Kajsa

A surprisingly good breakfast: Half an avocado, half a banana, plain Greek yoghurt and some almond milk blended together and served with dried fruit.

You had brown hair and blue eyes. I had yellow hair and green eyes. We both had freckles. Your little sister, I remember her now, standing in the door to your room, where we were sitting on the floor coloring, singing in harmony. You stopped to say:

“ABBA is good.”

And your favorite crayon in your box of Crayola was the one called “maroon”.

And your sister stood there in the door. What did she want? A comic book. Tintin.

Kajsa, the back of your house faced a small, square yard, which was green. I have a photo of myself calling out something in that yard, and your mom is in the background. I wonder what it was I was calling? So long ago now. The words are gone. The only thing that remains is this: My open mouth in that photograph.

I remember your house: The light, bright hallway. The framed Magritte poster, the one with the feet morphing into shoes. Your father’s musical instruments. The piano, a black, upright, where he always sat playing. Your mother’s crispy macaroni, succulent ham and leek. You had a cousin in Switzerland whom you called Oskis. You had a cat – Tiger, was it? – and a hamster named Aurora. The hamster died. You were good at school, Kajsa. Always so good at everything.

It was you who told me about the rite of sheeting mirrors. The meaning of it.

“When a person dies, you put sheets over the mirrors,” you whispered. “So that you won’t see the ghost of the dead person.”

I held up for you to see the goose bumps on my arms when you told me that.

“She was only sixteen, only sixteen. But I loved her so-oh-oh.”

We sang along to Dr. Hook, your father’s album, and we wore headphones. The first time ever I wore headphones! Synthetic black, plush pillows over my ears.

“She was too young to fall in love, and I was too young to know.”
The lyrics were printed on the inner sleeve.

The day you moved I wore a green jersey dress with exposed red seams. Or perhaps I wore it at the graduation ceremony the year you moved. I can’t remember which. But I remember the green dress and that it had something to do with you moving. Did the green signal “go” for you? The red seams my heart – exposed? You left me behind.

Years later you found me. You had a grown daughter, you said. We both had small children. We exchanged information about our lives in a few messages, written during lunch breaks, or after dinner, or perhaps during your commute to your new job, or my commute. Busy, busy lives. So much had happened since our childhood years together. We had to cover it in a couple of sentences.

When I finally saw you again, when you finally came here, you were marked by death already. You knew it. I knew it. But you knew how to handle it and I didn’t.

We walked up and down Manhattan. And you were like you had always been. In a store I looked at a jacket. No, I didn’t look, I just touched it, and you said:
“Yes, that is you.”

And I thought it’s funny, how we could still tell such things about each other. That jacket was me.

You said: 
“You must come and visit me in summer.” 
Your daughter was five. My son four. And you said again: 
“You must come and visit me in summer.” 
And again. 
And I promised you.

It was raining when you left. We took the bus out to the airport. It was dark.

This is how I knew: At the airport, when you went through that final security check, you didn’t turn around. You’re supposed to do that. I always do. My mother always does. My husband. But you didn’t Kajsa. I waited for you to. I waited for you to turn around and wave at me, one last time, where I stood. Could you not feel me waiting? But you kept walking straight ahead – away, away – not once turning back. That’s when I knew I would never see you again.

Your husband and your sister told me that your trip to New York was something you leaned on during the difficult times towards the end. When you faced death's anxiety. They assured me: New York had meant something to you. Meeting me had meant something to you.

Many mornings I stood alone in my kitchen waiting for the coffee to be done. Talking to the ghost of you. Did you hear me then?

It seems to me now that those childhood years were the golden days, Kajsa, that shone all too briefly on our freckled faces. Way back when we were as thick as thieves.

Thick as thieves: Kajsa and I performing a song at school. Kajsa is the girl with the long hair and the guitar, and I am the one with a wig and pointe shoes. We were maybe 11 years old.

My Favorite NYC Places

Breakfast this morning: Banana- and red roasted pepper hummus on rye bread sandwiches. Obviously someone else was interested in trying them...

