Midsummer rain

Zoe and me on the beach in
Denmark 3 years ago

I might not live in Stockholm any longer but my Facebook feed and friends are all cheering and being family like for the world-known Swedish Midsummer Celebration. Zoe is somewhere undisclosed on the countryside celebrating with her dad and the new girlfriend. What worse is, people think this is a Scandinavian tradition and greet me happy midsummer, when it is really only Swedish (okay, full disclosure, I have absolutely no idea how they celebrate it in Norway). In Denmark, on the other hand, we celebrate the actual longest day of the year (which is next Tuesday and is called "Sankt Hans Evening", not midsummer) by burning a witch, usually made of sticks and cloth, and sing a couple of old herritage songs around the bonfire on the beach. Because in Denmark there is always a beach nearby. I actually hate midsummer and try to avoid it. From my first summer in Sweden where, to foreigners, everything (and I mean e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g) is just closed for two days and then we go back to work, to my more settled times where I was simply just home alone because it is a family holiday and Swedes don't include anybody else but their family. Add to that a divorce and a fragmented family and this holiday is just one of those ugly portraits of what I don't have anymore. And even in New York, I'm reminded of it's existence.

Several studies have looked at how friends' and connections' positive social media posts will make people post positive posts as well, and potentially make them happy too. Fewer studies mention how positive social media makes people grumpy and jealous because they don't have what others seem to have in those posts. My feed was full of romantic couples and happy families the past few days and it finally got the better of me. I miss my family, I miss my extended family in Denmark. I just want to sit on that beach and watch that witch burn and look over the blue water and hug Zoe. Five more days. And no more Facebook for me.

The Zoe puzzle

I find myself in Amsterdam at a conference that is peripheral to my overall field but core to my research subject. I was invited to moderate a panel and happy to accept back when June seemed like far in the future and when plane ticket prices did not enter my mind*. But as always is the case when not planning well, it turned out that Zoe's dad had arranged work travel overlapping with my trip. We were never good communicating when we were together (in fact I think that is one of the reasons our relationship broke down, he had no idea how unhappy I was and I presumed he knew) and we are even worse as divided parents. So we end up in these chaotic situations of trying to patch together care for Zoe. Luckily a close friend of ours is able to help out. He is picking her up from daycare Thursday and spending Friday (which is midsummer, the most holy of the holidays in Sweden but a workday in all other European countries) with her. I fly back Friday evening after my panel and meet up with them Saturday. Zoe will have a great time and so with my friend hopefully.

Meanwhile I miss Zoe like crazy at the conference and wish I had declined the invitation.

*Plane ticket prices means a lot in my situation because although my own business travel is covered, Zoe's ticket to Copenhagen for care taking my my family is not. 

Sleepless in Stockholm

Zoe and I flew back to Stockholm last night on the plane and route that we know too well. We spent an hour and a half in the lounge because it was 45 minutes delayed but we built lego towers, read three books and I read one page of a newspaper while downing a cup of coffee and Zoe played on her own in the play area. By now I have learned to ignore the suited men around us who once in a while give me the look indicating that they do not find this to be an appropriate place for kids to chase their mothers with a toy snake. I couldn't care less. In fact I find this place entirely appropriate for kids to spend the waiting time that is most often needed before a flight. And I once again forgot how far the gate is from the lounge and had to rush Zoe down there without time to look at the duty-free chocolate. Too bad for my sweet tooth, good for my waistline.

When in Denmark, I showed Zoe my old daycare
and she pressed her nose flat to see what it was
 like inside. We played a bit on the playground
outside, which to me had shrunk incredibly since
 I was there 30-something years ago.

As we walked down to the gate, Zoe noted: "We are still in Denmark, Mom". Yes, Zoe, this is Copenhagen airport, we are going back to Sweden. And likewise, when we landed and she walked very groggily from the plane insisting that she didn't sleep at all (she slept from the moment we took off, till the moment we landed) she said "This is Stockholm, I know it". Yes, Zoe, this is indeed Stockholm, the city where we live.

At home we had to wait for a friend to come over with my keys, which I had clumsily forgotten in the door as we left 10 days earlier because the taxi called while I was juggling a suitcase, two carryons, an elevator door and a 4 year old. I realized in the taxi and called panicking, asking my friend to go pick them up and as the stars would align, he didn't only have the extra 15 minutes to do that then, he was also home when we got home last night, flying to Bologna only this morning. He let us in and upon Zoe's asking for milk and my look of defeat because who has the foresight to pick up milk on the way home from the airport, he took her down to the convenience store to buy milk, while I unpacked the most necessary stuff. This is a really good friend.

Zoe decided she wanted to ride the giraffe on
her own when we went to Tivoli in Copenhagen

I woke up at 4am in the morning to the Stockholm summer brightness that I always forget until I'm actually here and it is actually June. Even in Copenhagen the white blinds had let so much light in that it felt like daytime at 4am but I had managed so I thought I was good. But Stockholm is even brighter and my body was not about to be convinced it was still night. I tossed and turned until 6am when my alarm disturbed me even more than the light. I decided to make a temporary bedroom in Zoe's room when she gets back to me on Thursday since she has blackout curtains there. I have a mattress that just fits on the floor and hopefully will give me more sleep than the partly covered windows do in my room.

So we are back in Stockholm after 10 days of fun in Copenhagen, partly holiday, partly me trying to finish two papers while my brother looked after Zoe for 3 hours a day. We seemed to succeed on both parts.

Midsummer tears

Today it is midsummer, one of the most celebrated days in Sweden. The general gist is that people go with their family to the countryside, eat and drink all day and dance around a May pole. Apart from the drinking (or maybe in spite of) it is a very kids-friendly holiday. I got to think of Thanksgiving, an equally family oriented holiday in the US where families also gather (in the home) and eat and drink all day. Most of my American friends claim this to be their favorite holiday because it is family oriented and non-religious. It is just about being together. Just like Midsummer in Sweden.

I have spent 10+ thanksgivings in the US and because I have been in Sweden numerous times during the summer (while living in the US), I have also been here during midsummer 4 or 5 times. But it wasn't until today that one contrast struck me: of all the Thanksgivings I spent in the US without my family, I was always invited to join friends or acquaintances in their celebration. Sometimes I went, sometimes I declined (like the time my personal trainer in California invited me over to a pot-luck friends' thanksgiving), but I was never alone or if I was, it was a choice of my own. I went to a friends' sisters' thanksgiving celebration 45 minutes drive away and I went to a Thanksgiving in New York where the only American was the newborn baby (we laughed a lot about that). And I was always welcomed as the most natural 'addition' to the family. Families in  Sweden are not like that. Here, family is much closer knit and not something to bring strangers into. I have in fact never been invited to a midsummers celebration in Sweden. Not that I haven't had nice midsummer experiences like the time Zoe's dad and I, with a tiny newborn Zoe went to the local park for a picnic or the time my brother and I went drinking in Gamla Stan.

It is of course particularly painful for me this year because I don't have my own family to spend it with. For practical reasons Zoe ended up with her daddy this weekend (I'm leaving for Italy early tomorrow morning) and we (read: he) have yet to find a decent way of being together the three of us. I really hope that one day we can do things together all three, if not as a family, then at least as Zoe's mom, Zoe's dad and Zoe.

Luckily for me I have a lot of work to do and the sun is shining on my balcony. I laugh at the drunk youngsters across my street on the opposite balcony and enjoy reminiscing of my own youth where it would have been me drinking, celebrating and having fun. But I'm not the one with a hangover tomorrow.