I Kid You Not

The weather swapped back up to 12 whole, positive degrees today! (54°F for American readers.) Yesterday I was freeing my ass off at work, and succeed to walk home through the ice cold rain, until my thighs were actually chilled to the bone, red pants penetrated through and through by the run-off water from my amazing, make-shift, trash-bag raincoat that I'd crafted at work because I'd forgotten my real one. The cold sucked all of the energy out of my system so that the minute I got home, I took a shower with water as hot as it gets and then curled myself up under the comforter in my warmest hoodie and a wool hat. I lay there shivering and hoping I wouldn't get a fever, although I think I did for the evening. Anyway, today was completely the opposite. I was almost too warm as shut the apartment building door behind me. Hand warmers instantly came off, same with the hat and the rain jacket. I walked on my way, smiling at myself for the adaptation. Maybe it was the morning yoga that warmed my core up. Or maybe a dementor kissed me on the road yesterday and I failed to notice. It can happen.

My walk to do my errands was mild and pleasant. The word I'm really thinking is "angenämt," which translates to pleasant, but I think that pleasant doesn't do it justice. It's like the nutrients of the word are lost in translation. The basic elements are still there, carbs, fats, a count of calories to give the word some shape and meaning, but the word is stripped of its rare vitamins and you can absolutely forget the taste. Language is just as beautiful as freshly harvested lettuce. Best close to home. One of the missions of my pleasant errands-walk was to visit the library and check out some "Jag vill lära mig Svenska" (learn Swedish) books. It's already amazing how much of the language I understand, but I definitely would like to improve my ability and comfortability in speaking it. And I need to. It's as simple as that.

I had been hoping to attend classes at SFI (Swedish for Immigrants,) —a fine institution, from what I've heard, but I can't actually say, because I haven't been able to attend for lack of a Personnummer (social security number.) Unfortunate, how bureaucracy seems to run in a series of catch-22s. The point of the institution is to educate immigrates in the language, so that they can integrate into the society, find work and work as cogs of the big Swedish work machine. But immigrants have a hard time finding work when they don't speak the language. Without work it is almost impossible to get a personnummer. No work, no Personnummer. No personnummer, no SFI. No SFI, no work. Right.

Well, I'm not going to let the idiotic workings of bureaucracy determine my future, so I am taking matters into my own hands. I try to speak as much Swedish with people as I can, but for me to get my point across it is vital that I include some English words. I watch Swedish TV, eavesdrop on people's conversations, read everything that comes into my sight: milk cartons, lost-dog adds deteriorating on street posts, the newspaper (almost every day), children's books that I've found laying around, and basically everything else that is made up of letters. It really helps. I understand something like 80% of what people are talking about but still, I need to be able to speak as well.

On my way to the library I stopped at the waldorf school and hung up a poster in the kindergarten, advertising as a nanny or babysitter. I thought I'd had enough of that type of work (9 years of official childcare, on top of raising my sister) but seriously, I miss kids so much. I feel like everything about my life has been about children somehow, and the scant 2 year hiatus has left me craving those adorable energy-bombs, bundled up in their rain-gear and topped with unbearably cute, striped hats. I love that Sweden is such a baby country. Children are honored here. Mothers and fathers are honored when they have children. Children are a good thing and having them isn't frowned upon. I feel like all I've heard my whole life is, "don't get pregnant!" (Not that I'm anywhere near considering it) and I've formed such a horrible view of what it means to have kids. Maybe that's a side-effect of my own screwed-up childhood, but nevertheless I think there is some sort of a stigma around having kids, at least at a young age. Anyway, they are cute and I am prone to baby fever on gray days when those striped bundles of laughter and blue eyes are running around and tricycling in front of their sexy Swedish dads. (This country is undeniable sexy and entertaining, but I'm also easily amused and charmed, so yeah..) I made it out of the kindergarten without breaking into cutesy-tears and continued on to the library, smiling and feeling all fuzzy. Jesus! Hormones....

The librarian was a sweet older woman who helped me find some great audiobooks/cds to learn Swedish and then I headed over to the children's book section (duh) because it's the best section in any library. I was after Tove Jansson's books about Mumin (Moomin). I found the first in the series and some others and sat there reading like I did back when I was 10, totally engrossed and off in some other world.

At that age I was the longest bookworm you'd ever find, and I emphatically told my class that I would read every book in our school's library. I'd come home every week with some 50 books crammed into a giant brown paper bag and I'd read them all. That all ended when I moved to Hawaii, and my inspiration dried up like an abused well. Sad, what happens when a place is not conducive to someone's success and they have no choice but to live there. But that's why I'm here. Because remember: location, location, location! I'm inspired and doing things that I haven't done in a very long time. Like reading and writing stories and drawing and making books and rhyming in three different languages and smiling at children for no reason at all.

I think I'll never stop being a child, and yet being an [the] adult seems to be something I've always done. Ironic. Hopefully I can bridge that gap between being a child and having a child with a few nice years of writing children's books sans morning sickness and midnight feedings. Damn, props to all those parents out there for enduring so much, but also "grattis!" for your little be-striped, blonde, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, hatted bundles of joy clonking around in their boots and smiling in wonder at the world.