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There's so much I want to tell.
I sat here for days, waiting for news on Stephen. First day when he was unconscious, and second day when he came to, and third day when he died. Sitting, and waiting. Waiting for news, talking, comforting (hopefully)...
Today I ventured outside. My mind and body were drained, they needed revitalizing. Perfect really, because it's almost summer hot outside!
I went from my home down a forested slope to a small hospital and down a road and a flight of steps to a deserted school. Kids are having a holiday, gives them opportunity to enjoy the wonderful weather.
I passed through a residential neighborhood. Two kids there, having fun on rollerblades. One smaller, lecturing the larger, on the finer points of rolling down one side of the ramp and hopping off on top of the other. They argued amongst each other like kids do as they went up and down the ramp, stopping briefly for a moment or two on the flat top-side at each end.
I continued on, smiling to myself. A tramride downtown followed, during which I had two gorgeous youths to study, one slim teen babe with dark hair and a sleepy youth with a really small beard on the tip of his chin and silver walkman plugs in his ears.
Got some spaghetti bolognese in me and bought the PS2 Special copy of Edge Magazine. Not much to say about that. Then I began walking home...
Those who remember my short essay smith sort of prompted me to write about milk (could someone help me find that please? It should be in the back pages), got a small insight about the mentality of the Swedish people. Another aspect of us is our perchance for shedding our clothes at first sight of summer warmth.
After having spent months upon end huddled up in thick winter clothing, we are all quick to strip as soon as the weather changes. I saw many people today walking around in just pants and T-shirt, no jacket at all.
Our flora is just the same. Give it a little warmth and some sunshine and it all literally explodes. A lawn that was a yellowish brown one day is thick and green the next and in dire need of a cut the one after that if not watched closely! Bulbs shoot up like rockets out of the ground, flowers opening up in record speed. It's amazing!
Walking up our parade street towards the art museum (the one that founded a four-month-long tendon inflammation in my right foot if you remember, Nick.  ), I saw many people, young and not so old mostly, enjoying the sunny weather. One old guy with sun-darkened skin played the accordion really well as he stood in the light next to a white-washed old stone building. I gave him a nod and a smile, though not some change because I am nearly broke (and what else is new?).
I steered my feet southward first behind the City Library, past old stone buildings towards the Scandinavium (google it if you wanna know!), and then turned east towards the amusement park, which everyone of you should visit in the summer. It is such an amazingly beautiful place. It's open for visit, but none of the attractions are running yet, all you can do is stroll around and experience the parkland. I didn't actually enter, I just passed by, looking at all the cuties.
There's so much I want to tell...
I entered the area of the city known as Örgryte, an area that is somewhat more upscale compared to neighbouring places. There are many beautiful houses there, some big and many expensive. As I walked up one street into an ever more quiet neighborhood, the sound of traffic was being replaced by enthusiastic girlish laughter. I continued on, the street climbing a small hill so that the left-side house was placed on higher ground than the right-hand side. Behind some bushes I spotted two kids playing on a huge trampoline in the garden of a house, that was clearly where the laughter was coming from! I turned and looked at them properly. Behold my surprise, they were boy-children! Not girls as I had thought... So lost in their fun and games bouncing around on that implement of joy, their voices seemingly not bothering to keep up the pretense of sounding male at all.
As I watched them, they quickly quieted down, probably wondering what this weird-ass wacko dressed all in black with his hair in a ponytail wanted with them... I grinned to myself, gave them another look and proceeded onwards. Soon those same yells and laughs started coming from the garden once more when I had removed my intrusive presence. I smiled to myself again and continued. The sun shone on me as I walked up the hill, making my bum feel very hot indeed in my synthetic windproof winter pants. Time to break out the good ol jeans methinks!
