Shank's mare

Stockholm, Sweden

Dear Gerdie, dearest Mago,
Before I retire for this night, I'm feeling free to fill in with one of many treasures (no. Vii) of your other notebook (the yellow legal pad):

One day Belinda packed her grip
And decided she would take a trip
"I'm sick to death of chores", said she,
"I'd like to go where I'll be free."

"Where nurse won't make me scrub my hands
And I can see some foreign lands;
Where lollypops grow on a tree
And there's no spinach fed to me.

I'll stand right here and thumb a ride
And in the city I will hide
If no one stops; well, I don't care
I'll resort to Shank's Mare.

Your devoted granddaughter

More molten metal

Then I thought about the parties mother Anne and father Kreigh used to throw in Kokura, just after the war. While I was too young to remember myself, I’ve seen pictures and heard stories about how they used to get together with ‘friends’ in the same occupational forces boat. When a lot of what you see is unbearable, people need diversion. So they got together whenever there was reason to celebrate, a holiday, a birthday or a baptism.

Birthdays. Lots of people are born every day and someone had to be born at a hospital midway between Hiroshima and Nagasaki - of all places - on Hiroshima Day 1947 too, but why me? If I hadn’t ”happened to have” been christened four months later on Pearl Harbor Day, then the thought that I had been born and baptized to charge these two days with new meaning, at least for my parents, might never have occurred to me. Some burdens are too heavy to bear. Gotta let go.

Slow to be born, I hear tell that our father headed for all the potholes that still pitted the roads between Kokura and Fukuoka after the war. ”Your father, who was usually such a careful driver, seemed to think he could shake you into the world that way, but you wouldn’t have it,” said mother Anne, and so my delivery was chemically induced.

Back to PC parties in Kokura: of course they needed diversion, some light-hearted fun in the wake of the devastation of yet another world war and two atom bombs. Mother Anne tells of the curiosities that were brought to these parties, the molten metal objects that had been collected as ”souvenirs” from the pits and potholes of their surroundings. What mother Anne found particularly curious was the way the Japanese servants – Americans all had nannies, and cooks and ”boys” – always disappeared when these objects, these amorphous sculptures, were brought out to display and discuss. Why? It was said that they (the natives) must be superstitious, how else could such irrational behavior be explained. So many ways we have of defending ourselves against the lingering, invisible, unheard of, hence unspoken perils of war and subsequent preoccupation. The Zone is somewhere we mustn't go. Perhaps that's why, when we come too close, we risk being struck deaf and dumb.

To be continued…

Big words, like fat revisited

Grease floats. So what do we prefer? Thoughts that sink and can be swallowed?

First I thought about the amorphous blobs of molten lead that sank to the bottom of my glass one New Year’s Eve. You know, the lead that people heat above the flame of a candle, until a mercurial drop plummets into the cold champagne where it is fished up with a story. They're popular PC party gimmicks here for people who want to get their guests to utter something at all, preferably something profound.

Then I thought about the shipwreck on Wake Island and the one that was recently still emitting weak signals from the nave of Maria Magdalena.

I also recalled the gardener who came to my rescue one day at the Golden Gate National Cemetery. As I wandered about in tears among the endless rows of white stones on Bikini Island, perfectly convinced that a bomb had wiped out all of mankind and that I was the only living being left on Earth, he called out: “Are you looking for someone?” What a good question I thought to myself and answered immediately: “Yes", I said, "I’m looking for our father.” As he approached to help, I cried back: “Eureka!” He said no more, but came forth, read the inscription on the grave, bowed reverently before it and disappeared.
Dumbfounded, I laid down the bouquet of "prästkragar", his favorite flower, and began to write. Then I lit a fire in the middle of the Golden Gate National Cemetery, fueled by my letter to Him. Once again a green plastic watering can (supplied by the merciful gardener at the faucet) came in handy and, like any good Girl Scout, I used it to douse the smoldering ashes, secretly hoping that the carbon of my words would sink in. I am convinvced that the ashen water quenched the thirst of some of my invisible roots and maybe even helped some seed to swell.

More molten lead to come...

Happy Memorial Day

Today is a bank holiday in the United States, ”to remember those who have died in the service of the nation.” That means war.

Yes, I do remember an old friend named Jim who was in the service. But I remember nobody in particular even more, just a lot of green plastic body bags being unloaded from the refrigerator containers at Alameda Naval Air Station. I happened to see them one day when I was driving a truck for the US Postal Services, on a mail collection route I did a couple of hours every afternoon in the sixties to help pay for my college education.* Lots of bodies returning from Vietnam. Jim was at least somebody. He had even served as the president of our high school student body. They say he never actually got to Vietnam, because he jumped directly from a helicopter onto a land mine. Somebody for sure, but no body to bring home.

