The end of summer vacation

Today sitting here and thinking about how much I wish I had a whole week of sunnny warm weather to enjoy.  next week I go back to work, after 6 weeks off.  The idea of all the things I know will hit me the minute I get back has me thinking how nice it would be to just be a stay-at-home mom.  Or do anything other than what I need to do. 
One of my favorite jobs ever was working at Subway as a high school student.  The whole beauty of that job was that you showed up, did the work, and then went home and were free.  The same for waitressing - nice people who weren't trying to stab each other as they climbed the career ladder, just people showing up to get a paycheck, and thus enjoying being with each other while they worked.  Why is it that the more education people get the nastier they become?  Is it too much to ask to just have nice people working together without trying to show each other up?  At the waitress station, if we noticed one of our fellow waiters was falling behind, we would just all pitch in to help them catch up.  I never have noticed that at my current work.

The other thing that was perhaps different was that it was easy enough to just ask each other for help - it went like this, " Hon, I am swamped just now - any chance you could help me by covering drinks for table 7" or some such.  Yet why do we not do that where we are now?  Something like " Hej, I'm drowning in trying to get this project done - any chance you could give me 4 days help in the lab or entering data points?"  Think how nice that would be!!
I think it has to do with prestige.  Waitressing, no matter how hard it was to get the job, no one had pretensions about being a big shot or smart or anything else - we knew we were just there to do the job as best we could and then go home to our real lives.  So maybe that is now going to be my attitude this year at work when I go back - total honesty, niceness, and no pretensions that what I am doing is not something anyone with lungs that function couldn't do.
And I am reminded trying to sit in church today that maybe I am ready to go back to work, before I kill one of my children!

And speaking of summer vacation, we had a crazy one.  Lots of guests.  Above is a picture of my parents and kids on the boat to Astol.  First time they came to visit us since we moved back to Sweden, and absolutely wonderful to have them here!

Culture in France versus Sweden

Just back from a nice mini-vacation in France, and must say that every time I go I am amazed at the difference in cultures!  And I should add, since last time I blogged it was a downer, this one is not.

So here is the first big difference I notice: people in France go and wander around town just to hang out and watch people and say hello.  People in Sweden only go somewhere if they have a specific purpose, function or errand to complete.  This is the first thing that I am amazed at every time - just the simple civility of the French, and the real feeling you get in any town in France of a real community, where people gather in the center, just to drink a cup of coffee and play some boule!

OK, and number two,  I really do think that weather makes a difference.  People in France smile at you and come up and ask how old your children are and tell you they are beautiful.  Even if they don't know you from a stone in the road!  Or it could just be all the good food and wine that makes them smile...

Here's a third one.  I ALWAYS get my hair cut whenever I am in France.  It does not matter where you go there, a teenager or an elder stylist, and I don't speak a word of French, but you always walk out of the salon with a chic appropriate haircut that exactly fits what you described (even if you are only describing in sign language, as I do, because your French is at the level of a 6 month old).

Finally, for some reason, I can eat like a pig in France and still I never gain a pound - ice cream (gelato) 3 times a day and baguettes and cookies and  Orangina and Moule frites, and still no weight gain.  I saw the most CRAZY thing I have ever seen this time on the village street:  a baguette, filled with fried chicken and topped with french fries!  Can you imagine!!??!!  Yet not one of the poeple ordering that sandwich (and there was quite a que) was remotely overweight. 

Seriously, I am going to start pretending I am French soon....

The downside of living in a foreign culture...

Today I am extremely depressed.  Why?  Because even though work is going OK, I have friends at work, and it is finally a sunny day outside, there is no one to share it with.  Living in a foreign culture outside of an expat or missions community it is very very very lonely.  Yes, we have it easier branching over into the culture (especially having a Swedish husband), but the downside is that you belong nowhere.  You live far far away from friends and family, and because you are completely immersed in the culture, you are excluded from the expat communities as well.

In some cultures, this might might be not as big a deal.  Many cultures are very open and welcoming, and there can never be enough excuses to go hang out at the pub/cafe/etc., and everyone is invited along.  But in Sweden unless you have known someone since elementary school you will never be invited in.  Even though I have excellent friends at work, and have lived here since 1998, it is the same.  What makes it worse is that 5 years ago we moved to a different part of Sweden, far from where my Swedish husband grew up.  Which means that we no longer even have his fall-back elementary school friends available.  In 5 years here we have become involved in setting up Sunday school at the local church, I sing in two choirs, we are both active volunteering at the school, my husband is on the church council, we take our kids to sports regularly.  And yet, in all that time we have been invited to someones' home 1 time.  In 5 years.

We have, in fact, had many people over many times, so we are trying.  But this is Swedish society.  It is very lonely, and no one invites in outsiders.  And you are an outsider if you did not grow up in the community, if your grandparents are not within 10 minutes drive, and if you have no school friends around.  And definitely if you are a foreigner. 

