The unbearable weight of winter

Two weeks in Cape Verde, in West Africa offered an enormous relief from winter's deepest temperature plunge. It was already bad that December battered us physically especially when the first major snowfall came and halted life into a state of immobility. While the Nordic countries was frozen in ice and most of Europe - including the sunny southern countries of Spain, Italy and Portugal encountered a winter uncommon in these places - Cape Verde seemed completely untroubled by climactic temper.

Upon returning to Stockholm in mid-January, the winter cold's assault appeared unabated. The two weeks of perfect bliss in Cape Verde had suddenly turned into many grim realities. First, it was the discovery that one of our cars was stolen from the parking lot - an old Ford car actually with plenty of carpentry tools at the luggage compartment had fancied som thieves. The second bad news was that, the M/S Tranan boat that my other half

drives went aground, its engine busted in the icy waters. And thirdly, the neighbour's garage near our summer house collapsed from the weight of snow.

The mass transport system consisting of the underground train and buses - which is usually effective with schedules are either delayed or derailed because the snow plowers cannot cope with the job of clearing the roads and tracks. Driving one's car is a life and death adventure and it does not matter how carefully you drive if the others are careless, they could collide with yours or drive you to the canal. By the way, with a heavy snowfall there is no way of knowing where the roadsides are and where the canals and ditches begin.

The working hours are much longer and tedious. The thought that the end of the day could be some happy meetings with friends at a pub or a restaurant becomes less palatable at the thought of coming home late and getting oppressed by the cold. It is not just the coldness of the weather that makes life immobile. It is also the lack of light, of sun that caresses your skin as when you are in a beach and feeling the warmth of sunshine in a state that reminds you of how it is to fall in love, to be in love. But the real consolation is that, the long winter nights do offer a much longer time for huggings and being huddled in a perfect state of unity.#

Unmended hearts

Today is Valentine Day - a date set aside to celebrate the unique role of the heart in making one's body and soul in a perfect state of reciprocity. Hopefully , there are many whose hearts feel happy and content because of the feeling of being in love and loved, as well. It is also possible that there are many lonely hearts who just lost the object of affection and who are hurting deeply.

If we speak emotionally, how do we really secure the well-being of the heart. Two people can be in love today and become bitter enemies the next day. How fickle can the heart be? How strong can promises of timeless love become in the face of differences that seem to get deeper with every argument? I have learned through the years that love is its own enemy, that the more one loves the more claustrophobic the relationship gets. It feels that love becomes a vine and simply strangles the life out of the other. One suffers from a relationship that lacks trust and respect.

I have women friends with unmended hearts and their stories have great variations. One is a love story that goes back to her university days where the heart never recovered from the hurt of loss. Without a closure in her love affair, her succeeding relationships were always faulty and imperfect. Another friend who is an accomplished lawyer woke up one morning to learn that her husband of many Valentine celebrations just took up a relationship with a younger woman from Africa. Despite many opportunities for meeting worthy men, the heart is taking a longer time to heal and does not respond to love eagerly.

The sadder story that I hear from another friend is her perpetual search for the right man - a man who can share her quest for security and even more, her emotional passion for love in all its manifestations. So she goes on with the hunting - from one matchmaking website to another and from one singel bar to the next. The sex partners are not that hard to find it would seem, but how does one build a relationship based on a few nights of passionate sex? She runs into variations of male imperfections from false marital status to sexual inadequacy.

I suppose that today would be a good time to re-examine that state of health of our hearts. Unmended hearts can eventually lead to one's death as in cardiac arrest. There is only so much anguish and punishment the heart can take and when it is in trouble, the rest of the body suffers. What I am trying to say is that, it is not worth it to over-indulge in self-flagellation in the name of love. Love is not a state of perfection where it is spring forever. Love must be able to survive the worst there is in one's person as much as we try to endure a truly hard winter as we have now. As the cliche goes, fight for your love but don't kill yourself over love.#

A life sustained

My life in tropical Philippines has been rich, challenging, privileged and if I echo a famous film title.." living dangerously" on the edge. The weather was (and is) never a topic for conversation as everyone assumes that the sun will always rise in the early mornings and set at dusks. The exception to the general rule of perpetual sunny days for 365 days a year are the rainy months often visited by typhoons. This is all in my distant past - the stormy days, the dangers under an authoritarian rule, the excesses of the military, curtailment of basic freedoms of press and speech and worst of all, the sight of unmitigated poverty, unemployment and criminality.

To start 2010 with a blog that defines the gap between the good places and the bad places to seek refuge from the extreme performances of weather, peoples, politics and economics does not auger well for the world we live in. The winter in Europe and some parts of North America has been the worst this year and many remember that it was in the mid-1980s, when a similar phenomenon took place.

For many non-Europeans, Sweden is a haven of goodwill and secured living because of its egalitarian welfare system. We pay dearly in taxes to secure a system that takes care of its citizens - both the productive and non-productive members of society. It is even possible that suspected terrorists enjoy social benefits that allow them to travel to "sacred places" where violence are a daily bread. On extreme cold winters such as this year, they enjoy the option of travelling home where the sun gives warmer days and family relations deepen keep emotions of love and affection alive.

It is weary to start 2010 with the same concerns that plague most inhabitants of this post-modern society. The physical body is battered by the extreme fall in temperature, the demands of career performance, the unsteady situation of the economy ( as seen through the volatile stockmarket and interest rates in housing loans), and private relations deteriorating from the burdens of living in a socially and economically demanding world.

