Guardian Angel II

The light will soon be shining down on Guardian Angel II at this location. She is my daughter Julie. I use the phrase "shining down" because I have today googled the phrase Guardian Angel and found that the Old Testament has much to say about Guardian Angels. I too have much to say - in writing - but only one at a time. I write this on Saturday afternoon here at apartment 3B, 3:47 in the afternoon and will make writing II my Sunday project. 

Julie had planned her trip so carefully, flying Iceland Air via Keflavik as I have so many times. Then finding a home away from home where she would be in My Forest, Delsjöskogen just a short morning walk away from my apartment which is located at the lower northern end of the road that leads up to what I will call sister Annika's pond, the pond Annika runs around and swims in as often as possible.

Julie in my kitchen after her morning walk from the House In The Forest I will call MO.

Julie made that walk at least 6 times, choosing a different route each time so she as botanist-ecologist got to see different parts of the forest that I myself had run in so many times after moving to Göteborg in the spring of 2019. Most important to me, home alone at 3B was that we talked about our family history and our relationship at different times during more than 60 years. From that perspective, her visit became one of the very best I have ever experienced. I really got to know her, know facets of her life and abilities that she has developed during all the decades when only met sporadically for short times.

Julie Takes On IRS form 1040 SR - Guardian Angels, non biblical ones, are great to watch in action when they like a magician reach into their bag of tricks and relieve their person in focus of some until then worrisome almost impossible task. While I reclined on my couch Julie sat at my computer and went to work on the US Internal Revenue Service tax form for Seniors (SR). She talked to herself about every one of the countless steps that the IRS burdens its taxpayerss with and carried out a virtuoso performance filling everything induring Trial I. Trial II can wait a while.

She even did Ann's 1040 SR during one of her visits, hardly knew which one.

PAUSE 09:05

One of the most important things a Guardian Angel can do for a person who no longer walk solo is to take on the role of ledsagare Swedish for one who leads another to which I add  "and does so attentively and even with loving care. The man you see above had been running in two Swedish forests almost every day for more than 20 years and the same during every visit to Vermont in the summer.

To rather abruptly find that you not only cannot run but cannot even walk along is life-changing. It takes time for the video to be ready to play, hope it gets there. You will see Julie swinging along with me up at Delsjön. I sat down while she and Annika went down to the water. I photographed the horizontal fallen beech trees.

Julie and John drive north from Julie's house in Albany to the Adirondack Mountains and even in the forest close to their glamping site the American beech trees are diseased and falling down.

And, since I love remembering and reflecting on the days when I was so mobile that I could go up trails on my two favorite Green Mountains, Camels Hump and  Mount Mansfield while camping in a shelter on Mount Philo I will thank my two daughters for giving me those mountains. Julie led me to Mount Philo and Annika to Camels Hump. There is a bench on Mount Philo with a plate on which I thank them for that gift. And oddly, I suddenly remember that the first early signs of changes in my ability to walk revealed themselves during my final visit to Mount Philo. I tried to walk over the rock outcrops to the observation point, and I simply could not do that. So in 2018 something was going on.

Here is one of the most dramatic things I learned about Julie on her very last day here. She had discovered that there was something not quite right in version I of 1040 SR so she swung into action at this computer. I had already booked the taxi that would take her to the train station and never in a million years could I have sat down here and gone through the entire form changing, saving, printing, adjusting  as she did, cool as a cucumber. I kept quiet and just watched in awe. Time was running out and  with only 10 or 15 minutes remaining she printed the form, I signed it, and she put it in an envelope to take with her to America.

That is one of the many reasons that I have written above that this one of the very best times I got to spend with JAL in my entire life. Yes, even there something good had come as a result of something not so good. You can read about such things in Marilynne Robinson's newest book, Rereading Genesis that will turn up here next week.

Julie the sun is shining down on our forest and I miss you.

 

Document 413

 

Guardian Angels

Do you know someone other than me who had been physically and mentally active every day of his or her life who has become limited in one or the other of those domains?

   I see neighbors who have arrived “there” but I do not know any of them well. The only two people who reached such a point in their life that I knew well were my father and my mother. My father reached that point a decade before his wife did, and she assumed the role of his guardian angel He was in his early 70s. He just sat at home in Seekonk in the Baker living room where her presence was enough for him.

   After he died, she lived alone and turned her attention to assembling and making available her Memoir masterpiece clipping, pasting, writing then having the time and solitude to make that possible.

   But she did have at least two guardian angels, both cousins of mine, Joyce and Donnie. Joyce was always just a telephone call away and she saw to that daily – her initiative. Donnie lived nearby so he was able to visit her and make physical changes in her living space that were always helpful.

   I write on this subject because I am feeling uplifted by a fine visit by my number one Swedish guardian angel, Ann from Styrsö She was extraordinarily helpful today in arranging for me to have a root-canal procedure at a time when she can be my ledsagare a person who accompanies another, perhaps just to be with but who can also be a person who accompanies as a helper.

