Midsommer Part 3 - The Next Day and Departures

Skona Blues

"Monte?"

"...yes?..."

"Me and Kalle are leaving. We wanted to say goodbye."

Julia and Kalle were on the other side of the unzipped tent door. The tent city was half gone and the rest was being packed up. Everyone ambled about, the anticipation of exit written in their packs and bundles.

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon," Julia said. 

"How are you getting back?"

"We don't know. We might try and hitchhike to the bus stop." 

"Give me a minute."

I collected myself and said a battery of goodbyes. I got lots of hugs and cheek kisses and felt unexpected pangs bidding farewell to my new friends. Anna have me a hug and held my hands and looked at me with eyes like the midday sky bent around her iris. She had something to say, it was practically half out of her mouth, but she didn't say it and waived to me as she walked down the road. 

Kim and his men had reassembled on the porch and were already drinking heavy beers. Kim was wearing very conspicuous aviator sunglasses. Psychedelic Mike appeared to have never gone to bed. Pelle wanted ice cream so he ate ice cream. He offered me some but I had to decline. I did have crackers and cheese and two cups of drip coffee and felt like a member of the living again. A shower would have been nice, but that sort of thing was out of the question.

We sat and talked for a while. Pelle, myself, Kim, Mike, Una--one of Kim's men, Lasse, and the girl with an incisor next to her front teeth. Nothing of any relevance outside of the immediacy of conversation, but reggae came to dominate the playlist. As I soon found out, Kim, his drumming, his studio, his practice space is all dedicated to the ambition of roots reggae. This was welcome news as reggae is one of the genres in which I take immense pride in knowing a useless, noteworthy amount. Oh, "Cool Breeze," by Big Youth? The session was DJ'ed by King Tubby, and the dub was of Keith and Tex covering the Spanishtonian's, "Stop that Train,"--that sort of thing. Kim and I talked passionately.

"Here in Skona, reggae is huge. The biggest music."

"I did not expect that," I replied.

"Yeah, one of the heroes of Swedish music is from Skona and he was the last of the real roots reggae guys. If you grew up in Skona, you love reggae. I even have a friend who plays roos reggae. He recorded here before and is having a concert for his new album in Malmö tonight. It's like, it's like the music of the region. Like the blues music in the south part of America."

"I've never even heard Swedish reggae, didn't know there was such a thing, but if I ever start a reggae band, I'm gonna call it Skona Blues." 

Kim smiled his broad smile, "Cool. Very cool ," and he reached his large hand across the table and I linked my thumb with his and we shook.

Pelle

Pelle will eat ice cream for breakfast. He understands the beauty of an outdoor toilet. He travels as much as he can. He reads books and owns his own apartment and loves his sister. Pelle is the man with the lust for life. With his glinting, unbroken smile and hugs for everyone and easy laugh, life may be too small a thing for this happy man. Even at 38, he has more genuine admiration for the gallery of things of life transcendent and the things fucked than I could ever claim. I'd say he's skinny as a rail, but it's more like an antenna. Pelle operates at some frequency where he can take the oft overlooked vibrations of life surrounding us and translate them into a broadcast powerful enough to bring people--en masse--out to the Swedish countryside. He isn't a loud man, though an intelligent one. He listens. Oh, the hugs, the endless amount of hugs. He doesn't struggle under the weight of some vain ambition, but he has ambitious hobbies, and he gets these things done. On a strict vegetarian diet, he doesn't smoke, and seems to drink just the right amount. He's an electrician, the deeper symbol of connectivity I'll leave up to you. Never cynical, but sarcastic, he'll tell stories of getting mad but no one believes him. He's kind. He'll invite swarthy Americans to his birthday party which doubles as the best Swedish holiday even though he's known them for maybe 28 hours tops. He'll even give this wayward American the key to his apartment. Pelle is my friend, or as the random circumstances that led us to know one another more appropriately dictate, I get to be Pelle's friend. And I'm grateful. Not just for my own petty ends, but for humanity at large. The world still makes a certain kind. The good kind.

Over Hill and Dale

After a half-hearted attempt to clean up, a thick and warm day announced the presence of summer right on cue. Kim passed out on the couch on the stage, his aviators askance on his face. Una, with his scrubby beard and curly hair and green pullover he hadn't changed in days, laid on a bench and stared into space. Psychedelic Mike had disappeared. The girl with the incisor next to her front teeth undid her raven hair and decided or take a nap.

Pelle  wanted to go for a walk through the woods. We were joined by Emilie, a short dark haired girl in red wellies and a tall blonde girl who hardly spoke a word, Swedish or English. The two girls, again, seemed to have appeared from nowhere as though the last few tents were generating random humanoids.

As is the way on Kim's farm, we followed Otto. He was out to impress his legion and led us on an extended walk through the forest. Extra spry on his pads, his coal black coat glistened in what faint threads of sunlight slivered between the tall trees.

We walked over pine needle scattered forest floor, crossed an itinerant stream reduced to a trickle, and occasionally called out to Otto who was certain to not leave us, but something in our human nature requires the affirmation. I stepped on a stump overgrown with moss and lichens and it crushed to bits. A felled deer blind rotted back into the earth. The three girls had fallen behind and as we scaled a gentle rise with somewhat precarious footing, Pelle called out to our guide, "Otto, where are you taking us?"

We waited for the girls to catch up, and within the next fifty strides Otto led us through a gauntlet of pencil thin pines back onto the road. When he saw we'd all made it to the clear, he lurched to the right--snout first--and began to trot. Pelle stopped him.

"I don't think that's the right way," Pelle remarked looking both ways with his hands on his hips.

"I trust him, he didn't steer me wrong last time," I added.

Pelle insisted it was the wrong way and Otto, like a good dog, followed. After twenty minutes or so spent wiling away the time by comparing knee and waist high anthills to towns in Sweden, the apparent, predictable truth was uttered out loud. 

"I think we went the wrong way!" Pelle said in his irrepressible, always smiling manner.

We continued in the wrong direction until we hit asphalt. Pelle pulled out his almost dead phone and checked Google maps. The words "Wow," and "we really went the wrong way," were uttered repeatedly, in no particular order, and in multiple languages. Pelle indicated we could follow the highway to another road and then back to the farm. We soldiered on for a bit, but the crowd fleeing the country after a holiday weekend was enough to force us off the road for fear of Otto getting hit. We found another path into the forest, an unfamiliar one, and ducked back into the woods. And this is where our adventure truly began.

Five shadowed figures and a dog rode high the shape of the Swedish countryside. Over hills and into gorges and along rock walls separating one field from another, they would occasionally stop, set their hands above their eyes, and stare into the thicket of woods or fields of waving wheat looking for directions. They offered none. The dog would stop, sit, hang his pink tongue out of his mouth and relish the results of his sound direction forsaken. Man made fences began to impede their progress, some strung around ugly electrified turnbuckles.

