KNOWING

I’ve always been an avid ABBA fan. Even during the ’80s and ’90s when disco supposedly sucked and a Swedish pop group was deemed too sugarcoated compared to Morrissey and, later, grunge, I had ABBA tunes bopping about in my brain. While songs like “Mamma Mia” and “Take a Chance on Me” were happiness injections, “Knowing Me, Knowing You” had a jarring sadness, a reminder that sometimes a crash follows a sugar rush. The song is especially melancholic for me because, in 1977, I heard a Toronto radio station play it immediately after breaking the news that Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau were separating.

 

Knowing me, knowing you,
There is nothing we can do;
Knowing me, knowing you,
We just have to face it, this time we're through.
Breaking up is never easy, I know, but I have to go.
Knowing me, knowing you, it's the best I can do.

 

For me, there’s something that gets lost in translation regarding the lyrics. Based on my many trips to Sweden, it’s clear the Swedes are remarkably proficient in English, but Duolingo has also led me to believe they’re also big on melancholy. When introducing vocabulary for feelings such as happiness (lycka), anger (ilska) and sorrow (sorg), the language app makes sure a beginning language learner knows “det svenska vemodet” (the Swedish melancholy). I’ve practiced the phrase so many times online but, fortunately, not during visits. If it’s truly a Swedish thing, I suppose that explains why knowing one another can be construed as a sad endpoint.

 

Not being truly Swedish (despite my wishes), I quibble with the sentiment. 

 

Yesterday I woke up, got dressed and grabbed lattes for Evan and me at the café on the corner. The barista was cheery, her tone giving me a lift equal to the anticipated double shot of espresso. I returned to Evan’s home and joined him on the bed, the two of us grabbing our phones to check news, messages and pics of acquaintances posing by Trevi Fountain, smiling while having a pint at a pub or showing the carnage remaining from a chew toy a beloved pooch destroyed in record time. 

 

Monday, Schmonday. It would be a good day.

 

Then I saw the subject line of an email from a family member and I knew the good in the day was gone. I read the email aloud and Evan knew this too. He hugged me, he helped me take regular breaths. Deep breathing wasn’t possible, but the goal was to guide me past an anxiety attack when air seemed entirely unavailable, when crashing to the floor and flailing would scare us both. 

 

It doesn’t matter what was in that email. What matters is Evan knew why it would be so significant. He knew his steadiness would help see me through. He knew what to say, what not to say. He knew me.

 

The previous morning, he’d awakened to his own uncertainties, his mind stuck in the clutter. I listened as he unpacked many topics. I listened and waited for my moment. I empathized. I related my own connections. I offered what I could in terms of hope, encouragement and maybe a small step or two forward. It helped him recall one of his favorite expressions: “You eat a whale one bite at a time.” (Never mind that I’m a staunch vegetarian and the image can be rather frightful; I imagine an extra-large bowl of fettuccini with marinara sauce. Yes, then, one bite at a time.) He startled me later that day when he thanked me for being there and being a support. It had all felt so natural. I guess I just knew what he needed.

 

After twenty months together, we’ve reached a state of knowing one another. We’ve experienced challenges as a couple and as individuals who can lean on and learn from one another. 

 

Once I’d tackled the initial drama from the email, Evan listened to a phone conversation while in another room. When it ended, he was by my side again, listening, validating, just checking in. I’m an exercise fanatic and Monday is the day I allow my body to recover, but he said, “You need to go for a run.” My mind might have spun more on the email, on the subsequent conversation, on the possible future dramas that could play out in the coming days, weeks and maybe—dear god—years. He knew that sort of “spin class” could wait.

 

Just run. 

 

One of his favorite observations: “You’re always happier after a run.” (No carnivorous reference in that statement, whew.) 

 

I ran; he did yoga. Then he made a gourmet lunch—shakshuka, his plate with an egg on top, mine without, everything flavored with the right spices and the perfect heat level. It was another form of knowing, our sit-down meal as intimate as anything we’ve experienced together.

 

Sorry...I can't explain it.

