroom and I lay there thinking, trying to decide whether I should get up or not. As my eyes got used to the shadows, the outline of the bedroom furniture gradually became clearer. I lay there and looked at this but I couldn’t bring myself to get up. Eventually I fell asleep.

Inspiration has a tendency to come calling when you’re in that twilight zone between sleep and consciousness, it nudges you to get up, it tempts you with an array of wonderful ideas. It also comes when you least expect it: It comes when you’re examining the egg carton at the grocery store. It comes when you’re running late to catch a train. But it rarely comes during office hours, when you sit and wait for it. In fact, inspiration abhors the stark office lights and the gurgling sound of the communal coffee machine. It dissolves in the sound of your co-workers’ banter and it dies in the sadness of your Styrofoam cup.

There are people who are so in harmony with the Universe that they are able to will inspiration to talk to them through the rustle of fall leaves and the chime of church bells. But it takes very good ears to be able to decipher that sort of message, and you have a deadline, don’t you? Meanwhile, you try to tease out inspiration with lit candles, soft music, and a bottle or two of wine. Well, we’ve all tried that.

In my experience it’s best to not mess with inspiration at all. Sure, if it comes, you graciously accept it, you bow your head to whatever power sent it your way and you say “thank you”. But it’s best to not think of inspiration at all. It’s best to simply learn to go without.

So I didn’t get up that night. Instead I got up early the next morning, a cup of coffee at my elbow, and a blank page in front of me, mocking me with its emptiness. I had nothing to write. Nothing.

A few years ago, I would have left my desk to do a load of laundry or bake a cake, in the thought that taking a break would ease things. But with age comes – fortunately – wisdom. Now I sit it out. I override the idea of inspiration. I sit in front of that empty page like a patient Buddha, and I will not rise until I have written something, anything. I can feel the block itself, a dead weight, a stone in my heart, obstructing the system. Still I sit there, through impatience, through anger, through boredom, even. The clock keeps ticking but I won’t even get up to refill my coffee cup. It is then, just when dullness is at its heaviest, that the block breaks, the stone shatters in my heart, clearing everything. A word. Two words. A sentence.

I remember a Rolex ad from the 1980’s featuring opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa. In it she said:

“I can actually sing my way through colds and sore throats.”

The same with writer's block, there’s no way around it, you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it – you’ve got to go through it. You write yourself through it. 

Saints and Other Sources of Inspiration

When I lived in Brooklyn, there was this place called the L Café, where you could get a sandwich called the Edith Piaf. I recreated it for this morning’s breakfast: A small piece of baguette with plenty of Brie cheese and thin slices of crisp Granny Smith apple.

When the bottom falls out in my life, before I fall apart myself, I let my mind wander to the lives of those who walked the Earth before me. The most popular practice to inner peace these days may be yoga and transcendental meditation, but looking towards the lives of others work just as well. And a good hagiography, for instance, produces goose bumps that can take a person out of him- or herself faster than you can say “Bikram” and roll out your mat.

Through the years, I’ve gathered a little collection of personages, whose lives I find especially helpful in times of need. And I will share them here with you.

My most important source of inspiration, especially for those times in life when the coffers are low, is Madame Marie Curie (1867-1934). This Polish woman lived out her youth in a garret room in Paris surviving on cherries and radishes before her genius blossomed into a flame, comparable only to that of radium, the element she discovered together with her husband Pierre. In Eve Curie’s book Madame Curie, we get to know intimately this beautiful scientist who remained, to her last day, shy and unassuming in spite of her legend. Madame Curie shines brightest when you need proof that the impossible indeed can be done. In order to extricate radium out of the unremarkable mineral pitchblende, she spent years stirring a cauldron with an iron rod nearly as tall as herself, outside a leaky shed turned make shift laboratory. “The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer,” said Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Fridtjof Nansen. Madame Curie is the very image of that quote. Five inspirational stars.

