MONICA'S ISLAND
A lucky piece of life for me has been my friendships with kind, big-hearted, tough, smart, and gutsy women. These friendships have been lucky for me, because I needed these women to keep me being like them...honest to myself and life, less selfish, less dramatic...
I had been raised by a woman who was hysterical much of the time, and very self-centered. She could be really generous and kind, but she was twisted by her own serious problems in life, that left her unable to deal well with adulthood. It was hard for her to teach her four daughters well about how to be adult women...so we had to figure out a lot on our own....
my way, was to make friends with women who were not like my mother. to learn from them and think about my life with their feedback. to modify my 'veneers' as one wise man has called the thin armor I wore, so that life and love could flow in both directions from and into me....
One such friend has been Monica. my friend who now lives again in Sweden, the country she was born in and lived in until her early twenties...
Monica once showed me a picture of herself when she first came to the United States...She was a splendidly perky white-blond little imp, with a big, generous smile, big blue eyes, and dimples galore. a little darling!
Years later, she still had the white-blond hair, the dimples, the eyes, the smiles...and a lot of tough miles traveled....
Monica had lots of sad times with her former husband...had divorced. finished raising her son and daughter by herself....working as a language teacher...she was one of the founders of our school at the time, where we both worked...
Monica taught Spanish and French, and German, if anyone wanted German...I taught various social studies classes and English classes and Health....we were friends quite soon, and apparently, forever! We could talk about...well, everything!
While we were working there, she remarried to a great fellow....who died just a year later from cancer....Monica's grief was catapulting.... in a few months, she decided it was time for her to return to the land of her birth, and to start over again....
which brings me and my husband at the time, to Stockholm....
Monica had first moved to the lake district near Stockholm...soon came to live with a man she cared for very much...who then became her "best friend", instead, over time....and she was spending more time in Stockholm, teaching Swedish and English to foreign business people...then, her daughter bought her a wonderful apartment, in the heart of the older part of the city!
So, there is where we got to stay! With the high white plastered ceilings. the wonderful corner stove. the heated towel pipes in the bathroom. the courtyard view from the kitchen nook....lovely and inviting and warm, just as Monica is!
She took us everywhere she loved in her clean and fantastic city! To the old Viking and War ships...to the Folk Village. to the Old City. To the parks. to the museums....and then, to her island....
Monika's favorite island is out in the sea harbor...a beautiful, rocky place to walk about and swim off the rocks in the sea....
there are old boats and boat houses there....pines and paths...sweet, small houses and a couple of restaurants....we ate at a really good one! seafood of course....
watched the sunset...took the ferry back....
thought about how friends can mean so much in a lifetime. thought about how distance and time apart mean nothing between friends. about how friends are such a renewable feast....
when ever I think about Monica, somehow, I recall that island out in that impossibly blue Scandinavian sea waters....the stones...the smell of the fall pines...the wind blowing our hair about on the ferry...the Swedish flag fluttering at the stern....
Monica is all that natural fun and friendly will and good listening...
her island is meant for friends.
she is my open and kind friend.
we will meet again. bridging these seas between our islands....
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