A Life in Progress

You know Spring has arrived in Sweden when snow makes way for slush and mud, heavy winter jackets are traded for lighter models, and Sweden’s orienteering clubs set up orienteering courses throughout the local woodlands to confuse and perplex the directionally challenged.

Someone told us that we could purchase a “Naturpasset,” the orienteering map for the woods in our area, from the local pharmacy. The pharmacy???

“I wonder why they sell orienteering maps at the pharmacy?” My husband, KA, asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe because every neighborhood has one and everyone goes there at some point,” I guessed.

“If that's the case, they should sell them at System Bolaget. I’ll bet people visit Systemet more often than the pharmacy.” KA said. He had a point. System Bolaget is the state-run liquor monopoly.

Anyway, we bought a map from the pharmacy, a couple of compasses from the hardware store, and took a bus out to the woods. That’s one of the great things about living in Stockholm. You can start your journey from just about anywhere in the city and, depending on where you are, you can be out in the woods in less than half an hour. We left the comfort of our IKEA sofa at 10.00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and were standing at the edge of the woods 20 minutes later.

It was then I took a really good look at the map. “What are we supposed to do with this?” I asked. The map was not anything like a normal street map. It was decorated with swirls of brown topography lines, cryptic symbols for different types of landscape or land marks, and 30 or so numbered circles that indicated where the controls (the markers set out by the orienteering club), were to be found.

“Don’t worry,” KA reassured me. “I’ve done this before. It’ll be fun. Listen up now. The top of the map should face north. Use the compass to orientate the map. . .” I listened intently while he gave me a short lesson in the use of map and compass.

“Got it? Good. OK, We’ll take turns. I’ll find the first control, and you can find the next one.” And off we went. We started off sticking to the trail, but then we finally had to veer off into the woods.

“It should be about 100 meters south of this point," said KA.

“You mean we have to go off the trail and tromp through the woods? What if we get lost?”

“That’s the whole point of having a map and compass! We’re not going to get lost!”

“Well, if you're sure we can get back, let’s go then.”

To know how far 100 meters is, we had to take more or less evenly spaced steps and count each one. Just try taking even steps around trees and over roots, rocks, branches, and mud. And then what do you do when you run into something big, like an impenetrable grove of trees or a field of giant bolders?

“I lost count,” I said, after we had made our way around one such obstacle.

“It’s OK. I think we’re about there,” said KA.

A thorough search of the area turned up nothing. “What exactly is it we’re looking for, anyway?” I asked.

“I don’t know, a little flag or something. Come on, let’s retrace our steps. . .”

About thirty minutes later, we discover our first control, a small piece of plastic the size of a couple of credit cards anchored to a tree. This was truly a cause for celebration!

“Yippee!! Write down the number!” KA said, slapping me on the back so hard in his excitement that I coughed. Each control had a number, and you were supposed to find them all, record the numbers, and send in your completed control card to the orienteering club. We were off to a grand start! We stood there for another ten minutes, just savoring the victory, when suddenly, we heard a crashing sound coming at us from behind.

“Look out!” KA said, pulling me away from the control. “What was that?” I said, as we watched a fit young man in a body-hugging athletic suit run at full speed to the control, note the number, glance at his compass, and tear off into the woods again, all in one swift motion, without even so much as a "Hej".

“Wow, a professional! How do they do that without tripping on all the undergrowth?” KA wondered.

I sincerely wished he hadn’t mentioned tripping. The next control was my responsibility, and the first thing I did after taking command of compass and map was to lose my footing on some mossy growth clinging to a rock.

“You OK?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. My pants sported a new jagged hole, and blood oozed slowly out of an equally jagged scrape peaking through the tear. “It’s just a scrape. Let’s get on with it,” I said, trying to sound more brave than I actually felt.

After we had wandered for what seemed to be another 30 minutes, KA stopped me. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” he asked?

“Of course not! I’ve never done this before!” I snapped.

“Let me see what you’re doing here. . .Geez! You’ve got the bottom of the map facing north! It’s upside down!”

“Oh, yeah, well, my mistake. . .Now we’re really lost, right? I’m really sorry. . .”

“Ah, CRAP!” KA exclaimed.

“I said I’m sorry! Don’t be mad at me!”

“I’m not mad at you! I just stepped in moose crap! I'm sure we passed this same pile of poop three times now, and now I've finally stepped in it!”

“That’s disgusting!” Try to wipe it off on that bit of grass over there. . .” When KA returned a moment later, I noticed his left eye was slightly swollen. “What happened to your eye,” I asked.

“I don’t know, but you’re swelling up, too. I itch all over!” KA said as he slapped his arm.

