Autumn of discontent

Autumn has arrived with rains, cold air and grey to black skies. All at once the joys of summer with its long bright days, lazy strolls along the waters and landscapes of green trees and flowers are fading into a shadow of depressed moments as we stare at darkness and the embrace of long cold nights. Unto each heart comes an inner sorrow over something lost.

Why do we feel sad that autumn has arrived and that soon it will give way to winter? What's in the change of season that makes us reflect at our own lives. We fall in love during spring, not necessarily with a person in particular, but with the idea of simply falling in love with love. And if it so happens that there is an object of affection, why is the thrill so much greater in springtime than in autumn or winter? Do people fall in love in autumn or fall out of love. Does a depressed heart respond to love's calling?

It is a paradox why during autumn we spend time to reflect on our emotions and relationships we have. We rationalise our spring fever. What was it that made us fall in love with a particular person. What was the attraction. Is it strong enough to withstand the autumns and winters of life? Can two people suffering from autumn blues comfort each each other?

Autumn is not just a matter of weather change. The larger world is not encouraging at all with political and economic issues that hit individuals in different ways. People lose jobs because the industries and companies cut budgets to insure greater year-end profit. Is recession making a bigger bite at corporate profit and therefore many must lose their jobs. The bigger the company, the greater the danger of cutting down on manpower. And who are the most affected? Not the management people. Just the workers.

And when the most respected of Swedish authorities make a muddle of its own statistical calculations that affect every person's well-being, it is not surprising that depression becomes a disease instead of just a temporary feeling. What relationships can withstand the onslaught of economic problems brought about by sudden unemployment? Where can we find joy when we come home from work tired and stressed and there is no one there to ease the worries of the day. It is just evenings of deafening stillness, like the the sepulchral silence of the cemetery. And autumn of discontent made unbearable by the infinite distance between night and day.

The lures and pitfalls of London holidays

I was in London recently for a well-deserved holiday and most importantly to visit my youngest son and his beautiful girlfriend. They live in Highgate, an interesting hub of shops, women boutiques, restaurants, espresso bars and pubs. I have been visiting London since the late 70s, when I worked as Philippine representative for Financial Times. Its like coming home.

The summer sales were still on and the huge inviting signs of 50% off were plastered on show windows. It is always interesting to check how cheaper designer goods are at half price and how perilous it gets for the wallet when the desire to acquire becomes an untamed beast. My city tour was not so exciting except when my son and I had a dim sum lunch at Pingpong restaurant. It was superb! That was the day's highlight.

At Cadbury street, we came inside a perfumery because I wanted to buy some Crabtree and Evelyn products. I love the rose smell of these products, especially the lotion. We also tested perfumes and EDTs and ended getting a Prada which was truly expensive. It is something one wears only with sexy Victoria Secret for special person occasions. A wishful thought though not far from truth.

Since I couldn't find clothes and accessories I liked in the heart of London itself, I explored all the shops and boutiques in Highgate. True enough, I found very interesting shops with trendy clothes and accessories at half prices. It became a genuine shopping spree. My plastic cards were never before as assaulted as they had been in Highgate. I begun to entertain the idea of changing my identity after this trip.

Aside from women madness things, it was the bookshops I never failed to visit where the offer was three books for the price of two. It is truly amazing to see so many new books and authors in the market. When I compare book- buying in London to Stockholm, the latter really pails in comparison. Londoners are great book lovers. You see them all in the underground train reading a book or newspaper.

The other great thing about being in London are the newspapers especially the weekend editions, how thick they come with supplements on several subjects like lifestyle, fashion, health, holidays and food. To sit in the kitchen, drinking tea or cappuccino and having a smoke..oopppss! The feeling of being immersed or submerged in reading has a sustained orgasmic thrill. The truth is, it is perilous for both the purse and the heart to be in London often even if the British pound got cheaper against the Swedish crown.