Now that spring is finally about to come to the Big Apple after a long, harsh winter, I thought I’d present my own favorite places in the city that never sleeps. Mind you, I am not listing stuff like the Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building, because I know you take care of that on your own anyway. So without further ado and in no particular order, here they are, my favorite places in NYC

1. Tompkins Square Park Located in the East Village, Tompkins Square Park is the perfect centerpiece for a leisurely spent afternoon. It is lined with several casual eateries, and there’s a lovely little public library nearby (for when it gets too hot) and even a small pool (mostly for kids, but I always bring my swimsuit anyway). And most importantly, it has the ever-hip East Village vibe to it. Forget Williamsburg, which hasn’t happened in a long time and which by now is chock-full of rich trust fund babes on their way to private Pilates sessions. Go to East Village instead. Subway: L-train to First Avenue or F-train to Second Avenue. 
2. New York City Ballet All right so their star choreographer Balanchine has been dead for thirty years, but this is still the American ballet company. Had it with old romantic Russian ballets? The New York City Ballet presents ballets that are sleek, exciting, New World-y, and as elegant as some advanced mathematical formula. Bring your boyfriend/husband with you – chances are even he will fall in love with ballet if Union Jack, Movements for Piano and Orchestra or Episodes are scheduled for performance. Subway: 1-Train to 66 Street, Lincoln Center. 
3. The Strand If you love books, you’ll love The Strand independent bookstore. The folks here promise “18 miles of books”. I’ve never fact checked that, but it’s safe to say there’s a whole lot of books here. New books, used books, out-of-print books, rare books – here you’ll find it all and to pretty good prices also. Subway: L-, 4-, 5-, and 6-Trains to Union Square. 
4. Coney Island Are there better beaches in New York? You bet. Are there any beaches as New Yorkey as Coney Island? Nope. Buy yourself a mango on a stick or a funnel cake or some corn on the cob, stroll down the boardwalk and look at the people doing their crazy dance moves. There’s nothing sweeter in life than dozing off in the dunes and hearing “Ice cold Corona!” being called out nearby. Subway: F-train to the New York Aquarium.
5. Williamsburg Wait, didn’t I just say to skip Williamsburg? Well, yes and no. Skip the pretentious hippity hip Williamsburg. Take the L-train from Union Square (where you are anyway since you’ve just been picking up some titles at The Strand) get off at the first stop in Brooklyn and then run, don’t walk, down Bedford Avenue until you come to the Hasidic Jewish section, that’s where you want to spend some time. It’s eerie. It will make you feel like you’re in another century. Time stands still here. If you are a woman and you’re wearing shorts, kids here will stare at you. Subway: L-train to Bedford Avenue.
6. Shakespeare in the Park One day you will be too tired to do any sightseeing. It will be a summer day and man will it be hot. That’s the day when you and your friend(s) pack blankets, books and magazines and perhaps some cards and head to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and line up with everyone else for hours in order to get free tickets to that night’s performance of Shakespeare in the Park. This summer's plays are The Tempest (starring Sam Waterson as Prospero) and Cymbeline. Subway: B- and C-trains to 81^st Street. 
7. The White Horse Tavern OK, so I haven’t been here in a while – chances are it is still pretty much the same though, the White Horse Tavern (located on 567 Hudson Street) is one of those places that don’t change much. There was a time when I used to take acting lessons around the corner at HB Studio, and in those days we’d come here to memorize lines (and also because this was Dylan Thomas’ favorite hangout). The point is, you will do Greenwich Village, so why not stop here? A stone’s throw away from Magnolia Bakery on 401 Bleecker Street, where you will want to go and buy banana pudding. Subway: 1-, 2- or 3-Trains to 14^th Street.
8. Broadway Bring your good walking shoes (but make sure they’re cool and/or pretty also, please) and walk Broadway from the 80’s down to Union Square, located between 14^th and 17^th Street. Stop wherever you feel like it for a coffee or soda. For sentimental reasons, I always make a stop at Margot Patisserie located in the Ansonia on 2109 Broadway.
9. Chinatown Try whatever restaurant you want, just make sure you go here. I go once a week and absolutely love Chinatown. My personal favorites include: sugared donuts and bubble tea at Dragon Land Bakery (125 Walker Street) and New Kam Man, 200 Canal Street, a place where you will find Asian groceries, inexpensive china and other kitchen items (rice cookers and stainless steel pots), as well as Japanese beauty products to die for. I never leave without buying the honeydew-filled goldfish crackers. Subway: 6-Train to Canal Street.
10. Bryant Park If for no other reason, please stop here to use the restrooms! Who’d ever think public restrooms like these were even possible in a city like New York? They are so beautiful and well-maintained they nearly make me cry. The rest of the park is just as beautiful, there are free classes in juggling, yoga, tai chi, and knitting. In the wintertime you can ice skate. Subway: 7-Train to 5th Avenue.
11. The Cloisters New York City has more museums than you will be able to handle in a week or two. My favorites are MoMA and the Met, but in the summer I love to go all the way up to the Cloisters for a picnic. Subway: A-Train to 190th Street.
12. Harlem I wrote about Harlem here the other day. Don’t go to New York without visiting Harlem.