In need of hope in a seemingly hopeless world? Let me present to you Joan of Arc, age 17. Born a simple peasant girl in Lorraine, France in 1412, Joan left home to save France in its battle with the English in the Hundred Years’ War. Her career lasted only a few years, but during those she managed to lift the siege of Orléans, get Charles VII crowned, and inspire a whole country to rise to its feet. Unlike many other saints who turn inward and become almost inaccessible, Joan is open, friendly and easy to get to know. She doesn’t lock herself up in a cell nor does she refuse drink or food. She is out there on the field, she is busy doing. On the 30^th of May in 1431 she is burnt at the stake in Rouen, and her remains are thrown in the Seine river. Every year on this day in France, girls put white flowers in the Seine in her memory. Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France, but she is also tremendously useful to those of us who experience a lack in faith or feel slow to act in life. Five inspirational stars.

Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950) is perhaps nearly forgotten today. Nothing of him exists on celluloid, and as a dancer he wrote on water. Nijinsky was called “le dieu de la danse” and was as such the undisputed jewel in the crown that was the Russian Ballet. Nijinsky remains an enigma, partially because of a bizarre diary he left behind and partially because his exit from the public eye was so sudden. He danced until he was 27, and lived in obscurity for the remaining 34 years of his life.

Nijinsky is inspirational simply because of the special leap he was able to execute, in which, eyewitnesses say, he “remained suspended in the air”. When asked how he achieved this feat, Nijinsky simply shrugged:

“You just jump up and stay up there awhile.”

The determined passion needed to be a dancer seems to have been particularly strong in Nijinsky and is why he’s the perfect image to conjure up when we feel our discipline slacking or when it’s been a while since we visited the gym. The reason I am somewhat hesitant in mentioning Nijinsky as a source of inspiration, however, is because of his last and fatal misstep. The diary I mentioned above shows us that sadly Nijinsky danced himself into schizophrenia and subsequent madness. Four inspirational stars.

Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc in French) has been a source of inspiration to me since I was very young. When I was about 14, I made the pillow case above with her image on it.

Love, Eva

The perfect breakfast: Berry crumble. You take 4 cups of fruit (I used strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries), mix with a tablespoon of flour in a baking dish. Then you combine 1 cup of oats with 1/4 (or less) brown sugar and 4 tablespoons of butter. Sprinkle this mixture over the berries, and bake for 45 minutes in 350F. As a dessert you may want to use more brown sugar and serve with ice cream, as a breakfast dish, use a little less sugar.

My very first pen friends were two girls in Brighton, England: Truda and Tracy. A visiting student teacher at our school had just come back from a year in England with a bunch of addresses to British children looking for pen pals. I picked, or was perhaps given, Truda and Tracy. I spent hours at our kitchen table with an old Swedish-English dictionary in my lap, trying my best to create what I thought would be good letters. I learnt to sign off  my letters with “Love, Eva”.

The stationery back then came in cardboard boxes with transparent covers showcasing the writing paper and the matching envelopes, which were bound together with a pretty ribbon. 

Truda and Tracy were just the beginning. Eventually we grew apart and stopped writing. I decided to look beyond England for pen friends. I have vague memories of a Sandra in Düsseldorf, Germany and of an Özlem in Istanbul, Turkey. Neither lasted long.

With Pia Latupan from Manila in the Philippines, I traversed the boundaries of Europe, I had gone global, and my English was improving. Pia Latupan’s handwriting was like nothing I had ever seen. It was beautiful yet original, and it never faded, no matter how long her letters were. Pia wrote on pink, tissue-thin airmail stationery. But the most wonderful thing about receiving letters from her was that she included flowers; fragrant, pressed flowers, utterly exquisite. Opening Pia’s letters was lovely, like opening a beautiful gift.

Then came Sethu Muthu. Sethu sent postcards featuring air views of the Maldives Islands in the Indian Pacific, where he lived. These glimmered tropically in bright turquoises and parrot greens, colors nearly vulgar in the depressingly gray Swedish winters. I sent Sethu cassettes with his favorite ABBA music and handmade wooden butter knives. He sent me a burgundy sari and a monkey carved out of a coconut. If you shook it, you could still hear the milk splashing inside.

But my absolute favorite pen pal was Susan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Susan was obtained through an international pen pal organization. I had ticked the box for Malaysia, after having watched Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice on TV. Malaysia was wonderfully exotic, and Susan and I were a good match, born the same month and year. Susan produced nice, juicy letters, and she introduced me to the wonderful and addictive world of Sanrio, by including the most amazing stickers in her letters. Nothing like that existed in Sweden in those days. Many years later, I met Susan in New York, and we still keep in touch, albeit not by snail mail.