"It doesn't hurt, it's just...not nice," the one in the pageboy cap and glasses remarked as they began to host themselves over at the post.

Carving through farmers crops in long strides leaving their aimless trail, fumbling down rocky embankments, the group began to feel more lost than was readily comfortable. One girl remarked to the foreigner this was all reminiscent of a Swedish young adult novel about two boys and three girls and a dog. It gave the foreigner tremendous comfort as she hadn't spoken to him much. 

Over another rise, over more fences, the horizon finally broke in the shape of a farm. Not the farm they were after, but farms are on roads. Scaling two of his fences,the farmer's dog howled and barked at the strangers unwelcome presence. Back on the road, they showed the foreigner a nettle plant and said early in the spring was the best time to make nettle soup. The dog, bored with the adventure, charged under a fence and chased some horses. The five figures yelled and waived their arms, but the dog didn't return until he felt it was appropriate. 

The road came to a rise, the rise gave way to a bend, and on that curve the dog sprinted away from the five shadowed figures knowing he was back home.

Sanna

"Where have you guys been?" Sanna asked sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette. Kim was still asleep on the stage. Una and Psychedelic Mike had resumed their spots.

"We went for a walk and didn't listen to Otto." I replied. 

Sanna shook her head and smiled. We sat and talked for a while about words. Apparently kiss means piss in Swedish. Or is it the other way round? And then they talked about signs in Sweden that read "INFART," and how they even make Swede's laugh. Someone commented that there really is no such thing as an in-fart to which I added, "Unless you're on a date." I told them about how in France I would see signs everywhere labeled douche. Through various tangents I conveyed that a douche is something a woman uses to clean her vagina, but is also a guy who really sucks. Una loved it.

"Clean her vagina. I like your style, man," he chuckled in his voice as shaggy as his beard.

We all agreed it was dinner time, and the crowd decided to make vegetable skewers and cook them over the fire pit. I joined Sanna at a table set in the yard and helped her cut veggies and prepare the skewers. She loaded up the playlist with old, sentimental Swedish songs, her favorite.

"My father is a meat master, I got this recipe from him," she said through dark hair and dark eyes as she painted her marinade on the vegetables with an actual paintbrush.

"But you're a vegetarian?" I asked.

"Me and Kim are bad vegetarians, but we try."

"Honestly, this weekend, I've never seen such a high concentration of vegetarians in my life. My friends are very meaty."

"You make them sound fat. Like meat people."

"We do love our meat, it's the Texas way."

"Do you miss them?"

"Of course I do."

"Do they miss you?"

"They had better."

Sanna laughed as she forced a skewer through a few more vegetables.

"So you play guitar?" I asked.

"Yeah, and I sing."

"How long have you played?"

"Since I was a teenager. When I finished school I went to music school and my father was furious."

"What did he want you to do?"

"It's not that. My father is a musical genius who never did anything with it."

"Was he a failed musician?"

"No. He never tried and he sort of came to hate it."

"Hate music?"

"No, it's hard to explain. He hated the thought of his daughter becoming a musician. So I supported myself through music school."

"And you ended up as a nurse?" 

"Yeah. I lived in the UK for a while and tried to make music and traveled some. Then I decided to do something different."

"Well, you can still make music."

"I'll always love to make music. I did what I thought was right. I didn't want to do the same thing as everyone else. I did something I thought was different until I had to do something else." She poured the rest of the dark marinade onto the assembled skewers. Tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, and onion glistened in the hardening dusk light. "Just like you. You're doing something different, and when it's over, you'll have to do something else."

Fireside 

The fire crackled and a large warped grate was placed over the glowing embers. A foil sachet filled with leftover potatoes was placed over the cooler part and the veggie skewers were placed over the warmer part. We drank wine and after Psychedelic Mike played a few songs on a guitar missing its D string, Sanna went into the house and returned with her guitar. We sang songs. As a group. We had a hippie house campfire sing-a-long. We sang, "The Weight," we sang "By the Rivers of Babylon," then Mike led us in a version of Holly Golightly's "Don't Nobody Love Me Like the Devil Do." Una sang a song all by himself. Everyone seemed to be able to play guitar.

We ate, and talked, and all took turns trying to move out of the tower of smoke billowing from the fire. Most everyone else turned in early, and Kim finally roused from his day long nap. I joined him on the porch where he sat alone.

"Kim! You missed dinner, man."

"I think I made a big mistake last night," he said wearily. "I've got mosquito bites all over my ass and that means I had my pants off."

I had nothing to add.

"Oh, and don't tell anyone I have cigarettes," he said as he took out a crumpled pack and lit a smoke.

Pelle, Emilie, Kim, Sanna and I sat on the porch. We laughed and talked and drank the last of the wine. The next day, Sunday, I'd take the bus back to Malmö and then take a train to Stockholm that would be rerouted because of an accident. Pelle would return to his apartment and prepare for work on Monday. Emilie would do the same. As for Kim and Sanna, one would  continue to build, one would continue to heal, and all future judgements and transgressions would occur out of my view. The land in Skona would bake through the summer, be harvested in the fall, and return to a casket of ice and darkness as has happened in the margins around Midsommer for ages spread out in every direction reaching far beyond our own.

The next morning it rained and we were in a rush. I gave Pelle a hurried farewell in a parking lot as I raced off toward an idling bus. I didn't get to say the goodbye I wanted to, but we never do.

Midsommer Part 2 - Party

Preparations

"Monte?"

"...yes?..."

"We're having a little breakfast if you care to join us." It sounded more like a question.

Pelle was on the other side of the unzipped tent door. He was wearing a t-shirt, his trademark page boy cap, and rainbow colored magic hippie pants that were tailored to ankle length. 

"...okay..." with all four hours of sleep intact.

Swedes, for breakfast, they eat soft cheese and crackers. They had a large paper wheel filled with sheaf after sheaf of hard wheat crackers.  You simply broke off your portion from the otherwise complete round. There was also some toast and jam and drip coffee. A friend of theirs had contributed, at some other time, a container of homemade beet hummus which was delicious. 

Over breakfast Pelle, with a massive grin, asked if I'd tried the outside toilet yet. I told him no, keeping close the fact I was going to hold it until I was septic before I used the damn thing.

"Oh man, you've got to! There is nothing like sitting there with the door open, looking at the countryside, just taking a shit." His sincere enthusiasm was hard    to reconcile with the crude act of making.

After a modest breakfast by no one else's standards, we set to the final leg of preparations. Fumbling from task to task with any semblance of direction unclear, we threw our effort at sprucing up Kim's land. Spots were cleared arbitrarily. I would pick up nails and screws and placed them somewhere because the devil is always in the details. At one point, the centerpiece of the physical labor, the stage set between Kim's house and the barn-studio-concert hall hybrid was cleared. Loaded down with anonymous clutter, bed frames, and planks of wood, the highlight was when a bench deemed to large to fit in the shed was cut into more manageable bits by Kim and his power saw with a few of us straddling the victim. 

