One of those days

It is one of those long bare winter days in Sweden that I usually have such a hard time remembering, much less describing. There are so many of these days, all so alike, so monotonously grey, void of sounds and colors. You wake up to a cool, damp daylight, rather than to sunlight. Day in and day out, no fog, but a mist that veils contours and deceives depth. When you look out the window, the weather is as enigmatic as it is predictable and thus an easy excuse to go back to bed, curl up and read. It is one of those days.

When I woke up this morning I made a pot of tea and then went back to bed and read for a couple of hours. After a shower I managed to put in another intensive couple of hours of writing before it was time to join some friends for jazzbrunch at Mosebacke with Swing Magnifique.
On the way to Mosebacke, M and I talked about the history and demography of Palestine, of the Gaza strip. We agreed that we are tired of macabre reports and at a loss to affect change, but we can at least try to understand.
Late breakfast, later lunch, good company and swinging music had my feet tapping to sounds like Django Reinhardt. The view across the approach to Stockholm was magnificent, even if the water was invisible.

Now I am recalling a day like today some 30 years ago, spent with a friend on her father’s farm in the Swedish countryside. Perhaps I was confused, maybe even frightened, by the unfamiliar landscape, by strange signs and tacit signals from my company then. On a milky day like today, I find myself easily preoccupied - then as now - by something that happened before, on another day, in another place. Yes, it is a day like that, when I am neither here nor now for very long.