Day 74: Aliyah

Today I was honored to be called up for an aliyah at the synagogue where I attended a baby naming ceremony for 4-month-old Norah. For the uninitiated, an aliyah is part of the Shabbat services. On Shabbat (Saturday) mornings, a weekly section of the Torah (bible) is read, selected so that the entire Pentateuch is read consecutively each year. First, the Magbiah lifts and displays the Torah's Hebrew text for all to see. A synagogue official, called a gabbai, then calls up several people, in turn, to be honored with an aliyah wherein the honoree recites a blessing over the Torah, between each verse.

In front of the Torah scrolls reciting the traditional blessing

Being afforded this honor was a mitzvah (act of human kindness) in more ways than one and I am both happy and grateful to Norah's parents for thinking of me. I am not in the least bit religious and have not set foot in a synagogue for Shabbat services in more years than I care to remember. It was touching and surprising to me that I remembered a number of the blessings and prayers that are part of the ritual. They reside somewhere deep inside me, in an ancient ancient part of my soul. They trigger a sense of belonging and authenticity in a way that few other experiences do. It's not really about their content...although I do know the language and can tell you what they mean. For me, it's about the sounds and rhythms and melodies all of which feel organic. They resonate throughout my body and evoke a spirituality that goes beyond believing, beyond faith.

I am happy to have this inner place to return to again and again, despite the long lapses of time in between.

Day 73: Game on

Another senior moment...wrote this last night, got distracted by the Olympics and forgot to post. Yikes!

May I just say that GPS is the greatest! This is especially true for people like me who are, let's just say, directionally challenged. Or who, in plain English, get lost going around the block. Today, it helped me make my way from the commuter train station to a friend's house in a neighborhood I've never visited before. What really impressed me is the fact that it showed me the way via a network of paths that do not even have street names. Now that's exact!

But I digress...

The long-ish trip was well worthwhile as the payoff was an afternoon and evening of playing board games. If you've been following these posts or know me even a little, then you know that this is one of my favorite activities and always makes me happy. We played Trivial Pursuit today which, in addition to being informative, was also quite comical as this was the 1984 edition...i.e. almost 30(!) years old. You know, when there still was a Soviet Union. It's always interesting to see what people have or have not heard of and what I myself can and cannot remember. Wonder what it would be like to play a more recent version of this game?

On its way home to me even as I write is Scattegories which I really look forward to playing at the next Board Games afternoon, a week from tomorrow. What's your favorite board game? I need some good tips (preferably including a brief description)!

Day 72: It's all in who you know...

OMG...forgot to post this yesterday. Senior moment. :-))

What I didn't forget, however, is the wonder of Årstahavsbad where I spent the afternoon yesterday basking in the sun. Many Swedes have a sommarstuga (summerhouse or cottage really) somewhere out in the country or the archipelago, to which they can escape beginning in the spring and stretching into the fall on a good year. The sommarstuga is many a Swede's pride and joy, often passed down from generation to generation, the source of many a childhood memory.

In principle, this is a superb idea. In practice, it involves quite a bit of maintenance work for which I have neither the talent nor the inclination. Thus, I am so very grateful to my friends who have such a stuga and who open their summer homes to visitors. Among my favorites (people as well as stugor :-)) is at Årstahavsbad, a summerhouse area that was established in 1929 as a "social experiment" aimed at providing large city families with an opportunity to spend time out in the country. To top it all off, you can get there by public transportation!

As you step off the bus and walk up the hill, this is the view that greets you, complete with the Maypole left over from midsummer:

I spent a lovely afternoon basking in the sun and returned home refreshed and suntanned. :-))
 

Day 71: Three reasons for happy

Short and sweet today:

1.  Spontaneous outing courtesy of a great friend to the outlet store of one of my favorite clothing designers, Gudrun Sjödén.

2. Nothing bought at said store :-)

3. Successful trip to the library to swap The Girl Who Fell from the Sky for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. No, it's not a typo. There are two, one by Simon Mower and another by Heidi W. Durrow. Last week I borrowed the wrong one. Today, I got the right one.

Day 70: Making friends

My newest friend

He's round and pudgy and almost one year old. We do not speak a common language and he looks at me suspiciously as he clings to his oma (grandmother) for a long, long time. I maintain some distance and begin a game of peek-a-boo. He's not buying it. 


A while later, I join him on the floor where he has just started playing with a set of interlocking cardboard boxes. My strategy is to build a tower, sure that he will delight in knocking it down. I've been here before :-) Up goes the tower. Wham and down it goes. I shake my head and build it up again. Slam, bang...down again. And up again. His little arm swings wide and, just inches from its target, it happens. He starts shaking his head and laughing. Shaking his head just like I was shaking mine. 


Just a moment later, he crawls over and climbs up into my lap, examining the polka dots on my top. He'd grab my glasses too if he could but I've been around this block before and head him off at the pass. "You surely have a special gift with kids," says his oma. Yup, and they have their way with me. Everybody's happy! 

Day 69: Recognition

On Mondays, I volunteer as a language host at the Stockholm Language Exchange Group helping newcomers with their Swedish. It is enormous fun and brings back memories of my efforts to master the language during first year in Sweden. In the group today was a fellow from Switzerland who is here on a long vacation...three months...and decided to take advantage of the opportunity and learn the language. He arrived seven weeks ago and has already mastered enough Swedish to carry on a reasonable conversation about a book he recently read. Impressive.

Another participant is a young woman from France who told that she was glad to be in my group again because she thought it was so good the last time. You bet that made me happy :-)

God natt allihop...vi hörs igen imorgon!

Day 68: The hills are alive...

Some friends are back in town. They lived here for three years while he was on job assignment and then they moved back to the U.S. When that happens, I always figure that we will only ever see each other again when I visit them. Lo and behold, they came back to visit us first! It's of course a true testament to what a wonderful place Sweden is.

There was a dinner party in their honor this evening and I was so very happy to be invited. It was a good time...great food, interesting company and lively conversation. To top it all off, the host plays the guitar and was gracious enough to lead a sing-along. There were enough songs that enough of us knew to make that possible. My greatest surprise came when the woman sitting to my right began singing a song from one of my all time favorite Broadway musicals, A Little Night Music. A rare event indeed. I hasten to add that it was not "Send in the Clowns," the most well-known song from that musical. It turns out that she, like me, knows the entire score and we had a grand old time in our little corner of the table.

Not the first, nor the last, time that singing has made me happy.