Undoing one's burnt-out feeling

Never has shopping become as addictive as when one is clawed by a combination of all psychological factors resulting from bad organisation in the workplace, especially where leadership is faulty and weak. Many workplaces in Sweden, particularly in the health care sector, lose track of their commitments to life caring. So many blundering mistakes even by educated medical people. It gets worse when you add the multiracial diversity factor - people coming from many cultures working together.

Just then, you hit the deepest low of your own well-being and gets advice from a psychologist who tell you to find joy, even for thirty minutes a day. In this state of bad well-being, we have friends - close and real friends who understand the need to let out the steam and will give you the time, their precious time, to listen to you, to comfort you with words of sympathy and even invite you to get out and hit the city. See a movie, like "Sex and the City", and feel the joy Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha felt over love lost, and found again. Or "Mama Mia" with a different cadence to ABBA's undying songs. If you don't cry over how Meryl Streep sang "The Winner Takes it All", then you are definitely a lost case.

A depression attack could find more than thirty minutes of joy in a sea of summer bargains. Take for instance the popular high-end NK department store where sales of named brands fell by 50%. A favorite shop inside NK is Kriss, a Swedish clothing brand that sells women clothes, as women clothes ought to be - feminine and alluring. In these days, there are sprawling shopping malls in every Swedish suburb that compete with what one can finds in the inner Stockholm city.

Take Vällingby for instance. The clothing and accessories are fresher than what one finds in the inner city. K:Fem, which is the latest addition in the mode world has shops for all kinds of wallets. A favorite is "Myself and Friends", "Best of Brands", "Sisters" and "Mango". The summer bargains created a 50 to 70 percent price reduction that made shopping so enticing, so exciting and so sexy. Yes, sexy because there is that element of orgasmic thrill at finding something beautiful and affordable.

But the best thing that happens when one is feeling low is that good friends think creatively to help erase the blues. How about a girls night out on a very pleasant evening when the air is sensual and talking from the heart eases the hurts. Some hurts have not found any closures and they continue to nag the present and future. When one has friends who care to listen, who can talk openly about anything from failed love affairs, to unfinished novels and doctoral dissertation, to new hopes and prospects - if only we allow them to happen, then who really cares about a thirty- minute joy when you can have hours and days of lovely moments.

Ending one's life sustaining system

Euthanasia is not allowed in Sweden. It is illegal and can be seen as murder. Even the acceleration of death through pain-alleviating medicine is illegal if " it accelerates death more than it alleviates pain", wrote Hans Thorstedt of the Faculty of Law, Stockholm University. On the other hand, passive euthanasia " in the form of forbearance to initiate life-sustaining treatment in a hopeless case is legal". But the Swedish state of law is not that clear when it is legal or illegal to terminate a life-sustaining system. The issue lies on the border of what is active and passive euthanasia.

I came face to face with the problem of euthanasia. But no one will admit that the decision to end a patient's life-sustaining treatment was in fact an act of euthanasia. In this particular case, it was the children of the patient who asked that their mother no longer get life sustenance through the tube. This decision was made clear to the nursing staff. It would have been just another case of palliative care except that some objections were raised by some staff members who saw the decision as an act of passive euthanasia.

It became a strong psychological issue to get involve in a passive euthanasia case. Several care staffers refused to be involved and a feeling of mental illness slowly affected the working place. When the issue was raised to the leadership of the nursing home, one division chief stated that the decision to end the patient's life sustenance was a deviation from the practice of caring after a patient until his/her life span comes to a natural end.

There have been publicized cases of euthanasia although not in Sweden. For instance, a 35-year old Swede who went to a Swiss euthanasia clinic. Often, they are patients suffering from extreme pains following an accident or a terminal illness like cancer. The patients themselves ask to end their life-sustaining treatment. But when they come face-to-face with death, they change their decisions.

In any case, when this particular issue had infected seriously the working climate of the nursing home, the decision to start the process of ending the patient's life sustaining system became a medical one and no longer the expressed wish of the patient's children. The problem with the medical diagnose is that, there was none in the beginning. There was no medical investigation to substantiate the decision to remove the food tube for sustaining life. The palliative care consisted mainly of morphine and water, supposedly to alleviate pain which the patient may or may not have suffered from.