   Ordinarily when she visits 3B, she takes me on promenade up to but not into my forest. We are updating on the 13th of April. Ann came with a special mission: She would reshape my hair. She had her special scissors, sat me down, and clipped away. The high standing hair is gone, I am restored. Love the sound of hair being clipped.

But that was only the beginning: She is my Trash Lady, a position that must be filled for every home-bound person like me. Hallway restored, Recycling bins filled. Then we took a walk to the mailbox where i put a letter to Santander Bank where not a one of the telephone contact people could help me restore my account. Long letter off to Santander in Pennsylvania.

Then we walked down part of allen and I moved fast two poles flying. Felt great.

Back inside she needed help editing a story about herself for her university, GU. Getting rid of words is a special skill. She got rid of many - enought? We'll see. Then we were going to attach her Word file to an email to a Lundgren at GU. Computer or software went into refusal mode but in the end using all the tricks known to me, off it went.

Sometimes just helping one another - each other - is the most satisfying thing two people can do. We did that. 

A few daus ago I wanted t take a walk. The photo shows why I could not. On April 2, we had our biggest 2024 snowstorm. Even with Ann’s help taking a walk was not on the agenda. This was also the day after another Guardian Angel, Julie, had walked from her temporary home through the forest with suitcase to 3B. Might have been difficult.

 

I  posted this at my blog as number one in a series of Guardian Angels.

I have been modifying this one and will do the same as a way of showing all the good things that happen to me here and around 3B.

•  Yesterday, April 12, quite by chance, I found this photograph showing the cover of a book that i had misplaced, a book about experiences shared by an 85 year old scholar Sven-Eric Liedman. I had bought the book and read about his experience with becoming older - Om åldrandet On Aging. I ordered a new copy. I want to take another look since I share with him some very positive views about the experience of aging while one's mind is still working quite well.
• Ann is on her way back to Styrsö, no fast bus today so she will be in the slow lane to Saltholmen and the ferry.
• 
  

 

0n Saying Goodbye to Julie

This is no ordinary April Fool's Day here in Gothenburg, Sweden where I, recently turned 92 years of age, am writing. My daughter, Julie Ann Lundgren, is about to take off at Arlanda Airport north of Stockholm, Sweden - any minute now counting from 13:26 Summer Time in Sweden.

I am alone at home in my apartment on Iskällareliden (Ice cellar alley) in the Örgryte area of Gothenburg, Sweden. I write these words at this time because I am having a unique experience that leaves me reaching for words.

A few months ago, I found and read a memoir by a Swedish essayist who was able to express thoughts that only those of us who are on our way through decade 8 or even have entered decade 9 are there somewhere in our minds surfacing as if they need to be freed for reflection or revelation as spoken or written words.

The essayist was new to me, an intellectual in his 80s who was enjoying the experience of going through these years driven to write and to find satisfaction in doing so. I share with him the joy of writing and have found that doing so gives every single day content and meaning.

Here on the edge of vast forest, Delsjö skogen, I had been given daily lifts be being able to walk or run through my trees and then to sit there looking at my trees to see what questions arose in my mind. Yes, at first I just enjoy as does poet Mary Oliver being in touch with my botanical surroundings. But then questions arise just as they used to do when I as a geologist-naturalist sat down on a bedrock outcrop to see what stories it could tell me, always leading to questions about how these viewed works of art came into being and when and how.

I can no longer walk alone into my forest but I can watch what is happening at the edge and in the brook that winds its way down from the "mountain" in which the lakes that make up are held.

There will be no images today even though they are all tucked away somewhere in my mind but maybe another day.

I write in my blog because it provides a kinder home for words and images than does Facebook. I started writing because saying Goodbye was not so easy. Julie and a few weeks ago her brother gave me so much that I wanted to write about experiences that I share with Julie, life as a naturalist-scientist, she for plants and me for the earth, all of which endlessly evolve.

I add these lines on April 2 with snow falling to whiten the rhododendron leaves I see from my window. Julie's visit was one of the very best one-on-one experiences I have had in this life. She walked here each day from her "House In The Woods" choosing a different route each day, something she can do easily with good map, compass, and her history as a naturalist.

Now only did we get to talk about our past, present, and future but I also got to learn much about some fine qualities and abilities she had. Before I offer one example I note that you may think that to be an odd statement leading you to say:"You do not know your daughter after all these years" 

My reply is that each of us changes individually and many of the changes for the better are only observed over time, and each time (interval) is different. My example: Julie did my United States 1040 SR return for me once and then, on the morning of her departure from 3B realized that several things had to be changed. She sat here at this keyboard, calm as could be, doing one task after another as the time for the taxi to arrive got smaller and smaller. That did no phase her at all. She printed the final version and I signed, saved by her. Off she went leaving me feeling proud for who she is, what she can do, and her lifte time of helping others. Tack så  mycket Jules. Your loving pappa.

