And,
that quickly, I make my way toward my last destination abroad. I’ve been to
Sweden before, six years ago and coming in this second time, I look up, I can’t
help it as I’m once again mesmerized by how big the sky here seems. Rounder
somehow, grander, spacious enough to allow full and deep breathing and to make
me feel free to fly, free to be. Even when the sky is cloud covered and the air
is cold.
“You
like it here?” one of my Swedish friends had once asked during that first visit.
“Yes,”
I’d said. It had been September at the time. The days still sunlit and the air
still without too sharp a bite.
“Come
back in February,” he’d said. And I’d thought then about how dark the winters
must be. How cold and dark. How grey the Swedish world must become by February.
But I hadn’t really believed in February, not during that September. Not in
that long-lasting, adventurous summer that had seemed miraculously as if it
would never end.
February
couldn’t really be real.
But
now, this December, as I approach the end of the year and the end of this grand
time of traveling and writing and living, February with its grey skies, dark
days, and persistent cold seems imminent. The future has a wintry wind blowing
in it and a touch of uncertainty. I shiver a little inside my woolen jumper.
Not
quite ready to move on (just around the corner is another Christmas Market I’ve
not yet seen, another Old Town to explore, another forest to wander through,
another country to visit, more friends to make), I take the ferry from Riga to
Stockholm and then the metro from the port to Stockholm Central Station.
For
a moment, in Stockholm, the sun shines, glinting against the downtown
buildings’ glass. I walk with my face turned up. The sunlight as bright as the
smiles I give and receive as I wile away my stopover time. At a busy restaurant
with large windows, I sit and eat a salad, watching the people walk by. At one
point, a man asks me in Swedish if he can sit at the opposite end of my table.
I don’t know the individual words, but I understand and give my assent with an
inviting wave of my hand so that he doesn’t even know I don’t speak the
language.
Too
soon, it’s time to take my train onward. I press my nose to the glass and watch
the sky change from blue to blue and white to white to grey.
As
we approach my stop the conductor comes by and says, “You’re going on to
Motala?”
I nod.
“The
train is running six minutes late,” she tells me. Six minutes late and there
had been only nine minutes of time between my trains. Somewhere along the line,
we’d stopped for something and the explanation given over the speakers had been
in Swedish and I hadn’t understood. “We’ll come in on track four and your train
will leave from track one. So, go to the back of the train. When you get off go
across the platform, down the stairs, around the front of the station, and then
you’ll be at track one.”
I
repeat the instructions and then say, “I go to the back of the train because
it’s faster?” Closer to the stairs and the directions I’ll be going. Closer so
that my three minutes of time will be enough to get me where I have to go.
“Yes,”
she says, smiling a bright smile. “Faster.”
I
thank her, shoulder my backpack, and make my way to the end of the train.
As I
stand near the door another couple come to stand near me, ready to disembark too.
I’m
facing the right side but the platform is on the left and I turn when I
realize. The man of the couple says something that I think means, “You can’t
always choose the right side,” and I agree with a sound and then follow up in
English with, “I’m going to have to run.”
When
he begins to move away from the door to give me room (for he must have run for
his share of trains too) I say, “But I want you to open the door for me.” It’s
got a lever rather than a button and sometimes doors thwart me.
“I’ll
open it for you and jump out of the way. Which way do you have to go?”
“Right,
I think.”
“I’ll
open the door and jump left and you can jump right and run.” He’s smiling.
“Thanks!”
Soon
enough, the train glides to a stop. As planned, the man opens the door and
jumps left. I scramble out and off to the right, heading toward the stairs.
“Run!
Run! Run!” he calls out from behind me. I quickstep my way along the platform
and down the stairs.
Flurries
dance down around me as I do run to catch the connecting train from Hallsberg
to Motala, dancing a seasonal magic and seasonal cheer down around me. A little
breathless, a little exhilarated by motion, I make it with a minute to spare
and settle in my seat for the last bit of travel for this afternoon.
My
friend and his girlfriend pick me up from the train station and we spend the
next few days catching up, drinking tea and smoothies, and relaxing. The extra
sleep and the rest do me good. And yet, even amid the joy of friendship, my
thoughts are heavy.
Transitions.
Pressure. The end of one thing. The end of a wonderful thing.
The
future promises something, but what? The cages of expectation and financial
sustainability want to shut and lock me in. But I have this desire for freedom,
always freedom. I don’t want my wings clipped, I want to fly. I want the open
road ahead of me. I want the time to write and live. Just the way I like to. Just
the way I’ve done this year.
One
of the days, I sit at the kitchen table, looking out at the opposite apartment
complex with each individual window brightened by illuminated Christmas stars
and candelabras, and write out the freedoms that I want. There’s nothing like
making a plan to clear up the clouds. It’s only a passing storm, these heavy
thoughts. Besides, I like winter. Especially if there’s skiing involved. For,
there’s a beauty in the darkness. There’s regeneration in the dormancy of
winter. And there’s life to be lived in any season.
My last
night there, after dinner, my friends and I sit at the table with mugs of peppermint
tea and an offering of chocolate and gingerbread cookies before us.
“There’s
something we have to do today,” my friend says.
“What?”
his girlfriend asks.
“It’s
the day of Saint Lucia.”
“That
was today?” she asks. “We missed it? We should have gone to church. It’s a
beautiful ceremony.”
“We’d
have had to go at seven this morning.”
“That’s
why we missed it,” one of us says. We’d all been cozily sleeping at seven.
“What
does Saint Lucia do?” I ask.
“She
brings the light.”
The
festival of lights, the day of Saint Lucia is a Scandinavian and Italian Christmas
tradition.
“I’m
not sure exactly why we celebrate an Italian saint,” my friend says even as he
pulls up a video on his phone from that morning in a church in Helsinki. It
feels to me that honoring the tradition is important to him and I sit and think
of the traditions I like the most, all the ones that I honor. Later when I look
it up, I read, “…to vividly celebrate Saint Lucia’s Day will help one live the
long winter days with enough light.” So, I can see that even if Saint Lucia
didn’t originate in Sweden why her festival is so important. Why light matters.
Why my friend wants to honor the tradition. He looks forward to the light.
Pulling
our chairs in, we gather close together and watch the girl who represents St.
Lucia with the candles on her head, leading a procession of singing girls and
boys dressed in white and carrying their single candles.
It’s
Christmas time. The winter traditions with the candles, decorated trees, the
lights, all the lights are a reminder that the darkness doesn’t last forever.
The winter solstice nears, the shortest day comes, but then after that the
sunlight grows a little each day.
And
if it ever feels too dark, the festival of the lights and Saint Lucia remind us
that the days will get lighter. There’s comfort knowing that February never
lasts forever (which is nice even if the skiing is good). March always comes
around.
There’s
a comfort in knowing that even if this year is done, the future is what I make
of it.
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