Peace at the Grave, llvl

My Swedish sisters like to tell the stories about Deb’s funeral, which they attended, and John Johnson’s funeral, about which they’ve only heard (and gaped in astonishment!). No one dances in the aisles or blows ashes up in watermelons in Sweden… it’s a shame, really. Because lives are pretty wonderful things and should be celebrated.

But they get the courtesies right. They bring a flower to the funeral and take it forward to place it on the coffin and say thank you and goodbye to their dear friend.

And when people are dead, they visit the graves.

All my Swedish Moms are dead now. I’ve had three who really took me under their arm and one who was always generous and welcoming. Each time I arrived in a town where one of those mothers was buried, there was always an excursion to visit the grave. This is the first time I’d ever been able to visit any of these graves, except for Lorraine’s Mom…

But off we went. And it felt wonderful to be able to say Goodbye and Thank you and tenderly touch the flowers placed on the grave.

Death. It’s just one part of the journey. But the grief of losing gives way to the joy of having had, and then it’s important to tell the stories and dance and laugh. Because just like Love, and Laughter and Peace, Death is… Life is not as sweet without it.

Peace’s Slow Goodbye, llvl

Goodbye. Such a hard word. Such a hard thing.

And at the end of such a long and luxurious trip, you’re tempted to sneak off, to end it before the end — as if that wouldn’t hurt as well, as if it’s a good thing to mask your feelings.

I’ve always felt the pull of the quick exit, although I’m pretty good at not actually giving into that seductive pull.

Life is short. Pleasures are fleeting. And to give up any piece of it is to cheat yourself and to cheat life. You can’t count your blessings if you just blow by them!

So, off we go to Gothenburg, and three fun-filled days with dear dear friends… My job is to be present to every last drop of sweetness… Every last moment of Peace. Because this particular Peace will have to last me a good long while… I want to cram in every bit… Because as soon as we get home, there’s the Peace of home that will want attention. Peace be with us all…

Pretty Peaceful Swimming, llvl

Nope, we’re going in. Lorraine’s Law. And friends go along if doesn’t mean jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Even at 62, there you go along. It’ll be a while before I have the chance again.

um, whee? Clambering across algae covered boulders and stones, please, no slip-sliding awy… trying to get out to where you’re at least knee deep, so you can turn around, squat until you’re immersed and push off. oh, ok, whee! indeed, whEE!

It’s not as if it’s ever a real hardship to swim and giggle in the water, and by now I’m almost adept at the whole changing under the towel thing… this was NOT a day to push the “I’ll just sit here in my wet bathing suit and dry off thing”… brrrrrrrrr. barely 60 degrees, but we did it! And then there was ficka: tea or coffee, your choice and for each of us, a baked good of choice. I ALWAYS choose cinnamon roll, unless of course there’s something with almond paste… (no almond paste today, they’re moldy… bah!)

But it was a rewarding, wonderful moment of Peace, sitting under the Picasso sculpture on the shores of the lake… goodbye, lovely lake. goodbye, lovely swim. goodbye, lovely i’ll do it if you do it Peace… goodbye, lovely sacred prayer of Life…

It’s summer and we were swimming and that’s the way it is.

Lasting Peace, llvl

I do tend to wax eloquent about Sweden. It’s beautiful. And when you’re visiting, it’s easy to see what works and not what doesn’t. There’s loads to write about what doesn’t… And I will eventually, when I get home and I’m doing more than just hanging out in the beauty.

But oh, the Beauty. And as I’ve said, it’s not just the beauty but the fact that people take time to enjoy it. So here’s this beautiful little chapel with all sorts of odd instruments and old church altar implements turned museums. So many of the churches here have lots more people visiting the beautiful antiquities than they do people worshiping.

Being happy in your friends’ company also tends to make the lens softer. So there we were, riding out to visit some of their past, some of which i share, on a day when the sun was dancing in and out of the clouds. We’d have a quick shower and then it would pour in the shining sun, and then it was just a simple breezy sunlit day again. Summer in Sweden. The hay fields were newly mown and there were these huge round bales waiting to be wrapped in plastic for the winter. It’s damp here, so the trees are green and gardens are fertile. The houses are dark red or gold with sparkling windows trimmed in white.