Once unencumbered, the stage was red like the barn and house with a large yellow seal depicting two dancing cats painted on the stage right third of the back wall. Pelle and Kim also decided to leave a table and some chairs up there. 

Eventually Julia called from the back steps of the house for help with KP duty. One of the essential elements of a Midsommer party is potatoes. Julia stood over a huge, table dominating box of potatoes as round as ball bearings no bigger than Chinese medicine balls. Covered in dirt, the potatoes and their box sat next to two bowls, one filled with cold water and the other empty.

"For Midsommer, we eat the...I don't know how you call it, but they are the first potatoes out of the earth."

"New Potatoes?"

"Yes!" I'm not sure if either one of us were right. "So you take the potato and take the brush and clean them and then put them in the bowl."

She took one from the box, placed it in the water and as easy magic, it emerged from the water clean with most, not all, of the skin scored away. Anxious, a lifetime spent in need of specific directions, I asked for clarification.

"Just wash them," she reiterated.

"Like the skin, all the skin?"

"No. Just wash them," she said with a bold struck period. The question was too silly to warrant a comma.

The water clouded to mud. The scrub brush gummed up with flayed potato skin. Each little spud was washed to best resemble the brown and white marble Julia left as an example. We talked about education and the difference between that of Sweden and America. We also talked about women and their role in Swedish society. Free college for everyone doesn't change some things. The radio hummed with random snippets of song and poorly integrated man-on-the-street interviews smash cut into the program. Julia said it was adult contemporary radio even though I provided the term. I'm not sure if either one of us were right.

The potatoes didn't give an inch. Endless scrubbing, two refills of water, the box was multiplying the starchy bastards from the inside. Nerves began to unspool and I couldn't help but feel I'd been given a task I wasn't fit to manage. I wouldn't ask them to prepare the Christmas tamales. 

Somewhere in boiling eggs and preparing herbs and making dip, Julia managed to make lunch. We sat on the back steps, Kalle joined us, and we eat buttered spaghetti with cold salmon Sanna said we could have on top. As we sat and ate Pelle took our picture and the first group of partygoers arrived.

New Friends

Linda and Anna both wore wigs. Linda's was pink and Anna's was blonde held held on by a sweatband. They both had on tights, but Linda's were far more outrageous, indicative of her soon to be revealed personality. Anna had beat up feet, but a beautiful, bronzed, round face countered with soft blue eyes. A couple, the kind of couple who isn't a couple--just really good friends--but is totally a couple, wore coordinated outfits. Maize yellow pants, maize yellow skirt, white shirts, back vests. She had large feather earrings and he had what he dubbed, "the economy cheat code," or what we would call the "Contra cheat code," tattooed down his calf. An avid gamer he later showed off a battery of video game tattoo, and he insisted the Contra code was used in many other games. Another woman was with them, handsome and older, and she was dressed like a flapper with long pearls and a silk band around her head. And from here, names stop mattering, especially my own.

But, that being said, a quick note on names.

Julia - Yoolyuh

Linda - Leenda

Kim - Keem

Anna - AuNuh

Lasse - Lahsay

Otto - Uh-toe

And go ahead and ask if I'll ever apologize for pronouncing my name the  correct way ever again.

Retreated back to the kitchen, potato and scrubber in hand, I watched as the damn burst and new friends trickled in by the score. Eventually the handsome woman joined the potato effort. With one deft movement her brush and potato disappeared into the water and it came out like she had swapped in Julia's example with sleight of hand. More true blood Swede's joined us in the kitchen and eyed the box of potatoes with interest. I was quickly relieved of my post.

Fitta

Pelle stood over Linda and a girl with braided auburn hair with his arms crossed smiling. They were at work lashing two sticks together like two bowed arms with interlaced fingers. One was the longer support bar and the other was shorter and more arced to accentuate the shape.

"Pelle!" 

"Monte!" He have me a hug, our standard greeting.

"What are y'all up to?"

Pelle flashed his slice of grin and with childish enthusiasm said, "They're making  a Midsommer pole."

Linda, fastening the sticks at the top interjected, "So, the Midsommer pole is a symbol for the penis, and they stick it into the ground to penetrate the earth and make summer. Instead, were making a Midsommer pussy."

I stood back and saw the perfect elegance of the parenthetical shape.

 "Do you want to help?" Linda asked.

I gagged on a coterie of disgusting jokes I'd make on my home turf and chirped, "Of course."

We ventured into the forest and gathered flowers and ferns and green pine needle twigs until out arms were full and walked them back to the work space. The auburn haired girl was already hard at work. Having acquired some fishing line from Kim, she was decorating the Midsommer Pussy. Bound up in the verdancy of Kim's fields, draped in velvety greens, woven with the flowers of late spring, the totem came to life.

The girl in the maize skirt and feather earrings came up, tilted her head and said, "Ah, a Midsommer cunt."

I went to the porch where Kim was holding court with his men. He had a beer in hand as he had most of the day.

"Have you see the Midsommer  Pussy?" I asked like a teenager with something to report in the locker room.

Kim looked over his shoulder, "Ah a Midsommer Fitta."

"Is that the word? Feelta?"

"Fitta. F-i-t-t-a."

"Fitta."

Kim and his men laughed like they had taught a toddler a swear word.

"Tonight," Kim continued, "go up to a pretty girl, a girl you like, and say, 'Fin fitta."

"Fin fitta?"

They howled. 

"That is the dividing line at this party, the girls that will let you tell them fin fitta," Kim added as he and his men continued to chuckle.

Midsommer Dinner

Pelle let me know dinner would be soon so I cleaned myself up. While combing my hair and doing my best to glop the foulness out of various places with nothing but the aid of Kim's sink, I was feeling better about the hat situation. No one seemed to be really wearing hats, the soft ratio similar to any theme party back home. 

On returning to the yard, everyone must have convened and decided now was the time, because every head had a cover of some kind. Sailor hats, floral wreaths, Austrian mountain farmer hats, bonnets, and  umbrella hats. One guy even had what must've been the leftovers of a Halloween costume wearing a paper pirate hat with a cassette tape set over cross bones emblazoned on the front. Get it? He's the Pirate Bay.

"Where's your hat?" Julia asked from under her stocking cap.

"I'm gonna make one. Like a Caesar."

"Like a what?"

I grabbed a few scraps of fern from the leftovers of the Midsommer Fitta and indicated how they would go around my head but not touch. It immediately clicked and she quickly saved the operation from itself. She went into Kim's field and cut what seemed like far too much fern, and assembled the laurel wreath in a matter of minutes. It itched like hell, but it worked.