It was clear the day was a write-off in terms of my writing goals. I packed up my car and made the three-hour drive back to Vancouver which always takes me between five and six due to fuel stops (gas and caffeine) and grocery searches for items I can’t get in Canada. (Bean dip is a guilty pleasure dating back to days of watching televised football games in Texas. (Everything about the preceding sentence sounds so foreign!)) 

 

When I walked in my condo, there was a message from Evan, checking in, and then a FaceTime call so he could see me and confirm I was all right. Yes, the guy knows my fake smile, knows when my voice inflections are off and knows how the slightest diversion of the eyes belies any indication of thumbs up. I’ve always known I have no poker face but, damn, that guy has a way of going beyond calling my bluff.

 

Yes, he knows me. I know a thing or two about him, too.

 

When I hear that ABBA line, “Knowing me, knowing you, it’s the best I can do,” I feel that’s the ultimate. 

 

Melancholy, schmelancholy.

 

     

 

   

OH, SWEDEN!

I’ve spent the past month living another life. After two prior week-long visits to Stockholm in less than two years, I decided to experiment with a longer stay. Would the enchantment of this gorgeous city hold up or would I get Stockholm out of my system, once and for all?

Just as I feared, the conclusion is, Jag vill bo i Sverige (I want to live in Sweden). Yes, this could be the place for me. My mind is set on moving...eventually

My first night involved a final to-do as a tourist: I stayed at trendy hotel co-owned by one of the Bennys from ABBA. It overlooked a favorite place here, the lovely fountain-adorned square known as Mariatorget where I’d strolled through almost daily on past visits to walk an extra block to my regular writing haunt, Drop Coffee. After one night of indulgence, I settled in for a more realistic experience in the same area in an Airbnb apartment with two locals. As with other Swedes I’ve met, they were cordial and obliging, but we gave each other our own space, just as I like it. Perhaps it’s a missed opportunity, but we won’t become pen pals or even “friends” on Facebook. It’s exactly what I expected. I never wanted to be chummy in the place where I’d crash at the end of each busy day cramming in slices of Stockholm life.

This is part of one of my favorite 

running routes.  

So how did I spend my time? Typically, I awoke each morning and set out for a jog on a route along a waterway. Water makes me feel at peace and, being as this is a city of islands, I had plenty of choice in planning various running journeys, revisiting favorites from previous trips and discovering several new routes. None disappointed.

After showering and some internet updates, I spent the rest of each morning writing in cafes, the aforementioned Drop Coffee as well as Johan & Nyström, both a short stroll from my Airbnb, before trying out others farther afield. At Johan & Nyström, a friendly barista recalled my order from my first visit and that became my usual for the rest of my stay (although occasionally he’d serve me something different as a personal recommendation). Strangely, I sometimes ran into him on the street in different parts of Södermalm later in the day. We’d exchange a smile and a hello in passing. I’ll admit it felt good to be recognized in a city where I otherwise relished being anonymous.

The rest of each day was spent walking many, many kilometers. I’d head out, sometimes with a vague direction in mind, more often not, and turn here or there in the direction of anything that looked beautiful. Often it was basically a coin toss—forward, to the left, to the right,...it all intrigued. For a guy with a notoriously poor sense of direction, I’ve developed a decent mental map of Stockholm, only once getting lost when, after a seaside stroll, I found myself surrounded by towering stacks of shipping containers and a couple of signs for Finland—Finland?!—before finally spotting blue signs directing me back to the city center. That’s the day I became especially grateful for the frequent park spaces with welcoming benches!

Before coming here, I joined a few Stockholm Meetup groups, two for vegans and one for gay men. My first event was a vegan get-together the day after I arrived and I fretted about “crashing” a gathering of locals, worrying that my complete inability to speak Swedish would be considered both an insult and an inconvenience. I prepared for the fact that I might just order my food to-go and then disappear. Hej då! As it turned out, everyone spoke English the entire lunch and not on my account. The “locals” were from Romania, Tanzania, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, India, Belgium and Poland. There was one token Swedish-born attendee.

