Posts tagged #Sweden

In The Rearview Mirror 2020 pt. 1

Flashback Friday

Memories

First-quarter of 2020

2020 turned out to be one of the best and worst years in history for us. Right before getting on the plane to go to Sweden (to celebrate my dads 70th birthday) Winslow got a phone call and a job offer. We did two trips before Covid19 took its grip of our world. Sweden, and a week or so after I came back from there we went to Colorado to meet up with a bunch of friends. By March Covid19 in NYC was a fact and we started our weekly walk to Central Park. By mid March things started to shut down and I said bye to my lab for a couple of months.

January

We celebrated Christmas and New Years in Bozeman again. Just like many other NYE celebrations we cheered early and went to bed. The next day we got up at 6am and ventured out in the snow. W and his dad put on back-country skis and I came with them for part of it on my snow shoes. I Couldn’t have started the new year in any better way, I was in heaven. We did another outing around Bozeman before getting back to the big city. Once back in NYC we got some crazy warm weather. We took advantage of it and went to our favorite local bar for a beer. W and I and my brother and his partner surprised my dad in Sweden for his birthday. But before that we had some time to explore my old stomping grounds. We arrived at Operakällarn and boy was my dad surprised. After that followed some cold but beautiful days in Stockholm. We walked around everywhere, as we tend to do now when we visit. Winslow flew back to NYC earlier than me and I had some more time with my dad. I walked by the old fruit/candy store where we always used to go when I was in high school. And many trips to the beautiful Hedvig Eleonora church, where I got baptized, mom and dad got married, and moms funeral was held and where her memorial is. I blinked and then that trip and January was all over.

February

Spring started to appear already early February. Maybe mother earth knew we needed something bright and light in our lives? We went up to Poughkeepsie and Millbrook to check out the area where we would move if W accepted the job offer. our first trip to Canoe Hill, and the Wassaic Art Project. We even went to the local diner in Millbrook. Back in the city we did our monthly trip to chinatown and the obligatory seafood dinner at home. We went to mermaid in for oysters, and also went to one of our favorite dive bar in the East Village, the Library. Then we flew to Denver, went to the grocery store and bought 6 dozen oysters before we drove to Estes Park where we had rented an AirBnB. We got a beautiful hike in at Rocky Mountain National Park, and before we knew it the trip and February was over.

March

March 2020, a month that felt like a year, and therefore there are a few more photos to share. We greeted spring in Central Park, and continued to greet it the whole month during our weekly walks. If there was one thing to be excited about it was the blooming of flowers and trees. We knew things were getting bad, we heard silent rumors about a potential shutdown, and on March 16th I went to the lab to shut it down, for the foreseeable future. The rest of the city followed in the coming weeks. It was a spring that came and then got cancelled. I don’t think any of us could have imagined what the next months could possibly bring, and boy were we in for a surprise.

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In the rearview mirror 2019:

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 4

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 3

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 2

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 1

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York and tagged rearviewmirror Spring NYC Big City Life snow turtle flowers Central Park Dive Bars Bars Baking Life in NYC rearviewmirror2020 2021 Colorado Sweden travels When the Pandemic Came Pandemic Covid19.

It all Started Here

På Svenska

Finally a Summer at the Summerhouse

There is a place up north where I spent all my summers as a kid. It’s right by the water, surrounded by the deep pine and spruce forest. Just like many other Swedish summerhouses this one is red with white borders. My grandpa started building it 1950, and it was finally done in 1955 after a couple of setbacks. Not a single day is the same up there, sometimes you can’t see the other side of the bay because of all the mist, and other times the whole water body is clear as a mirror as you watch the sky turn pink when the sun sets. Sometimes, in the middle of the night you can watch the lightning penetrate the water from the large panorama windows in the living room. Sometimes you can smell the summer rain in the morning or that strong and sometimes overwhelming smell of labrador tea if you are out on the mire.

This is where I learned the names of the different plants that are common in the boreal forest. That same knowledge that brought me to Alaska and then later on gave me free trip to Nome. Pine, spruce, labrador tea, fireweed, larch, birch and the list can continue in all eternity. This is where I learned when to pick the blueberries and how to make blueberry porridge. This is where I learned where the gold of the north grows, and the pain you sometimes have to go through to get those precious berries. But more importantly, this is where I learned how to swim, fish, and care about the nature.

It’s a Fishy Business

At the summerhouse our main food source was the fish. We ate (well i guess we still do) fish for breakfast lunch and dinner. In the evenings we would get the boat out and go fishing farther into the bay. Sometimes we took the boat out to the “black sea” as we used to call it, because it was so deep and the water was all black out there, and tried our luck with the fishing nets out there. That place scared me, but it was always a thrilling adventure to go all the way out there. Most often though we took the boat out and laid our fishing nets straight out from the shoreline. This became something that I helped my dad with a lot. Laying out the fishing net in the evening, and picking it back up early next morning, before the seagulls started to get into them.

This summer W, his mom and aunt came with me to Sweden and the summerhouse. We had such a nice time and I loved that I was finally able to show them where my roots are. In the evening we all went out in the boat and put out three fishing nets and wished for the best.

As a fisherman, or fisherwoman the are no late mornings, and we got up early the next day to claim our bounty before the seagulls did.

Once the nets are back up on dry land the tedious work begins. First, the struggle to untangle and remove the fish from the net, and second to clean the net.

My dad of course knows how to untangle the nets like the back of his hand. He is a man of many trades and being a fisherman is one. He easily balances around the stones by the beach before he pushes out the boat from the shore wearing his clogs, just as easy as he removes the fish from the net. He knows exactly how much or how little of the juniper you need to get that perfect smell and flavor of a smoked fish.

Life is calmer at the summer house, and maybe this is also where I learned to appreciate life. From now on a visit to the summerhouse will be on my bucketlist for every single year ahead. If you ever wonder how it is to feel rich, this is it. A freezer full of fish and berries, and everything else you can acquire from the land.

When I was young my mom taught me how to clean and fillet the fish, she was a master of this and one summer I became one too. That was a long time ago, and I can’t really remember how to do it. But every now and then when we buy whole fish I magically know exactly where to cut the fish to remove the bones. My dad was doing this job now, he claims he’s not good at it, that mom was the master. The more I think about it, the more I understand where my ability to prepare things from scratch comes from. It all started here.

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