I want to close this entry with Melvin. I met Melvin on a flight from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Minot, North Dakota eight years ago. At the time, I was a traveling reporter living in Brooklyn and Melvin was a retired librarian living in Amherst. Just before the plane touched down in Minot, we exchanged addresses, and that was the starting point of what may very well be my last correspondence of this kind.

Melvin and I type our letters on plain white paper. We write about the weather, concerts we have been to, books we have read (or plan to read or realize we will never read), we write about faith and politics. In short, we write about everything. Melvin’s letters are immaculate, the products of an academic, and adorned with footnotes. I have shared my highs and lows with Melvin; when I admit to feeling a bit grim, he sends words of solace, often in the shape of poetry. I guess we both subscribe to the belief that comfort is to be found in words.

Every year I say “I want to visit Melvin”. I imagine we will go see Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst. I imagine we will have tea. I imagine we will take walks and talk about books, reading, and the importance of writing.

A dolphin that changes color depending on temperature. A gift from my pen friend Susan in Malaysia, it came to me in an envelope some time in the early 1980's.

On the Road

Detox Monday: Today’s breakfast is a juice made with 1 fennel (I used the entire fennel, both bulb and leaves) and two d’Anjou pears. The fennel lends the juice quite an intense licorice taste, so if you don’t like that, then cut back on the fennel and increase the amount of pears instead. Or vice versa.

I’ve always loved road movies; movies in which the characters for one reason or another, leave home and hit the road, travel from place to place and change in some profound way. My favorite is David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

I think I am attracted to this genre of movies, because, in a way, my life has been a bit of a road movie. The reason for this is my mother, who loved – and still loves – to travel. She was a single parent quite early on, and we didn’t have a lot of money when I grew up, but we always traveled. Charter trips were enormously popular in Sweden in those days, and we visited a number of places in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Austria…  I was also encouraged to travel by myself. I spent several summers Interrailing, backpack style, through Europe on my own.

But traveling wasn’t enough for my mother. The small town in which we lived was much too stale for her, geographically it was off too, not near any bigger cities, and not much ever happened. For years, she schemed and planned for us to get out. The only way seemed to be through education, since my mom had had none in her younger years. So she applied to university, and when she was accepted, she packed our stuff, loaded the car, a mustard-colored Opel Kadett, and off we took in a cloud of dust! We were both excited and I don’t remember any fear. When I was with my mother, I was never afraid anyway. And we never looked back.

Education was how you engaged your mind, and traveling and moving and seeing other places was how you engaged your soul, this was my mother’s parental motto. She put the bit in my mouth and told me to “Run!” even though I was, and am, quite reticent by nature. She instilled in me that the chance not taken posed a far greater risk than the chance taken. And the risk, this was so evident to her, was not in the leave-taking, but in the stalemate of the staying.

My mother found philosophical “proof” for her theory in Søren Kierkegaard’s quote “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” This quote spurred her to further action. When she was in her fifties she spent a sabbatical year in Atlanta, Georgia and soon afterwards, back home, she took up studies in Egyptology.

We may all wonder what it would have been like if we had been born under different circumstances, in a different time, to different parents, with a different set of talents, in a different country, maybe with a silver spoon in our mouth. I reckon the latter is supposed to mean “with money”, which was something we never had much of. But in truth, I don’t think my mother ever valued money much. It wasn’t what motivated her. And she proved that a good life, a life that teaches you something, really has very little to do with money. 

On the road with Mamma: North Africa in the 1970’s.

Swedish Pancakes

Happy Friday - Swedish pancakes for breakfast. Traditionally in Sweden, pancakes are eaten as a lunch dessert on Thursdays following pea soup. But I prefer mine for breakfast or brunch. And always with some type of jam, mostly lingon, never, ever maple syrup. You can take the girl out of Sweden, but you can’t take Sweden out of the girl!