Turning onto another street leading even further upwards, I passed a wonderful small, white two-storey building I would love to afford to buy. It has an even smaller third floor that looks almost like an addendum to the house, like it was added as an afterthought. The wooden third floor has small round windows like the cabin of a ship, and that is where I'd make my master bedroom. If I'd ever was to own the place that is... I would furnish it with genuine Swedish sixties-style furniture; clean and simple in style, functionalistic design. In the carport, I'd keep a nice motorcycle, and an expensive mountainbike with a titanium frame so it doesn't rust.
Further down the street is a block of identical brown brick houses in two storeys running along in chains, wall-to-wall. They aren't very big as far as floor area's concerned, but they're populated by rather well-to-do people. That can be seen by peeking through their windows. They have modern, yet not frilly furniture inside, made of solid wood or black wrought iron and glass, et cetera. They have expensive heavy crystal pieces made by Orrefors or Kosta Boda decorating the place, tall halogen lamps made of brass in the corners lighting up oil paintings on the walls, and leather couches made out in pale brown or tan, matching the wooden dining table and chairs. And so on.
These people that live there have a sense of style and taste, everything in their homes fits in with the rest without looking odd or out of place, and their children are all very pretty.
There's still so much I want to tell.
I continued past them and their houses - some people having gathered for an afternoon in the sun and some relaxing on their own, laid-back with closed eyes - and onwards up the hill through another small forested area and down a set of rickety stairs. The street I was on I discovered maybe about five years ago. I was there a previous spring, now long ago and was fascinated by its lovely location. The western side of the hill faces towards the amusement park, and in the summer and with favorable winds, the sounds of merriment carries clearly through the air almost a kilometer to reach that hilltop.
The houses are all (very) upper middle-class. Too small to be really upper-class, but clearly out of reach for the normal man. Outside one home I once saw a silver Mercedes V12 coupe AND a midnight black BMW coupe too that felt like it was one meter high and three meters wide, half the length of the car being the hood hiding a monster engine undoubtedly. One for mommy and one for daddy I assume. Wonder which was who's toy? Oh, they have at least one kid too, because I've seen a little girl running around there with one of the parents. I suppose you can fit a baby-seat in there, modern sports cars are so versatile these days!
Anyway, as I came round the U-shaped bend, at which point is a house that once looked like it was home to a genuine witch. You saw it clearly, her garden was slightly dilapidated, with gnarled trees dotting the lawn, bushes along the low, rusty iron fence and twin cypress trees, one on either side of the porch. The house was a faded and peeling grey color with white corners and windows, made of wood and in two storeys with a pointed roof. It had an arching extension at the back with stained glass windows made in diamond shapes in many different colors. Definitely a witch's house, and right there behind those arched walls and tall stained-glass windows, that's where she had her pentagram on the floor, her inner sanctum.
About two or three years ago, the house changed owners. An excavator dug up the cypresses and the tortured-looking trees. The house was scraped clean and repainted (though still grey in color). Now, a children's playhouse sits at the back and a verandah-thingy made of concrete with cobblestones sunk into it has been poured out back too. A picknick table and some chairs sat on top of the uneven surface as I walked past.
The witch had obviously moved out - or flown is probably more likely!
I continued down the street. The driveway of the house where I'd seen the expensive Mercedes and the undoubtedly equally expensive BMW was empty. The next building on opposite side, neighboring the witch's old home is almost hidden behind a tall hedge, at least two and a half meters high. Maybe the most expensive place on the street. Whitewashed stone, big windows, two storeys in height. Solid architecture, square and impressive, conveying an impression of thick wallets residing inside. A gap in the hedge at the entrance showed me yet another boy of maybe twelve years of age on a bouncy-bouncy trampoline. Is this the new fad for the summer? I dunno! He was too cute for words (where do they buy all these good-looking kids?!), with really short really dark hair looking as if slicked to his skull, a striped t-shirt of white and grey hugging a super slim boy frame and dark pants or shorts (I can't remember which). He looked straight at me as I came walking by. Made me wonder, what was that boy's life, living in a house like that? What school does he attend, something with kids of all the regular Joe Schmoes, or something more upscale?