My favorite place to eat is usually the nearest diner (I love New York diners, especially their Swiss cheese omelets with home fries). But for fancier lunches, there’s Le Pain Quotidien, which you can pretty much find all over the city. For more exotic places, I like to venture out of Manhattan to the following:

1. Pollos Mario in Queens. Colombian food. I cannot tell you how much I love this place! The waitresses have extremely tight white pants, which might or might not be off-putting, and there is a giant fake orange tree in the middle of it and sometimes you have to stand in line for quite a bit before you get seated, but once you are seated, you don’t want to leave. I’m a vegetarian and I love this place – that says a lot. I always order the same: sweet plantains, pickled red onions, yellow rice, avocado salad, and a tall glass of tomate de arbol (a drink made with milk and tree tomato). If you aren’t a vegetarian, my husband suggests you try the pargo rojo frito (fried snapper with rice, green plantain, and a side salad). 86-13 Roosevelt Avenue. Subway: 7-Train to 90 Street – Elmhurst Avenue.
2. Christina’s on 853 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn – best Polish food ever! I adore their pierogis. For Polish donuts (pączkis), head over to Rzeszowska Bakery on 948 Manhattan Avenue. Subway: G-train to Greenpoint.
3. Minni’s Shabu Shabu in Flushing, Queens. All right, so my husband pretty much forced this onto the list. He likes to go there and my son likes the idea of going there, and I sort of just string along. We usually tag this one onto a visit to the New York Hall of Science. I haven’t gotten the hang of the shabu shabu swish-swish food yet, but one day I hope I will. Subway: 7-Train to Roosevelt Avenue/Main Street.

The Importance of Being Paid

A green breakfast for Saint Patrick's Day: Guacamole and avocado sandwich, strawberries and a golden beet so sweet I ate it raw. 

Last year, I was fired. After having worked over a decade for the same publication, I was let go without warning and overnight, because I refused to work without a raise or some kind of health insurance. In retrospect, being sacked was a good thing, but at the time of course it was a blow. After the initial shock when I realized that I had lost my income, came the more lingering scare when I thought I might have lost my Self. When your job and your Self are pretty much the same thing – which is my case – then losing one tends to make you believe you’ve lost the other as well. And though I momentarily lost my footing (along with my income) when I lost my job as a writer, I did realize that the writer in me would continue to thrive regardless. Coming to that understanding was very important to me.

The act of firing me was designed to cut me down and put me in my place. It was one of those times in life, when another person aims to destroy for the sheer act of destroying. It was calculated to hurt, which it also did to a degree. However, the good news about this sort of thing is that it makes for the perfect time to “shine”, or, as Anita Brookner writes: “This is when character tells”.

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. What began as some sort of self-soothing when I was very young, quickly became a way of life. I studied, I read, and I wrote. Endlessly. Not a day goes by without me writing. In fact, I cannot imagine life without writing. A couple of hours of writing and reading early in the morning make the drudgery of housework, cooking, cleaning and so on, bearable. I was 10 when I first got paid for an article, which was published in Kamratposten, a popular Swedish children’s magazine. The payment came in the mail in the shape of a giant teddy bear. I’ve been a bit of a professional ever since. And I’ve never written for free.

