I know. It’s a somewhat oblique title and photo this week. Hear me out.
On the 5th November 1605, a chap by the name of Guy Fawkes set a plan to blow up the UK houses of parliament. It was foiled. Fawkes was caught and parliament still stands, which is a good job because I’m headed there next week to see if I’ve won a literary prize. Here’s a link. Chances to brag get fewer as we age, so why not?
I can’t remember why Guy wanted to blow the whole thing up, but four hundred years later, 5th November, or the nearest weekend, is still an excuse in the UK for fireworks, bonfires, sausages on sticks, and kids wheeling around an effigy of the man himself, asking for a Penny for the Guy. If they still do. It was dying out when I was a kid. And let’s face it, with Play Stations and Netflix, the effort doesn’t get put in anymore. At Halloween I’ve opened my door countless times to teenagers with a smudge of white make-up and a pathetic fake fang, demanding treats. They’re about as scary as the Easter bunny. And Christmas carol singers? That all stopped the year I asked them to continue singing past the opening line of, We Wish you a merry Christmas. No one knocked again.
Anyway, in the UK, the 5th November is probably the first big tradition of the winter season.
When I first moved to Sweden thirteen years ago, I missed this stuff more than I could ever have imagined. And as I began to understand the full implications of what it meant to move my children to a different country, as the first Christmas came and I realised there would be no nativity play, no carol singing, no mince pies or pantomime …. I can’t explain how sad I felt. The memories are a bruise I keep pressing. Because by depriving my children of the traditions and rituals of my own childhood, I felt I was failing them. Bonfire night doesn’t come to Sweden until April 30th and then it’s for the sensible reason of burning away the debris of the winter, rather than celebrating a foiled act of terrorism. Halloween is more All Hallows Day (All Saints Day), and follows the tradition of placing a wreath on loved one’s graves. Harvest Festival doesn’t exist at all. Who remembers that? It’s a lovely tradition, the bringing of food for the community. I guess it’s been replaced by food banks. So what, I wonder as I write this, has replaced the community that that tradition served? Because increasingly, I think, community can become fragile to non-existent. And when we lose our community, we can lose ourselves.
It’s simple. The unconscious anchors holding us in place do their job well. We don’t miss them, until they’re gone. And the weightlessness which then sets in, the drift away from everything we knew and the lack of structure that can set in, is frightening.
It’s a layer cake, and our lives are baked into the heart of it. Our environment, our family, the culture and faith into which we are born. That shared understanding of how to live, passed down generation to generation. These are the pillars of community.
Anyone reading, for example, who is living in a different country to the one in which they were raised, will understand what I mean. Those reading who have lost a parent will understand. But then, everyone reading who lived through the pandemic – and that’s all of us – will also know. Remember how it felt when all those tiny stitches that kept us tethered fell away?
The weekly coffee meet with a friend.
The Sunday lunch with elderly parents.
The commute to work, passing our old school, or the hospital where our children were born, or the pubs we used to haunt on a Friday night? All that is familiar.
Over the years, and having failed to feel at home here, I have become partially, immune to the weightlessness of my life. I say partially because I still trawl through UK real estate websites, even though, as time has passed I’ve come to understand that whatever I’m looking for doesn’t exist anymore.
Am I trying to go back to that halcyon time when my twins were tiny and I had a fun, close-knit community with the other mothers?
Or further back to London, when I was single and young, riding the night bus home at three am, with other young singletons, going back to the shared community of my flatmates?
Or back to the village of my childhood, when my years really were bookended by Christmas and summer holidays, harvest festivals, Whitsun weekends. How lucky I was to have such continuity. Compared to so many millions of children around the world, how lucky.
But it’s all gone, and I have to accept this. I have to pull back from the brink I sometimes feel I’m living on and take time to assess the view ahead, because recently it has felt as if I’ve run out of land. Everything has changed. The kids have grown. I no longer recognise my life. I feel alone. I have lost, it seems the last scraps of my community.
What to do?
What to do if you’re reading this and feeling something of the same?
I truly believe that the single most important thing is to retain and embrace a capacity for change. Every that was possible before, is still possible now. If the traditions and rituals, friends and family that formed our community before, are disappearing now, we can make new ones. Traditions, after all, are made. Handmade. As are friendships. There’s nothing to stop me replacing the family Boxing Day walk on the beach (we all live too far away from each other now), with a dinner on the patio, with new friends. And maybe if I’m lucky enough, grandchildren. (So long here in Sweden, and I’m hankering for warmer climates … watch this space.)
It’s hard.
As one the characters in my last book says, ‘Friends were like hair. Plentiful in the beginning, prone to sparser patches later in life.’ Time is more precious now, and we’re less inclined to waste it. Or perhaps it’s more that we’re less inclined to risk wasting it, because more often than not we enjoy ourselves don’t we? When we say yes to that invite with people we don’t know well.
And we should take comfort from the fact that we’re not alone in this. Long gone are the days when we lived our entire lives in the same village, with everyone we’d ever known an arm’s length away.
There are a zillion different Facebook groups out there to get started. I’ve just joined Balcony Gardening in Barcelona, for example, because as long as the will is there, the capacity remains.
Until next time,
Cary
Midweek in Sweden, i.e. Wednesday, is known as lilördag. A weekend feeling, sandwiched between Tuesday and Thursday. So that’s when you can expect to receive these letters, to enjoy with a glass of wine, or a coffee and/or a slab of chocolate. Think of them as a letter from a friend overseas.
But writing them takes time. It may surprise you to know that from beginning to end, is a full working day. So, I’ve also decided to turn on paid subscriptions. The cost is minimal, less than the coffee you might be drinking as you read. If you’re ready to do so, you can subscribe below.
Gift subscriptions are also available. So if you know someone that would enjoy and find value from these letters, this is an easy way to gift them.
Or just share wherever, and with whoever you please.
I have a partner who has lived his entire life in one village...dare I risk moving him or should I make keeping him where he has always been my main priority?