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Language not words

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Language without words

Words without language, language without words. It is the main thought that has stayed with me from the annual Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm yesterday. Watching a man, debilitated by disease and the passing of time, sweeping the stakes and making the most important statement of the night was an experience that went amiss on no one. Tomas Tranströmer embodied the meaning of his poem, even without reading it himself. His wife of a half a century read it for the gathered dignitaries, but all of the time, Tranströmer, there in his wheel chair, barely able to conjure a facial expression as a result of stroke, was the living expression of his meaning. He had become language without words.

For anyone who is a writer or artist, the recognition of this moment happening for another writer or artist is a moment of unbridled joy and bottomless tragedy. It is like watching someone pass into air and become a part of an ethereal light of all voices that have found language and risen above words. One longs to journey with them, to escape barriers and constraining forms, and simply to be in a state in which thought is unimpeded by grammar, spelling and punctuation.

This writer’s dilemma is, in some ways, the very same challenge that everyone faces in life. Each of us longs for a seamlessness and a flow, where nothing is forced and a meaning that speaks to each of us is ever-present. When meaning, that is, language leaves and there is only form, or words, we become dissatisfied and wander in circles asking why we are here. Many of us do that these days, if not every day then certainly from time to time. Living in the flow of language and experience is where we want to be, need to be, but that requires a great deal of courage in our society, where our ears are filled with words that can become stifling in their number and impede free and productive thought that means something.

The truth is, my heart ached when I listened to Tranströmer last night, mainly because he confirmed my thoughts and I knew that I wasn’t mad. His poem summarized the feelings that came to me when I moved from a small, isolated island where I had lived for almost a decade back closer to the city. The beautiful silence in which I had found so much richness and harmony suddenly was filled with words in quantity, rather than language in quality.

One shouldn’t be too critical. Meetings between people are important and can give rise to forces that can energize and change the world. Where Tranströmer can help us, however, is to improve the quality of those meetings by expressing what we actually mean and seeking to set free the personal language of those we encounter. It may well be in language, not words, that we find the peace that we seek.

Tranströmer’s poem from March ‘79 in translation:

Tired of all who come with words, words but no language
l went to the snow-covered island.
The wild does not have words.
The unwritten pages spread out on all sides!
I come upon the tracks of roe deer in the snow.
Language but no words.

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Wondering what to give a friend or loved one for Christmas? Learn more about Julie Lindahl’s prize-winning new book, “Rose in the Sand,” a memoir of a decade lived on a Swedish island. Order it now from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk , Author House, authorhouse.co.uk and many other online bookstores. Other books by Julie Lindahl available are: Letters from the Island (listen also to Julie’s podcasts from this site) and On My Swedish Island: Discovering the Secrets of Scandinavian Well-being.

Julie Lindahl is chairperson at Stories for Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to learning and communication through storytelling.

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Tags: Language, Nobel Laureate, Tomas Tranströmer, words
Posted in Island, Landscape, New Thinking, Openness | 4 comments »

Island of love, hope and humanity

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

A place that everyone can believe in

They boarded the bus to visit the camp site on the idyllic island near their temporary quarters. Mother, father, and four children had fled from Iraq and were staying in the country-side. Here, they waited to learn whether they would be allowed to stay in this country, where they needn’t fear for their lives each day. In order to break the agony of waiting for that day of judgement, the parents had decided to take their children fishing at a nearby waterfront camp site, where one could stand on the long docks and cast a line out towards the horizon. It was a beautiful evening: one that offered the hope of forgetting, even if just for a few short hours, so that the young ones could catch a glimpse of how childhood could be. All of them longed for their homeland, but it was too dangerous a place to be in. They told themselves that there were beautiful experiences to be had in this new land, to which they had reluctantly fled.

As they boarded, the bus driver – a local woman with family roots in the area – greeted them. The youngsters responded in the local language and held out their tickets. The parents remained silent behind their children, embarrassed that they had not yet picked up this language that was in every way foreign to their own. The bus driver looked into each of the children’s faces and smiled at them. She had children of her own and knew that these young ones had been through experiences that she could not imagine. She acknowledged the parents, thinking how bizarre it was to believe that her country’s problems were created by them.

The family disembarked from the bus and walked down the long path that cut through the middle of the camp site. To their left and right, they saw people enjoying the still summer evening outside their trailers and tents. The mood was open and friendly. No one stared at the outsiders, or, for that matter, thought of them as outsiders. This was a place for anyone who loved nature and the sound of the crickets as night fell.