Not everybody can write. Not everybody can sing, or paint, or dance, or act. Or play an instrument. Yet, many people tend to think so. They seem to think that such skills are so slight that you should perform them for free. Or without health insurance. Or without an annual raise. Just for the fun of it. Nobody would think of paying a dentist for a root canal with a fruit basket, yet musician friends of mine tell me they’ve sometimes been paid this way. Nobody would dream of saying to their lawyer:
“Well, you know, you got a whole lot of exposure out there in court today, buddy boy. That’s your payment.”

Yet actor friends of mine are expected to live on exactly such kind of “exposure” when they act in plays or films. As if just about anyone can act. My former boss told me he had a number of applicants who were willing to write for free, a byline in ink was all they asked for. As if just about anyone can write.

This is blatant disrespect.

I refuse to fall for the threat that “there are people willing to write for free”. Unfortunately, as long as there are people who do work “for free”, or without health insurance, or without proper pay even, creative jobs will be viewed as lesser than others, and creative talents will go unnoticed or will not be encouraged. I don't need to tell you how that will affect the future of the arts, do I?

I am not saying artists or creative people should make fortunes (although with all due respect I can’t see why the people on Wall Street should and artists shouldn’t), I am merely saying that these jobs should make it possible to put food on the table and roof over one’s head.

If you’re in a creative field, I ask you to join me in doing the same. Don’t give your texts, images, songs, music, or dance choreography away for free, unless you want to conduct charity.

And if you’re not in a creative field, I ask you think about things that have touched you: Someone’s music or dance, a photograph, a painting, or something someone wrote. Years and years of training and hard work is behind all of it. It doesn’t come effortlessly. It’s art, and not everyone can do it. I think many of us are being fooled by media and messages like “Get a ballerina’s body in time for summer”, “You too can write a novel” and “Learn to play the piano in 8 weeks”. We have to understand, really understand, that this is not the case. Ask any dancer, and she or he will tell you. You don’t get legs like that in a couple of months, or even a year. It takes years of dedication, hours of sweat and of hard work, but there’s also an emotional component to it. The art of dancing. Ask any author about the possibility of writing a novel just like that. Ask any pianist who’s been crying over scales and arpeggios since childhood, and he or she will tell you: It takes work and dedication. It takes years. And this must be rewarded. It must come with proper payment.

Harlem – 125th Street

The smoothie today was a mild one: Two cups of cut honey dew, one cup almond milk, and a small piece of banana. The book, The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway by Janice Weber, may be the only "chick lit" book I've ever read. It's fun and exciting. Originally, I found it in a cupboard in my room in Poland when I was quite sick with the flu. I think I read it in one sweep sitting in bed surrounded by cups of tea, nose drops, and boxes of Kleenex. 

Yesterday, all three of us – my son, my husband, and me – took the train to the city.

We didn’t go all the way to Grand Central and Midtown, which is what we usually do, but instead stepped off in Harlem, on 125^th Street, which is exactly 20 minutes from where we live with the train. The Harlem platform is an elevated one, and I realized right away that we’d dressed for a much warmer day. The wind was bitter up there, blowing my hair all over the place. The sky was a dull grey although it was only 10 or so in the morning. We walked down the stairs into the station, a lovely, old station, and out into the street through the double doors.

125^th Street cuts straight through Harlem, and I like to walk it from Park Avenue all the way to Morningside Avenue. I especially like this walk in summer, when the scents from the street vendors’ tables are intensified by the heat and humidity. The street has changed pretty dramatically the past years, with lots of chain stores and plenty of nice restaurants. I always buy incense sticks and African shea butter from the outdoors vendors, when the weather’s fine, if it is cold and they aren’t out, I venture into one specific store that sells all kinds of fragrance, soaps, and jewelry. I prefer the outdoor vendors though, they are friendlier and the stuff they sell is dirt-cheap and interesting to look at. I love how the incense makes our home smell. My favorite is one called Bharath Darshan and has an Indian woman on the package, but sometimes – for fun – I buy incense that is supposed to attract money or good luck and things like that.  The vendors also sell T-shirts and creams and lotions and baseball caps. Spread out on black or blue fabrics are wooden bracelets and necklaces, and there are baskets with colorful rings and beads for as little as $1.

