Speaking of falling in love with my hometown. Yeah, it’s a little ridiculous. And this is something I could only do online. I am shy enough not to want to present my city to strangers in real life.

1. May I share a photo of the town.



You see the larger, white building with some black stripes . It’s the relatively new culture house. A radio show described that building as “brave”, that made me think about how words are used. One time dad called me and said he was “very sick”. I’m sure he was feeling really crappy, but he had a cold, he was 68 years old and I worked in administration at a radiation clinic. Yeah, sometimes “sick” means a cold, sometimes an aggressive brain tumour. Sometimes “brave” means sailing a destroyer loaded with explosives into a drydock, sometimes it means deciding what building should be the culture house. No, the thing I really thought about was that the building is mimic a birch. In Graz, Austria, there’s an art-house, Kunsthaus, that also mimics nature. It’s called “Friendly alien”, but kind of looks like an internal organ.



Modern architecture sometimes mimics nature. (Both pics are from wikimedia)

2. One thing is that the town has always been growing. We have always had construction sites around us. Early I learned that the only thing constant in the town was change. Just like in the world. A lesson as good as any lesson one can get from one's home. Anecdote about the growth. In school we every Friday had two pupils presenting what had happened in the world that week. If I remember correctly, one Friday the two girls presenting the news, among other things said the town that week had passed 100 000 citizens. Then, the very last thing they said was something like this: “and we have to mention that OJ Simpsons was found ‘not guilty’”. So now you know when we passed 100 000 citizens. Today we have 136 000. The goal is 200 000. It is not the fastest growing place in the world. But it is enough to have constant change. Then nothing grows forever, and if one dare to call this a “golden age” for the town, golden ages certainly don’t last forever. It’s possible that the town will turn into Detroit, in my lifetime.

3. I recently read a children's-book, because it takes place in my town. It just takes place in  different time, during the years 1885-88. I got the book as a gift but I have had that book standing on the book-shelf since 2008. The book is named Frida och Folke, meaning "Fridan and Folke". Now I have read it. Kind of charming. I am actually going to take the liberty to write down stories from the book.

Two children, one girl, Frida, and one boy, Folke, are six years old at the start of the book and are the best of friends. And they have a magical childhood. In one story they met a thief. They offer him pastry - made from cloudberry jam, cream and crusts - show him empathy - "Poor Mr thief who did not have mom and dad" - and remind him of the seventh commandment - the not stealing one. Whereupon the thief returns the stolen kitchen silver and takes a job as a navvy instead. In another story an old lady lives alone in a dilapidated mansion, they meet her after trying to steal bird-cherries from her garden. After their visit and after the grownups gave her some food, she decides that the money she has saved in themselves has no value, and that she should turn her mansion into an orphanage or old age home. So they note that the portions of food they gave to the lady, will feed thousands of mouths. Just like five loaves and two fish did ... There’s a third Bible reference, the girl one day complains about having to eat potatoes and fried herring. So she’s send to school without breakfast. That day she end up being involved at helping a little girl after an accident. We learn the girl comes from a poor family, who have nothing to eat but waffles made from cold barley porridge. This is 63 degrees north, the summers are too short for wheat, it’s barley territorium. Frida is hungry, no breakfast, and compares herself with the son of a rich man in a Bible story. The son who partyed his money away and had to take a job feeding pigs, despite being jewish, and being so hungry he would have eaten pig feed. She too came from richens, but now so hungry she would gladly have eaten barley waffles. Perhaps the best of the non magic cute things in the book was that six year old Frida thought her brother must start painting her hair black. Frida wanted to work as a cleaner on the passenger boats going to Stockholm. But she, for some reason, thought her red hair should prevent her from getting that job. Yep, I think it's still the law: "No boat under the Swedish flag should employ any person belonging to our eternal enemies - the Danes and the Catholics -, nor any redhead".

Then absolutely last. The book ends 1888. I’m going to assume you don’t know why that year is important. That year the day after midsomer day, the town burned down. Luckily no one was killed, but a majority of the inhabitants became homeless.

Mom pointed out that two good things about this town might be related. One we have low spread of the novel coronavirus. Two, we are the largest town in Sweden without what the police calls “vulnerable areas”, or even “particularly vulnerable areas”. If you get your news from RT or that site on B who’s name I never will learn, that’s the neighborhoods they call: “no go zones”. The problem with a name like that is that someone like me might say: “While I admit it was a long time since I visit any of those, I have the last years met quite a lot of persons who lives or works in those areas, and none of them has been lynched for being Swedish - not even once”. The problem with that is that smart people might say something like this: “The important thing isn’t to debate what name we should call whose neighborhoods, the important thing is to debate how we can improve those neighborhoods. Most people living there don’t like having that much crime around them.”