Pelle soon emerged from Kim's house freshly showered and dressed to the nines in an olive suit with a fedora perched on his head. A moment was taken to erect the Midsommer Fitta--someone had knitted a vulva from flowers which twisted in the breeze. Dinner was called and the Midsommer party had officially begun.

Everyone had brought a dish from far and wide. Nothing seemed unfamiliar, but I couldn't tell you want any of it was. The potatoes had been par-boiled and covered with fresh herbs. Casseroles and cheese and little jars of pickled herring in various sauces covered the tables set up in the soon to be dance hall.

"I don't know what any of this is."

"Then try it all," a girl with blue eyes and flowers in her dark hair and an incisor next to her front teeth said. "Are you allergic to anything?"

"No."

She motioned to the spread and I loaded up a full paper plate on her advice. The extent to which I wish I could put words to the dishes is hard to convey, but all I can say is it was delicious. In every color and flavors from savory to sweet to sour, sitting in the shade as the Swedish summer articulated its expanding presence around us, my stomach was the least of what was fed.

The drinks began to flow. In what, to me, seemed like a very Swedish approach, Pelle and Emilie had commissioned a couple of girls from Gothenburg to make little slips of paper with vin/öl on top and a little drawing of a wine glass on bottom. The hosts placed a lockbox with some change in it on top of the bar, and it was an honor system. Twenty Swedish Crowns got you five of whatever you wanted. They had two beers, one an exceptional Swedish summer ale, and a phalanx of boxed wines. The next day, when the count was done, they--according to their calculations--had more money than they had beer and wine to sell. And who says socialism doesn't work. 

Dance Around the Midsommer Pole

As we we ate, an older couple from a neighboring farm pulled two violins from their cases and begin to saw out traditional folk songs. The man wore a wide brimmed felt hat rounded over the crown and the woman wore a very motherly dress tied at the waist. The songs were mournful and exuberant in alternating verses. It was reminiscent of the high, lonesome sound which, one day, after it had been filtered through the hodgepodge of American immigrant influences, would become bluegrass. Not as frenetic, more European in their affectation, but like some long lost cousin with a family name never butchered on Ellis Island. 

"Okay, everyone, were going to do Midsommer dances." Pelle announced. He likes to open and close his hands in front of him in a small window when he speaks to a group. His sentences always end with his hands closing as he smiles.

Pretending to be shy, Julia had to grab my hand and lead the way to the circle forming around the pole. The group alternated boy/girl and we all grabbed hands. The fiddle players made eye contact and without the aid of a countdown launched into a jaunty folk tune built on the same characteristics of songs sung in groups for time immemorial. All on a four count, with verse-chorus-verse structure, and not too many words so they're easy to remember. The circle would move in one direction, the circle would move in another, and then some simple actions were choreographed to mimic the words of the chorus.

Melodies were easy to pick out. I was always a step bend on the actions. One song, after a round,  I recognized immediately. The actions were a bit of a tell. During the chorus, you bent over and pantomimed washing clothes in a bucket and then went into a motion where you hung these invisible clothes on an imaginary line. This is how we wash out clothes, wash our clothes...

After they finished, the crowd began to clamor for one song in particular. And like a crowd pleasing cover band the man and woman set to their fiddles. The circle moved in one direction, then we stopped, and the actions began. You put your hands on the side of your head like gills, put you hands behind you over your butt in a point and wagged your little tail, and then jumped in huge leaps around the circle. The frog dance. Silly, and for children, the crowd reacted accordingly. Smiles and laughs took the group, some free-from frog jumping--complete with in air twists--began to work their way in, and the kind of giddy and unpretentious fun that makes holidays, time with good friends, and traditions fun cracked the party open.

The next song we were all led in a twisting line closer and closer together until we began to have to bridge our arms and let people under. The chorus was a meandering "la dee dee dee da la dee"

We went through the classics pretty quickly and people began to request more songs and as we went further into the catalog the players began to run out of chops. So we all applauded and eased into a more current version of fun.

Who me?

I'm from America.

From Texas...Austin.

Haha, yeah, cowboys.

No. Nope, I don't own any guns.

Yes, Texans do love their guns.

No, Austin is very different. You know how in American politics Republicans are red and Democrats are blue? We call Austin the blueberry in the tomato soup. ... ... The BLUE-berry (makes motion with hand indicating small berry) in tomato soup.

Pelle. We met while traveling in Marseille and he told me I could crash on his couch at some point on my trip, and here I am.

Six months.

Yeah, it has been amazing.

Europe and Asia. All over. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia.

(motions his hands to the scene) How could I ever be lonely?

No. Austin will be there when I get back.

Midsommer? I think it's very special. It's very special to me. I don't think many people would get to do this.

Quiz

At some point Pelle and Linda herded us to the stage for quiz time. Apparently Julia had made a quiz specifically for the party, produced handmade answer sheets, and printed enough copies to support a group of almost one hundred.

"Do you have a group yet?" Anna asked me as she swirled her likely very hot and uncomfortable blonde wig on top of her head.

"No."

"Be in our group!" The handsome woman chirped as Anna smiled.

We settled into the grass and the quiz began. Pelle and Linda went to the front of the crowd and explained they'd be hosting the quiz. Julia sat on the stage and got to watch her handiwork. Kalle was the technical assistant. The categories would be music, special Swedish trivia, the Internet, anagrams, then you had to draw a picture of Pelle and Emilie. 

"I'll be conducting the quiz in Swedish, and Pelle will be doing the English." Linda finished.

"Boo!" I yelled across the yard. As the only non-Swedish speaking person I felt guilty. "You don't have to do that."

They both smiled and a chuckle rippled through the crowd. 

Next we picked team names. My group was stumped, and I came up with one I could barely fit out of my shit eating grin. They gave me a funny look, but as accommodating hosts, they went along. Linda came and collected our name and she didn't understand. I told her it was a play on a common American saying. She cocked her head and went on to the next group. After a few minutes she did role call.  Lots of team names were in Swedish. One team named themselves "Number One." And then she got to our group. With one hand she pointed to our little circle and said, "This team is...How 'Swede' it is."

The collective huh? rippled through the crowd. Pelle looked at me.

"It's like a saying in America. 'How sweet it is.' But with...like...Swede in it. It's a play on..." I just stopped. Fucking Americans and their need to make a spectacle of themselves.

Pelle looked at the crowd and rattled something off in Swedish and finished with "How Sven it is?" and shrugged his shoulders. 

I love trivia. I'm two-thirds useless information and felt this was my moment to shine. I was going to impress my new Swedish friends kind enough to bring me into their group.

The first category was music and they had arranged for Kalle to play short clips of each song of the band in question. 

"This first band is a Swedish punk band from the 1970's whose name is also the name of a type of helmet worn by our soldiers during World War Two."

