It was field trip day.
The day before field trip day, my mother would run around like a mad woman, trying to juggle the signing of parental slips, shopping of food to make field trip lunches for me and my elder sister, and doing all around stressing. As a kid, I genuinely thought my mother enjoyed stressing.
And the field trip lunches. Oh my lord, do I remember the field trip lunches. The ones my mother made for me stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the wholesome Swedish lunches my class mates would bring.
While they were sitting there, with their baloney and cheese sandwiches on dark bread (only one bread per sandwich) and a recycled flasks of dark baking syrup containing strawberry cordial, I was ashamed to bring out my foreign girl lunch, containing ham and cheese sandwiches with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and a piece of lettuce, all inside two pieces of WHITE (yikes!) wonder bread. And on top of that, a soft drink! Oh, brother, the shame in taking out my bright colored Disney type lunch box, sticking out among all the soberly colored lunchboxes the Swedish kids brought (decorated with the Swedish comic hero Bamse, a small bear with super powers that did NOT like violence and always had a moral story at the end of every cartoon). I ate my lunch in utter humiliation over the fact that I did not have a smiling, rosey-cheaked house wife for a mother (as I imagined everyone else did) , but rather a stressed out foreign woman with an eerie preference for American style lunches, rich in calories.
After The Lunch of Shame it was time for the actual purpose of the field trip. All children were to be divided in different groups and were to complete a route, pre-designed by the teachers. The purpose of this? Officially: to let children explore nature in a safe and pre-determined way, and at the same time get some precious fresh air. Unofficially: to royally torture those little brats, and drag their little lazy bums away from their videogames (mind you, these were the times of the Nintendo Entertainment Systems. I am not THAT old).
Needless to say, in the mind of the troublesome nine year old that I was, that field trip sucked. So, instead of going with my group as so many of my obedient class mates did (although they probably though it sucked as well) I cleverly separated myself from the mob and went en route to my OWN destination. Let me tell you what that was:
Earlier that year, during the spring field trip (we had one roughly twice a year, and for some reason, we always went to the same, sad place) I had accidentally found an old ruin of some sort, my guess would be an old windmill from the beginning of the century. The only thing left of this building, once surely stout and very useful, was the actual base. In lack of usage, it stood there, completely forgotten by the world, and overgrown with stinging nettles. I imagined this to be the scene of some morbid middle-aged torture, where the victim was mercilessly stripped of its clothing and hurled down on the nettles as a desperate cry of despair stopped time. Of course, neither the nettles nor the windmill were present during the middle ages, but for the imagination of a nine year-old who had seen too many movies, nothing is impossible.
There I was, standing on the brink of the ruin, looking down at the nettles, , imagining disgustingly violent scenarios involving evil monks in the dark middle-ages, helpless beautiful maidens and Ivanhoe-type heroes when another type of cry stopped time. This was not the cry of a victim of torture from the middle-ages, but from one of the teachers, herself wondering of from the crown (grown-ups were apparently allowed to) and crying out in outrage over the sight of that impossible child (yours truly) balancing on top of a ruin. The cry not only brought me back to the present but startled me to the degree that I lost my balance, fell… and….
This is the parenthesis where I thank my mother for having bundled me up to the degree that I looked like the Michellin-man (my mother was in constant panic that we would get the flu) for it was the clothes that saved my knees as I fell on the nettles. My hands were not so lucky, but suffered a completely different fate.
The chock of falling down, the chock of hearing that outcry on the middle of all that silence one can only experience in the Swedish woods during the winter. This made me paralyze for a few seconds, not feeling the burn of the nettles as I landed in the dead middle. It was not until the teacher dove after me that I could feel that my hands had swelled up to twice their normal size.
Oh yes, and the pain.
I am yet to experience childbirth and have heard that this is an extremely painful ordeal. I have never been the one to welcome pain as my threshold for it is relatively low. I must however say that if childbirth is half as painful as what I experienced that day then this is not am experience I am looking forward to.