It was then we realized that we were being consumed alive by mosquitoes, who were obviously delighted to find that a couple of American fast food restaurants had moved in right there in their neighborhood. I could almost hear them licking their little straw noses with delight: “Mmm. That was the best meal I’ve had in a long while. . .I just love ethnic food. . .they taste like, what? American-Mexican food and margaritas! I’m going back for seconds!”

We finally found our way back to the bus stop, and the bus driver gave us a strange look as we staggered aboard in tattered clothing, bleeding, swelling, itching, and smelling vaguely of moose dung.

Now we understood why they sold the orienteering maps at the pharmacy—so you could pick up all of the mosquito cream, tick pickers, sore salve, and bandages you were going to need to fix yourself up when you got home. I don’t know why they don’t sell the maps at the hospital emergency room. That would make even better sense.

From May to October, the controls remain at their stations in the woods, just waiting to be discovered. Returning numerous times to the woods throughout that same timeframe, we eventually found all of the controls. Just to give you an idea of the skill level represented here, a real orienteering person would have found all the controls in one afternoon and returned home without one single tear in his or her sleek outfit.

We had diligently recorded all the control numbers we found and sent the crumpled, blood-smudged card away to the orienteering club that had published the map.

I thought they wanted this information to gauge how many people actually braved the woods, but a few weeks later, we received an envelope in the mail from the orienteering club. Inside was a card showing two children standing in the woods studying a map. It was a certificate of achievement that any 10-year old would have been proud to hang in his or her bedroom.

The certificate had our names on it.

My husband, KA, had a job all lined up when he arrived in Sweden. In fact, he got here just in time to take part in a team building event at a Japanese-style spa here in Stockholm and spent his first few days on the job running around in a kimono. When I arrived, however, there was neither a job nor a kimono awaiting me, so right after Christmas I made a beeline for the unemployment office. The nice lady there helped me learn how to navigate their job database.

Even though some of the jobs were posted in English, I needed to learn how to understand the job postings in Swedish as well. It wasn’t long before I learned to recognize such words as självständig (independent), erfaren (experienced), and lydig (obedient). There were several tech writer jobs available at the time, and I sent out resumes right away.

To my surprise, each resume produced an invitation for an interview! When I quit my job in the States, I had secretly feared that I wouldn’t be able to find a job in Sweden, but, Wow! These people actually wanted to talk to me. . .or so I thought.

During the next several weeks, I interviewed with five different companies. I quickly learned that the rules of the game called Interview were different here than in the States, where certain questions are absolute no-nos. While State-side interviewers must restrict themselves to questions that are directly job-related, it was much different here.

“Do you have any children?” Ms. Interviewer asked.

“No, just a childish husband. Does that count?”

“Will you have to pick him up at day care in the afternoon?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. Do you plan on having children?”

Do I plan on having children? The straight answer was “No,” which is what I told her, but there was something about a stranger asking me about my reproductive plans that made me want to look at my watch and say, “Yes, as a matter of fact, we had planned on working on one about an hour from now, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to rush off and warm up the massage oil. . .”

The next few questions were as intrusive as the first:

“What religion are you?”

Religion? Did she want to know if I could write King James-style documentation? Why was this important? I opted for a non-committal answer, but I had to stifle the urge to repeat a witticism I heard years ago: “I’m a Frisbyterian. I believe that when you die, your soul lands on the roof and you can’t get it down.” (Just for the record, I’m not a Frisbyterian, or even a Presbyterian.)

“How would your parents describe you?”

“My parents? Oh, my dad was kind of quiet, so he wasn’t big on descriptions. Anyway, he passed away in 1993. As for Mom, she would tell you I’m perfect, of course. Isn’t that what your mom would say about you?”

“Yes, of course.”

Ms. Interviewer knit her over-plucked eyebrows in consternation. “Perfect” was not the answer she was looking for. She wanted some dirt. Her eyes narrowed, and I knew a killer question was on the way.

“How would your husband describe you?” she asked.

"My husband? He’s got as much to do with this as my parents," I thought, shifting uncomfortably in my chair.

“Don’t you want to know something about my writing skills?" I volunteered. "I’ve written manuals, online help, marketing material, and . . .”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” she said as she raised an interrupting hand.

“How about my strengths and weaknesses? You HR-types just love to see applicants squirm over that question. Why don’t you ask me that?”

“In due time. Right now, I just want to know how your husband would describe you.”

“This chick is tough,” I thought. She’d played the husband card, and she wasn’t going to let me fold.

