Midsummer

I have a colleague whose husband is extremely fond of the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere: June 21, a.k.a mid-summer. I told her that he should become an honorary Swede because the Swedes are enthralled with mid-summer, have large celebrations, and see all that sunshine (almost 24 hours worth) as due recompense for those long winters.

I've spent a few days in the far north of Sweden at both the bottom of winter (New Year's Eve) and the height of summer. In the former, the sun just gets above the horizon and then goes to sleep again--only a brief hello. In the latter, you have to cover the windows if you want to get any sleep. My grandfather came from a large family in Boden, a garrison town up north; he came to the U.S. in the very early 20th century and became a gold miner--that is, one who works full time in a gold mine, drilling, setting dynamite charges, loading ore cars: nothing glamorous about that. Allegedly he was well known for being able to use very few dynamite sticks to produce large amounts of ore.

When I taught for a semester as a Fulbright Scholar at Uppsala University in Sweden, I mentioned to students that I had roots in Boden, and they had a good chuckle. Let's just say Boden isn't considered the most cosmopolitan town in Sweden. But actually it's a nice town--great old railway station, wonderful farms nearby, a fine old church--which I saw represented on a pewter plate my whole life. Actually to visit the church in my mid-twenties was a bit disorienting. One gets accustomed to something being only art, not reality.

Here's a small poem about being in a cafe in Boden in the summertime:

A Café in Boden, Sweden

There were tables under trees, dappling
on white table-linens, waitresses snug in skirts
and starched white shirts. There was the fresh
Swedish breeze, a tinge of Swedish sadness,
which is composed of history, stoicism,
and routine. There was Swedish spoken:
efficient, supple, sounding like a creek.
There were we; we were there. Some
laughter, not much. There was cardamom
in the rolls, a flower in each vase. There
was a sense in which our lives had been
established by others for others and were
to include this interlude at an outdoor café—
a kind of play that wouldn’t presume
to have a major theme or conflict. There
is this clarified memory of the scene,
Swedish café, outdoors, Boden, far north.

Copyright 2007