These aren’t exactly the kind of memories I like to recall, not because they don’t make me happy, but because they separate us, like deafness and dumbness. I'm quite sure you don’t have a clue. Because if you did, you wouldn’t hang up.

It's a holiday, and so I couldn't do what I promised and get in touch with the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno to find out if mother Anne has a plot there. She wants to be buried with our father. Oh pooh, this is not at all what I intended to write about today, but somehow I was distracted. I intended to return to the little girl who claims to remember things that happened before she was born, and who ”if she doesn’t stop pouting we’re going to have to chop off her lower lip.” But I'll return to her later. Right now I gotta go, have to run.

*A Levi Strauss Scholarship paid for tuition and books.

Happy Grandma Day!

Dear Mago,
It's been a while since you were here, but this is just to let you know that both you and mother Anne are with me yet. Since it's Mother's Day this weekend in Sweden (2 weeks later than in the US), I thought I'd publish this poem you wrote some sixty-five years ago (in another notebook):

Last night the house was very still
And I was most asleep
When all at once I heard a sound
And quickly from my bed did leap
The radio was on full blast
So I went down to see
What uninvited guest was there
And what trouble was in store for me
When I peeked in the living room
It was a shocking sight
My pretty sticks of furniture
Were in an awful plight
The rugs rolled back; the chairs upset
The gadgets all awry
And viewing devastation
I sat me down to cry.
Then all at once I had to laugh
For right there in plain view
Were both your naughty children
Doing dances you taboo.
Gep Murphie, Ginger Rogers
Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire
Couldn't emulate the antics
Of that silly little fair.
They'd execute the tango
With real Terpsichorean grace
And every little movement
Was reflected in each face.
But the thing that was most shocking
Most disgraceful – most obscene
Was the jitterbug gyrations
Of that amazing little team
Right then and there I stopped them
And sent them off to bed
You can bet your bottom dollar
That their derrieres were red.
And when the darlings were tucked in
And sleeping very sweet
I thought I'd see what I could do
With my once dancing feet.
And whoopee! It was lots of fun
To jitter and to jive
To feel my blood a racing. And to know I am alive.
Oh, well, these war time parents
Who are flitting here and there
Can't expect a poor old grandma
To give the proper care.
So if you come home suddenly
and find us/in the movies/ on the slag
I feel so young and giddy
I think I will step out
With the younger generation
And learn to whoop and shout.


How lucky I am to have had a grannie at all, and a grandma like you no less!

Your devoted granddaughter

"Big words, like fat, get stuck in the throat" *

In the beginning it was simply babble, foolish talk and idle chatter among children. Then it turned into babel, a noisy confusion of sounds, voices and languages, because they wanted to make a name for themselves. And then what?

My young friend (24 years old) who has studied the new educational hybrid called "informatics" says he tunes out whenever he hears or sees a quote of the first passage of the gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.” I sympathize without knowing exactly why. Perhaps like him, I dislike fat. What others find fascinating about objects that float, I find deceptive and sometimes even disgusting. And when his ears are not occluded by the plugs that set the rhythm of his swooping arms and circling hands, I tell him so. Sometimes he even calls me on the phone to ask questions, because somewhere the discipline and authority of language still mean something to this young man. I am reminded that "authority" for him is not simply the reputation or recognition that is won among peers (and that can be as misleadng and meaningless as web page 'hits'), but the credibility and value that is associated with wisdom and knowledge.
I explain to him that in the beginning, in this case when the prologue to the gospel according to John was written, it was authored in Greek, and that the word for ‘Word’ was “Logos”. I can see his eyes dart off to Tommy Hilfiger and Lacoste and other successsful brands, and so I repeat what I said, emphasizing the difference in the pronunciation of "Log'os" and "logo´" and the similarity of their roots, their etymology, and the "author'-ity" of language.
I tell him about complexities of the meaning of the word “Logos”, like about how Heraclitus established the term long before John, to imply the fundamental order of the cosmos. He's apparently still with me, and so we continue to talk about collective consciousness and culture, grammar and language, about patterns and frames of reference. I mention the notion of Logos being an expression of a cyclical rather than a linear order, like ecological cycles, capable of warding off scientists and theologians alike. I sense his presence waning. I must be careful not to say too much.
When we hang up, I look up the biblical passages again, and read a bit in my “Literary Guide to the Bible” (ed. Robert Alter et al) and surf to recall the significance which Heraclitus had attached to the term 'Logos'. My memory, my hard disk and RAM, are apparently not as inadequate as I thought. And I am reminded of my gratefulness for the young people in my life.