I suppressed my smart-alek urges and answered the question as best I could, spinning the answer in my favor, of course. But wouldn’t it have been better if Ms. Interviewer could have asked my husband directly about how he would describe me? How would that interview unfold?
“My husband is waiting for me in the lobby. Why don’t you just bring him in and ask him yourself?”

Ms. Interviewer picks up the phone and calls the receptionist. In a few moments, my husband, KA, walks slowly into the room, his hands in his pockets, looking mildly confused. Ms. Interviewer and KA exchange greetings, and he takes a seat next to me.

“The lady out front said you wanted to talk to me?"

“Yes,” says Ms. Interviewer. “I want to know how you would describe your wife.”

KA shoots me a questioning glance. “It’s OK. Just answer her question,” I tell him.

"OK."

Suddenly, I notice that certain sparkle he gets in his eyes when he's getting ready to mess with someone. I feel the mother of all headaches coming on. . .

“Well, she’s never really written any technical documentation for me, so I don’t know how I can help,” KA says innocently.

“Just tell me what’s she’s like,” Ms. Interviewer coaxes.

“Yeah, well, she’s OK, if you don’t count the week or so around, you know, that time of the month. Then she’s pretty cranky. I even have an alert set up in Outlook to warn me. When it’s time, it pops up with Witch Week. . .”

I kick my husband under the table in an attempt to silence him.

“OW!” he shrugs and shoots me another glance, this one pained rather than confused. But then he winks at me, and I know it's not over yet.

“Interesting. Continue,” says Ms. Interviewer as she inspects her nails.

“She’s an OK cook, and she doesn’t shop too much. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Geez! I’ve got a snowball’s chance in H-E double toothpicks of getting this job,” I think to myself.

“Is there anything else I should know,” says Ms. Interviewer, peering at KA down her thin nose.

“Nah—Wait! Yeah, we’ve been married 15 years,” says KA, his voiced tinged with pride.

I guess he thinks I've endured enough. "How nice!" I think to myself. "That's got to be positive."

“That’s a long time,” says Ms. Interviewer. “That could mean that she’s loyal and dedicated, or too lazy and complacent to change her situation.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” I say, rolling my eyes. “Can’t we get on to my skills?”

“Oh, yes, well, everything seems to be here in your CV. Thanks both of you for coming in. I’ll be in touch. . .”

Back to the real world, over the course of the following few weeks, I managed to get called in for second interviews with the documentation department leads of several of the companies to which I had applied.

“Do you have any questions?” a documentation supervisor asked after he had completed his queries.

“Yes, I do. How would your wife describe the documentation department?”

About six weeks after my arrival in Sweden, Stockholm lay tightly encased in a solid block of winter. For two Southern Californians whose idea of a bitter winter was a little rain and some early morning frost on the front lawn, this was like an arctic adventure. The most fascinating of our new experiences were the frozen waterways that now connected the 14 or so islands of Stockholm into one unified land mass. Here’s what happened when my husband, KA, and I encountered this frozen phenomena up-close for the first time.

KA: Can you believe all of that is actually frozen?

Karen: Yeah, It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? The most ice we’d ever seen in one place was floating in a margarita glass in California.

KA: Mom’s fridge used to ice up pretty good before they came out with those frost-free jobs.

Karen: I guess we need to alter our definition of ice. This is really something!

KA: Look! There’s footprints! People have been walking out there!

Karen: What!? Yeah, I see them. . .how can they possibly know it’s safe?

KA: No idea. Look, there’s people out there right now!

The two ice virgins stare in amazement as a cross-country skier glides past a couple of ice pedestrians who are approaching from the other side of the water way.

KA: Wanna try it?

Karen: You’re kidding, right?

KA: Yeah, maybe. . .

KA’s suggestion hangs like a cloud of breath in the cold air for the next ten minutes as the two continue to watch in a mild state of shock as perfectly sane-looking people step out on to the ice, apparently oblivious to the imminent danger of breaking through, the ice closing over them like the lid of a vast marble tomb, and drowning and freezing. Or maybe freezing and drowning. What difference did it make? They’d be Swedecicles just the same.

KA: Would you look at that—that woman is out there with a baby carriage!

Karen: I thought Sweden had pretty strict child abuse laws. How can she do that?

KA: If a lady with a baby thinks it’s OK to go out there, it’s probably OK. I mean, these people have grown up with this, right? Shouldn’t they be able to tell if it’s safe?

Karen: What are you saying?

KA: Lets try it! We can walk exactly where everyone else is walking.

Karen: Forget it!

KA: Come on! It’ll be fine.

Karen: I can’t swim.

KA: Yes, you can, and besides, I’ll bet you’d freeze to death before you had a chance to do much swimming.

