wind in these sails

Yes, yes, blogs are for blogging. Blogs are not necessarily an outlet for all things emotional. Every time I sat down to write, it became such emotional mumbo jumbo I eventually just gave up. 

It's been quite a journey for me these past months. It's been a little over five months that we've been here in Sweden, and definitely full of what I have lovingly coined "humps and dumps". Most surprising has been the spiritual wringer-washer experience I have had, which was something I didn't foresee. It's been really, really hard at times, but it's really good too, in that strange inexplicable way these kind of things are. 

I am enjoying school these days, having found some like-minded European girls that shower so much love on me daily. It's a daily experience for me to be kissed (quite soundly) by my Russian friend. I had no idea that I would be so grateful for this kind of feminine craziness. 

Martin and I took advantage of a few days off recently to take a weekend on the west coast of Sweden. It was a great weekend for both of us -- Christmas shopping, sightseeing, a gorgeous old hotel room, and time alone. One evening we took a walk in the dark along the coast to a historical fortress built on a cliff on the coastline. The fortress was open for us to walk inside, and up on it's walls. It definitely tops my list of things we've done together in Sweden, and as soon as we returned to our beautiful little hotel room, I wrote about it:

An evening walk through quiet, near-deserted cobblestone streets, the moon a white-gray haze behind the night's clouds. Everything is lit in a dim, pale light. The steady, low roar of the waves pounding at the sea-wall. Two fishermen work for herring with five and more fishing poles, illuminated by two lamps that oversee their efforts with yellow light. One reels in two of the tiny fish and slaps them on the stones at his feet. They flap for seconds.

The cold ocean wind rips through our clothes but it's thrilling to be standing on this tiny limb of land, straight out into the dark ocean, where everything is a shade of black or blue, and the Varberg fortress hulking over us, mysterious and ancient in the night. All it's gates are open and the lanterns lit. The mood of the place is wild, lonely, mysterious, chilling. The air is cold, salty, the wind strong. It's just Martin and I in this ancient lump of rock and arched doorways and cobbled paths, and we climb the steep, uneven narrow staircase of the fortress wall to overlook the city of Varberg, the church steeple outlined in the pinkish hue of lights, and when you turn your back to the modern world I feel like maybe the ancients felt in this fortress, standing at the edge of the known world, nostrils thick with seasalt, winding tearing at your clothes, staring out into the overpowering and awing waters.

start stop

Have started several posts and never completed the train of thought, therefore I shall try anew.

Been back in school for over a month now and I am finding a bit of a groove, I guess. More or less feeling a bit more normal with it. The first few weeks were definitely not great. Or even good. I really never thought I would feel so at-sea, so uncomfortable and stupid. Not like an adult, like a child. I never thought it would be a time of muddled frustration and despair and spiritual confusion. But here we are on the far side of a month and it's getting easier. I am definitely still having my moments where my senses are overloading with the general cacophony that is Bible school, but it's becoming more "normal".

Good thing?

Classes are getting more interesting. Definitely an interesting, challenging, and inspiring week looking at texts that have been taken out of context in many different ways and I felt a bit stunned with the realization of how many things I have (and very well still could be) taken for granted were "truths" when in fact they were Biblical concepts taken out of context. More and more I see the danger of generations of church goers like myself who don't know the Bible (really) and don't even know how to read it (really). 

I have been assigned to work on the school's photo site, and regularly post photos of school life on the site. If you want to check it out, here: www.holsby.com. 

I am taking Swedish For Immigrants (I love saying that) once a week for two hours, and although I quite enjoy the class, my language ability is coming so S-L-O-W. I feel so stupid about it. But I like my teacher and the other students (all from the Czech Republic) are very good-humored.

And Christmas things have begun to appear here... I can't believe it's already nearing the time to think about Christmas. It seems as though it could still be March and we're still just "thinking" about moving to Sweden. And here we are. Wearing slippers to ward off the chilly damp and figuring out metric and missing my mommy.

fingers, be quiet

Night comes with a vengeance these days, and with the shortened days the piles of leaves under the trees grow fat. I haven't experienced such a slow, drawn out autumn in years, with the trees turning in stages, first the poplars and the ash, then the birch and maple, and finally the oak, walnut and acorn. I can't stop stopping to enjoy the gorgeousness of the maple, with it's top and edges brilliant red and then gold throughout. I have been slipping out for 'me time' with my camera and trying with all my heart to capture the beauty of fall. 

I am repeatedly reminded of previous experiences here: here I am walking to school again, just as the sun is cutting over the treetops and the grass is stiff, sparkling, and gray with frost. The smell of wet leaves taking me back to my childhood in British Columbia. Feeling like I am reliving church youth group -- oh dear. A hallway of the school kitchen that smells like Liberia, weirdly enough. 