I pondered such issues as I stood at my favorite lookout spot, a walking path between two houses leading down the hill. I could see the amusement park in the hazy distance, its rides empty and still. No screaming kids, not yet. Not for a little while anyway.
A couple minutes later I went back the same way I came. The boy was no longer on the trampoline. He was standing next-door at the witch's old house where the young parents had arrived home. He was showing something in a small notebook to a girl, maybe one he had a crush on I dunno, why else would he be showing her stuff like that? She was blonde and pretty with long hair and taller than him by at least half a head, but too far away for me to hear what they were talking about. She was cute. He was cuter. He was maybe twelve years old, no more I guess.
As I passed them, a woman in her fifties I suppose (or her fourties and having spent way too many hours at a tanning salon considering her skin tone, yet rather crinkly appearance), came out the back from the house across the street. I'd seen her before. I'd seen her dogs before also; long-legged lanky beasts with long snouts and long deep-red fur. Dunno what breed though, who cares. She let them run freely, and as she walked to the gate, she whistled a melody to them, probably to try and make them stay near her side. A male voice called out at her from somewhere in front of the house.
"Have you done the shopping yet?", it called, sounding fairly young. Maybe a son of her, or a boy-toy? I didn't actually turn my head to look for who it belonged to.
"No, not yet", she replied loudly so he'd hear her. "It doesn't go that quickly!" She then continued on with her walk, whistling more to her doggies who ran a bit ahead of her. They knew the way by heart, they turned up the rickety stairs without bothering to wait for the woman. They'd probably walked that route hundreds of times before.
I don't like doggies. Doesn't matter how nice they are according to their owners, I still don't like them. I don't trust them. They're slavering beasts, animals, predators. Wolves in dog's clothing, and domesticated mostly in our own minds, really. These were okay though, they completely ignored me. It was as if I didn't even exist to them, all they did was make sure they didn't collide with me as they passed me on their way up the stairs, their feet making that sound dog-claws do when tapping against wood.
The woman had to yell at them as the overly enthusiastic dogs ran too far ahead amongst the trees behind the back row of houses. One of them was called Love, I learned. Not said like the English word; "luv" sorta; it is a Nordic female name and is pronounced in two syllables: LO with a long o-sound, and VE, emphasis on the E, almost as if spelled with an accent.
There's so much more I want to tell.
The woman and her dogs and me split up after I had walked down the path from the hill, through a small grove of horse chestnut trees that is just beautiful once the trees have grown their leaves; it's like walking through a green cathedral when the sun filters through! Of course, the sounds of traffic from the busy street right outside kinda ruins the tranquility and peace of mind one could have attained, but it's still a lovely place.
Cars should be banned I think. All they do is pollute the air with noise and exthaust emissions. Whose stupid idea was it to give people the impression it's their god-given right to be carted around everywhere they want to go in one and a half tonnes of metal on wheels, farting out cancerous fumes in great amounts while doing so? I hate cars! People should buy a bike, or use public transportation and their legs in a city. For those that can't walk, we'll think up something that doesn't make people get sick and die.
I continued my solemn journey along a small brook running parallel to the road. I don't know where all the water comes from, it runs for quite some distance through all of Örgryte and into Lunden, emerging from a cement pipe. Must be some sort of underground spring or something... Don't think it's safe to drink the water, though I might be wrong. I'm just not going to do it, I don't feel that wild and spontaneous!
There is so much I could tell of what I saw during my walk along that brook. The brown-speckled bird with the fairly long thin beak of the kind I don't know what it is called, those that sit still and quiet amongst the dead leaves on the ground and melting into the background unseen, until they move for some inexplicable reason making a motion in the corner of your eye, startling you. The leaves rustle and the bird looks at you like it's saying, "If you come near me I'll just fly away so don't even try!", and I answer back, "If you hadn't moved you stupid bird I wouldn't even have noticed you at all!", and then some kind of wary trust builds between us once it realizes I am not trying to catch it and eat it. I stand there looking at the bird, and it looks at me. Then it takes another hop, rustling the leaves again. It's looking for food while I'm still there. It hops, scans the ground and waits, hops, scans, waits, hop... Scan... Stabs with its beak, apparantly finding some luscious, protein-rich insect treat down there. Yeech! You keep it, birdie!
