stereotype santa

There are some things that just get a person excited for Christmas. This is one of them.

2009 Santa world games in Sweden

This makes me (more than ever) want to get on with planning a trip to northern Sweden and Norway -- see the mountains and fjords, nature reserves, maybe even some caribou. If we were rich we'd stay in the ice hotel, unfortunately that will be an unfulfilled silly wish of mine.

Maybe I will start training for the Santa world games 2010.

how to scratch an itch?

Weird dormant jet lag surfaced last night after almost a week; awake from 12 a.m. to 4 a.m., dreaming up all kinds of schemes, planting gardens in my mind.

Something I have noted about our neighborhood. For all the gardening going on, very little food is grown. Even the local market in the square I am unsure of -- farm-fresh looking foods mixed in with oranges from Spain and kiwis from New Zealand. I know our soil isn't the best -- shallow, sandy, stony -- but people produce beautiful flower gardens each year. Last spring I spent so many hours digging and fixing and starting I ran out of energy to till up the ground for the actual vegetable garden. I will not be deterred this spring, even if I have to pay someone to dig for me, seeing that by mid-April I will be 40 weeks pregnant and a whale of a woman.

Last night I was considering greenhouse and chicken coop, but that just going too far too early. Start with the veggies. Check out National Geographic's fun little online guide for tips for house and home. Knowing how energy and resources are wasted on food production makes you want to get your greenhouse and winter lettuce growing immediately. And about that chicken coop!

Read: The Green Guide

whale bones

I am waiting for my chicken noodle soup to heat and trying to avoid thinking of the rumbling grumbling hunger in my belly. Munching on crackers to take the edge off. Sitting on our hideously uncomfortable kitchen chair--Ikea computer desk combination and twisting constantly to stretch away lower back pain. A fine Tuesday midday!

Since summer I have been swept up and driven by things out of my control. Just now I am starting to feel as if I have set down somewhere solid and feeling more "together" and capable. But with things as they are: new things, primal things, emotional things, strange things, maternal things, when I cannot help this strange ancient transformation, when one moment I feel insane and the next so practical.

Now I try to absorb Swedish and prepare for a trip to Calgary next week. I drink tea that leaves a skim on my teeth and contemplate the rich smells of fall -- farm, leaves, wet, and woodsmoke. Listen to music and think about homemade soup.

smelly goodness

Was walking to catch the bus yesterday morning, a surprising chilly morning. With all the delicious smells in the air -- earth, forest, fern, wet and wood smoke-- I got to thinking about this particular sense. I wonder if smells are as sharp and tangible to others? I can't think of another sense that can transport me so quickly through time, to a particular person, or give such raw, childish joy.

I did grow up "smelling things": my family could identify the owner of an article of clothing left behind at our house simply by smelling it. "Oh, this jacket belongs to that family." Strange, but very practical skill. Even today people's homes carry an identifiable smell that, if I have known them for some time, I recognize. Even if they have moved to a new country, they still smell the same! (But, when I married and we had our own place, my brother pointed out that I no longer smelled like a Busenius, but that we now had our own "Aspegren" smell.)

The smell of nasturtiums always makes me think of crouching over my mom's flower bed as a child, diligently picking orange blossoms. Rice pudding and fresh bread, of my mom. The wet forest smell that comes here in Holsbybrunn always transports me to the hidden jewel of the British Columbia leg of the Trans-Canada Highway, The Enchanted Forest. Without fail that wet forest makes me think, "enchanted forest." The scented skin of a plum or an apple, freshly picked, I associate with my grandfather. Cut grass of summer evenings going to bed too early while my parents finished up the yard work. The first tinges of wood smoke in the air always make me think of Bosnia and El Salvador and cooking fires. Comfort clothing softener instantly reminds of the deliciousness of Martin's smell when we were dating. (He still smells good, for the record, but different.)

I suppose it can be like this for most people, the richness of smell, but it seems we've forgotten how to breathe deeply and slowly. Something about being adults and busy and such, maybe we forget to enjoy breathing.

the olden days

Recently my neighbors took me out to an "old church day" in the neighboring village, Alseda. Alseda is a small collection of old houses, a tea house, classic white-washed stone church, and farms, cut straight through the middle by the two-lane highway that has grown uncomfortably busy with DHL trucks and longhauls coming from the east coast. The church, a beautiful bright-white structure built in the 1700s, (so newish, relatively speaking) has green wooden pews and the most incredible acoustics. One can whisper on the far side of the dome, and another can hear that whisper bouncing up and dropping down like a ghost's or something from a psychotic episode. The all-seeing eye is painted in gold about the alter.

On this particular day, people were coming to church by horse and buggy, just as in the old days. Most of the folks driving buggies and wagons were as old as the contraptions they steered. Gaunt, bowed men in frock coats and bowlers, ladies in skirts and veiled hats. Most of the wagons had rubber tires, and they slowed traffic to a jam on the highway before they pulled into the church stable yard.

The yard was full of nostalgia. A regiment of the Swedish mounted calvary rode in, and everyone was busy unsaddling horses and unhitching wagons and getting the horses settled in the stable. The stable itself, my neighbor estimated, was about 200 years old, and entertaining to watch people do as others had done hundreds of years before.

The church bells began pealing before all the unsaddling and rubbing down was finished, everyone rushing to leave the horses stamping in their stalls and find a seat before the droning, calming voice of the Lutheran priest began. A very interesting morning.