midsummer, mullets and midges

It's 10 p.m. and the evening has cooled and paled, the sky the gray-blue color it stays all night. Midsummer in Sweden is close to magical -- for me, anyways. Short, never-dark nights. Four a.m. sunrises. A racket of birds, smaller ones shrieking and dive-bombing a crow skulking about their nest. Wild lupine everywhere, purple and pink mostly. Green -- rich, bright, bold or dark -- so much lush growth the air is thick and fragrant with it in the morning.

Not everything is perfect mid-summer. The biting midges are horrible little things, near-invisible as they saw into you and leave red welts. My brother has 60 such welts on one leg. I watched him count them. You can feel them on you but are helpless to fight them off, as they are so small they sneak under clothing and under hair lines. Jordan said: "For such small things they are heavy walkers." I laughed.

We spent the eve of midsummer in traditional fashion. With family, attended the midsummer celebration and dancing around a pole and wreaths of wild flowers and forest greens. Ate delicious "classic midsummer" torte of cake, custard, cream and whole strawberries, an offering of my mother-in-law Lisbeth.

The evening of mid-summer I won't quickly forget. A rain storm passed, Martin, Jordan, two German friends and I arrived at the edge of a lake -- fog at its edges, still and silent until we arrive. We build a good, hot fire, drank hot chocolate and sent off a considerable amount of fireworks. (Jordan had a near miss with a rather large firework, unstable and ill-fired, turned 180 and torpedoed him directly in the leg. He jumped and ran as we shouted in fear; all's well that ends well. His leg is still attached.)

Past midnight we psyched each other up to go for a swim. Admittedly I didn't swim much, the cold was shocking but moreso in the dimness and calmness I could only think of swimming with the 10+ kilo pike we were fishing for the week before. Those double rows of teeth and I thought of them paddling for the ladder on the dock.

After midsummer I gave Martin his first haircut. My first time cutting someone's hair. Our marriage withstood the pressure, thank goodness. I gave him a bit of a mullet, I think. And I like it. Maybe its my red-neck roots showing through.