Swedish Summer

My mom grew up in a small town in the countryside of Sweden, about 2 hours southwest of Stockholm. After I was born, my family would take me back to this town each year to stay with my grandparents, and be immersed in my mom's culture. I'm so grateful for them showing me this part of the world from a young age, as it has become such a special part of who I am.

Years later, my parents had 3 kids, and we were outgrowing the small ranch style home nestled next to a cow field that my grandparents had always welcomed us into.

One day, my grandpa and mom saw an ad in the newspaper for a house for sale by a lake nearby. We were set to go back home to New York the next day and my mom didn't know if they would have time to go see it. My grandpa, however, felt this place was special and convinced her to go with him and take a look. It was a stunning home built in the early 1900s nestled on a hill, but with a lot of work needing to be done. They knew it was the one. They ran into a Norwegian singer that day who held her fists up to my grandpa and said "I'll fight you for it."

After a year of applications, a bidding war, and essay writing, this home eventually was ours- and since has become my favorite place I've ever been.

Now, over a decade later, it welcomes us home the same way it did when I was 12. Every year after a long awaited trip across the Atlantic, that long driveway leads us to our house on the hill.

The weeks that follow are filled with so much love, and the sweetest community I've ever known. Boat rides and hikes and feeding apples to cows in the front yard and endless catch ups of the year before. Sunsets at 9pm and the light returning at 3am and so much fika and learning how to have fun like a kid again when the nearest town is 20 minutes away and everything closes by 6pm. The simplicity is something I've learned to appreciate and have grown so fond of.

My grandparents have both passed away, but I feel so close to them when I am there, in a house enveloped by their love and the traces that they left behind.

There is a bittersweet sense of longing when I leave each summer. Grateful and nourished after the time spent at this home, but knowing it will likely be a year until I am held by it's comfort again.

It is the most special place I have ever known.