Children playing football near one of the trailers kicked their ball in the direction of the Iraqi children. At first, the newcomers were afraid to kick back, not because they couldn’t play football (a national sport in their country), but because they had been told by their parents to keep a low profile. Ignoring their advice, the most forward of the children took a gigantic kick and sent the ball flying back. The children at the camp site cheered.

There were many boats moored at the long docks. The family walked quietly past them to the end of one of the docks and cast their lines toward the horizon. This evening it was in various hues of fuschia, orange, and yellow, no different than the sunset in Iraq. The boaters, many of whom were drinking coffee after dinner or having a night cap, watched the night entertainment with interest. Would they or wouldn’t they catch a fish? After an hour or so, one of the boaters emerged from her boat and offered the parents some coffee and biscuits, which they gladly accepted. The children’s eyes were wide with delight, as the boater offered them some cordial, and, most importantly, biscuits.

A fish bit onto one of the hooks, and the boaters collectively held their breaths. After an extensive struggle, the fish got away. The silence was broken by the father of the children, who began to laugh. It was the kind of laughter loaded with the relief that there were good people here, and that life still had its beautiful moments. The boaters thought it infectious and began to laugh along. The parents looked back at the boats as their children continued to fish. For the first time, they felt a commonness with these people, who could laugh with them, sit in suspense with them, and share in the universal love of children.

I was one of the boaters this evening, and I know that this is how it can be on a Nordic island. Here, love, hope and humanity are so great, that there is no room for anything else.

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Written in memory of the victims of the Oslo and Utøya tragedies.

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Tags: hope, humanity, islands, love, Norway, Sweden
Posted in Boating, Camping, Inclusion, Integration, Island, Landscape, New Thinking, Nordic Countries other than Sweden, Norway, Openness, Outdoor Activity, Positive Thinking, Season, Summer, children | 1 comment »

Fighting an instant autumn

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

What does listening to this do to you?

We’re past the autumn equinox and things are actually still OK. It’s like getting to what you fear will be your worst moment and then realizing afterwards that it wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, this Sunday morning’s thoughts about the week gone by are colored by the breathtaking palette of yellows, auburns and deep greens in which I find myself. We’ve come back to our island in the wilderness for the weekend to prepare the garden for the spring. The air is cool but there is no bite in it and the roses are lovelier now than they have been throughout the entire warm season. Like tragic heroes, they continue to yield new buds against the rising tide of their winter fate.

This morning when I swung open the laundry room door (the back door to the house that faces east to the rising sun) the first thing that I heard was the rustling of leaves in the birch forest behind the house. They sounded like a woman’s ball gown swirling on the dance floor. I had almost forgotten this sound of the rustling leaves and stood there for a few minutes in the morning sunlight filling my senses with it. My generation had not understood the importance of hearing that sound. We had been obsessed by Wall Street and the revving engine of a flashy new sports car.

I thought of the children I met in the school yards where I worked this week. I wondered whether they were further or closer than my generation to being able to hear the sound of the rustling birch. I dislike being a pessimist but based on what I have seen and heard, further away is my guess. These children are growing up in a world where the idea of “instant” governs. Food, friends and gratification should be instant otherwise there is stress, frustration, irritation and, even worse, aggression. I have to admit that I like instant when it comes to health care but in many facets of life it is an obstacle to happiness. To be able to listen to the sound of the wind in the leaves you have to be able to let go of “instant” and value a tree that has taken a long time to develop its rich foliage. There is a tremendous satisfaction in that. You have to appreciate the ideas of ‘gradual’ and ‘cyclical’ so that when the sound of the leaves is gone for a while in the winter you have the confidence that it will come again.

“What type of society are we living in when people cannot read past the first line because one complete sentence is too many?” asked a teacher at a school I am working at in frustration at the difficulty of getting a response from today’s parents. Perhaps we have too many incomplete sentences without substance, I thought, reflecting on the rash of meaningless words out there on Facebook and Twitter. What happens when we are forced to be so instant that we are barely communicating? My sense is that we can see some of the answers playing themselves out in our school yards.