Really, it’s sort of storybookish. And that’s ok with me. It’s a Peace that claims the land and then fills us. Any different than the Peace we’re flooded with when you drive to Penn State along those farm-filled Valleys? Not at all. It’s simply a different landscape. This one has claimed a piece of my heart. And isn’t that grand. The Peace will be here long after I leave, this time and forever.

No Peace in Depression, llvl

As everyone, I’ve been thinking a lot about Robin Williams. Not so much about his comedy, but more about his life. He was hilarious… and manic. Whew. his picture’s probably beside the world. I always felt that when he played the genie, that he finally was released from the bodily confines and that had to be amazing for him.

He was so much more than his addictions and his depression. Everyone is. But in the end, he couldn’t access the support he needed. How very, very sad.

For many of us on FB and I’m sure everywhere else, it lead us to reflect on our encounters with depression… and every other mental illness and brain illness in the book. My lovely, loving WASPy family couldn’t/wouldn’t understand that Mental Illness is illness. So we didn’t talk about things. And when Mom got Dementia, that was another opportunity not to talk about things.

We lost so much. And because so few people were willing to get help either chemical or conversational, we lost even more. As the wacky, too emotional New York/California daughter, my ideas about therapy were sniffed at.

And let’s not even talk about the alcohol. It was easier not to know my mom’s side of the family… and not to talk about the alcohol… So there they are… dead from the silence and their deep pain. And when I say silence, i mean unwillingness to be present, to process, to reflect.

So… let’s get educated about Mental Illness… Let’s find our own therapists and help our friends get the help they need. I was pleased and grateful to see Laura Campbell’s clear and thoughtful piece on WNEP. All of us would do well to have the suicide prevention hotline’s # somewhere available. 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Depression is a widespread issue… and requires better care than advice about bootstraps. Deb Slade’s rainy day photo with a fallen blossom is a wistful accompaniment.

Silence in this case does not hold Peace.

Neither Here nor There Peace, llvl

Swedish Summer has reverted back to its more normal up, down, little of this, little of that. (I’m trying not to feel too guilty that I sent my fleece jacket home… can it be my fault? Aren’t I the center of the universe?) At least, and Hallelujah, the horrible forest fire has finally been brought under control.

But for me the point about this weather… about any weather really, it is what it is. No, I’m not jumping in the lake every day. My astonishing tan, despite loads of #70, is fading… but I’m hanging with dear, dear friends and making space in my brain. Sometimes even using my brain.

My honey’s in CA with our family and his music. That’s pretty great. That’s a lot of Love. Love I can’t believe I’ve fallen into.

And if I were so full of hubris as to name all this bounty simply good enough, shame on me! My life is pretty damned fabulous even in this in-between weather in this state of leaving a Paradise I’ve visited and coming home to the Paradise I inhabit.

There’s so much turmoil in the world. Things are truly horrible. These problems are far greater than I can impact directly. Far greater than I can reason out — if you can reason out hatred… I’m trying very hard to remember that I can grieve, pray, and get to work at home. Get to work loving. Get to work helping. Get to work on my work, on being the best Ann… not just the resting Ann.

And so the transition. From here to there which will soon be here. Being present is actually a slow and fluid process… this particular here is so precious and so seldom shared with my friends, it takes time to disentangle and time to become the woman enrapt and rapped in her sacred, mundane life. Who cares if it’s cloudy or sunny? Love is. Peace is. And both will be as we believe they matter…

Today I get another picture from Deb to lure me home… that’s pretty sweet. Tomorrow you get it!

Your Peace and Mine, llvl

I love Sweden. I fell in love in 1969 and that sweet love has never been dislodged from my heart. I have 45 years of friendships that have become “family” connections. The language has a special place in my soul and on my tongue. The countryside is gorgeous and people here know how to sit and just take that in. Summer is short, but vacations are long and so are the days. Swedes do what they can to enjoy every minute, and this year, summer cooperated with warm, sunny weather. I spent more time sitting and looking at scenery with a cup of tea or a glass of wine in my hand than I have since I left here four years ago.