Oh, shit.

It went on and on and on like this. Who is going to be on the Swedish 20 note next year? What is the library in Sweden housing the works of some author famous for their censored works? What is the name of this Swedish song that started an Internet sensation? What is the name of so and so character from Tin Tin? (Not even Swedish, Belgian, but you get it...)

I got three questions right. They played a clip of a Pussy Riot song, I knew they wore balaclavas, and I de-coded the anagram for Pussy Riot as all of the anagrams had something to do with the rest of the quiz questions. The rest of my team somehow knew almost less than I did. We did not win.

Afterwards I told Pelle he really didn't have to do it in English. He said even if I wasn't there they would have still found some excuse to do it in English.

Permanent Sunset

The tangerine, crimson, and rose petal ink of twilight bled through the opaque blue sky. Vin/öl tickets became sweatier and more crumpled as they came out of everyone's pockets. Music began to thrum from the dance floor. The cement floor announced each step of the dancers. Kim and his men held court on the terrace, permanent fixtures of his porch throne room. A fire blazed in the pit across the yard. People occupied available space in pockets all over the yard. Sanna finally arrived and let us know she couldn't stay up late. She's a nurse and had gotten off the late shift and had to go in for the early one. The chaos of holiday fun churned, a whirlpool around a flower frocked vagina proxy planted in the middle of the celebration. And somewhere a quiet American watched filled with wonder at the of this life he's stumbled through confused and elated with each unexpected turn. Murakami says you never know your fate in advance, but when you look back at all the connected dots to a given point, it manifests itself with the utmost clarity. A trip chosen, a journey taken, a life abandoned, a room booked at random, a good Swede, a bus ride, and here I sit cross legged on the ground in the Swedish countryside wearing a fern wreath trying to slow my brain enough to absorb the embarrassment of riches proffered this wayfarer. And what little darkness there would be reclined into the valley, but only on the outside.

Amazing

Six months.

Wow. That's cool. How has it been? -- His English wasn't strong. A goateed friend of Pelle's.

Amazing.

So, what was the name of your quiz team again?

How 'Swede' it is. It's like a play on the saying, how sweet it is. It's dumb.

Okay...Yeah man, I would love to travel more. I haven't even seen much of Europe

I've found that to be kind of common. I haven't seen lots of America. How do you know Pelle?

We've been friends for a long time. We are building a boat together. 

That's awesome. Is she seaworthy?

Well, no, not yet. We took her on the water, but there is still lots of electrical things we need to fix. And make it look nice.

What's her name?

That's a bit of a conversation. Pelle wants to name her Habibi. It's the Arab word for blessing, but I don't know.

It's a good name. There is an excellent graphic novel called Habibi. 

I don't know what that is, but I want to change the name. We've already sailed her with that name and it's bad luck to change the name after you've sailed the boat with a name.

Hmmmm....gotta respect the sea, I guess. Where have you traveled to?

Peru.

That's awesome, man. How was it?

It was okay. I don't know, Swedish people don't get too excited. It's like, every traveler I talk to from America they say, "amazing!" It can't all be good. I was traveling with this one American from Ohio and everything was amazing. I was like, no, some is shit. And they way he talked to the villagers was...ugh...it was so embarrassing.

That's funny, I say amazing all the time. And in truth, Brussels is kind of a shit hole, but I loved it.

It wasn't amazing?

The Power of Pop

The playlist was crowd sourced. Somehow Pelle had gotten the wi-fi to work even though it hasn't been up in months. People would go to the laptop, put songs in a queue and wait for their song. Aside from some deep, deep European house, 97% was western, English language pop music. This group of Swedes has an uncanny knowledge of music. It could just be this specific group, heavy with musicians and college students, but I heard Django Reinhardt, The Congoes, The Seeds, Fela Kuti, Talking Heads, Ramones, plenty of rap, and reams, just reams, of American pop music. There was one young woman who loves Beyonce maybe more than J. She would stand in her high-waisted denim shorts over the shoulder of whoever was operating the laptop and request Beyonce track after Beyonce track.  

Swedes dance hard. The merits of their angular, full body tilt is above reproof if some of it did breach into avant garde modern dance. They use their whole body, they lift their feet off the ground, they clap, they sing along, they close their eyes, and abandon themselves of all apparent ego.

Anna, who shed her wig and had a shaved head underneath--only adding to her charms that had fully overwhelmed me by this point--would kick her dirty feet out and jerk her body backwards with her hands stiffened into points on the end of her crooked arms sliding back and forth. In the heat of "Heart of Glass," I clumsily spurted out, "I wish I could speak Swedish with you." She narrowed her pale blues and said, "but I speak English. We've been talking all night." Flirtation perceived as a referendum. Look out ladies, he's single.

Sweltering, the room was humid with the flailing bodies. A natural circle was formed and occasionally someone would descend into the middle to do nothing special, but the beat decides and they follow. When "Regulators" came on, my excitement was written all over my fake thug posturing. I was forced into the middle where I proceeded to rap the entire song. They took my rings, they took my Rolex, I looked at the brothers and said, "Damn, what's next?"

Then "Survivor," by Destiny's child came on, and animal frenzy seized the crowd. People charged into the room to join the fray. A girl dressed in some kind of racing suit with monkey legs looked to be in a near spiritual trance. Sweaty armpits showed as all hands where in the air. Hips swung and whole bodies from the ground as Swedish accented lyrics echoed off the walls. And for a moment, it was the greatest song I'd ever heard. 

In the moment, up close, it's easy to take these songs and denigrate them as part of the undoing of some perceived cultural excellence. The cotton candy machine that is popular culture spinning more sugary fluff consumed at large only to rot the teeth and brains of a doomed cultural consciousness. I was one of these, so vehemently opposed to these girls from Houston so many years ago. But, in this moment, when you stand back and watch as these people from a far corner of the globe embrace it for what it is, a song, it reminds of music's unassailable power. Unifier, and body mover, and sing-along lubricant, fractured from the borders we use to guard our long held pretensions, it's music. As simple as it is a force beyond conventional logic, its our human magic made to transcend the many man made strictures of language and border and age even leaving behind the shallowness of mortality.

Bjorn

America.

Like where in America? -- He was a stouts fellow with a beer perched near his lips. 

Texas....Austin? 

I've heard if Austin. Lots of music, right?

Yeah, lots of music. The city dubbed itself the 'Live Music Capital of the World.' Bands every night.

That's cool.

Lots of pretty Swedish girls here. Very pretty girls. That girl you were just taking to, beautiful.

Yes. She is my wife.

Cool...So, what's your name?

Bjorn.

Awesome! I have a friend at home named Bjorn.

Bjorn is a very common name here.

It means, 'bear,' right?

Yeah, yeah, it's bear. Maybe me and him are the same. He is the American Bjorn.

