12/3 2020, Skruv, Småland: glas and furniture heart of Sweden
And one of the places where 1.5 million Swedes migrated from between 1850 and 1920, before Trump.
I must stop my trip back to where I usually belong because of storm winds, and scary driving in these forests. I am a “tree-hugger” but this time I was really scared by them winding dangerously above my car. No big roads here and very many trees.
So, as usual with the precious help of my best partner and husband, I found a place where I can stop for today and tonight and a bit until tomorrow midday, when the wind is supposed to fade.
I TELL YOU THIS IS A COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION IN OUR TIME
We have this beloved travel agency of ours, TheAlps AB. I started with a wish to share with other people places I love and cherish for their genuine story and beauty. My idea was never to exploit anything. But I must admit that in the present time I need to reconsider travelling and make a sort of deep inventory of our motives and goals.
This is new and I don’t have a well-formulated answer. Yet.
What I am sure about is that we all are going to be forced to reconsider all our way of living. Shopping, travelling and expanding. We will need to understand that our own behavior as individuals has a strong and direct impact on all other humans and on the environment – landscape or city or wherever you are – around us.
There is a kind of quiet voice inside me when I buy another flight ticket to get to Italy. It tells me that it is a pity. When I fly nowadays I am afraid, of falling. Never thought about it before.
Many of the things and behaviors that we have taken for granted in the last 50 years or so, they are remarkably strange: we click on a button and we get a new pair of shoes, we buy a flight without money, we eat tomatoes in January in Sweden. Everything is possible all the time. And fast. We are so used to this way of living that it is not even anything we reason about: how is it possible? Is it ok? How comes? Who is paying?
Short trips to Italy – a long weekend. It is normal. Unless there is a stop in the flight or you loose your luggage or Covid 19 threatens us all. We like it, it is better than nothing, and one or two days travelling give a lot of new insights and experiences. But sometimes you not even know where exactly you have been later. And the stories and the experiences? You could probably have them if you stopped your frantic hunting of every day. Look around you!
Today I wish to recommend two things to read – and you are probably going to read more the coming times:
- Coronavirus offers “a blank page for a new beginning" by super trend maker Li Edelkoort
- Only in Swedish “Stora Döden” by Dick Harrison about the worst catastrophe in Europe ever.
Old history from the Middle Age, and a jump in the future, in the perspective shaped by the virus.
My daily stop today is at Grimsnäs Herrgård a cluster of living- and farmhouses from 1500 that has been reshaped into a personally cared for hostel by the kind couple who is in charge of the business. I got the whole house for myself, a glass of wine and cooked food, even if the restaurant is closed for the season. THANK YOU.