Saturday. I was supposed to go studying for a couple of hours at the library. But then Hannes called and told me to pack some lunch. Fifteen minutes later he picked me up with his car. The sun was shining from a chillingly blue sky. I couldn’t really say no, could I?

He drove us to Fiby urskog. Urskog means virgin forest, but I’m sceptical. I’ve been taught that there’s only a tiny bit of forest up in the far far north of Sweden that hasn’t been affected by humans in one way or other.

Still, it was really pretty and made for a nice Saturday hike.

Hiking trails in Sweden are not at all like the easily accessible boardwalk trails in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and the forests are not as green as in the Olympic National Park. They are different, but I like them all.

It’s nice to have, a friend who takes me on Saturday hikes.

The most famous cat in Uppsala must be Pelle Svanslös, the kind cat without tail from the childrens’ books. They even have traffic signs depicting him. Cutie pie.

I love quotes. Maximes. The idea that one can capture life in a sentence. A handfull of words. It thrills me. The simplicity and beauty.

Life is rarely simple. Neither is it always beautiful.

Someone once said that the only reason for being a writer is if you have no other choice.

But how is anyone to know that? There are always choices. From getting out of bed in the morning, having butter or apple sauce on your morning porrige to what to do with this relentless, undefined longing. Some are small, others huge as mountains, but they all mean taking one more step on the path of life. Some choices take unpredicted turns. It’s not always easy to know where a particular choice might lead.

You can choose not to write. You can choose to stop eating. To stop eating won’t make you happier, but it is a choice.

And I wonder, would writing make me happier? Did I make the wrong choice somewhere? Would it be possible for me to make that choice again, make it different – or is it too late?

A September Sunday: I am reading “The Blind Contessa’s New Machine” by Carey Wallace. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve read for a very long time. There is a sincerety and a delicacy, a devotion to detail. It’s the tale of the first writing machine, and the love story that came before and after.

But I’m scared. I know it won’t end well. I’ve read too many books to not see the signs. I fear what it will do to me, but still, I cannot stop. It’s the curse of the book worm.

* * *

I was right. It didn’t even end in tears, but in emptiness. A big hole where the hopes for a bright future should have been.

I hate it when they break my heart.

So, Peace and Conflict Studies maybe wasn’t what I thought it’d be. I haven’t decided yet if I like it or not.

But when I’m not studying, I’m spending hours and hours in my kitchen. Baking pies and buns and one Saturday, Frida came and we baked bagels together. They didn’t really taste like real bagels, but close enough and it was fun. We’re gonna do it again, adding blueberries this time.

And once a week, Marita, Frida and I take turns inviting each other to dinner. Frida loves my apple pie.

I have also had to bike in high heeled shoes and a full lenght dress. I have biked through pouring rain in the middle of the night through the university district in Uppsala, almost rolling right into two men wearing black, full lenght cloaks and white, medieval plague doctor masks. I have joined a women’s choir and my first gig with them was at a gentlemen’s dinner at one of the university nations.

Uppsala is a strange place. I have not decided what I think about it yet.

So, while I try to come up with a new theme for this little blog of mine, I might as well tell you a little bit about what’s happened since I came back from Phoenix.

My first Sunday back home, I baked four cakes and invited people to come and share them with me. The American biscuits were something of a complete failiure, apperently American and Swedish baking powder behave differently, but the Canadian apple pie was just as good as I remembered it from Whiskey Creek Farm. The sun was shining and people came and went as they pleased, just as I like it. The last guest left just before midnight, and then I had leftover cake to eat for breakfast for days after.

I worked in my archive every day for the four weeks in August, but the weekends I spent either at dad’s summer house, or walking around Djurgården with Kirke and her dog Zorro.

There are few places more suitable for walks than Djurgården in the summer. And few persons better suited for walking company than Kirke.

And then, the last thursday in August, I packed step mom Anna’s car full with my books, my yarn and my bike, picked up Kirke outside her office and started driving toward Uppsala.

Moving requires pizza. After emptying the car into my cute, subletted one room apartment, I treated Kirke to veggie pizzas from the pizza restaurant next door. It might not be the best pizza I’ve ever eaten, but hey, I’ve been all around half of Italy. The comparison isn’t fair. It was okay.

So, here I am, in my new home in a new town, on my way into a brand new term at a new university, studying an introductory course in a subject I had only the vaguest idea of. Exciting and scary, all at the same time.

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fall

Feels kind of odd, really, writing this now considering that I’ve been home for more than two months. But I made a decision, I wanted to finish the story – and now I have. 330 chapters of North America travels. I definitely had far too high aspirations, and I don’t know about the quality of my writing half of the time. But atleast I finished.

I guess traveling always leaves a strange feeling. Like I never went away and like I’ve been away far too long at the same time. Things happened that I don’t really know what to do about yet.

I had planned for this blog to contain texts that saw beyond the actual events of my travels, musings about home and belonging and connecting. It didn’t really turn out that way, but maybe it’ll come. You see, I’m not really sure what I actually learned about belonging yet. It’s all still a huge mess in my head. That I moved to a new city only one month after returning to Sweden might not have helped.

So I’m gonna do like this: I’ll keep the title of this blog, Geographies of belonging, and try to come up with more thoughts on the subject here in my exile in Uppsala. I will stop using the chapter system, but maybe come up with some new complicated and pointless way to ‘count’ my entries. I have a weakness for numbers. I know, it’s terrible. And I’ll keep writing in English. Just because it’s fun.

So. Yey!

Even though he is a real vagabond, Mr. P did admit that coming home has it’s advantages and pleasures. Especially on an evening like this one.

I arrived in Stockholm in the morning on the first of August. In the afternoon, I picked up my stepmother’s car and drove an hour south down to my dad’s summer house.

The first thing dad did was to put me to work in the potato patch. Maybe to make me show if I’d learned anything during my three months wwoofing.

My first dinner in Sweden obviously had to be new potatoes with pickles herring, sour cream and butter. There’s nothing that is as much Swedish summer as that.

Then, a swim in the lake Sillen while the sun was going down. What more could a girl ask for?

My brother Aron got really happy for the Lego set I brought him from overseas. He’d better, I had to drive around half of Phoenix to find that box of Lord of the Rings-miniature scenery. He started building it right away, of course.

The next day, I drove dad and Aron to the forest. I found a couple of blueberries, the tiny Scandinavian kind, and dad found chanterelles.

Ah, it felt good being home again.