I could tell of the tiny little waterfall, only two decimeters high, right under the cement bridge holding up the roadway above. It makes the sound of the waterfall bounce down from high above making you hear it from two directions at once, the sound from above a bit more hollow and artificial, as if the cement takes away some of the color and life in it. Still a fascinating experience though!
I could tell of the duck I saw sitting at the side of the brook, its shiny green-feathered head held proud and tall on an equally shiny green-feathered neck! Do you see green the same way I see green, in your head? Or does green look entirely different to you, except you recognize your green as my green simply by us both calling it green? But how can that be? Green is so obviously GREEN, and not anything else or else we would not call it green! Matters like these consumed my young intellect when I was around the age of five I think, and I still haven't found a proper answer. Maybe I am not supposed to. Maybe it is one of those things we are never meant to know for sure. As for who set that rule - if there indeed exists one - well I don't know that either...
I could tell you of the youths sitting in the sun, one on the elongated saddle of his moped and the other two in the grass, in front of a sun-lit apartement block made of pale yellow bricks. They were drinking something, beer or soda I don't know which, talking and laughing quietly like older teens do when with friends.
I could tell you of the young man and his girl having a picknick in the grass near the elementary school, both sitting cross-legged on a plaid blanket with their dinner arrayed in front of them, afternoon sun pleasantly warm and the breeze mild and gentle while blowing, and mostly not actually.
I could tell how the girl moved a decimeter or so closer to her love and how they almost reached for each other, while meanwhile the father of a young kid spent some quality time with his son kicking a football back and forth between them on the asphalt schoolyard not very far away. The man had a stubbled face and a belly, but he seemed very involved with what he was doing, entertaining his boy as best he could!
The last kilometer or so I mostly spent thinking. Thinking of two dear friends whom I hope followed me on my walk.
It had been as much a walk for them as for myself, showing them the city that is my home. Neither knew it while alive. Maybe now they do, at least a little. I spoke to them in my mind, telling them of all the things I saw, bits of trivia that I knew and old experiences from past walks. I hope they listened and weren't bored.
I stopped by the tree of Simon Lindegren. It is full of life, busy setting leaves, buds expanding, breaking. I wonder if it hurts initially, like teething? I think it does. That is why the leaf grows so much after it's been released; it celebrates its newfound freedom! Right now, trees are in pain. But soon that will be over. They will all grow, get bigger, stronger... Simon's too, that is for sure!
Summer is coming.
-Lenny
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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How long was your walk? Anyways the essay you wrote about the milk, i found it. It's on page 28, second to the last post. I hope it helps. Very interesting if i might add that.
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Just reading about it made me relax. I worked all day at moving. One stuffed truck and one stuffed trailer. the trailer load into storage, the truckload into the new house. Unfortunately the transmission on my truck went out again. Just had it fixed 10 days ago. Looks like I'll be renting a U-Haul to finish the job. That means a few more days of packing before anymore moving.
Think goood thoughts,
e
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Thanks for sharing that with us Lenny!
Hope that the tendon inflammation has completely healed now.
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Lenny, you are SO articulate mate.. I actually Read it twice!!! Thank you for letting me see we are all more than what we think. ^0¿0^
People have a habit of changing your direction through life
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I'm glad you liked my little tale. I enjoyed the walking, and the writing also. *HUUUUUGS!*
I also got a blister on the heel of my right foot, because I chose yesterday for some silly reason as the day to switch to my summer shoes. Maybe not so smart, but fortunately it doesn't really hurt even with shoes on since I put a Compeed patch on it yesterday evening.
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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The Walk. 
What a wonderful walk 
Wonderfully observed 