When I first came to the U.S. there were things I swore I would never do, and one of them was eating American pancakes with maple syrup. If you’ve read my earlier entries, you know I now do so, but in those early days a part of me held on steadfast to my past. Food, it seemed to me then and still does now, is one of the strongest carriers of tradition.

Swedish pancakes, “svenska pannkakor”, are different from American in that they are much more like crêpes, as in French crêpes. Thin and the size of a plate, they are eaten with a runny kind of jam, “sylt”, or berries, “bär”, or perhaps a sweet spread like Nutella for fancier occasions. For birthdays, they can even be requested served as a “pancake cake” or “pannkakstårta”, which is simply pancakes stacked on top of each other, with a filling of jam and whipped cream in between. It’s a Swedish child’s dream.

In my family, my “mormor”, my maternal grandmother, made the best pancakes. We didn’t live close to her, so my mother and I would drive or take the train the entire day to get to Mormor’s house. When we arrived, it was always the same, Mormor stood in the doorway, apron on and spatula in hand, and with “pannkakor” ready for us. I loved to eat mine with lingon or raspberry jam and a glass of ice-cold milk. I could eat more than anyone, which made Mormor very happy.

I make Swedish pancakes from time to time for my husband (who is Colombian) and our son. I still eat mine with jam (preferably lingon), but my husband prefers his with maple syrup and butter. Our son sometimes eats them with jam sometimes with syrup. It used to hurt me a little, to see him pour maple syrup on top of my Swedish pancakes. But now, I think it’s a good thing. Traditions aren’t meant to be written in stone, traditions are supposed to grow and change as each family member adds his or her particular touch.

I know exactly how I want my pancakes. Impossibly thin, and with a crispy, filigree-like edge and absolutely no sugar. To me, the sweetness should come from the jam or berries you serve the pancakes with.

How to eat them: How you eat your pancakes is your own business of course, but there’s something to be said for unfolding the pancake, spreading jam all over it, rolling it up and cutting it into bite-size pieces. This is how my son and I eat ours.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

2 cups milk (I actually always end up using a little more, perhaps 2 Tablespoons or so, in order to make my pancakes really thin)

2 eggs

Using an electric mixer beat all ingredients together. Be thorough, you don’t want any lumps! Then, while you let the batter rest and swell, you preheat a skillet to medium heat and melt some butter. When the butter sizzles, you pour batter into the pan, spreading it so the entire bottom of the pan has a thin, even coating, no more. Watch for the pancake to start to bubble, when it does, use a spatula to flip it. If you’ve never made them before, it may take a few times to get it right. For me, the first pancakes of the batter never come out the way I want them to anyway. Keep the pancakes you’ve made warm in the oven, while finishing the batter.

Throughout the years, I’ve experimented and made cinnamon pancakes (with cinnamon and a dash of sugar to bring out the flavor), chocolate pancakes (with Dutch-processed cocoa and sugar, I found these a bit too heavy), and vanilla pancakes (with vanilla and a little sugar), but I prefer my Swedish pancakes without any flavors.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday!

The Dream about the Dying Monk

The other day I baked apricot thumbprint cookies from a recipe I found on this beautiful blog. They were delicious, unfortunately so much so, that this morning, almost without thinking, I consumed a handful of them with my coffee!

Like most kids, my son sometimes falls prey to nightmares, which leads to endless discussions on the topic. We talk about the difference between dreams and nightmares (not always so clear); we talk about those who can (or believe they can) predict the future through dreams, and we talk about the eerie quality of dreams.

I’ve never been very interested in the interpretation of dreams, nor am I the type of person who remembers my dreams. They usually fade the second I wake up. However, as a child I had one dream that was so unusual in both story line and quality that I not only still remember it clearly but also have kept it with me through the years as a story.

My son sometimes asks me to tell it to him. It goes like this:

There was once a monk who lived in the land of Kohla. He was the oldest monk, and therefore referred to as the wisest of them all. In fact, he was so old that he could only sleep on the wooden floor in the Skete, and could no longer consume any food. The younger monks fed him broth and water twice a day, and he gnawed on an old stick. One day, the youngest monk discovered that his old brother’s hair and beard had grown into the wood panels of the floor, upon which he slept.

“Dear brother!” he cried in alarm. “You are now so old that you have grown into the very wood. You have become one with the wood.”