It was an extremely angry teacher dragging back a screaming nine year-old with impossible tangled up black hair and hands the size of baseball gloves back to the base. Although it is commonly known that nettle burns calm down after a while, the grown ups decided that I was to go back to town with one of the teachers in her little white car to get my hands examined by the school nurse. Not going back with the rest of the kids in the school bus was punishment in itself. I cried all the way home, not only from the pain, but from the humiliation of getting caught and to be forced to ride in that stupid white car.
Needless to say, the following week, when the school cafeteria was serving nettle soup, I faked a fever and made my flu-fobic mother call me in sick.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Killing our darlings
We had just committed murder, for the first time in our young lives.
This was, at least, how it felt, looking down at our little water pets, gutted on the ground.
Maybe I should start by telling you exactly what a water pet is, and how it came to that we so brutally murdered them.
Earlier that summer, I had begged my mother on a daily basis to buy me a kitten. My mother, a neat freak since birth, had however never met these requests of mine, always insisting that little animals are best to be left in their natural environment.
My best friend, the happy owner of a particularly proud and lone star state-of-mind cat was also starving for a pet to call her own, as her cat only was available for cuddling at his own convenience (this was, if he wasn’t out on some adventure involving a lady-cat).
One hot but overcast day in a summer that seem to last forever, my best friend and I were, as we always did, manufacturing a list on what to do. This was a regular procedure, to determine in what order we wished to carry out our very important tasks, involving biking down to the store to get candy, or going to the lake to swim.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, came the bright idea to manufacture water pets. Now, as exciting as the name implies water pets to be, to a grown up these looked like mere plastic bags, filled with water and securely sealed with a scout-type knot. To us, they were strange, marine animals, and what’s more… they spoke to us!
We decided to name our water pets after our favorite writers (in other words, the authors of the books we were currently reading) as we fancied ourselves to be extremely sophisticated and real book-connoisseurs. We very much wanted to reflect this upon the names of our newly found friends. Thus, my water pet was named Diana, after Diana Wynne Jones, and my best friend’s water pet Silpha, after a writer named Silpha Snyder. For the purpose of the manufacturing of these said water pets, we had used those kinds of plastic bags that mothers use to store things in the freezer. They were transparent with little labels on and to our great joy we found that these labels were excellent to use for printing the pets’ names on. This way we would not confuse Diana and Silpha, for they both had extremely different personalities.
These water pets brought us much joy as we were biking around the neighborhood, water pets securely attached to the back of our bikes. Such pride, to become a mother of such a brilliant creation! And feel that, they almost feel like they are alive, when you hold them in your hands! Why, they ARE alive!
As the evening came, my best friend was called upon by her mother, for supper was on the table. With that shine in her eyes, that only a nine year old can have as she is carrying home a great treasure, she left in a hurry with her Silpha, still riding in the back of her bike.
The next day, our water pets had strangely undergone a metamorphosis. They were not nearly as talkative or as enchanting as the day before. As much as we tried, the thrill of love-at-first-sight was gone. All we could see now were two dull and pretty annoying plastic bags filled with tap water, with big blue letter printed on the labels.
By the time our big white kitchen clock had struck noon, we were royally fed up with our water pets. Nevertheless, it is a very hard ordeal to part with something that has once been the source of joy and laughter (as we grew up we encountered the same type of feeling, translated into a very grown up expression called “breaking up”). So, there we were, contemplating what to do with our now so tedious water pets when one of us (I forget who) suddenly came up with the idea that the water pets were to be dropped from the little roof of our porch.
Said and done, we proceeded, with grave-like expressions on our faces, to head out to our porch. I do wonder what my mother thought, being passed by our small two-person funeral procession, consisting of two very serious nine-year old girls, and two very death-sentenced water pets.
Out on the porch, we agreed that we were both to carry out the death sentence. Climbing up to where the sentence was to be carried out, I could feel my heart racing and I am sure my best friend was thinking the same, for we were not talking. Without a word, we looked at each other, and, with a little quick nod… we let go.
Back to the scene of the crime. As the remains of our formerly beloved water pets were slowly being absorbed by the ground, we climbed down and rescued the ruptured plastic bags, now the only thing remaining of Silpha and Diana. Touched by the serenity of the moment, we decided it was best to give these beings a worthy funeral, and this we did. We marked Diana’s and Silpha’s final place of rest with two crosses, made of ice cream sticks and quietly resumed to our every day lives.
