The weather in Sweden has taken to weird turns. It often surprises me this turnabout, for some reason. Which makes me doubt somewhat the cries of global warming. Here we are about to cross the treshhold of another month, so called warm month, and it’s still far from anywhere warm. Perhaps it is a deeply rooted desire of mine that the weather turn to a more sunnier disposition. Yet the overcast remains and the gray dominates every humor available in the Swedish Highlands. This kind of weather tends to dampen spirits.
I have discovered a weird trait in Scandinavians due to this constant overcast weather, it makes people rather paranoid like. I don’t like that. I have often said that I’ve had quite enough with 30 years of Cali sun and weather such as this suits me rather smoothly for lack of a better expression. I don’t cease to be me but the milieu has become quite burdensome of late. I don’t dislike Swedish people but they tend to be rather odd in their disposition once one has become acquainted with them. Please, don’t get me wrong, am not intolerant, by any means but it’s just that in every relationship one ends up getting on one’s nerve sooner or later. To put it bluntly I feel watched all the time or shall I say observed. It seems to be a favorite activity of Swedes to seize people up. Off course, perhaps am the paranoid. Though I kid you not when I say the aforementioned. My behavior is on the constant being looked at for possible clues as to who I am. Off course, I am also making a living on the countryside and the country folk as I read elsewhere tend to be somewhat different.
I guess Swedes try to figure me out yet I remain aloof, unawares and on my own. Urban behavior is what I have labeled it because those raised in the city have a tendency to ignore the masses. I suppose it can be irritating to some that I deliberately ignore them, that’s just who I am. This however, tends to rile me, that is, that am not understood for my foreignness. I believe there are many out there in Sweden who want to feel part of the masses yet I came here on own devices. My own free will. I wish not belong to this Nordic multitude because I am secure in who I am, in fact, I know who I am. Besides, everything I learned about Sweden started out of my own initiative. For example, the Swedish language has not affected me that much. I suppose that some of my failure to fulfill the whole of the Swedish language is due to the fact that I try not to understand the Swedish corporal and attitudinal aspects of their language but it is a price I am not even sure it has to do with my insistence to remain who I am in Sweden. It could, at the risk of sounding repetitive, that due to my unconscious insistence of being who I am that I wish not partake in their norms and rules.
However, I have out of tactic chosen to acquire an odd behavior, I seem to have turned somewhat taciturn in my demeanor. I choose to hardly speak and when I do so it tends to be in social situations where I have the upper hand, otherwise, mums the word. This is in fact positive in Sweden. At least here in the Highlands. So somehow I have become a part of the gray, I am still, quiet and observant of the surroundings although I do not tend to pick out the flaws on people like Swedes tend to be in the habit of overenjoying said public display. At least not so obviously I guess….
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Sweden, Sverige, Suecia