Last week I finally managed to complete the annual migration of the winter jackets and boots from the basement back into the storage space near our front door. Each year as the temperatures sink and our toes begin to freeze I realize that I am once again overdue with this little chore which wouldn’t be a problem if only my desk wasn’t piled so high with work. Next week we don’t have to flee indoors any more. I can stand in the park with Lucy the dog in my sturdy, warm boots and duffle coat and try, amid the morning traffic, to tune into the sound of the last rustling leaves of the season.

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Learn more about my writing and other projects at www.julielindahl.com. Join me at Facebook and/or Twitter where I too communicate in incomplete sentences!

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Tags: Autumn, birch, children, gradual, instant, schools
Posted in Autumn, New Thinking, Openness, Season, Slow, children | 1 comment »

Let the Multitude Bloom

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Could this happen in Sweden?

Recently I’ve been thinking of how much mental space we could create if we collectively agreed to get rid of stereotypes. All of those small compartments we walk around with in our heads would suddenly be cleared away and we’d feel so much lighter. Just think of all of that space for real new perceptions and no reinforcement of tired old views by tired old media and advertizing (naturally I am not referring to this forward-looking publication). One of the thoughtful readers of this blog recently reminded me of a quotation from Walt Whitman that read “in me there are multitudes”. Aren’t all people and places like this? Over the years, I’ve discovered that Sweden is no exception. Yes, it is dark but it is also very light and several shades in between. Yes, people are quiet but they are also deafeningly loud and then there are the varying tones from the gentle nyckelharpa to the thundering Poodles. Hair is blonde but it is also dark, red, and every shade of mouse on the color spectrum.

This brings me to the business of gardens. Who thinks of gardens when they think of Sweden? Vast tracts of coniferous forest and flat tundra perhaps, but not the luscious, romantic gardens that we associate with that green and pleasant land, England. The fact that my interest in gardens first germinated in this land of hearty winter shrubs is in fact no coincidence. The Wall Street Journal noted in a survey undertaken sometime during the past decade that Sweden is home to the largest number of recreational gardeners in the world as a percentage of its population. When Martha Stewart sought ideas for her media imperium from European gardens she came to Sweden and visited Zeta’s, among other Swedish gardens. This long country of thirsty and domineering birch is an unexpected gem of inspiration when it comes to gardens.

Even among those who are skeptical in this country, gardens are on their minds. A headline article in one of last week’s main daily newspapers read in translation, “For a mediocre gardener the best time is now.” The journalist, a veteran hobby gardener, was referring to the many times he had watched the dreams presented in the gardening catalogues of March devoured by garden pests, dry weather and other mischievous villains that gardeners perpeutally duel with. My point is, what other industrialized countries do you know of where an average gardener’s frustrations make headline news?

Perhaps it is because we do it against all odds in Sweden. Perhaps it is because of the Linnean tradition of fascination for the detail of all that makes its way out of the once hardened ground. Could it be a legacy of Sweden’s close peasant past or is it a symbol for progress and a society in which people have the time and economic means to fuss over the roses? I have often wondered why, and at the same time find it extremely freeing to be a part of Sweden’s little-known gardening fetish which defies all mental compartments about this country.

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For those of you who want to join Sweden’s gardening fetish:

8-11 April, Nordiska Trädgårdar, Älvsjö Mässa

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Tags: gardening, Nordiska Trädgårdar, stereotypes, Zetas
Posted in New Thinking, Openness, Outdoor Activity, Season, Spring, Uncategorized, gardening | 5 comments »

Path of Freedom

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

skogen The snowberries dot the bare bushes like jewels on an elderly dame. Even without their leaves the bare branches look regal in the midday sunlight that illuminates the crown of frost on aged nature. The leaves crunch like ice wafers under our feet – my feet and Lucy’s paws, to be more precise. Lucy gallops ahead of me, energized by the stainless steel rays of the winter sun on this impeccable midday in Drottningholm Park.

We veer off the groomed paths where the gravel has been raked into patterns. In a minute Lucy’s white underside is suddenly muddy brown as we enter Naturstigen, a small loop into the forest behind the palace where we can get a little dose of Nordic wilderness. Of course, it isn’t wilderness at all; it just gives that impression. In fact, as we walk along the narrow path through the forest, we come across a series of information stations, equally spaced along the length of the path, where white plaques give us a historical narrative.