The old man replied thus:
“Fetch me a knife and cut me loose.”

The younger monk ran to fetch a knife, he ran swiftly for he feared the older monk was on the brink of death. Upon his return, it indeed looked like the older monk was about to perish. Meanwhile, the other monks in the Skete had gathered around him. The old monk repeated his request:
“Cut me loose, brothers, cut me loose.”

But when the other monks saw the youngest monk with the knife they cautioned him:
“Wait dear brother until morning, because we do not wish to take destiny in our own hands. What is meant to be; will be. Our brother here is old and he no longer knows what he is saying.”

But the youngest monk knew that the dying old monk had years and years of wisdom in his heart and in his soul, wisdom that could not be muddled by age. He did not listen to his brothers. Instead he took the knife, and with one swipe cut off the old man’s beard and hair, setting him free from the wooden panels of the floor in the Skete. All the monks watched as the dying man’s heart opened up from underneath his coarse linen habit and saw how from it an eagle rose, flapping its wings over their heads.

“What does this mean?” one monk whispered.

“It means that though the rooster heralds the light, it is the eagle which is the courier of God,” said another.

Being the seven-year old that he is, my son is adamant about solving this dream.

“It’s just a dream!” I tell him.

“Did the old man die?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“I think he died.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

But seven-year olds don’t like maybes, and I can tell it doesn’t satisfy him.

“Why did an eagle fly out of his heart?”

“Perhaps because he was set free?”

“So being set free and dying is the same?”

Instead of saying “maybe” again, I just say:
“I think so.”

There’s a slight pause. Then he says, more to himself than to me:

“Now I understand everything.”

The eerie quality of dreams, here in Henri Rousseau’s The Dream, from 1910. It can be seen at MoMA in New York.

Lapis lazuli for Aunt Irène

Tartine (an open-faced sandwich in French) with cream cheese, the sweetest roasted tomatoes, and fresh basil. To roast tomatoes like this, you cut them in half horizontally, rub with olive oil and a pinch of coarse sea salt and put them on a sheet of baking paper (the “inner” side of them, with the seeds, facing up) in the oven at 275F for 3-4 hours. Use on sandwiches or in salads. They are very tasty.

Aunt Irène was not my aunt, but the aunt of my friend Edith. But since Edith and I were both only children from small families, we shared what we had. I had a second cousin that I shared with Edith, and she in turn shared her aunt with me.

When Aunt Irène was young, she lived with a rich Italian businessman on Via Bruno Buozzi in Rome. He dealt in shoes. When he married someone else, Aunt Irène had a nervous breakdown and was sent back home to Toul, a small town in north-eastern France, where her brother Henri (my friend Edith’s father) and his family lived in a large stone house with a mansard roof.

It was here that I got acquainted with my adopted aunt. I first saw her sunning in the garden hammock wearing a turban, an amaranth-colored silk dress, and golden gladiator sandals. I realized I was in for a ride. The three of us, Aunt Irène, Edith and I, kept a list of “Dead But Attractive Men”. It sounds quite macabre now, but back then, in the garden on Rue Rigny in Toul, it seemed perfectly normal and it was quite entertaining. The list was in a constant flux and we had endless arguments about it. Aunt Irène loved Napoleon and wanted him to be number one on a permanent basis. Edith preferred Jean Gabin, the French actor, and I always threw in a vote for Elvis Presley, the most perfect dead man I could think of. The trick was to match these Dead But Attractive men so that they worked well astrologically too. Aunt Irène knew everything about astrology and things like that, so clearly she had the upper hand. She always said:

“I’m a Scorpio, with the moon in Aries.”

Anyway, she would tell us about Napoleon crossing the Alps in such a way that we’d all be in tears.

“Napoleon!” she cried, with her arms raised like a goddess, “the greatest Leo that ever lived!”

And then she showed us her gemstone collection, which she kept in a piece of turquoise cloth. She taught us that these stones had “properties”; the amazonite relieved stress, the lepidolite was for optimism, and the garnet brought success to a business and so on.

She held up a blue one in the sun, closing in on it with one eye:

“The prettiest of them all. The one the Egyptians used. Lapis lazuli.”