Euthanasia, whether active of passive are generally in the domain of hospitals. So that when it had happened in a long-term nursing home, one can imagine the magnitude of digression that had taken place. The patient may have found peace and an end to a life without cure, but the psychological and mental discomfort it had created among those who were involved against their will last a long time.

"Viva Espana! " and all that football jazz!

It was back in Maputo, Mozambique in the mid-80s that I got introduced to football and became addicted to it. The Mozambican television was not yet working but there were some diplomatic homes that had access to South African TV. Way back then, I remember how we cheered for the Swedish and Danish teams. "Danish dynamite!" was a favorite cheering slogan. I don't particularly recall if it was then when Sweden took the bronze. Football became a social energizer in many boring diplomatic events.

I watched all the matches in the recently-concluded Euro 2008, cheered the Swedes for all "love of country" sense of patriotism and was indeed proud when they kicked in two goals against Greece, last season's champion. Good start for the Swedes, the football fanatics said. The second match against Spain was a tough fight but which the Swedes heroically brought to a 1-1 goal. We watched from Sheraton's bar and had neglected the Philippine independence ball upstairs. A last minute goal by Spain ended Sweden's quarter final aspiration.

There were disappointments and lots of surprises in the UEFA Euro 2008 series. For us who admired how the elegant French players had been in the past, only saw rough collisions and yellow cards. Some matches were rather dull like the one between Croatia and Germany (2-1). But matches played in by Turkey, Russia, Holland, Spain and the Czech republic were thrillers. The biggest surprise came from the Russian team who were young, quick, hungry, daring and innovative. For a while, I thought they would win the coveted EU championship after overwhelming the Swedes. But when Spain gave Russia a 4-1 goal, it became clear that Spain was going to become the new champion. Germany never got a chance!

Now that all the football matches have been played, we are once again back to crime investigation on American and British television. Where do we our evening excitement and thrill. A big question mark especially after your friends have departed from the living room, the bar, Sergels Torg - exhausted from all the yelling,cheering and flag- waving. What comes next? Four years is a long wait.
(Photo Credits: Reuter/Dagens Nyheter, 2008-06-30)

Sex and butterflies in the stomach

In the Dagens Nyheter's Sunday magazine today, my attention was caught by a very interesting article entitled "Så håller du pirret vid liv" which roughly translates into "Keeping butterflies in the stomach". I wish to translate some very exciting and relevant observations made by Eva Sanner on keeping sex and sexuality alive in relationships. It is strange how a whole society is influenced by sex in whatever definition it goes.

The excitement in sex tends to disappear with time in long relationships. And it does not help how much Viagra and sex toys are available in the market. The absence of sexual lust does not have much to do with one's lack of erection but something else that is missing, like romance, passion and the butterfly in the stomach feeling of anticipation, the article says.

Maybe we live in an erotic unfriendly society. Or we are too stressed for sex, have too much to do, preoccupied with children or just plain too tired. Or maybe gender equality and safe sex has become too boring and unpalatable? How can one re-discover sexuality and sexual lust for each other, keep butterflies alive in the stomach and blend the ridiculous with the sublime in everyday living. Because sex when it is good, makes us healthier, happier, calmer, kinder and more insightful.

I agree with the author's observation that a healthy sexual life brings out the best in us and we become better in our relationships with other people - with friends, co-workers, employers and the whole world. One time, at a planning session I attended, the lecturer was speaking about the importance of human touch with patients, especially the old people. She said: "Utan beröring, inget liv!" It means without touch or caress, there's no life.
We laughed but the truth is, who cares to live a sterile life, a life dying in sexual celibacy.