Yesterday, however, it was too cold for the vendors to set up their tables on the sidewalks. Also, we were going to a specific place, we weren’t just strolling down the street for pleasure. A friend of mine was in the hospital, and I wanted to go visit her before they released her. Thus, the three of us forged ahead in the cold, stopping only to buy a scarf. Yet, 125^th Street never leaves me indifferent. When I’m there I always tell myself I should come more often. We hurried past Applebee’s, a very commercial chain restaurant that is our son’s absolute favorite.

“Ple-e-e-ase,” he begged as we neared it, with its bright red apple logo. “Ple-e-e-ase!”

“Not today,” said my husband and tugged at our son’s hand.

“Let’s hurry,” I said. “We’re late and it’s cold.”

Always this hurry in New York, even on a Sunday.

Still, my eyes took it all in: The hair-braiding place with the shiny, old-fashioned chairs visible from the windows as we passed by. I took in the worn red vinyl covers of the coaches where the women and children sat waiting. We passed by the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Building, which is a boring and ugly building if you ask me, but I like the statue of Powell Jr. in the front, striding on an incline, with the wind in his face and clothes, much like us.

A little further ahead is the Theresa Hotel, no longer a hotel at all but an office building. However back in its prime days, Theresa hosted guests like Fidel Castro, Josephine Baker, and Duke Ellington and was known as the Waldorf or Harlem.  Shortly after that is the Apollo Theater, which is of course where Ella Fitzgerald’s career was launched so many years ago. I always have my eyes on the Apollo sign, I can gauge where I am by how far away it is.

When the weather’s nicer I see tourists on 125^th Street, looking perhaps a little confused. This street isn’t really a place to sightsee; it’s more a place to experience. It’s teeming with life and soul and history. It’s a special place.

When our little trio reached Morningside Avenue, we cut away from 125^th Street, which by now has turned into Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. We continued walking downtown, along the edge of Morningside Park, looking for the park entrance. Once we found it, we walked up all the little steps that lead to Morningside Drive and the beginning of Columbia University. We continued on to Amsterdam Avenue and 114^th Street. Here, my husband and son went and had a slice of pizza, and I entered the hospital to visit my friend. 

Two Men In Paris

Sometimes an egg or two (or three!) is all you need to make the perfect breakfast. I usually prefer mine in omelets and pancakes, but simple, boiled eggs are quite tasty too. Especially on the perfect crispbread.

I’m a bona fide Francophile. Wherever I go, I defend the French. Not that they need defending much; few countries are as popular with tourists as France. Few cities as loved as Paris. But there are people who have yet to discover the pleasures of the perfect Brie, the bittersweet (douce-amère) sound of the French street accordion, the impeccable style of the Parisian women, and the wonders of the French men. Oh-la-la!

The men and women in Paris are sure of themselves and seem to know who they are, which put anyone who isn’t or doesn’t at a clear disadvantage.

Someone, for instance, like myself.

I always wanted to be someone else and preferably somewhere else, too. Sweden was small and boring and being Swedish was pretty much just as lame. I just wanted to be French. I wanted to be able to call Paris my city.

I thought if I could just marry someone French, I too would be privy to the secrets of the pout and the je-ne-sais-quoi and the nonchalant shoulder shrug. Luckily, I was a serious student in college and was awarded a scholarship from the Marseille Fund. The second they put the money into my bank account, I purchased a silk blouse and a one way ticket to Paris with Air France.

Weeks later (after having moved from one cheap, roach-infested hotel to another) I put down my suitcase in the 10^th arrondissement, in a bourgeois apartment a stone’s throw away from Marcel Marceau’s theater and Folies Bergere, where the girls danced with peacock feathers in their bottoms and glitter on their nipples.

In a matter of weeks I found two men who were up for grabs.