Soon afterwards, she married Frédéric Damas. Fred, that’s what we called him, looked like a movie star with black, shiny hair and razorblades for cheekbones. He was supposed to be a traveling salesman, but in reality he just cruised around in his company car looking for love, sending a dozen red roses to a brunette in Bar-le-Duc or a dozen pink ones to a blonde in Domrémy.

Something wasn’t right with Aunt Irène. Her nerves were too frayed for this Earth. Her talents in astrology, gemstones, and dead men weren’t marketable, “pas commercialisables”, is what they used to say. She started to sink into craziness. She started to not go out, remaining in her bed all day long. She peed in the flowerpots and did not eat for days. It wasn’t good.

I was studying in Paris, when Edith called to say that there had been an accident and that Aunt Irène had fallen down the stairs in the house, and had been taken to the hospital, where she later lapsed into a coma. I took the next train to Toul. Edith’s father Henri met me at the train station. He was a huge man with a great big old heart, but he was crying as he picked me up in his beat up Renault.

“I don’t think my sister will live,” he said.

And indeed Aunt Irène, chère tante Irène, passed away just days later. All her beautiful pieces of clothes and all her books were willed away. Since I wasn’t technically a member of the family, I didn’t expect anything, but sure enough, a few weeks after the funeral a package arrived in Paris addressed to Mademoiselle Eva Stenslar (they never learnt how to spell my name correctly in France). Nobody had ever willed me anything before, so I was a little apprehensive, but when I opened the package, I recognized the turquoise silky material. I unfolded it and there were the gemstones.

I didn’t visit Aunt Irène’s grave for some time. I simply couldn’t bring myself to. But when I finally did, I picked out the lapis lazuli stones from the rest of the gems, and put them on top of her headstone. Because just like Aunt Irene, they were the prettiest of them all. 

Good-bye, melancholia

Personally, I can't think of anything less melancholic than egg muffins for breakfast! I made these with feta cheese, scallions, and tomatoes. Put whatever you like in a muffin tray, beat 8 eggs, two Tbs of milk and pepper and pour on top and bake in 400F for 20-25 minutes.

Today I want to write about melancholia. Or my penchant for it. I like to think of myself as up for fun, but the truth is that I have a soft spot for melancholia. To me, melancholia beckons like a comfortable old armchair and I let myself sink down into it far too often, even though I know what a hard time I will have trying to get up from it.

Melancholia knows me inside and out. And I know it, too. It has a sound (Albinoni’s Adagio), it has a smell (wet cement), and it has an image (any of the Isle of the Dead paintings by Arnold Böcklin). It stands behind every joke or every leisurely-spent Saturday afternoon, with its bittersweet smile of familiarity, asking me to remember how painless it is to be suspended in its easy grip.

Unlike depression, melancholia (or melancholy) is not a mental disorder, and it is not entirely negative in nature either, which of course is part of its appeal. Hippocrates believed it was caused by an excess of “black bile” (which is also the Greek meaning of the word melancholia) in the person afflicted by it. To me this sounds like a valid explanation, because I recognize it. It is as if there’s something inside you (the “black bile”?), that responds to something outside (music or painting for instance) and sort of blends into it. Unlike depression, melancholia invites us to self-reflect, to close ourselves off a bit to the rest of the world, and focus on the Self. Perhaps it’s a way to take a mental rest?

My husband often accuses me of being “sad” or of liking things that are “sad” by constantly turning to them. But while melancholia indeed has a hood of sadness attached to it, and is, like I wrote, self-reflective by nature, the way it heightens the senses and elevates the imagination, also means it is an incentive for creativity. In an earlier blog entry, The poetry of unrequited love, I touched upon this when I wrote about a lyrical poem as a result of a normal activity being blocked, or rather, the poet trying to unblock that activity. For instance, writing poetry as a way to overcome loss of love. When the sun is shining and your heart is content, then you have little reason to shut yourself into a room and write. But when the rain falls and your lover is gone, then the inclination to write suddenly presents itself.

At times therefore, I believe I inadvertently invite melancholy in order to be able to write something of value. If I am happy and content and my lover is not gone and the rain is not falling, then I need melancholia like some stimuli in order to write that, which I either want or need to write.