School is more work than I anticipated -- I have memorization, book reports, short papers, and quite a bit of reading all due in the next two weeks. The memorization is the most daunting, as I don't feel I have exercised that part of my brain at all. Admittedly, I am a bit uninspired, as so far I haven't been able to sink my teeth into something I really loved... A lot of things that I didn't really expect as part of Bible school -- "social style" profiles and such. (Yes, yes I know some of you are laughing.) I just want to study the Bible, and I am not even interested in theories outside of what the Bible directly teaches. (For those that care, an example: the theory of "general revelation" and "specific revelation". It's interesting to think about, but ultimately the Bible does not say what a general or specific revelation is, therefore do I need to know it?) And, the jargon! I really, really, do not want to use jargon. Please, if I come out of this sounding like a pompous arse, will someone tell me? 

But it's all a part of the package, and I certainly have enough to think on and work through, even in terms of just the move to Sweden. It will take a long time to adjust, and I have moments where I think will go completely insane. Martin usually hugs me during these moments, and after I have cried on the front of his t-shirt he tells me he loves me. It helps, but to be known is such a lovely thing -- it is to take for granted the gift of being known, until you are unknown.

välkomna till

you come when it is nearly dark

(I wonder if you are lost)

crunching, crushing up the path

with something in your hands

you scrape and knock and welcome me

singing the way they sing here

speaking in any language

(and I wonder how stupid I sound)

you welcome me and invite me

and I stutter, carefully, feebly

wishing wishing wishing very hard

for some eloquence

you leave the thing in my cold fingertips

with the edges of my mouth in a smile

having spoken stuttered sung

over roses in a white box

every day: every hour

I am listening to Radiohead and reveling in the fact that we finally have an Internet connection. I can sit at our desk and blissfully type while overlooking the neighbors garden. It feels darn near luxurious.

Martin and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon (down the road, right into the forest, up the steady incline) and came back with muddy shoes, wet feet, and high spirits. The forest was enchanting, part deep and dark, sheltered with old trees and cushioned with moss. Here the bright red-and-white poisonous mushrooms grew large and garish like neon signs, forbidding and completely drawing. If you continue on, over the rotted and slippery foresters "footbridge" and find another slow incline, the forest turns to tall red pines, bare of branches for some 30 feet. Here the blueberries and ferns can grow underfoot. A little further and we come across a living sea of ivy, spread out under the branches of oak and maple, covering every inch of ground in glossy, shining green. Once you step back out onto the road you feel as if you have, quite literally, stepped out into another world. Someone said to me that this area of the world was their "Narnia", and now I can completely understand, only it's not through a wardrobe I step, but through the front door.

We have had many little projects going around the house but I am most grateful to have a snug, black roof over our heads and soon, after we get the weather stripping on, snug winter-ready windows. I am working on "finishing" the baseboards in the living room and kitchen, and Martin and Janne finished some electrical jobs today. We've a stack of firewood (although I think we may need more, judging by our neighbors gargantuan stack of firewood) and the damp chill in the air signifies summer is over and now autumn, then winter. School starts in less than a week, am I ready? 

When I have no idea what I am in for, it's hard to say. I guess I will buy some notebooks and sharpen my pencils, so to speak, and be as ready as I will ever be. I am the only married student, the only student living "off campus", and surely one of the oldest students as well, and I wonder whether I can melt in or not.

My fingers are cold and I wonder about turning on the heating element behind the desk, but as many things go here, I don't know how hot it gets and is it safe or a good idea near the printer and electrical cords? etc. etc. I find at times I am really quite useless. I can't read a cellphone instructions or driving directions, faltering in the most basic of Swedish, can't yet really even grocery shop or buy stamps on my own. Maybe it's not that I can't, but that I am afraid to. Pride is the most fearful thing, really, as I feel this emotional barrier against putting myself out to (I think) failure, ridicule, or appearing stupid. I sometimes find the thing I could attempt (a simple sentence or expression) and instead opt to speak in English as, for whatever reason (pride, shame, embarrassment, insecurity, frustration), I can't seem to spit the words out. With time I hope this changes... My Swedish for immigrants class begins next week, and I know I am getting thrown in with people at all levels of Swedish (my level is that of a child of perhaps three). 

I am daily in awe of the fact that we've "done it", done the thing we talked about as an "if" and "maybe when", made this move and here we are, living in this beautiful, green, calming place, with toads living under our back step and a washing machine in our bathroom, with rather large spiders and a large old piano, creaking floorboards, white white walls, and mercilessly quick sunsets. Out from under the pressure of work and emotional strain and partially overlapping schedules, away from the blast of sirens and street church, and the brooding boredom of a lonely apartment, I feel inspired to write. It's been sometime since I felt that inspiration, that love. It got flattened out between my plasticky pre-fab desk, jargon, writing on things I neither knew, experienced, touched, tasted, nor smelled. It was flattened as thin and pale as me: strained, sharpened, tired. I can feel it's fulsomeness returning, fattening on what? good bread, rich cheese, delicious clean air and water without chlorine? or calm, long sleeps, a complete dismissing of stress? Whatever it grows on, I want inspiriation to be fat and positively bursting.