This proved to be the case for the half dozen Meetup events, gay or vegan, that I went to. It seems that the notoriously reserved Swedes don’t have a desire to join a group of strangers for an occasion based on a single common factor. I had interesting discussions with people who moved here from all over the world but, alas, much of my sense of what it’s like to be a Swede is still based on observations from a (safe) distance.

During my stay, I became femtiofem (fifty-five) and celebrated my (unannounced) birthday bowling badly with the gay Meetup group, the event organized by a guy who moved here from China. I declined to join the group afterward for a late lunch at a French restaurant and instead had a lovely conversation with a young fellow who’d moved here a few years ago from Germany and was now fluent in Swedish and who kept apologizing for his virtually perfect English. Oh, to be European! He’d intended to catch the subway a block away but we spent an hour enjoying the sunshine on a crisp fall day as we walked waterside pathways on two of the city’s islands. That evening I forced myself to go to a gay bar just around the corner from where I was staying. I’d read online that it was the city’s oldest (and seemingly only one of two or three still in existence) and I nervously descended the stairs to a basement space that felt like a walk-in closet crammed with gay men. I made myself go there twice during my stay, each time inching my way to the bar, ordering a drink and quickly chugging it down and departing. There was nothing distinctly Swedish about the experience. As with so many gay bars I’ve been to, it felt like a place where people talked loudly in closed circles, trying to outdo one another in giving off the impression they were truly having a good time. (But then maybe that was just my mentality back in the day when I’d meet up with friends when gay bars were the main meeting place.) I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with gay bars and it came as a great relief each time I went back up the stairs and found myself back on the street, alone.

My Swedish boyfriend is still at large.

Alas, the pastry didn't last

long enough to be photographed.  

After, or sometimes during, my long walks, I wound up participating in fika, a core component of Swedish culture. I’ve read much about it online and Swedes seem to pride themselves in regarding fika as uniquely and ubiquitously Swedish. I’ll describe it as a mid-afternoon coffee break with a pastry—most notoriously kanelbulle (cinnamon bun)—but Swedes typically claim that something essential is missing when the occasion is so simply defined. Probably so. Still, I noshed on plenty of kanelbullar and blueberry buns and other sweets while sipping oat milk lattes and attempting to proximate the fika experience. Apparently it’s okay to fika on one’s own, thank goodness.

In the evenings, I’d typically return to my Airbnb early and spend a couple of hours proceeding through Duolingo Swedish lessons. It’s true that I could continue to do just fine in Stockholm, sticking with English. The Swedes speak it flawlessly, much to my complete awe. Still, I truly want to learn Swedish. Before arriving, I learned how to say the oh so practical En älg är bakom restaurangen (“A moose is behind the restaurant”), but there are certain common sounds in the language I’m not sure I’ve yet figured out how to make. Last night’s lesson was on food and it included many essentials, Swedish words for fermented herring, meatballs, crispbread, cream, raspberries and, of course, cinnamon buns. The corresponding online discussions were both amusing and insightful.

My stay in Stockholm ends tomorrow and I’m so happy I haven’t gotten the city out of my system. I regularly awaken at three in the morning fretting over having forgotten how to say the number eight or, “They watched the paint dry” in Swedish. I still long to chat with native Swedes (seemingly as elusive as that moose behind the restaurant and that future boyfriend of mine). I see a future here. Why else would I get excited over the possibility that I can afford a four hundred square foot apartment here? I’ve got a thing for this place that, much like fika itself, I can’t quite explain. It’s why I desperately tried to extend my stay an extra six weeks (alas, I have matters to deal with back home) and why I’m consoling myself over my imminent departure with the prospect of a longer visit in the spring, complete with an immersive conversational Swedish course.

My love for Sweden began with a childhood adoration of ABBA and a grade four construction board project when we had to research a country. (I chose Sweden for the simple reason that, as an art-challenged student, I could draw the flag with a ruler and, hey, I liked how the blue and yellow looked together.) I’m so pleased my connection has become something much deeper, something that will last beyond the sugar rush that will fade when I return to life in Vancouver.

Until next time, Stockholm!