Karen: That’s supposed to make me wanna do this?

Another ten minutes ticks away while KA puts forth his most eloquent arguments in favor of them taking a walk on the hardened water. Karen finally relents.

Karen: OK! OK! Let’s just stay near other people, alright?

They step out gingerly onto the snow-covered ice and walk a few meters.

Karen: Ooh! It’s so. . .solid!

KA: I certainly hope so!

Karen: Look here! The wind has blown the snow away. You can see the ice!

They both peer down at the bare patch of ice.

Karen: It looks so black. . . it’s like frozen coffee.

KA: You were expecting it to be crystal clear? The water isn’t crystal clear when it’s not frozen is it?

Karen: No, I guess not. Look at the frozen bubbles and the sea grass and stuff that’s frozen in there. What if you cleared some snow away from the ice and there was a dead, frozen face staring up at you?

KA: Now you’re just scaring yourself. Come on, let’s move on.

They walk the next 25 meters as if making their way through a mine field, when Karen stops abruptly.

Karen: Oh no!

KA: What! What!

Karen: CRACKS!!!

KA: CRACKS???

Karen: CRACKS!!!

KA: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Karen: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Screaming like scared women (one of them actually is a scared woman), the two run for their lives back to the safety of terra firma. Panting from the sprint and from their near brush with cracks, they congratulate each other heartily for their bravery.

Karen: Wow! That was really scary! Did you see how the ice was actually pushed up out there?

KA: Yeah, I saw it. And we were right out there with it!

Karen: Pretty cool, huh?

KA: Yeah, that was something. There’s still a lot of people out there, though. No one else seems concerned that this whole bay is breaking up. . .

It took a couple of question-and-answer sessions with co-workers who knew the nature of ice and were able to convince us that cracks were kosher before we ventured out on to it again. We’ve come a long way since then, and now enjoy ice skating on a lake near our current home on Södermalm. It’s a ploughed track, and the only safety equipment we have are the short ice picks that hang a around our necks like tacky plastic jewellery that we would use to help pull ourselves out in case something happens.

I try not to think too much about why we wear the ice picks, but even when we skate on the man-made, centimeters-deep ice rink at the local athletic field, I’m always tempted to bring them along, just in case.

December 18, 2000. It was late in the evening. The British Airways San Diego to Stockholm flight had landed at Arlanda only an hour before, and now I stood in front of the cold, dented metal door that led to my new home in the Stockholm suburb called Sätra. Beside me in the snow sat two suitcases that held everything I owned. A small metal label was screwed into the door at eye level, but I couldn’t read it. Presumably it was our name, or perhaps it was the apartment number. But it was dark, it was snowing, and I hadn’t been able to find my glasses since I left the States twelve hours and a whole lifetime ago.

I gingerly walked through the snow around to the side of this dilapidated doll house, a journey of only a few steps. I was horrified to find that here, as in the front of the house, there was not a single window. “It gets dark early during the winter months. Maybe Swedes are used to it and light doesn’t mean that much to them,” I rationalized, realizing all the while how stupid that sounded. I looked down at the place where I stood, where just a few meters away my husband was settling up with the taxi driver. Snow-covered asphalt. Not even a hint of yard or a flowerbed around the dismal little building. “This isn’t a house! This is a shed—nothing more than a container with a roof!” I muttered to myself. My heart sank as silently as the snow falling around me while my temper rose hot enough to melt both snow and asphalt. “How could he do this to me?”

It had all been his idea, but I had agreed to it. His desire to move to Sweden, to start a new life, had its roots in an old life: his college internship days in the south of Sweden. Now, twenty years, a wife, a house, and a career later, Sweden called him like a long lost classmate. He sought and was offered a job in Stockholm. The papers that came over the fax machine from his new employer informed us:

You will receive a Swedish residency and work permit within four to six weeks, at which time you are welcome to begin work as soon as you can arrange to travel to Sweden.

“Four to six weeks! That’s not enough time,” I fretted. But it didn’t take four to six weeks. It took two. Two days after that, he was on the plane. He left me a detailed list of what needed to be done to close out our life in the States. “Love you! See you in a month or so,” he said before going through security. And he was gone. Just like that.

“Love you, too!” I said, reminding myself that I had agreed to this. Hadn’t I said that I, too, was ready for a change, something completely different from the town where I was born and raised, and in which I still lived? But did it make sense to want to leave what many considered paradise? My doubts were quickly blown away by a whirlwind of activity: arranging for renters for our house with the property manager and working with her to get the house ready to rent, which meant coming to terms with all that “deferred maintenance” that would have probably continued in perpetual deferment had we not moved. Then there was the furniture, and all of our stuff that didn’t go in the garage sale. Pack it, store it, sell it, donate it, throw it away—everything’s got to go! Shut off electricity, phone, and, for now, feelings. Those would come later, when I said good bye to my mother and friends.

