This is Sweden

Back in Sweden again.

It's 14 degrees and raining. Perfect summer weather. We go to the playpark. Huge, safe and surrounded by greenery. Three men are herding their young ones by the swings.

You take a walk without sweating. The air smells sweet. The cool breeze blows right through your moody self, but not through your jacket. It's quiet.

The weather improves. 20 degrees, sunny. We drive to a nature reserve near my parent's house. The roads are wide, well-paved and virtually empty. Nobody's there. A box by the entrance offers free 20-page color pamphlets on green areas in Stockholm. You choose the spot in the sun to have your snack on. Old red-painted wooden huts are scattered in the landscape amidst the violent yellow rapeseed fields and hazy blue-green oat. The soft green of the shallow lake is the birds alone.

It's like you never left.

And right now, like you never want to leave again.

/J.