Monday, March 13, 2006
First Night in Stockholm
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.
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.
# posted by Karen @ 2:00 PM 