The things they fret about with their social system are things we would be so happy to have. When I talk about what I’m working on with feeding hungry children, they look at me as if we’re barbaric. Children are fed and housed. There’s public transportation. They’re the world’s standard for low use of antibiotics in animals, both in pets and meat production. They don’t use dyes in food. Even their toilet paper isn’t bleached. There’s so much going for it, and I love how I feel when I’m here. And goodness knows, there are those friends.

There’s a place for me on many a sofa, but in the end, it’s a visitor’s place.

I have often fantasized about living here. Early in my life, I applied for a job as a secretary. (Boy, are they lucky they didn’t choose me, I was a lousy secretary in English.) Yesterday, with my friends off moving their kid to his new house, I checked to see how alive that fantasy was. You know… not very. I’m not only missing my husband, I’m missing his music and the community gathered around it. I miss my friends and the life we lead. I know the rhythms in this household very well, but they’re not mine. And I miss my work. I miss the joy of it, the challenge of it, and the pieces that make a difference.

Retreat and respite are lovely. I’m not looking forward to leaving, to opening my arms and letting these good friends step back. It’s so hard not knowing when I’ll get back. I know how privileged I am to have them at all. But it doesn’t make it easy to go, however excited I will be to have you all back in my life. I’m not really even anticipating coming home. But it has popped up in my mind, finally, that I will be going home and it will be fabulous.

In the meantime, I will keep enjoying Swedish Peace, drinking in every last jot of its beauty. I will also remember that it’s not my Peace — or perhaps that it’s not all my Peace. The full hearts of global citizenship have to be balanced with the knowing and the missing of friends and traditions… and you know me… food. Here’s to celebrating the Peace of each place and finding that Peace which calls our hearts most deeply. Here’s me, giving thanks.

Slow Sabbath Peace, llvl

Yesterday was a slow day for me. And today will probably be as well. I had one of those 24 hours things… and so I crept around the edges of the the exuberant life being celebrated in the rantala-sundberg house… and slept.

I’m not used to a house full of boys in the best of circumstances, but feeling lousy in the face of this coming and going meant that i just put my head down. An amazing thing, sleeping the day away.

Today, everyone’s off… Lorraine and Kjell are taking their younger son back for his second year of school. Older son’s taking the bus back home and I? am going to have this whole gray quiet Sunday to myself. Lungn o Ro… Peace and quiet! Gathering things together if my mind works…

Pretty darned lovely! Time to get ready for my last lovely week in Sweden.

Hope that your Sabbath is filled with slow and lovely times… and Peace.

Peace Traditions, llvl

It’s the little things. It’s the places you go and the people smiling across the table at you. At Taco Friday, it certainly isn’t the food, although that was fine. But it was sitting in the sun — at six-thirtyish at this point in August, it’s really still pretty high in the sky.

It’s the friends. And the fact that we’re doing it again. Just like we did four years ago… or six years ago or…

This is what makes the oh-so-mundane sacred. If you’re going to have traditions, you have to step up, show up, something up… and care for them and for the connections that make them sweet.

Peace takes tender overtures, but it also requires continuing to show up… and sometimes it’s right in front of your face!

Peace Thinking, again, llvl

It’s been interesting to look at my life that is so luxurious in love at the same time the world is blowing up in hatred. I don’t know how to bottle this feeling or calibrate it so that others could understand, I just know (believe?) that openness to intimate relationships lessens our openness to hatred. I know for me it heightens the need to participate in some ameliorating of the problems…

My friend, father Kerry, posted a picture today of a man receiving 450 lashes in Saudi Arabia for the crime of being gay. We shudder in horror, but don’t make sure our PA state government (and your state’s government?) pass simple non-discrimination bills that would provide safety in work and home. We watch in pity on Facebook as an 8th grader posts one of those index card videos talking about cutting himself or committing suicide because he’s being bullied for being gay, but aren’t actively involved in anti-bullying programs at home. Wonder how we pray with our lives… and what our prayers should be.

It’s hard to take these painful thoughts and mix them into my vacation thoughts. I needed this break, I’m not apologizing, even to myself, for having taken it. I can feel a natural ending as I begin to long to write and return to my work… although as was obvious from my progress yesterday, not too much… I love that Facebook keeps me aware of your lives if not actually in them. I cherish this precious time with friends here… and love that this Saturday’s moon will shine on us all.

Blessings and Peace be with us all.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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