A few days later, we attempted to make a second generation of water pets, but these were nowhere near as wonderful as their predecessors. They were quickly forgotten, to the degree that I don’t remember how they met their end.
But somewhere in suburbian Sweden, there are two tombs, containing a pair of water pets, very much loved and cherished during their short time on earth.
This was, at least, how it felt, looking down at our little water pets, gutted on the ground.
Maybe I should start by telling you exactly what a water pet is, and how it came to that we so brutally murdered them.
Earlier that summer, I had begged my mother on a daily basis to buy me a kitten. My mother, a neat freak since birth, had however never met these requests of mine, always insisting that little animals are best to be left in their natural environment.
My best friend, the happy owner of a particularly proud and lone star state-of-mind cat was also starving for a pet to call her own, as her cat only was available for cuddling at his own convenience (this was, if he wasn’t out on some adventure involving a lady-cat).
One hot but overcast day in a summer that seem to last forever, my best friend and I were, as we always did, manufacturing a list on what to do. This was a regular procedure, to determine in what order we wished to carry out our very important tasks, involving biking down to the store to get candy, or going to the lake to swim.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, came the bright idea to manufacture water pets. Now, as exciting as the name implies water pets to be, to a grown up these looked like mere plastic bags, filled with water and securely sealed with a scout-type knot. To us, they were strange, marine animals, and what’s more… they spoke to us!
We decided to name our water pets after our favorite writers (in other words, the authors of the books we were currently reading) as we fancied ourselves to be extremely sophisticated and real book-connoisseurs. We very much wanted to reflect this upon the names of our newly found friends. Thus, my water pet was named Diana, after Diana Wynne Jones, and my best friend’s water pet Silpha, after a writer named Silpha Snyder. For the purpose of the manufacturing of these said water pets, we had used those kinds of plastic bags that mothers use to store things in the freezer. They were transparent with little labels on and to our great joy we found that these labels were excellent to use for printing the pets’ names on. This way we would not confuse Diana and Silpha, for they both had extremely different personalities.
These water pets brought us much joy as we were biking around the neighborhood, water pets securely attached to the back of our bikes. Such pride, to become a mother of such a brilliant creation! And feel that, they almost feel like they are alive, when you hold them in your hands! Why, they ARE alive!
As the evening came, my best friend was called upon by her mother, for supper was on the table. With that shine in her eyes, that only a nine year old can have as she is carrying home a great treasure, she left in a hurry with her Silpha, still riding in the back of her bike.
The next day, our water pets had strangely undergone a metamorphosis. They were not nearly as talkative or as enchanting as the day before. As much as we tried, the thrill of love-at-first-sight was gone. All we could see now were two dull and pretty annoying plastic bags filled with tap water, with big blue letter printed on the labels.
By the time our big white kitchen clock had struck noon, we were royally fed up with our water pets. Nevertheless, it is a very hard ordeal to part with something that has once been the source of joy and laughter (as we grew up we encountered the same type of feeling, translated into a very grown up expression called “breaking up”). So, there we were, contemplating what to do with our now so tedious water pets when one of us (I forget who) suddenly came up with the idea that the water pets were to be dropped from the little roof of our porch.
Said and done, we proceeded, with grave-like expressions on our faces, to head out to our porch. I do wonder what my mother thought, being passed by our small two-person funeral procession, consisting of two very serious nine-year old girls, and two very death-sentenced water pets.
Out on the porch, we agreed that we were both to carry out the death sentence. Climbing up to where the sentence was to be carried out, I could feel my heart racing and I am sure my best friend was thinking the same, for we were not talking. Without a word, we looked at each other, and, with a little quick nod… we let go.
Back to the scene of the crime. As the remains of our formerly beloved water pets were slowly being absorbed by the ground, we climbed down and rescued the ruptured plastic bags, now the only thing remaining of Silpha and Diana. Touched by the serenity of the moment, we decided it was best to give these beings a worthy funeral, and this we did. We marked Diana’s and Silpha’s final place of rest with two crosses, made of ice cream sticks and quietly resumed to our every day lives.
