Saturday, July 7, 2012

Day 46: Body and Soul

Three days with two 8-year-olds at non-stop activities take a toll on the body. The water park especially breathed life into body parts I'd long forgotten I have. So for two days now, I've felt nooks and crannies, joints that want oiling, muscles longing for massage. Then today, on the warmest day so far this summer, I spent six hours assisting at a singing workshop in town.

My goal for the three day workshop is to be in my body and let the singing arise from there. It's taken me years to get to this point and today the lightbulb finally switched on. It's that sing walking I wrote about in an earlier blog entry. Earphones securely in, I spent our lunch break walking around Söder singing from the gut, smiling at passersby and ignoring completely any strange looks I got.



It was like being transported back in time, to JHS and Mr. Patterson's chorus class. The class that stuck together for three years, from seventh to ninth grade. A time when we sang because singing was a natural part of our days. A time of expression because expressing was so self-evident. It wouldn't have occurred to us not to sing. That energy, that focus and self-confidence, that fun, is what I am on my way toward recovering. And it's all in the body, in movement, in singing for singing's sake. In singing to fill the soul.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Day 45: Home sweet home

Thoroughly and totally satiated after a great picnic in the park with my book club buddies. On the menu: fresh fruit salad, home made ice cream and brownies and cheese cake, four cheeses, crackers, potato salad and mashed potatoes, grilled sausages (meat and vegetarian), hot dog buns, wine and water. And there were only 11 of us.

It was a lovely Swedish summer evening, still light at 9 PM as I head home. The occasion was to bid farewell to Elizabeth who has led the book club most recently and is moving back to the U.S. with her husband and their young son. Such occasions always afford me the opportunity to reexamine my decision to stay. Because for me the question of moving here is long forgotten history. Being here is a fact. And the answer to "where are you from?"...which I still get asked surprisingly often...is Söder, the part of Stockholm where I live.

Which I guess just about sums it up on this temperate eve in the country I am happy to call home.

9:30 PM, July 6, 2012, Stockholm, Sweden

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Day 44: History in the making

Those who were privileged enought to know the man, know Frankie's way as a way of dancing, a way of looking at the world, a way of being that inspires smiles and life and warmth. And now it is also known as a way in Sweden. Quite literally!


What once used to be called Skolvägen (School Way) in Herräng, Sweden has now officially been renamed Frankie Mannings väg. 

Herräng is a very small town about 110 km north of Stockholm where the annual international lindy hop summer camp has been taking place for 30 years now. Frankie Manning taught Lindy hop, and regaled participants with his rich repetoire of memories, at the camp for most of its thirty years until his death three years ago. His last summer in Herräng was 2007. He was 93 years old at the time.

This monument to a great man is so well deserved. I couldn't be prouder or more happy.