Eva Sanner is soon coming out with her book "Kåt, glad och tacksam", meaning "Lust, joy and gratitude". Lust is an everyday word that carries a lot of wisdom because it is not exclusive to sex but to the whole attitude towards life, the curiosity that drives us to seek knowledge and experiment something new. To have lust not just for sex but for life itself, and to be thankful of what one enjoys out of it or gets out of life through seeking and sharing. How many are there who wallows in grief and negative thoughts instead of living a thankful life one has.

As food for thoughts from this insightful woman, she advises the following. When the erotic glow cools down it does not mean that love is dead. Those dying embers must have some air to breathe otherwise there is no fire. Erotic love takes time and knowing each other because it is a part of longing and hoping, of having new mysteries, ideas and allowing unexpected things to just happen.

It is not those latest sex techniques that keep lust alive. No, the key to intimacy and the ability to create love over and over again in a relationship are: communication, distance and time. Communication needs because we want to be seen and understood in order to have the lust for love. Distance needs because separation is a condition for meeting. And if we will have those butterfly feeling in the stomach there needs to be a distance between parties. Time need is essential because sexuality is a perishable commodity. Love in a hurry is simply boring. Getting into bed with someone is easy but developing a sexual relationship takes time and caring.

( With thanks to Eva Sanner and Astrid Johansson for their excellent guidelines in our journey into the often troubled waters of sex and sexuality. Photo credit: "Butterfly trapped" by Sonora Ocampo Åkerfeldt)

Is it " love actually?"

I just got an SMS message from my son - who's jumping in and out planes between Hongkong, Taipeh and Saigon that his girlfriend now has "a rock on her finger". A happy news to hear from someone whose heart has been broken twice. I was indeed very happy because he found his soul mate, someone who understands him - his strengths, weaknesses, needs and dreams. How good it feels to love again!

As a mother of three sons and one daughter, I cannot remember how many times my own heart bled when they told me about a relationship that ended, and the hurt that pierces deep into their hearts magnifies into mine because no amount of loving words can comfort a bleeding heart or stop the pain, or the tears. As the cliche goes: " Love hurts or sucks!". Also true, plus all other curses that come to mind in moments of desperation, anger and regret.

One often asks oneself, have I given all of myself that left nothing more to shield me from an unwanted separation ? Or as the Dalai Lama wisely said: "Has your need exceeded love?" There are more than a hundred ways why love dies, sours up, turns into hatred and even bitterness. But there are also as many ways it turns up when least unexpected, when we are close to committing ourselves to a self-built cloister of aloneness. And just when we have made peace with that settlement, that life goes on without any person to care for, the most unimaginable situation happens and shatters the protective wall of indifference we built around ourselves.

I find it very difficult to define love. Very often it is associated with instant chemical reaction wherein two people like magnet are drawn to each other, either at first sight or after a long period of friendship. When a strong emotion hits like a thunderbolt, we say it is love. Is it actually? I never had the pleasure of a thunderbolt-like emotion at first meeting, but I know that some kind of chemical reaction has passed though my system enough to allow that meeting to continue its course. And I often say to friends that I have a strong instinct with people. I either like or dislike someone instantly and nothing exists between those two extremes of black and white.

Should we be good friends first and fall in love later or should we fall in love first and be friends later. Can we be friends and lovers at the same time? Are words necessary to express our emotions as well as deeds? When love is not expressed in words, how does one know that there is even that love hidden inside the protective wall we built? Is sex an expression of love between two people reacting to the same mutual attraction? Or is it just a means to fill an emptiness, a longing for something that we do not even know exists.

However "love actually" is defined, it is only in the private sphere of one's emotion. But it is definitely a joy to know that there is someone out there who thinks of you, as much as you think of that person and that time becomes a tiresome waiting for the next call or SMS to come, especially if you don't want to seem too needy. Love is a game of balance, of knowing how much to give of oneself at various stages of its development. Even after marriage, yes, especially after marriage does love and courtship need more nourishment so that it does not thirst for anything.

(This blog piece is specially dedicated to Sarni and Toshi on their recent engagement.)