When you go there they have to let you in
I've packed into two suitcases all the Swedish things I want my family to taste and experience. Packed enough clothes to last me until I get to Walmart to buy jeans that fit. All of the things I promised to bring a few people in the states are also packed away.
I sang in the choir tonight - the last concert of the year - an hour of singing (and listening to the soloist sing) more different languages than perhaps any Christmas concert in the whole city, the whole country, the WORLD!
I managed to squeeze in a trip to Migrationsverket on Tuesday which means that my passport now bears the stamp that shows anyone who cares to look that I am a permanent resident of Sweden, that my permission to live here is "utan tidsbegränsning" - without an expiration date.
And so at the very beginning of the concert tonight, when we were singing one of the most Swedish of all Swedish traditional songs for this time of the year, I looked out at the audience and saw the good, friendly, kind faces of Kjell, Eva and Björn - the three Swedes who are my family here. A giggle bubble rose up in me. Here I was, their little American person, singing in Swedish a song I initially heard my first Christmas here when they took me to a Lucia concert to introduce me to one of their traditions.
In the morning I'll take the bus that takes me to the train that takes me to the airplane that takes me back to the state where I grew up. It's been almost three years since I was there last. I worry that I'll have trouble speaking English the whole time. I worry that I'll forget how to speak Swedish.
I've heard others say that they no longer knew which was home: here or there. For me, Sweden is home, utan tidsbegränsning. America is home, without expiration.
Leave the light(s) on for me.
I sang in the choir tonight - the last concert of the year - an hour of singing (and listening to the soloist sing) more different languages than perhaps any Christmas concert in the whole city, the whole country, the WORLD!
I managed to squeeze in a trip to Migrationsverket on Tuesday which means that my passport now bears the stamp that shows anyone who cares to look that I am a permanent resident of Sweden, that my permission to live here is "utan tidsbegränsning" - without an expiration date.
And so at the very beginning of the concert tonight, when we were singing one of the most Swedish of all Swedish traditional songs for this time of the year, I looked out at the audience and saw the good, friendly, kind faces of Kjell, Eva and Björn - the three Swedes who are my family here. A giggle bubble rose up in me. Here I was, their little American person, singing in Swedish a song I initially heard my first Christmas here when they took me to a Lucia concert to introduce me to one of their traditions.
In the morning I'll take the bus that takes me to the train that takes me to the airplane that takes me back to the state where I grew up. It's been almost three years since I was there last. I worry that I'll have trouble speaking English the whole time. I worry that I'll forget how to speak Swedish.
I've heard others say that they no longer knew which was home: here or there. For me, Sweden is home, utan tidsbegränsning. America is home, without expiration.
Leave the light(s) on for me.