A few days later, we attempted to make a second generation of water pets, but these were nowhere near as wonderful as their predecessors. They were quickly forgotten, to the degree that I don’t remember how they met their end.
But somewhere in suburbian Sweden, there are two tombs, containing a pair of water pets, very much loved and cherished during their short time on earth.
Monday, November 23, 2009
When we were going to meet our idols
We were living in a small house in the suburbs of a small town in Sweden. The house itself, a yellow brick town house in a suburb full of fancy 60’s style villas, was located in a neighborhood popularly known as “Nybygget”, the new houses. During the fourteen years we remained in the house, this neighborhood would remain “Nybygget”. The locals would refer to Nybygget with a slight irritation over the audacity of the multinational contractor, so violently ruining the small town landscape with identical houses on top of our suburbian hill, as far as the eye could see. For my family our small house in the middle of all this monotony was a grand delight, with a wooden staircase leading up to the second floor and a small garden. The staircase, to our infinite joy, was absolutely perfect for sliding down, causing all our pants to rip at some point or another. I don’t know if my mother ever understood why all our bottom garments were always wearing thin on precisely the same place.
Although the summers would stretch from July to August, a smaller infinity in the eyes of a child, it seemed like we never ran out of things to do. There were always mysteries to be solved (what WAS the neighbors teenaged son doing in the garden? And who were all those girls sunbathing in bikinis that always seemed to be with him?) places we could go to on our bikes, games to be played. If worse came to worse, we could always dress up in our bathing suits with fancy-tights and hop along the best we could to my mother’s Low Impact Aerobics tape, purchased earlier that summer in another attempt to slim up in face of the bikini season. We never seemed to grow tired of hearing Jane Fonda telling us to put our “heal out” at the end of every exercise and we would put of heart and soul in the prospect of “gaining figure” to our scrawny nine-year old bodies.
It was in the middle of this eventful summer, rather hot and dry as far as Swedish summers go, that my best friend and I decided we were going to enter a talent show on television, where the first prize was to meet your idol. The show consisted on kids mimicking their idol on national television and the best act would ultimately win. Looking back at the program itself I remember that the lucky winner so happened to always have a Swedish b-list celebrity as their idol who was happy to drop by the show (for a decent amount of cash and another fifteen minutes of stardom). But again, this distinction was not made in our expectant nine year-old eyes.
Our idols that week were a teenaged rapper duo named Kris Kross. We were partly amazed that these boys had reached stardom at such an early age, and partly I think we had a crush on said duo. Immediately we put our plan into action, stealing a pair of baggy jeans from our elder siblings and learning to button them backwards (as our idols so happened to wear them). When we had our image all figured out and completed, we proceeded to plan the most important part, the actual act itself. I remember there being a small quarrel about who was going to be who, as we so happened to like the same boy, and very much wanted to be that boy. I am not sure how we ultimately came to the decision that I was to be the shorter boy (it might have been for the fact that I at that time was very short) and my best friend was to be the slightly taller boy (the object of our affection). The song was already a given, seeing as this act furthermore became to be a one-hit-wonder and all we had to do was to wait for it to be played on the radio so we could record it with our little pink portable tape recorders (our little nine-year old budgets were not sufficient to afford the wealth that was needed to buy an LP-single).
Eventually, we finally succeeded in recording an acceptable version of our song. This was easier said than done, as we would always grow bored of waiting after a while and go to the kitchen to fix us a snack, thus always missing the first seconds of the song that OF COURSE would always play when we were away. Our first crude lesson in practice of Murphy’s law.
We had little toy microphones, stolen from my best friends’ keyboard, that we would sing into while working hard to pursue our dreams. My friend would stay so late that it would turn dark without us noticing. As we were both afraid of the dark, this would lead to her spending the night at my house for days in a row, before we finally went to her house to practice. The same procedure would be repeated there, with me staying at her house. We would tune in every week to watch the program, but to our great distress they would never display the number you should call in case you wanted to participate (mind you, this is before the time of the internet, when all information on where to call would be live and at the spot).
