A pink glow in the bedroom window. I reach for the watch on the bedside table, and pulling it toward my half-blind eyes, know that I should’t care about the time. But the act is already in motion, I see a number. Its just a number, it can’t take into account the day of week, time of year, my situation or my plans for this day. Time is like a supreme god, sitting outside of the human experience, dictating it.
The sheep are quiet this morning. Last night, two teenaged boys found their way to the pasture and wanted to have a little fun. In unison, they made a bleating noise. Several sheep bleated back. The boys giggled, and that’s how I knew they were teenagers. Boyish laughter flecked with masculinity. They made another bleating noise. A moment of silence, and then a sheep responded. This continued on for a while, until the sheep were bored and silent, and the boys tried rousing them with even stranger noises. I didn’t mind at all what they were doing. We used to do the same thing as kids. We did worser things, actually. We would wait until the cows had fallen asleep and then charge through the field and push them over. Cow-tipping, that’s what we called it.
I had the back door open last night, trying to stave off a sweat. There was wind, but it crawled and wheezed through the summer sky. A thousands crickets, or cicadas, I’m not sure which, were screaming in the grass. No matter where I am in this world, they always remind me of home.
I am staying in a new place this week, though something about it feels incredibly familiar. It is a family home. It raised two children who now have their own lives in different countries. The parents are still here, one is retired and likes to bike, the other is still teaching at the university and writing novels. Their house isn’t tidy, its not fresh. It is filled with stuff and covered in stains. It is well-lived in.
Just beyond the sheep pasture is a large lake called Brunnsviken. I’ve walked around it twice now. The first time, I wasn’t sure if it was even possible, and after walking 12 km, I considered turning around. What if the lake funnels into the sea and I am stuck on the wrong side of home?
But curiosity kept me going. Already, I’d seen several beaches, where clothes hung on currant trees and women laid topless across the sand, their breasts heavy with heat. I’d scraped along the the face of a rock. Gathered wild blueberries until my hands were stained red. Discovered the estate of Crown Princess Victoria. And an elaborate Chinese temple. I’d followed a tree-lined path that gradually became pure forest. Just a thick underbrush of ferns. And trees that grew taller and taller until they were towering over me. I felt like an ant. Never in my life have I been in the presence of such giant trees. I’ve always wanted to walk through the Redwood Forest, and one day I will, but I wonder if it’ll feel like this.
“Beware of ticks,” the house owner warned me just a few days earlier. Her grave voice rang in my ears: “You do know about the ticks, don’t you?” Of course I do. Swedes talk about them a lot, and admittedly, the idea of a tick burrowing itself into my skin almost turned me around. But with the trees stretching into the clouds, long sun rays falling through them and scattering like gold dust across the fern undergrowth, the forest noises, and tiny white butterflies flickering around - it was all too beautiful, I had to keep going.
Eventually I made it around Brunnsviken. All the sadness and stress I’d left the house with had disappeared into the 16 km behind me. I was tired and dirty, but somehow, restored. I came inside, turned on a Rat Pack album that I’d seen earlier, and went straight to the shower.
There’s no hair dryer in this house, I discovered afterward. No straightening iron. No products. So I did something that I have never done before: I twisted my wet hair into one long braid, just like my mother did when I was young. My hair was too unruly to be left alone. Wild hairs, stubborn, restless, too curious for her own good - this is how she described me to her friends.
But that was decades ago, and things have changed. Now when people ask about me, she tells them where I am and what I’m doing. Usually, they cannot even fathom it. Where I am is a long way from south Alabama. Then, without any of her old vexation, my mother simply tells them, “You know she’s always been my free spirit.”
I’m not sure what she means by that, to be honest. What exactly am I free from? Not home, not work. Not chores, practicalities, and responsibilities. Not family or friends, colleagues or clients. Not loss. Not pain. Not fear. I have many fears. Many more questions. I have demons. I have dreams. I have high expectations. Wrong assumptions. Limited resources. Limited perspective. My hair is still unruly, and I can only see it as a burden. What does it mean to have a free spirt?
Lately, my spirit has felt lost. Yearning for home, yet utterly incapable of saying where home might be. After this week, however, alone, in this family house, in a little town outside of Stockholm that reminds me of the place where I grew up, a deep reverence and childlike curiosity for life has awakened in me. Its something I’ve always had and may never outgrow.
Home is right here, I’m beginning to realize. It is a place inside of me.
* “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” by Henry David Thoreau
Posted at 12:15am and tagged with: one column,.