A Sunny Day in Sweden

 

 MY MEMOIRS

A WORK UNDER CONSTRUCTION THAT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED

Today, the 15th of December, 2023 I post this at my blog to have a place where I can report on My Memoirs by making the statement below

I dedicate My Memoirs today to my core family that I define as beginning with all those at the Great Grandparent level most of whom came from Sweden and the rest of whom came from England a very long time ago.

I thank everyone in this core family who has been of special importance to me during my first 91 years, many of whom have helped me put My Memoirs together.

I will inform key individuals that I am beginning to post here and will also inform others who have expressed interest in a post similar to this one.

I will be trying out different things here as well

First draft written in Gothenburg, Sweden

2023-12-15

 REVIVAL OF MY BLOG TO CELEBRATE BEING 90 YEARS OLD IN SWEDEN

My blog has been dormant for an entire year but I choose today to revive it for very personal reasons.

I have only been posting life stories at my Facebook, where creating a post is a very different proces than creating one here as I quickly discover.

I begin with a single photo taken on Saint Patricks Day in Hus 9 (The original name in 1925). Here you see Ann Frodi and me, two dual citizens of Sweden and the United States looking happily at  the 22 or so visitors she invited to the even she created for my 90th Birthday. She asked me to allow her to follow Swedish tradition with  the modification that it was not to be me who  would arrange the event but she herself. I agreed since she would do this far better than I and since she has so many friends who live on one of these islands that many  would be able to come without too much  difficulty.

After posting a new entry with one photo, Ann and me, I  walked to my Arboretum - at the lower end of Storatorpvägen, a long existing road that leads the several lakes that have the Swedish name Delsjöarna. Then I walked with double poles all the way up to Lyckan a red wooden building that serves coffee, Annika's favorite Banana Bread,  and my favorite single waffle with whipped cream and rasberry jam on top. We'll get to that but first back in history. When I first came to Sweden with Ann she took me to this small house on the lower edge of our forest. There we met a truly original couple, Carl and Hedvig in this house when it was far  simpler She had known them from the time she was 13 years old and had been given responsibility for a pony that she rode on all the trails in our forest. That was at least 40 years ago and in those 40 years I have run and walked on most of those trails and know them almost as well as she does.

Adding friendships in my new home

In Linköping almost all my friends and acquaintances were younger people who had come to Sweden as Asylum seekers from a long list of countries / I name those of some of my closest friends there: Areas in Iraq that were originally a cradle of civilization where predecessors of modern Assyrians lived, and the overlapping area that is now autonomous Kurdistan, Eritrea, and Iran including the Kurdish region in Iran. My only age-mate friends were Swedish women who were volunteers at the Red Cross as was I. I may be the only one of that cluster who is still living. In Göteborg, all my first friends were in Ann's family and then gradually those who came to my 90th birthday event. But here in Örgryte I hope to find a few new friends and to do that I joined Örgryte föreningen,a group of people who want to keep the history of this area alive and to keep is best qualities alive as well. When Covid 19 partially released its grip it became possiblefor this group to have its Spring meeting - Dinner for 200 and a presentation by political figures from most parties followed by questions and discussion between audience and the political figures. This event was held at the building at the foot of the bedrock cliffs that are the black foreground of this picture taken last night at 21:00 h. I had the extreme  good fortune to be embraced by 3 men who were arriving just as I was completing my long walk up the mountain. They were  especially welcoming, and I got to tell part of my story to one who professionally overlaps in some ways with me. He took me in, helped me meet others whom he already knew and I was over the friendship threshold. A wonderful evening. I simply add that here in Göteborg there are many churches built before or in the middle of the 18th Century and then the additions like this one, Nya Örgryte kyrkan high on the top of a remarkable bedrock peak. 

Later this summer I will introduce first two former students to my forest and the islands and then, if all goes well, my two children in America just reaching the age of retirement.

 Facebook has given up on me and I am giving up on Facebook. I am posting pictures from my power walk in my forest today October 23, 2021. 

My forest, Delsjöskogen has thousands of trees, some of them at least 500 years old. The sun was shining through the leaves today, leaves that soon will be on the ground.

This is an historic road, very, very old, name Storatorpsvägen after the area where I live. Just run down this road until you come to the castle and you are just a short walk to my home Iskällareliden 3B. I used to run like the man in green, now I walk here with my walking poles and I did today so that I could visit Lyckan Cafe at the top.

When you enter Lyckan (Happiness Cafe. you see these wise words: We Do Not Have WiFi, Talk To Each Other

Pretend It's 1995 

There on the left is Banana Bread to take home from Annika, she had requested on WhatsApp but I was one step ahead. On the right a waffle with fluffy cream and hallonsylt (raspberry jam)

Everybody was out today, Saturday in Sweden

This is my first blog post in a long time, I know it does not provide the access Facebook gives but my Facebook no longer works and it is serving all the wrong people so good reason to give it u´p

2021-10-23