Numéro Un was my neighbor, an Asian man who always appeared impeccably dressed in the stairway. My bedroom window faced a narrow courtyard and, at an angle, the kitchen window in the apartment below. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I saw that the light in the kitchen window below was on. I opened my window and leaned out a bit to get a better view, and there, only about six feet away from me, I saw my Asian neighbor kneeling in front of his opened fridge, and sort of shoveling food into his mouth: Marmalade, pudding, cheese, and what looked like some sort of pâté. I watched this explosion of pleasure with some concern. But then, as if he could feel my eyes on him, the man suddenly stood up and turned around, facing me in all his nakedness. For a split second we looked straight into each other’s eyes, before we quickly moved away from our windows. The next day, on my way to Boulevard Raspail and school, I ran into him in the stairways. He blushed a deep crimson, and from then on avoided me.

At about the same time Numéro Deux, the Hermès man, waltzed into my life with stars in his eyes and a bouquet of roses in his arms. He was a head shorter than me and had a funny way of clattering his teeth when he laughed. Monsieur Hermès was also a bit on the old side, but he was charming enough and I thought perhaps that if I kept him company over coffee and crème du menthe, he might give me a silk Hermès scarf. I had my heart set on one of those with horse paraphernalia on it. I went dutifully to our meetings, but when he in a fit of friendliness disclosed that he had never read Balzac, I got so disappointed that I decided to stop seeing him. I felt I had to set some sort of limits for what was acceptable.

In the end I left Paris as single as I had been when I arrived. But that too was fine. For I had come to study, and as Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables, “To study in Paris is to be born in Paris.” Perhaps it had been mine all along.

See you again on Monday!

On Motherhood

Coconut yoghurt – I can’t begin to tell you just how yummy this is! I made it myself using one can of coconut milk, which I stuck in the freezer overnight, and removed first thing in the morning. I let it thaw for a couple of hours, then put the half frozen coconut milk in my blender along with ¼ cup of kefir, some honey, and a lot of unsweetened coconut flakes.

Being a parent is one of the greatest things in life. Most parents know that. It’s an endless journey that can produce a deep, wondrous sense of fulfilling joy. Parenthood takes you places and you meet with and talk to people (aka other parents and their children) whom you most likely would have never met with or talked to otherwise. If you’ve never been taken outside of yourself and your own experience before in life, then parenthood will do it like nothing else. Someone said that having children is like “before and after Jesus”. A watershed. Before I had my son, I used to think that “I” ended where my skin met the elements. Then along came this new person – my child – someone I didn’t know, someone with a mind and will of his own, but in whose body my own heart miraculously also seems to beat. At all times. I taste my son’s joys as if they are my own. And his sorrows. And his hurt. And stronger, sometimes, than I taste my own.

Motherhood doesn’t come easy to me. I see other moms and I am constantly amazed at how easy they make it seem. I’m not talking about the daily puzzle of schedules; I’m talking about the daily upbringing of one’s child. Rearing him or her. Mothering him or her. To me, that is the most difficult thing I can think of, a challenge that I’m constantly brooding over. That I love my son goes without saying. But that love is a not an easy sort of love. I wish it were. You know those images of smiling mothers? The images and statues of Virgin Mary? I think of those and I wonder, is that it? A tender, patient kind of love?

The love I have for my son is multi-facetted and deeply complex. Tender and patient, sure, at times, but far from always. My love for my son is mixed with fear, worry, guilt, and yes, sometimes even shame. This is hard to talk about. It’s hard to admit. Because motherhood can sometimes look like it’s all about getting organic food in your kid’s lunch bag or getting them to school on time. Am I a bad mother for throwing things he’s made out? For wanting to throw some of it out? For being impatient with him? Sometimes I get angry with my son. We spend a lot of time together, just the two of us. We’re different – in spite of that joint heartbeat I talked about – he is of one temperament, I’m of another. We argue, we push each other’s buttons.

“I’m the one who gets to decide,” I say sternly. I am your parent.”

“I don’t care,” he pouts.

I hiss at this, and leave the room. Too upset to speak, I feel my anger rise.