In the end, in the light of the fruitlessness of the endeavor, we completely forgot about our initial enthusiasm for this project, ultimately abandoning it for other prospects on the horizon. The jeans were put back in our sibling’s closets, the little toy microphones stored away. The posters on the walls were replaced with new idols (in my friends case, although she would have short interests in other idols, she would never abandon her one true idol and love, Michael Jackson) and pretty soon the whole episode was forgotten.
I don’t think that I, since my childhood, have embarked on a project with the same joy and excitement, the same tenacity and expectation as I did when I was nine. As I sit here, writing these words I cannot help but think that life experience and my transformation from a bright-eyes child to a cynic adult may have contributed to this. When you are nine, the sky is the limit.
Although the summers would stretch from July to August, a smaller infinity in the eyes of a child, it seemed like we never ran out of things to do. There were always mysteries to be solved (what WAS the neighbors teenaged son doing in the garden? And who were all those girls sunbathing in bikinis that always seemed to be with him?) places we could go to on our bikes, games to be played. If worse came to worse, we could always dress up in our bathing suits with fancy-tights and hop along the best we could to my mother’s Low Impact Aerobics tape, purchased earlier that summer in another attempt to slim up in face of the bikini season. We never seemed to grow tired of hearing Jane Fonda telling us to put our “heal out” at the end of every exercise and we would put of heart and soul in the prospect of “gaining figure” to our scrawny nine-year old bodies.
It was in the middle of this eventful summer, rather hot and dry as far as Swedish summers go, that my best friend and I decided we were going to enter a talent show on television, where the first prize was to meet your idol. The show consisted on kids mimicking their idol on national television and the best act would ultimately win. Looking back at the program itself I remember that the lucky winner so happened to always have a Swedish b-list celebrity as their idol who was happy to drop by the show (for a decent amount of cash and another fifteen minutes of stardom). But again, this distinction was not made in our expectant nine year-old eyes.
Our idols that week were a teenaged rapper duo named Kris Kross. We were partly amazed that these boys had reached stardom at such an early age, and partly I think we had a crush on said duo. Immediately we put our plan into action, stealing a pair of baggy jeans from our elder siblings and learning to button them backwards (as our idols so happened to wear them). When we had our image all figured out and completed, we proceeded to plan the most important part, the actual act itself. I remember there being a small quarrel about who was going to be who, as we so happened to like the same boy, and very much wanted to be that boy. I am not sure how we ultimately came to the decision that I was to be the shorter boy (it might have been for the fact that I at that time was very short) and my best friend was to be the slightly taller boy (the object of our affection). The song was already a given, seeing as this act furthermore became to be a one-hit-wonder and all we had to do was to wait for it to be played on the radio so we could record it with our little pink portable tape recorders (our little nine-year old budgets were not sufficient to afford the wealth that was needed to buy an LP-single).
Eventually, we finally succeeded in recording an acceptable version of our song. This was easier said than done, as we would always grow bored of waiting after a while and go to the kitchen to fix us a snack, thus always missing the first seconds of the song that OF COURSE would always play when we were away. Our first crude lesson in practice of Murphy’s law.
We had little toy microphones, stolen from my best friends’ keyboard, that we would sing into while working hard to pursue our dreams. My friend would stay so late that it would turn dark without us noticing. As we were both afraid of the dark, this would lead to her spending the night at my house for days in a row, before we finally went to her house to practice. The same procedure would be repeated there, with me staying at her house. We would tune in every week to watch the program, but to our great distress they would never display the number you should call in case you wanted to participate (mind you, this is before the time of the internet, when all information on where to call would be live and at the spot).
In the end, in the light of the fruitlessness of the endeavor, we completely forgot about our initial enthusiasm for this project, ultimately abandoning it for other prospects on the horizon. The jeans were put back in our sibling’s closets, the little toy microphones stored away. The posters on the walls were replaced with new idols (in my friends case, although she would have short interests in other idols, she would never abandon her one true idol and love, Michael Jackson) and pretty soon the whole episode was forgotten.
I don’t think that I, since my childhood, have embarked on a project with the same joy and excitement, the same tenacity and expectation as I did when I was nine. As I sit here, writing these words I cannot help but think that life experience and my transformation from a bright-eyes child to a cynic adult may have contributed to this. When you are nine, the sky is the limit.
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