Just Hilarie

Take the first step

On February 5, 2021

As some of my readers might know, I sit on the board of a small Jewish organization here in Stockholm. Within the auspices of the larger official Jewish Community we offer as an alternative to the other religious services here, a Reform/Progressive service. During Corona times we do our services via the Zoom app. Since the beginning of autumn we have been doing regular Friday evening services, called Kabbalat Shabbat services. For our services, we use the relatively new prayer book that one of our board members Eva Ekselius compiled, translated, wrote, and designed. I helped with the production of the book by creating it in InDesign from Eva’s design.

This past Friday, January 29, 2021, I had the honor of giving the short sermon that our one hour service usually includes. A sermon usually should relate in some way to the portion of the Torah that was read the same week on Saturday morning. Since this blog is the place where I put most of my short written pieces, I figured I would include this speech here too.

The first step

This week’s parashat tells the story of how after leading our ancestors out of Egyptian slavery, Moses finds their way blocked by a great sea. In the Torah version, Moses obeys God’s command to “lift up his hands and the sea will part” – thus leaving dry land for the Israelites to walk across, on their way to finding freedom.

Now, that’s the Torah ’s version of events, the one we read aloud at our Passover seder tables. A spectacular miracle, to be sure, but something totally passive; missing the element of human purpose.

A different story is offered by the rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud. Here, in this version, the Israelites gathered at the water’s edge, Moses lifted his hands as God commanded… and nothing happened. The sea remained still.

Can you imagine the fear of the people at that moment? They were expecting another miracle by Moses to save them – and they get nothing bubkes.

Then, out of the crowd, walked a solitary figure:

Empty Nester

By Hilarie

On January 9, 2021

In Uncategorized

This summer like every summer, we had a bird family move into the small, wooden, video-monitored birdhouse on our property. Small birds, like the Swedish talgoxe or the blåmes seem to like raising their families there. The video camera mounted inside this tiny home is connected by a long cable which hangs along various tree branches as it makes its way past our porch door to our wall mounted flat-screen TV and for about 5 weeks we can watch our little feathered family lay and hatch their eggs and raise their babies. We keep the TV turned on and its like having a moving Harry Potter-style black and white painting hanging on our living room wall.

In spring almost two years ago, my son bought his own apartment here in Stockholm. He and I had spent the fall and winter months looking at apartment listings and every Sunday we made our way to 3 different showings. He put offers on a few of the apartments but he knew his top limit of how much he could afford to spend and while he came close a few times, someone else always offered more. Until the last one, when his offer was accepted. I helped him to paint all the rooms. We spent a day at IKEA looking at and testing out furniture possibilities which he then ordered online and had delivered directly to his second floor apartment. We spent another week putting the furniture pieces together. By then, it was finally summer and his dad and I moved out to our summer house. Our son was busy at work in the city and just continued to live in our apartment. Time passed as it usually does – all too quickly. Fall and then winter and once again spring. In the meantime, his fully furnished apartment sat there, collecting dust while my son continued to live in the only home he has known, our apartment. People who knew he had bought an apartment would ask me how he liked living in his new place and I had to keep answering, “He hasn’t moved out yet.”

It became a running joke every time I met a friend… ‘Has he moved yet?’ they would ask. We just laughed.

Just dropped in to see what condition my condition is in

By Hilarie

On January 1, 2021

In Uncategorized

Its a new year.

I sent out a nice graphic with pictures of the family doing stuff during this past pandemic year. A short catch-up letter went along with it to people who live far away from my life here. It was generally positive because that’s what catch-up letters are supposed to be, right? I put the picture up on Facebook too. But how am I actually?

I’ve been thinking I might be depressed…but in a weird kind of way because I am not actually unhappy. I know that deep down I’m a lazy bugger. I have never been one of those people who always have to keep busy doing “projects” all the time. But now I can’t seem to do anything! I finally got out of bed today around noon! The main thing that gets me out of bed is because I have to pee. That’s a terrible reason – important – but terrible. There are so many coulda-woulda-shouldas on my to-do list that never get done. Actually, I don’t even bother putting them on the to-do list. They just float around in my head. The to-do list is for things that need to get done or there will be dire consequences, like the tax people will be after me or there will be nothing in the house to eat – so I do those things but always at the last minute. Its like getting out of bed because of urination issues.