Whenever I felt overwhelmed by it all, my husband would call as if on cue and tell me something about how our new life was going to be. About riding the train to work. About the 18th century office building in which he worked in Gamla Stan. And our new home that a friend had helped him arrange. Each call ended the same. “Remember, you’re moving from a house to an apartment, and you’re going to have to get used to a lot less space.” Through his description, I understood it was a one-room apartment with no separate bedroom, only an alcove for the bed. “Fine!” I said. “I don’t care, I just want to be with you.”

“You will soon,” he said.

Twice a week for each of the four weeks it took me to get ready to leave San Diego, he called. Eight times I heard the same reminder that ended each call. “Remember, you’re moving from a house to an apartment. . .”

“Small-Schmall” I though. “We don’t need so much space.” I pictured a cozy little apartment with those little shelves in front of the windows like I’d seen in other apartments when visiting Sweden, electric advent candles twinkling in front of each window. The floors were inviting, light-colored birch. The alcove had a dainty, lacy curtain to separate it from the rest of the living room.. A small but well-organized walk-in closet, an efficient kitchen, a bare-bones bathroom, and simple, functional IKEA furniture that suited our needs completed the place. That’s all we needed, and that’s how it would look.

The last few days in San Diego were a blur of tears, sad goodbyes to my mom, the rest of my family and friends. I enjoyed what would be my last enchilada dinner for a long while, washing it down with a margarita on the rocks at El Comal, my favorite Mexican restaurant.

And finally I was here in Stockholm, exhausted emotionally and physically, but here. Standing in front of that damned metal door, thinking very unkind thoughts about the man I had so longed to see for the past month.

I heard his footsteps in the snow behind me, and in a fury, I spun around to face him. “How could you!” I screamed. Tears that I could no longer control spilled over onto my face. “How could you ever think I could live here! This is horrible! I’m going home!”

He chuckled.

“You’re laughing at me? Don’t laugh at me! This isn’t funny!”

He chucked again. “You must be really, really tired. Come on,” he said as he strained to lift my bags. “Follow me.”

To my surprise , we walked away from the ugly, squat house to a larger building. We walked through the main entrance, down some stairs to a landing where we were surrounded by three doors. Any of these doors were certainly more inviting than the door I had been standing in front of just moments before. My husband stepped forward to the door on his left and slid a key into the lock. As we stepped inside, it felt as if he had unlocked the apartment I had created in my mind. It was all there—the shelves in front of the windows (Yes! the place had windows!) The wooden floors, the IKEA furniture—everything, except the pretty curtain in front of the alcove. But that could be fixed easily enough. “I love it!” I said, completely forgetting about where I had thought I would be living. I was finally home.

The next day while my husband was at work, I explored the area around my new home. I even took a swing by the squalid little house next to the parking lot. Armed with my glasses and better, albeit fading afternoon light, I fished a pen and a scrap of paper out of my purse and wrote down the Swedish word engraved on the sign on the door.

When I returned to my apartment, I grabbed the hefty Swedish-English dictionary my husband had left on the coffee table and thumbed through the “S” section until I found it:

Soprum [so:prum] soprummet soprum soprummen noun
A room for household garbage.

Oooh! My first blog entry. . .I'm so excited! Let me tell you, I've been a "mind blogger" now for weeks, writing lines and lines of postings in my head, telling stories and lies, trying to get up the nerve to do this. And what is "this," anyway? Well, it's going to be a bit of an experiment. You see, I'd like to tell you stories about things that have happened to me, or maybe explain something that is on my mind.

"Oh yeah?" you say, "Why should I care?" Fair question. Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't.

Let me explain: I make my living as a technical writer, and believe me, no one who reads technical material does it to be entertained. These individuals are usually in some sort of dire straits with the software they have purchased, and are reading the manual because they couldn't guess their way through a process. I always assume that readers of my technical work are in a really grumpy mood, so I try to deliver information that's straight to the point.

This blog is my chance to play, and that's where the experiment comes in. I'm interested in a writing style called "creative non-fiction," and I'd like to practice using it here. Creative non-fiction is the use of writing techniques that fiction writers use applied to non-fiction topics.

So, my aim is to hopefully entertain you a bit by telling you stories about things that have happened to me, pre or post my move to Sweden. I can't promise to write every day, but when I do, I hope you find it a good read. If not, there's millions of other bloggers out there, all of them with a life in progress, too.