A Bronze Age (1700-500 B.C.) boat lies on display under a simple roof out here in the middle of nothing but forest. Further, we learn, this boat would have floated well above our heads at the time when it was used because this area was the lake bottom at that time. We move on and find a large stone slab with straight, wide grooves in a Y-form. There is no question that someone used this repeatedly over time – as it turns out, during the Iron Age (1300-500 B.C.) to sharpen tools. Next to it another stone with its center sunken and smoothly hollowed out, is what archeologists guess was a sacrificial stone dating back even further in time. All of this information is related for sighted and non-sighted people (in Braille) on the plaques, just to ensure that everyone gets the story.

Almost anywhere else I’ve been in the industrialized world, such artifacts are in museums, in glass cases or at least roped off. If you’re lucky, you might find an English translation, but forget Braille. Here, they are directly accessible and possible to view (even if you cannot see) in environments that mirror the reality of the surroundings that they might have been used in. I can relate many other similar experiences of this astounding free access to history in nature in Sweden, yet it never ceases to amaze me each time that I experience it.

In a country today known for being rule- and queue-oriented, the continued freedom of access to historical gems in nature such as Naturstigen is a very great achievement by a modern society. I often hear Sweden being criticized for being a bit too law-and-order focused. If you look under the surface, however, you will find a fierce love of freedom of access and a delightful unbridled spirit.

Lucy hops over the ankle-high wooden rails lining our pathway to check out the smells under the trees. She’s a loyal creature, but it is her irreverence I adore. Hey, she is Swedish, when all is said and done.

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For more on walks in this blessed corner of the earth just outside of Stockholm visit Ekerö Kommun

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Posted in AllemannsrÃ¤tt, Culture and Health, Landscape, New Thinking, Openness, Park, Season, Winter, nature | No comments »

Crossing the Barriers

Monday, November 16th, 2009

A Viking happy to muddle through in Swinglish

Language isn’t generally given it’s due credit as an essential dimension of personal wellbeing. After 5 days in Paris, however, I’ve been reminded that our capacity to communicate with one another easily and thereby to get past the stereotypes of one another’s cultures, is absolutely critical to how we feel about where we are.

I’ve got a bit of French buried in there somewhere after studying it for a term and I did start life in a Latin language (Portuguese). Still, I found it difficult to enjoy some of France’s greatest national monuments, arguably some of the world’s greatest, without any English translations available to read. I stood in front of the Mona Lisa only being able to offer her a smile back but unable to learn more on the spot about what makes this small, dark portrait so famous. At the world’s richest collection of items from the French Revolution, a young ’student of history supervising the museum visitors shook her head at the number of times it had been necessary to repeat that, “yes, those are the clothes worn by Marie Antoinettes’ children during their imprisonment”. It isn’t the sort of thing you want to have to say fifty times a day.

During my visit, there were displays of modesty, such as this one and very many expressions of frustration at the inability to cross linguistic borders. A woman working in the post office nearly had cardiac arrest over my inability to understand how much it cost to send a postcard to Sweden. A waitress looked like she had bitten into a dry baguette when I was unable to understand that the restaurant had run out of croissants. I ended the day feeling like Rowan Atkinson, who in his irresistible sketch of the devil, welcomes the French (and the Germans) to hell.

Sure, I should take responsibility for the fact that I cannot speak French and learn it. At the same time I seem to recall that even on the remote island of Adelsö near my summer island, the signs include English language explanations of the Viking remains. The peoples of the North have a streak of practicality in their culture which says that you can’t make visitors work that hard. Sweden is a small country and perhaps this is another explanation for the fact that you can manage in any of its cities in English language without learning a speck of Swedish. This fact has its downside because it means that there are people who can live in Sweden for years without getting past ‘kanelbullar’ (cinnamon rolls). One can argue that The Local just made this trick easier, but on balance I think it is an admirable project devoted to crossing linguistic and, with this, cultural barriers.

They say that there is no place like home. For me that is on my Swedish island(s) where I can cross in and out of English and Swedish at will without having to think too much about it. In many ways, Sweden has been at the forefront of the ongoing project to be a modern society. When it comes to language, values such as linguistic modesty and a willingness to meet visitors halfway are ones that I believe will in the future count heavily for determining whether people experience that society as a desirable one to be in.

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Tags: English, France, French, Language, Sweden, tourism, wellbeing
Posted in Culture and Health, Language, New Thinking, Openness, Tourism | No comments »