* Apparently an old saying which I first heard in an avantgarde film called "Red Shift" by Gunvor Nelson.

I'm all ears

”Be fruitful and multiply….And it was so…and it was good…And there was evening and there was morning..” Gen 1:28-31

I’m all ears. Three Tales, a music video by Beryl Korot & Steve Reich lingers yet.
Ever since I suddenly became deaf in one ear, my sense of inner direction has apparently multiplied at the expense of the outer. Everything I hear from the outside since then seems to pierce my head, like a 7-bit skeleton key that's being shoved into a 7-tined tuning fork. In the beginning, when there was no fit between the key and the fork, I used to beat and pound on the door, crying to be let in and out of myself, but now I am getting better - at listening and waiting with one ear, the right ear. That's how I hear "War in Heaven: Angel's monologue" by Sam Shephard and Joseph Chaikin. That's why I see what I see in my kitchen. That's how I find all the young girls from the Essen cathedral choir. That's why I too sing "Bred dina vida vingar." All in one week. One ear. Here.

Angel in my kitchen

When I was a child I used to think that when someone’s ears went red, it was a sign of embarassment, shame or regret. Yesterday, the marvel suddenly took on new meaning, which I was compelled to capture and further investigate. As he – our former master chef at the Allhelgona Kyrka soup kitchen – spoke to me in my own kitchen, one of his ears began to glow. What was his presence - his unilateral aura - trying to tell me, in the middle of a meal, on a regular workday eve?

We are ever so vulnerable when one ear turns red, not to mention when we expose one side of the neck. To be continued...

Presence through absence

Interior of Katarina Church in Stockholm;
after Taizé Meeting for Young Adults, May 5, 2007

”In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” John 16:16.

Katarzyna, my young guest from Poland, left this morning for her home in Lublin, via Warsaw. She left me with a carved wooden box and a promise to send some of the photos she took during her stay. Katarina Church appeared to be in flames while she was here – not like in 1723 or 1990 when the church literally burned up and down – but as it was just a few days ago in the presence of Taizé brothers and young adults from all over Europe. Fire is one of four basic elements. ”They kept asking: What does He mean by ’a little while’? We don’t understand.” John 16:18.

We watched and listened to the tongues fueled by wisdom. We saw the flames lick the walls and leap to the ceiling of the cupola. We envisioned then how each and every breath is capable of transforming stained cloths into sails, and of filling them until they are taut enough to propel this vessel on a new course. Fire is one of four basic elements.

The new Katarina Church is restituted – resurrected – after the old. The permanent new altar-piece installed after the fire in 1990, called "Närvaro genom frånvaro" [presence through absence], was gradually relieved of some of its weight and bestowed with new meaning. It depicts a shroud that is being unravelled, drawn, and winged – in the direction of the full sails that were created especially for the Taizé meeting – by a cross and a crown of thorns. Into the air, out to sea, down to earth.

Generation shift

Uppenbarligen var han uppmärksam på hur jag tilltalade andra gäster denna kväll eftersom han sade: “Ja du, du må ha sex gudbarn, men jag har bara en gudmor.” Paff som jag blev fick jag lov att svara lika hastigt som innerligt: “Jamen, du är den som….” “Jag vet,” replikerade han förtroligt med glimten i ögat och drog iväg ut med sina kompisar. Han vet ju att man ska tacka för maten, innan man drar.

“Kommer du att sakna mig?” frågade den lille killen för många år sedan när jag hade skjutsat honom till en flygplats inför en av hans tidigaste utlandsresor med pappa. “Det kan du ge dig attan på,” svarade jag. ”Vad bra, men jag kommer inte att sakna dig,” blev hans replik då. Kan man få en tydligare bekräftelse på vad det innebär att finnas till för ett enastående under, bara barnet?

[He had obviously been attentive of my conversations with other guests that evening, since he said: "Yeah, you may have six godchildren, but I only have one godmother." "Dumbfounded, I was compelled to answer quickly and sincerely: "Yes, but you are the [only] one that..." "I know," he whispered with a twinkle in his eye, and then took off with his buddies. He knows that he should express thanks for food before he takes off.

"Are you going to miss me?" the little guy asked many years ago when I had just given him a lift to the airport on one of his earliest trips abroad with his father. "That's one thing you can be sure of," I answered. "Good, but I'm not going to miss you," was his reply then. Could I have received a more definitive answer to what it means 'to be there for' a wonderful, extra, ordinary child?]