Maybe. Y'all both have beards. And he loves pretty girls.

Yes. The American Bjorn.

But...he's black. He's a black man.

That is different.

A little.

He's probably the only black Bjorn in the world.

I'll be sure and let him know that.

Cigarette Crisis, or the Last Ones Standing and the Outside Toilet

Dawn broke around 3:15, but clocks were irrelevant. The morning was grey and hazy like all of the soon to be hungover heads turned inside out. Most people had cleared out to bed. Even the porch was clear of Kim and his men. Sanna left for work and asked if any of us had seen Kim as he was not in his bed. None of us had.

The remaining few occupied the porch in the stead of Kim's usual court. I didn't recognize anyone. It was as though they'd never been at the party at all. Music still played, but a quieter morning mix cooed through the soft cloak of early hours hugging the countryside. Psychedelic Mike, a guy with proper hobo tattoos and an orange pashmina wrapped over his head played Holly Golightly's , "Don't Nobody Love Me Like the Devil Do."

Two sisters from Malmö now living in Berlin had materialized from the ether. One girl was named Ilsa and was the vision of Swedish beauty. In a black dress with her flower wreath perched on her head, her shape was that of a silhouette a fashion designer would sketch as the first lines of a dress for the perfect woman. She must have leached all potential beauty from the womb whence she came. Her sister was a lovely person, though. They insisted I visit them in Berlin, but the dates didn't match up.

Everyone was out of cigarettes, the international symbol for the end of the party. Suddenly Kim appeared at the head of the road with a woman. She said goodbye and disappeared. He sauntered up and gave a cursory explanation that he'd fallen asleep in the woods while talking to an old friend. Just a friend, but he did mention he had mosquito bites all over his ass. He also explained to me Ilsa was the definition of, "fin." I knew enough Swedish to require no translation.

A self proclaimed drummer took over the stereo and put on Paul Simon's Graceland. Symbols and synchronicity and all that. He loved to drum with his mouth. Dooka-da-dooka-da-dooka-da-do he went on and on subdividing every beat with his mouth. There was an upturned potted plant on the table used as an ashtray. He'd lift it up, pick through the remains, and smoke half and three-quarter consumed cigarettes down to thrapple. 

The sisters left and promised they'd take the small roads home. Psychedelic Mike wandered into a field. The drummer went inside the house to peruse the song selections never failing to percuss his way along. Kim, wrapped in a blanket and with a woman's straw hat on his head, fell asleep. He looked like a long haired Viking Van Gogh. 

It was finally time. I couldn't go on like this. Behind the house, we regarded each other with suspicion, me and the outside toilet. There were instructions in Swedish written inside of a word bubble coming from a duck's mouth. Maybe it was a goose. I did as Pelle had instructed. I sat myself down and as my foot pushed the door open, the countryside framed  itself through the shadowed particle board interior. Cool breeze circled around my legs bare to the ankles. Shades of green stood vertical and horizontal. Soft light percolated through the morning clouds. The low sheet of slate gave so a few isolated beams could reach the gentle curves of sloping sprouted earth. The stalks of early summer wheat quivered their shaggy heads in the breeze as if yearning for the thin pools of scattered light. And the world aches with beauty.

I went to my tent, hung my laurel wreath I'd forgotten I was wearing hours ago above my zippered door, and collapsed into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Midsommer Part 1 - Arrivals

Kalle

There are a few arbitrary things able to forge an automatic kinship with a person, and a 13th Floor Elevators CD is one of them. A CD is a physical manifestation of interest, not songs stuffed in a playlist on Spotify. Kalle owned one, and it was no aberration. His was a wall sized CD collection with selections like Bird and Dizz at Carnegie Hall, Brit Pop, Shoegaze, some tasty old school hip hop, and a vast Jimi Hendrix collection. There were more modern offerings, but don't all CD collections peter out circa 1999? 

Above his piano there was an illustrated picture of Duke Ellington and a matching portrait of an unfamiliar Swedish jazz master. On top of his piano was a copy of "The Real Book." The only other person known to me on this planet who has one is not only considered a very best of friends, but he will testify--religious fervor--to the secret cult of, "The Real Book."

Kalle had a DVD copy of " A Fistful of Dollars," on his desk. "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," that's easy, Fistful is considerably deeper in the pocket. There were other instruments laying about not to mention the beautiful accordion he was outside delivering to Emilie affording appropriate time to snoop.

A little out of my element, something expanding exponentially since my journey began, when Kalle returned, I immediately rattled off my joy over his collection. And like the electric jug in "You're Gonna Miss Me," we were well into playing our unique little melody. We gathered our packs and headed to the bus station where we would meet Julia, take a bus to Hörby, catch another bus to Farhult, and there we would celebrate Midsommer.

Holidays

It all sprang from a singular ambition, go to Scandinavia and see the midnight sun on the solstice. After some light Internetting Google had the facts: the formal name for the celebration in Sweden is Midsommer, and it's probably the biggest party of the year. Not something you properly celebrate in the cities, but you go to the countryside, eat, drink, erect a Midsommer Pole, and indulge with all of your friends. 

It's like if you combined Memorial Day and Labor Day and 4th of July and added thousands of years of Pagan rituals. It's really no surprise such significance would be placed on the first day of summer in a country where winters are cloaked in brutal, endless darkness. In Austin, under a blanket of endless summer and forced growing seasons, we lose sight of what the absence of the persistent glowing orb overhead would really mean. 

In Texas we have the yearly calendar check to the tune of, "It's only March and it's already 100 degrees out?" In Sweden they anticipate the solstice and then adulate her passing with wine and beer and pickled herring and potatoes and a dance party that would please even the most indifferent Summer God.

When I retrace my steps to the moment where I ended up with Kalle about to head to Farhult in the Swedish countryside, it seems as finite as fate, but there is a lot of luck and coincidence with the world turning in between. In Marseille there was a friendly Swede named Pelle. We happened to be going to the same national park outside the city. We became fast friends. He offered his couch at some undetermined point on my trip. After a cursory, "what is this Midsommer thing? Is that something you do?" email, standing at the bus station in Malmö headed to Skona is a foregone conclusion. Pelle was going in his car with Emilie, the other host, and I was taking the bus with Kalle and Julia. 

Julia

When Kalle and I turned out of the hybrid bus station and convenience store, Julia was there in a turn of life's heavy handed staging. Thin but strong, ringlets of sandy hair falling around her oval face, a smile close at the edges, her Cumbia Queers shirt and maroon high waisted corduroy shorts all seemed a natural extension of the things Julia. With her oversized Ikea bag filled with food and camping gear clutched in one hand, she still managed to take Kalle around the waist and they kissed. 

For some unknown reason, their being a couple brought tremendous comfort. Gaunt musicians who wear gold round frame glasses perched below a wave of blonde hair fit with the Julias of the world. It was a happy thought to know these particular ones had found each other. 