I have to pause here, because I see that if I could only have a more “professional” relationship to melancholia, my life would be so much easier. If I could use it, for example, as a whiff of perfume and nothing more, to propel myself into writing, to open the gateway to the senses, and then return from it just as quickly, I would be satisfied. Unfortunately, I often let melancholia stay much too long. A good pair of mental pliers is needed to pull myself away from its grip.

Or maybe, just maybe, a good, strong antidote exists? Old episodes of Seinfeld? Chaplin movies? Watching children play at the playground?

Perhaps.

Time has come for me to say good-bye melancholia, we’re done for now. Come back some other time.

Isle of the Dead (or Die Toteninsel) by Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) - the picture-perfect image of melancholia.

The 180 list

Friday's breakfast: Date and nut bread with carrot spread and orange juice. Recipe from Joanne Stepaniak's Vegan Vittles.

If you’re in a marriage or a committed relationship, you need to read this. At the end of this entry, I will share with you a list that you might want to either bookmark or print, although in all sincerity I hope you will never have to use it.

In a time when most things are disposable, it seems so are families. Just a few days ago, I read about the supposedly mature way to deal with your ex-husband’s new girlfriend over how to handle the children involved. Of course there are valid reasons for married couples to break up, but I believe there are just as many valid reasons for trying to save a relationship. This is especially true when children are involved.

To single-handedly save a relationship is possible but requires heroic efforts on behalf of the jilted party, so I think it’s prudent to say that you have to really, really want it.

I believe author Michele Weiner Davis, who has written many books on saving relationships and marriages, is responsible for originating this list. I was lucky to find Weiner Davis a few years ago, when my own marriage was in serious trouble. What I like about her approach is, that is gives the abandoned partner some power.

So without further ado, here’s the list. This is what you do, when your husband/wife/lover wants out, but you want to try to keep things together.

1.  Don’t pursue reason, chase, beg, plead or implore.

2.  No frequent phone calls.

3.  Don’t point out “good points” in marriage.

4.  Don’t follow her/him around the house.

5.  Don’t encourage or initiate discussion about the future.

6.  Don’t ask for help from the family members of your wayward partner.

7.  Don’t ask for reassurances.

8.  Don’t buy or give gifts.

9.  Don’t schedule dates together.

10.  Don’t keep saying, “I Love You!” Because if you really think about it, he/she is, at this particular moment, not very loveable.

11.  Act as if you are moving on with you life; and actually begin moving on with your life!

12.  Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and independent.

13.  Don’t sit around waiting on your spouse – get busy, do things, go out with friends, enjoy old hobbies, find new ones! But stay busy!

14.  When home with your spouse (if you usually start the conversation) be scarce or short on words. Don’t push any issue, no matter how much you want to!

15.  If you’re in the habit of asking your spouse his/her whereabouts, ASK NOTHING!

16.  Your partner needs to believe that you have awakened to the fact that they (the wayward partner) are serious concerning their assertions as to the future (or lack thereof) of your marriage. Thus, you are moving on with you life without them.

17.  Don’t be nasty, angry or even cold. Just pull yourself back. Don’t always be so available. Your partner will notice. More important, he/she will notice that you’re missing.

18.  No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment. Make yourself someone they would want to be around, not moody or needy but a self assured individual secure in the knowledge that they have value.

19.  All questions about the marriage should be put on hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may not be for quite a while). Initiate no such conversations!

20.  Do not allow yourself to lose your temper. No yelling, screaming or name calling EVER. No show of temper! Be cool, act cool; be in control of the only thing you can control: Yourself.

21.  Don’t be overly enthusiastic.

22.  Do not argue when they tell you how they feel (it only make their feelings stronger). In fact, refuse to argue at all!

23.  Be patient and learn to not only listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you, HEAR what it is they are saying. Listen and then listen some more.

24.  Learn to back off, keep your mouth shut and walk away when you want to speak out, no matter what the provocation. No one ever got themselves into trouble by just not saying anything.

25.  Take care of you. Exercise, sleep, laugh and focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil.

26.  Be strong, confident and learn to speak softly.

27.  Know that if you can do this 180, your smallest CONSISTENT action will be noticed far more than any words you can say or write.