I don’t sleep well. When I finally fall asleep I wake up two hours later and then can’t fall back to sleep so I just lie there looking at boring stuff on my phone. By the time I fall back to sleep its almost morning and then I don’t get out of bed till noon. I no longer have to go to work and I no longer have any kid at home to take care of. So time means nothing. And this pandemic encourages me to just stay in the house all the time which I must admit is my favorite place to be…sort of.

Even back in the 70s and 80s, in New York, it was hard to budge me out of my apartment.

Giving Thanks

By Hilarie

On December 26, 2020

In Uncategorized

Thanksgiving had always been one of my favorite family holidays. There would be lots of food; everyone talked at once; someone would argue with someone; someone would leave the table in tears. This was accepted as normal and might be repeated each year. I missed those family gatherings. So when I moved to Sweden, I decided that I would roast a turkey and try to celebrate Thanksgiving even though my original family lived far away. The idea of giving thanks was less important to me than the idea of family gathering together.

In spite of the fact that large turkeys have not always been that easy to get a hold of in this country and when you finally find one, it’s extremely expensive, I intended to invite friends who have become like family, to our place to share a bird and all the fixings with me. Since everyone here worked on Thanksgiving day, we would gather on Saturday instead of Thursday. The first few years it was only Håkan and me eating the small turkey I might manage to find. As I settled in to life in Stockholm and our circle of friends expanded, the number of invited guests grew.

My first large turkey weighed 11 kilos (24 lbs). I had to order it in advance from a shop that specialized in eatable fowl of all sorts. The man behind the counter asked me how large I wanted my big bird to be and when he saw the uncertain expression on my face he suggested 11 kilos. My unfamiliarity with the metric system meant that I was unable to judge how big 11 kilos was. The number 11 was smaller than the number 25 which was around the size in pounds that my mother’s turkeys often were so I said yes. When I went back the next week to pick up my turkey, I discovered just how heavy an 11 kilo bird was as I schelepped it back home with me on the subway. It barely fit in my ancient oven. Four invited guests, two of whom were also American, shared that bird with me and my husband. We had leftovers for 6 months.

Despite that rather shaky beginning, I roasted a turkey each year. Sometimes in the early years when our apartment was small, my husband and I might drive a large, roasted, warm and well wrapped turkey to a friend’s house to share at their more spacious dining table with a large group of our mutual friends.

As our apartment grew larger, so too has the number of people whom we have room for. Our open-plan living room fits two tables and 15 chairs. I would order an 8 kilo bird at the Stockholm store that specializes in turkey products. When they stopped offering such large turkeys I ordered them from a farmer who raised a small flock of free range turkeys. He even delivered them directly to my door! I always ordered one around 8 kilos. One year he appeared at my door very apologetic, saying that that year the birds had grown rather large and was it OK if the bird he was delivering was just under 9 kilos. By that time I had a new oven and 9 kilos fit just fine.

Only twice have I missed my annual ritual.

I served no turkey in 1991. Our son was born in November that year and with one thing and another, as new parents, making a turkey and having guests took a back seat. I have no memory of what we ate that year. There was no big dinner party in 2014 either because that was the year that my husband got sick. After spending 2 months in hospital, Håkan was allowed home for the weekend at the end of November and Bevin, Håkan and I were finally together to eat the boneless turkey thighs I made at the last minute. With sweet potatoes and gravy and much thankfulness.

And now this year there is the Covid 19 pandemic. All our friends are staying safe at home so there will be no large gathering at our place to eat turkey with us. But turkey must be eaten. I bought a frozen 5 and a half kilo turkey when my husband and I spent some time at our country house and put it in the freezer there. On Wednesday, we packed up the car with all our laundry, left-over food, 2 cats in their cages and ourselves and drove back to town. As I loaded the apartment fridge with the left-overs I realized we forgot the turkey! We drove back out to get it two days later but this meant it was never going to defrost in time for Thanksgiving Saturday. No matter. It wasn’t like I had invited a crowd of friends over and now needed to rearrange plans with a lot of people. This year our only guest was our son, who had moved out to his own apartment 6 months earlier… and he was flexible.

So on a Tuesday evening, the week after the official Thanksgiving day, the three of us sat down to a table loaded with turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, gravy, corn, salad, cranberry sauce, and a pecan pie for dessert. As I finished putting everything on the table and stood at the refrigerator to take out a bottle of Julmust, I stopped for a moment and looked over at the well laden table and my two boys loading their plates and gave thanks that my little family could all be together, healthy, safe, and able to share this meal with each other.

PS…I make a great Pecan Pie, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.