Going Up the Country, Baby Don't You Want to Go?

The bus rode through the countryside. Vibrant chattered quickly sloughed off the layers of stranger down to comfortable acquaintance. Movies and music. Julia's time studying in Canada. The geographical differences between north and south Sweden. Malmö is very flat. 

Julia was delighted by the names of the small towns we rolled through, the humor in the word play lost in translation. Occasionally Kalle and Julia would have their asides in Swedish. A rural bus stop, a tiny kiosk, waived from its placement in front of a wide field crocheted to the edges with yellow flowers. The village name on the sign had an "ö" or and "ø", a unadulterated vision of the Swedish countryside. In Hörby Julia bought us an ice cream treat and pointed out the red brick church was an example of eclecticism. 

The final bus stop was unassuming, more a memorized landmark than anything else. From there a dirt road cut the countryside open and red barns and dairy cows and gentle rises flowed forth like a hobby painter's watercolor countryside scenes. Kalle had memorized the walk to the best of his ability, but Google Street View only goes so far into rural areas. Some of our walk would have to be feel.

 A bunny darted across a field. An old windmill, twisted at the base, was toppled over and left to rust, to stare at his replacement saluting the breeze. We talked about animal sounds. Most Swedish animals speak English, or vice versa, but pigs say, "nuft," which is crazy. Pigs say, "oink." Julia stroked the nose of horse in a pen with her colt. We took turns shouldering the Ikea bag, and as the walk began to weigh a ton, a nobly battered Volvo came over the rise. A perfect round head topped with signature pageboy cap and rectangular glasses all leading down to his permanent smile poked out the window, "You need a ride?" Pelle.

We piled in. At our first right turn, Kalle nodded and remarked, "I would have turned left there."

Hippie Houses

The world over, hippie houses are all the same. There is enough empirical evidence to move this from theory to fact. 

A sign bearing the name of the property hangs crooked on a post just up the road leading to the house. Flowers and weeds and tall grasses flourish in wild uniformity. Stones circle a fire pit set across from the house with remnants of a recent fire within.

 One  part of the house is always under construction. In the massive shed behind the house, there is a room filled with tools, there is a room filled with instruments, and at least one band practices or records on site. Bands are also provided one to two designated spots to perform. A guy lives in one trailer out back, and a girl splits her time between the city and country in a separate trailer. At least a one dog minimum must be observed at all times. 

Each hippie house then has a unique feature. Wether it is an organic garden, or junk cathedral, or treehouse, there is always a piece de resistance. At the Crows Nest, or Big Forest--depending on who you ask--theirs is an outdoor toilet.

"Separate the toilet paper," were Lasse's instructions as Kim, the man of the house, and his band of men held court on the porch. They were taking a break from building a new exterior to the room where bands played. 

"Maybe if the first one is really messy," Kim added. Lasse nodded and gave a conciliatory shrug.

There was once an old collection bucket with no handle. A couple of guys had to be paid in "lots" of beer, to remove said bucket. The collection bucket has since been improved.

Otto and Kim

Kim is a tower of a man, large in his size 46 sandals and barrel chest, his is the world encompassing grin. He's like a sacred rune planted into the earth of this Skona farm. If Kim was removed, his power and life, it's as though the forest would wilt and the intermittent streams would dry forever. He's not a loud man,  though a personable sort, but the weight of his presence has palpable magnitude. 

He has built his world by hand. His hands, broad and work worn, almost seem to be the vessel from which his entire form grew. Woodworker and drummer, beer can holder, a man who pulls his woman close, Kim's hands seem to cradle this tiny universe in the Swedish countryside.

Otto is his dog, but he's really just A dog. Otto and Kim don't seem to rest on any owner and pet ceremony . They care for each other, but Otto is left to his own devices as is Kim. A true farm dog, Otto can be trusted. Even as I was admiring Kim's farm nestled in the tall fir trees, he encouraged me to follow Otto into the forest.

"He'll just...like, lead me around?"

"Yeah," Kim replied. He set down the two by fours he was cutting on the table saw in front of the gaping mouth of his tool room and he called out to Otto. Otto looked at him and Kim motioned to the forest and Otto trotted down the trail and ducked into the woods. 

Trees as skinny and naked as skewers gathered overhead, their small skirts of evergreen needles swayed together diffusing the light. Soft, mossy earth couldn't but whisper even beneath my heavy foot falls. Like a wood spirit Otto's black trace would dart between trunks and fallen limbs only maintaining a presence in your periphery. I'd fall behind and Otto would pause, stone still--all four paws on the ground--and look back to ensure I knew the way. His way. Then, with his long dog gait unbroken, he made a hard right and we were right back on the trail where we began.

"I've taken my dog on lots of walks, but this is the first time a dog has ever taken me on a walk."

Terrible, groan worthy, it's true, but trying to get a chuckle out of an international audience is unsound footing. I'm not near as cute when my quiver of pop culture references and ten dollar words is rendered largely ineffective.

Snus

Emilie crossed the dirt driveway to Kalle. Her face is round and stitched with a small smile, hair close cropped with a natural wave fit to match her face, a face different from every angle. We met earlier in the day, but Emilie is not comfortable with English so most of our discourse was smiles and body language. This Midsommer party was also her and Pelle's birthday party. It was also a hat party. Two facts Pelle didn't want to burden me with. The guy with no hat and no presents who didn't bring beer.

Emilie stood in front of Kalle and they rolled off a few circular lines of mellifluous Swedish and Kalle nodded. He pulled a circular tin from his pocket and unsnapped a small compartment on the top. It looked like it was filled with wet, brown grubs swaddled in gauze. He worked his tongue into his lip and out fell another grub onto the pile. He shut the smaller compartment and unscrewed the lid and in the belly were packets of fresh snus. Emilie took one and pulled back her lip and nestled it high in her gum line. Julia took one as well and Kalle refreshed his.

"Dip?" My shock and revulsion hardly hidden.

Kalle pitched his head to one side and squinted his eyes in a show of non-conformation. 

"Dip, or, we call it dip in the States."

"Ah, snus!" He held out the can to me.

"No. No, thank you."

We sat in silence for a moment. The questions and near accusations couldn't be held in.

"In America snus is like... I dunno, it's like a cultural thing. Only rednecks," I arched my eyebrows at the phrase to see if it hit home. Kalle nodded. "Only rednecks dip and women, women never dip."

Kalle nodded at the facts in his stolid intellectual way. "This is like a friend. I'd say 95% of the man in this country always has one in. I always have one in. It's like a friend."

"We started to use them when they stopped smoking in the bars," Julia added. Emilie smiled.

Kalle made some commentary to the effect of rednecks being uneducated, or bad, or racist, and I reversed course.