To make matters worse, I’m the bad guy in our home. My husband is the good guy. He is at work too much to be the bad guy also. Therefore that’s on me. I scream. I yell. I force my son to do his homework. But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I am too tired to scream and yell and force. Then, late at night, I lie sleepless thinking: Which is worse? To force or to not force?

Some parents want to give their children the kind of childhood they themselves had. Some parents want to remedy their own childhoods by giving their children all that which they themselves never had. Some parents do a mix of the two.

I think that a person who feels passionate about doing something is a happy person. I’ve written about happiness before here, so I won’t go into it again. But I think this goes for children as well. I think the best we, as parents, can do, is to help our children find passion in life, because passion will lead to happiness. How do we do that? Leading by example, I think. If we show that we’re happy and passionate about life, then hopefully our children learn just by watching. 

"I love you, Mamma," he says late at night when it's time for bed.

He's soft and beautiful and smells like a peach.

"I love you, too," I say. But the words are too lame for how I really feel.

"You're the best Mamma in the world," he says before he drifts off to sleep.

"No, I'm not," I think. "But nobody could care for, cherish, think of and want you more than I do."

Departure

Today's breakfast: Chia pudding with vanilla and maple syrup topped with fruit, berries and coconut flakes. And one of our saffron buns (recipe here).

Some people dream of a beautiful house; a home they can call their own, with a garden to garden and rooms to lovingly fill and decorate. Then there are others, who feel the pull of what’s out there, whose gaze is not set on arrival or stay but on departure. These people might feel they have received a kind of invitation, not in the form of an official letter with a seal or anything, but as a secret breath in the ear at night, urging them to break up and move on.

Consider explorers such as Marco Polo, James Cook, and Vasco da Gama. Consider the Vikings. Yes, perhaps their departures were borne not out of curiosity (alone) but of necessity as well. Yet, I am sure there were other possibilities for them. There always are. The world needed shoemakers, bakers, carpenters, and builders back then, too. Thus they probably had a choice.

Sometimes I think of the world as divided between those who stay and those who leave.

When I woke up from my teenagey stupor one day and realized there was a world outside my acne, I felt compelled to visit the house where Joan of Arc had been born over 500 hundred years earlier. Nothing could stop me. The urge to physically see the place could not be stopped. Not even by my mom, who waved good-bye to me, age 17, as the train pulled out of Copenhagen Central. It followed the slight curve in the tracks. I wore a striped sweater in rainbow colors that I had knitted myself. I had no idea how to get to where Joan of Arc was born, only that I had to get there. Somehow. To me, I was chartering as unknown territories as explorers had done in the past. Who cares about rest areas and the comfort of hotels when you’re tracing a dream?

Yesterday I met a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years. She, too, came from Sweden to New York and for a brief period all those years ago, we shared a dingy apartment in Brooklyn. Yesterday, we talked about the different directions our lives had taken us. We talked about people we had once known and who we no longer knew. And we talked about this: Staying or going? It’s a curious thing that happens with immigrants, the staying or going topic somehow always comes up. So we weighed the pros (as if New York City and surroundings needed to be weighed for pros!) and the cons (the expense, the stress, the pace). We talked about what moving back to Sweden would entail. We luxuriated in the good parts (a functioning health care system, a child-friendly environment, an allover less fierce, less competitive society) and shuddered at the bad (we’d have to conform again – like good Swedes do – and we simply would not be in or have access to the Big Apple). We drew our conclusion in silence: Safety and complacency simply isn’t worth going back to. The thrill of life lies not in the safe harbor of home.

Marco Polo, after all his travels, settled down in Venice with his wife and three daughters. He never again left. James Cook was stabbed to death on the island of Hawaii. Vasco da Gama died from malaria in Kochi, India. And Leif Eriksson most probably died on Greenland. Who knows how they felt about their lives. Perhaps they, too, longed for a home and a garden. Or perhaps the urge to set sail never completely left them.

Dreaming of departure. The Three of Wands in the Tarot Cards means travel, foreign lands, growth, good fortune, freedom, and moving forward.