And so living in Sweden is very lonely.  When I have a hard day, I have no one to call.  I don't have a friend to call and say, "Hey, want to go  get a coffee?" when I need a break from the kids / husband/ housework/ job/ garden/ etc.  If I tried I would probably be instantly shunned and marked as "that wierd foreigner", because I don't think even Swedes do that with each other.

And thus, I am a bit depressed today.  The urge to return to the US, regardless of the economic situation, our missions and jobs here and everything else, is overwhelming sometimes.  Just the need to see someone on the street who smiles and says "Hello," even though he or she has never seen you and likely will never see you again, is overwhelming.  My husband, being Swedish, does not understand this need.  If I suggest we perhaps go to town, or at least try to leave the country for a weekend, he looks at me like I am insane, because he thinks everything is all right here, and is raised without the idea that people should smile at each other and get to know new people throughout life.

It is a very tough environment, and I sometimes wonder if it will end up crushing me.

Temptation

This last Sunday in church the message was on temptation.  I know that as I listened I had a sudden epiphany, which I planned to blog about.  The only problem is that for the life of me I can't remember what it was.

Valla kyrkan, Tjorn

Anyway, after church service I sat with Elias for another 10 minutes in the church.  He can't seem to ever sit still during a service.  He is like a volcano in 900 pound boots stomping throughout, and making so much noise during the service.  And while no one ever says anything, it seems important to me that he learn to be still and just listen and wait quietly.  So we practiced sitting still together after everyone left the sanctuary.  Because to me it is important, whether my children grow up believing or not, that they learn to show respect to their surroundings.

The thing is, that those 10 minutes sitting together in silence in the church were probably more meaningful for both him and me than the whole service that went before.  He sat well.  We talked a little about what one can do during the service to keep focused.  I remembered counting the lights in the ceiling and the boards in the ceiling when I was a kid.  I encouraged him to do simililar things.  And we got to talking about our church, Valla Kyrkan.

The church we go to was built in 1648, before the US even existed as a political state.  And it is beautiful and well built and large and many things are ornate and covered in gold.  And to me this is the real meditation I sneak too whenever I can't focus on the sermons, that people hundreds of years ago, with none of our modern technology, could and did take the time and money to build such a beautiful building.  There are many traditional handcrafted elements in our church, including the toll painting and carved ships and everything.  And while we don't know the names of who made these things, the fact that they took the time and the care to do so, when it was in no way easy, strikes me with awe everytime I look at it. 

The catechism (which I never learned as a child) says that the reason we exist is to glorify God.  This last Sunday with my 6 year old we sat there and could see the evidence of people glorifying God, going beyond their normal ability to make something bigger than themselves, but together as a community. And I can say that as we discussed it and looked around, and sat quietly, it felt like he began to understand what going to church is about.

Original altar at Valla Kyrka, courtesy of Creative Commons

I wonder sometimes if there is not something to the idea of a temple, of a special place that is not a strip-mall church being rented for the sake of expediency, or a tent carried around in the desert.  In our haste to do what is easy, what is quick, do we lose site of what is important?  God is certainly not in the building.  But perhaps the building of temples is necessary more for ourselves than for God.  To learn to show some respect, both for God and our own sake.
And maybe that is the big temptation we all have every day.  To not take the time.  To choose the quick and easy over the meaningful.  To not show the respect to ourselves, others, and our God, that they all deserve.

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Learning how to send childrens snacks when living in a foreign country

I live in Sweden.  I have now lived in Sweden for approximately 12 years, with a brief break back in the US in the early part of this century.  I even have dual Swedish and American citizenship now!  Yet, despite this, I still seem to fail at basic things such as packing a childrens lunch for a school field trip.

The normal note comes home: on such and such a day the whole school will be going to a science museum for the whole day.  Please pack a nutricious lunch and snack to send with your child.

Now, when I think nutricious I think sandwich, carrot sticks,, a small bag with half a cup of potatoe chips, a banana and one homemade oatmeal raisin cookie.  And water to drink.  Could anyone do any better??  To up the nutricious, I actually made a vegetarian sandwich on homemade wheat bread, with avacado, tomatoe, lettuce, onions, etc. etc.  (Those years in high school working at Subway really paid off practically come motherhood!)

I was thinking I must be about to win the mother-of-the-year award in Sweden.  Instead, my child came home from school in tears, and starving to death.  Why?  His teachers did not let him eat his lunch - because of the cookie!

According to said child, every other child had three items in their lunch and snack: cinnamon buns for snack, Swedish pancakes (like crepes) for lunch, and a drink of saft (like homemade Koolaid).  When I asked the teachers about this, their response was, "Well, that is nutricious." I have cooked all of the above, and there is no way they are more nutricious than the lunch I packed and one cookie.  When I pointed out that it was no nutricious, they shrugged, "Well, it's what we are used to children eating here in Sweden."