"No, redneck is a bad example. It's a cultural divide. Okay," I had it, "it's like this, James Dean smokes, and John Wayne dips."

Our icons still towering over the vision of ourselves and forming the broad strokes from which the world has drawn us. It was immediately clear. 

They never spit.

Seven Flowers, Seven Fences

We unloaded Pelle's van. Food, camping gear, DJ equipment. Crate upon crate of beer and box after box of wine were hefted into Kim's shed. In Sweden, at the grocery store beer is either 2.8% or 3.5%. If you want beer with higher alcohol volume you can go to the colloquial "special store" and buy it warm. If you don't finish your beer, as long as it hasn't been chilled and you have a receipt, you can return it to the special store. Somewhere an American is shaking his head, sucking his teeth at the perils of a European nanny state. 

"Regular Swedish people don't need beer stronger than 2.8," Kim added.

The floor of the bar/dance hall/concert area was cleared. Mattresses and bass drums and twisted vines of speaker wire were moved to the attic above. Kim and his men were fastening the last of the boards to the exterior. Some had to be measured and remeasured, but they were all only cut once. The nail gun rifled through the softening summer air as the night which would scantly be approached. 

Another car, a white sedan, came to a stop and out stepped an olive skinned, dark haired woman. Sanna. She and Kim kissed. Kim's hands, like the jaws of an earth moving shovel couldn't help but envelop the slight, beautiful woman. 

Julia called dinner. She brought a huge pot from the kitchen filled with pasta, lentils, and red sauce. There was a nice garden salad on the side. We sat on the terrace outside the half painted, almost built room and ate off of tables made from giant, repurposed wooden spools. Pelle put the Dandy Warhol's 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia on the stereo he and Kelle struggled with for almost an hour and still never got up to his standards. The first box of wine, Black Cat wine, was opened. Skol.

"What do you know about Midsommer?" Sanna asked.

"There is frog dancing?" 

"Yes. There is dancing and singing, and lots of food. And there is a Midsommer  pole. And lots of drinking."

"I can do that."

"And tonight you're supposed to climb over seven fences and pick seven flowers and put them under your pillow. You'll dream about your true love."

"That's a very specific number. Seven."

"It's a very old tradition. It comes from when you lived in the village and knew every person you would know for your entire life."

"And the Midsommer pole is a big penis," Kim added.

We ate and drank and what would be an ongoing territory war over the playlist began to manifest itself. One of Kim's men, a weathered almost balding man with two long dreadlocks tacked to the back of his skull changed his pants at the table. Another box of wine was opened. Everyone began to favor their Swedish. Occasionally Pelle would turn to me to give a rough trade version of the discourse, or someone would apologize for being rude, and I reminded them I was but a grateful stranger. No apologies are required. Dusk hummed in striated bands of color for hours.

Silken billows of fog rolled into the field adjoining Kim's property. Kalle, Julia, Pelle, and I climbed over the stone wall and wandered into the earthbound cloud. Dense, almost impenetrable from afar, the closer you got, once totally enveloped, it was invisible. Nothing but a fine mist you couldn't roll between your fingers. I stood back from the group and they were silhouetted, three astral black cut outs silent against the scrim of undying twilight. Julia said something in Swedish and they laughed. We walked back leaving a trail through the young stalks of grain.

America

Lasse asked questions like they were a sharpened stick. His accent was thick and he had fewer English words at his disposal then those a generation younger. His pipe, filled with sweet, musty tobacco,  jutted out from under his push-broom mustache. Round bald head, round glasses, he wanted to talk about America.

From his somewhat hard to decipher English a few talking points emerged. America is dangerous. FEMA are murderers. Texas has guns and guns are ridiculous. Poverty in the states, the way the poor are treated is beyond his comprehension. He loves to watch documentaries. Snowden. Everyone in Europe wants to talk about Snowden as soon the words "I'm from America," are uttered. And the lusty grins on the corners of their mouths. Everything Lasse asked or said was punctuated by his tobacco pocked laughter. It got later and later, the beer flowed upward.

Why are you in Sweden?

Do you have a gun?

Your government spies on you, man.

How could they let people die in the streets?

America is dangerous, man.

Have you seen this documentary? Have you seen that documentary?

I've got no illusions about the shortcomings of the United States. But as his whole discourse seemed like an effort to upend my worldview, like none of is had occurred to me before, I--perhaps for the first time in my life--defended my country.

Well, why do you care so fucking much? No one in America cares what anyone in Sweden is doing, but all you want to take about is America. Yes, the US has tons, TONS, of problems, but individual to individual our country would shock you. The goodness of people, how open peoples eyes are, how worldly Americans can be. No other nation on earth gives more charitable donations, no other country on earth has a population like ours and dares to educate every citizen, and we invented the blues which is, like, the most important cultural advancement since..I dunno...electricity?

Lasse was pleased. We discussed the things we agreed upon. American music. The sham of a two party system. Natural wonders like the Grand Canyon and the redwood forest and the Rocky Mountains.

"I listen to this one guy on the Internet. This crazy guy, his name is Alex Jones," Lasse said. I was finally home.

Lasse arrived at a reasonable impasse relatively true in both directions. The good things in America are really good, and the bad things are really bad.

It got later and later, everyone had gone to bed except me, Lasse, Kim, and Sanna. Darkness, a veneer of blackness hardly obscuring a much deeper blue blotted the sky overhead. We were all a little loose.

"I'm extremely disappointed in the Obama administration." I said, because I am. "I voted for him both times, and I would never have voted for either one of the republicans, but he had a ton of goodwill built up after his first election and he squandered it on a healthcare reform. If he had been more diligent in at least trying to act like he could get the economy back on track, his health care reforms would have waltzed through. Now this NSA thing..."

Lasse, bent to one side, one eye almost shut replied, "Obama's a white nigger, man."

Kim and Sanna who had been absorbed in their own conversation for most of the night snapped to. Sanna looked at me, eyes wide.

"I wouldn't...I wouldn't say that, he's been a disappointment," I said taken aback, unsure of how to respond.

"He's a white nigger, man." Lasse sagged to the side.

"You shouldn't say that word. Ever," Sanna chided.

"White nigger, man," Lasse repeated beyond her reproof.

Midsommer Night's Dream

Midsommer's eve was over. Using Lasse's headlamp my tent went up in what little dark remained. The tent billowed and rocked as it was carried, fully constructed, across the yard into the camping field. Kalle and Julia, the way young lovers do, cooed inside their tent even though they'd retired hours before. Dawn broke a few minutes later at 3:30 in the morning. I sat cross legged in my tent contemplating the odd shape of the earth, and without realizing, fell asleep. 

There were no seven fences climbed nor seven flowers picked, but that night I dreamed of my family, a family in crisis. I'm not a man who looks for symbols in his life, but perhaps I need to better understand my first true love before I can know the second.