Anyway, what mom said simply was that the fact we don’t have any poor neighborhood with high overcrowding might have helped us keep the covid-19 infections down. Now that can not be the only explanation, there are smaller towns without vulnerable areas, that have higher mortality than us. Maybe we’re just lucky.

Then, for what it’s worth, our largest morning paper - that in it’s editorial articles has been very “hawkish” against the pandemic and pro draconian laws - reported that Sweden last year had one of the lowest excess mortality in Europe. So having one of the lowest infection rates in Sweden, must also mean among the lowest in Europe. We’re so lucky.

Ps. about the last, I have no problem adding the caveat that the data might not be 100% correct. And sure the pandemic has lead to much suffering here, it's however looks like many places with harsher laws are doing even wrose.

So both my sisters and their family have been in town. My old BiL asked if I wanted to follow him on a hunting trip. Sit in a hunting tower and wait for an animal for him to shot. At least I think that’s how hunting work. My younger BiL told me I should say yes, but he also said it’s boring. Mixed messages? Perhaps it is like this, there he comes from, at least if you're a man, the rule is always follow with on hunting trips if you're asked. (There he's from is Tornedalen, the border between Sweden and Finland.) Lets see how I do.
Now, I have been spending more time in the forests than I have done in a long time. Mostly with my sisters and their families. Almost noteworthy, last time sister B was looking for mushrooms while older BiL shoot in his rifle. Hunting and gathering.

I also happened to read this: Why forests and rivers are the most potent health tonic around. The writer write some anecdotes of miraculous health improvement under hiking trips. THe article argue that both somatic and psychological it’s great to be outdoors. Now, as a kid I was a lot in nature. Still life wasn’t that easy. Was that because our forests wasn’t good enough, or was that because I was bullied and had an undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder? Probably the second one right? I’m not saying that nature don’t have healing powers, or that’s not important to visit nature. Hey I’m Swedish, they sometimes says that we worship nature. That when people in other cultures have a life changing experience like getting a cancer diagnosis, they goes to a churts, a mosque, a temple... while Swedes goes out in nature. All I’m saying is, don't’ oversell the health effects of hiking. People could have problems not solved by hiking.

The article actually made me look back and wonder: “was my autism the same during those years then we there visiting the forest like every weekend? Or is it something I got the years I stayed indoors all weekend?” Well, back then I had a very autistic special interest in environmental issues. Making me think I could have some “connection” to Greta Thunberg, she has the same diagnose and I too was worried about the environment already as a kid. And here I can write that sister B said she won't eat any meat except for game meat. Partly inspired by Greta. Then she, B not Greta, bought some expensive souvas burger. Souvas, being smoked reindeer surprisingly taste similar to bacon and is climate friendly. Reindeers eat lichen and turn it into meat.

And that’s right, since I mentioned Tornedalen. In a novel that take place in Tornedalen one guy cure his hangover by running over a swamp, holding weight in his hands. Swamps are definitely found in nature. So, that’s the healing power of nature.

I read that in some US TV-shows characters says “balls” when they really mean the F-word. So with that in mind. The fucking climate today, I mean the balling climate today. One day it could be -24 C (-11.2 F) and you think: “Just like in the old days, I probably used to ride my bicycle to school when it was like this”. Then within 48 h it’s raining and +5 C (41 F). Depressing. 

In the local mall I just saw on a screen that they have a free workshop for making your own finger spinners. On the screen one saw the spinners was partly made of wood, it must be some woodwork involved. So since that’s one of several things that’s organized in my neighborhood this summer, is this the time I should write how wonderful my immigrant's/student's neighborhood is? They organize things like that. Here there I a magic light summer night can take a walk and see both girls in hijabs playing football and students grilling pork and drinking beer? And there we have two middle eastern shops and one Chinese shop.

Or that should be quixotically, and I think I use the word right. But I have honestly never seen anything bad here. And the only political graffiti I have seen has been Socialistic, not Islamistic. Haha. Or to talk about something else, finger spinners is this summer what Pokemon go was last summer? In Venice I took a photo of finger spinners since I thought it was such a “time marker”, is that the right words?