28.  Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting more than ever and are feeling totally desperate and needy.

29.  Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse. It’s not always about you! More to the point, at present they just don’t care!

30.  Do not believe any of what you hear them say and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives and do so in the most strident tones imaginable. Try to remember that they are also hurting and afraid. Try to remember that they know what they are doing is wrong and so they will say anything they can to justify their behavior.

31.  Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel. It “ain’t over till it’s over!”

32.  Do not backslide from your hard-earned changes. Remain consistent! It is the consistency of action and attitude that delivers the message.

33.  When expressing your dissatisfaction with the actions of the wayward party, never be judgmental, critical or express moral outrage. Always explain that your dissatisfaction is due to the pain that the acts being committed are causing you as a person. This is the kind of behavior that will cause to you be a much more attractive and mysterious individual. Further, is SHOWS that you are NOT afraid to move on with your life. Still, more important, it will burst their positive little bubble; the one in which they believe that they can always come back to you in case things don’t work out with the affair partner.

Have a wonderful weekend and see you again on Monday!

Little Heart

I think this might be one of my favorite sandwiches ever: Kale (steamed) and sauerkraut on bread spread with on the one side tahini and the other mustard. The recipe is originally from Vegan Vittles by Joanne Stepaniak.

I spent last year in Sweden. I hadn’t lived there in over twenty years, and coming back for as long as a year felt a little strange. So many things looked, felt, and smelled the same, but were in reality different.

Because I look and sound so Swedish, most people got impatient with me when I was confused trying to figure out the cost of things or what some new slang word might mean. I’d forgotten that banks are not open Saturdays over there, and that shops close at 6. But the most serious mistake I made, was that I smiled at people I didn’t know.

You don’t do that in Sweden unless you’re drunk.

This led me to Little Heart. Frankly, I don’t know what to call that, which developed between Little Heart and myself. He was an older man, with a shock of white hair on top of a brown leathery face (the result of too much money spent in tanning salons). Wintertime, he sported an expensively tailored navy topcoat, and in spring he wore boat shoes and flamingo-colored twill pants, like some retired businessman from Connecticut off to the nearest golf course.

I have no idea why I first smiled at Little Heart. It might very well just have been some nervous tic. But as a result, I was stuck with him for the duration of my stay, an entire year. Wherever I went, there he was, smiling, waving, and often with a pressing word or two. When the town celebrated its 400^th birthday and the King came to visit, Little Heart found me in the crowd, put his hand on my arm and whispered:

“I think you’re just like me, you don’t care much for royalty and you don’t like crowds.”

“What?” I said perplexed.

He nodded and gave my arm a squeeze.

“Oh, I know. I know.”

Another time, I was sitting in the basement of the local library, where nobody – and I do mean nobody – ever ventured, preparing for an exam, when I heard the tap-tap-tap of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Oh no,” I thought to myself. “It cannot be…”

But of course it was. There was Little Heart, smiling from behind a row of empty bookshelves.

“Are you reading?”

I didn’t want to seem impolite, especially since I felt I had started the whole thing (whatever “thing” it was) by smiling at him, but Little Heart began to get on my nerves. 

When I took my son to the eye doctor, who was waiting outside in the blistering cold?

When I recycled my plastic bottles, who was already there, cheerfully lifting a hand in salute?

When I went jogging Saturdays, who did I jog into?

In fact, every time I went to the grocery store – who was there with a pack of unsalted butter?

When I asked others if they knew who he was, they shook their heads. They had no idea. They claimed they’d never even seen him.

“But he’s always out and about!” I said. “How is that possible?”

That’s when it occurred to me, that Little Heart, like the infamous Italian truffle hog, was equipped with a laser-sharp sense of scent that roots out the different, the confused, and the lonely (i.e. societal outsiders), from miles away. While others brushed aside my years in exile, Little Heart sniffed his way to them, identifying them as the very source of my strangeness. Perhaps he was some sort of undercover agent. Perhaps he had me put on some list for my suspicious behavior.

I’ve been back in the States for a while now, but sometimes I wonder if Little Heart has found someone new to investigate.

P.S. Little Heart is just the nickname I gave him. He never properly introduced himself.