Those who have passed the golden threshold of fifty years should slowly step back and leave the stage to the younger generation. But it is not always easy to fade away especially from an active working life. It feels like being deleted from the computer of life. How does life continue in harmony with one's age, the fickleness of weather, the challenges that remain and intellectual creativity that remains unshackled by age itself.

I stopped thinking about my age. I know that I have passed the cat's ninth. I merely look at my four children and two grandchildren whose lives are full of promise and commitment. Theirs is a future of many years - some which will continue to witness deep winters and splendid springs. Mine is many chapters ended and few more to open hopefully and I am sure that when I stumbled upon the virgin islands of Cape Verde - where the sun shines in temperate 25 plus degrees for 330 days, a gentle people who's free from scars of war and civil strife, an ocean teeming with fish and marine life, and where the national motto is " Land of No Stress" - then I felt that life is sustained as ever.#

The economics of infidelity

Infidelity is probably the most treacherous game where consequences could extend beyond the private realm of the heart. People of celebrity status, whose wealth or economic dominance in certain economic fields can cause downfall in stock share prices, shake investors' trust and destroy the public confidence. While it is true that "to err is human...", it is not forgivable to destroy public trust even if it is illusionary.

Take the case of Tiger Wood - the world's best golfer whose dominance in sports is only equalled by the amount of sponsor revenues that has made him the best paid brand in sports. The revealation of his infidelity caused more than a ripple of surprise from a public which saw in him a model figure, not just in golf where he excels but as a son, a family man, a husband and a father. In other words, he has everything in this world except immortality. And he proved to be a God with clay feet. In certain cultures, men of fame earn greatness by having many mistresses. Wives even encourage their husbands to have them for status sake. I don't think that in Tiger Wood's case, his Swedish wife had encouraged him to take extra-marital affairs to prove his manhood outside the golf games he dominate.

In Sweden, the divorce of out-going Ericsson boss Carl-Henric Svanberg - who will be the newest head of British Petroleum has become a public interest. There is no allegation of infidelity in this case and if the news story of his marriage break-up is to be believed, it is simply a case of falling in love with another. It is alleged that the divorcing couple holds no less than half-a-billion Swedish crowns in share assets and if they are dumped in the volatile stockmarket could impoverish thousands of small savers and investors.

There are many celebrity cases involving infidelity and divorces where the economic consequences have not really been brought out in the open. But when wealth is split and the main bulk are in bonds and shares, the result could cause sudden price downfall in the stockmarket. What shares are dumped, one never knows as truth ( the private ones) disappears in the generalities of market trading. When small investors buy stocks and bonds, there is no knowing how much of the private lives of major investors could affect the economic well-being of thousands of innocent people.#

Just me looking at Nobel 2009

Sweden's yearly Nobel Award ceremony is the most prestigious event of this little kingdom. It is an occasion that stretches in significance to all corners of the world and echoes the achievements of men and women in the fields of science, economics and literature to all generations - past and future. Nobel 2009 is particularly special because there were several women awardees. Generally, the prize takers are men which raised some eyebrows if the women population in the various fields of endeavour are truly inferior to men, intellectually-speaking.

The most interesting aspect of every Nobel ceremony - aside from the names and nationalities of the prize winners, is the pomp and glamour that characterise the event. More specifically, it is the anticipation of what and how celebrities and royalties dress up for this magnificent evening. The Swedish royal family has members whose sense of style is closely monitored by the media. Queen Silvia's stunning gowns are often spectacularly beautiful and she carries them with grace and elegance. Last night's gown of light green embroidered (?) tafetta or brocade was not her best. Princess Victoria was in deep purple with matching jewelry set and Princess Madeleine was in deep green gown. Those gowns were not the best choices and they did not do justice to the wearers.

Among the women awardees, the Economy prize winner - who looks like a kindly Auntie was dressed in a very loose African-looking attire, while the Literature prize winner came out straight from the movie " The Adams family" in her black gown, white belt and red, red lips. Among the Swedish celebrity guests - politicians and who's who in arts and media - the harvest of glamour and elegance was poor, due to a draught which probably it was in the form of an economic crisis still looming in the horizon.

Sitting in my comfortable couch and watching the show move from the Kulturhuset to the Stadshuset ( Cultural center to Stockholm's City Hall ), I remembered 1985 and 1993 when I attended the Nobel ceremony and even danced in the magnificent blue room of the City Hall. Every year, the Nobel has memorable images of both the beautiful and the less beautiful, the elegant and the gaudy, the latest in fashion and the left-overs of a vintage period. But Nobel is uniquely Swedish when it comes to honouring the noble intentions of its founder, Alfred Nobel.#

From one mother to others...

What is it in life that fires our enthusiasm to live? Is it the pursuit of lofty ambition for career, money, love and acknowledgement? At every stage in life, there are challenges we face that we must win over. Think of a new born baby suddenly overwhelmed by the bigness of a universe that sorrounds him, then a small child mastering the use of his motor and speech skills, a little boy or girl enlarging his or her social network in day care, and later in school. As the child grows older, he confronts a growing complexity in dealing with people, things and the world around him.

How are choices made on what's important and what's trivial in life? In the beginning, there is a family that guides the making of choices and it seems safer that someone can take the blame for making mistakes. I have four children I watched grow closely despite the rigours of being a single parent for quite some years. One thing that guided me in dealing with the different phases of growing up, was to avoid the errors made by my own parents and family. I am a liberal parent and dealt with my children as though they were adults, even if they were just small children. If and when they had to make a decision, I allowed them with a reminder that if they made a mistake, they had to take the consequence.

The children I brought to this world have learned to form their own opinions as early as they could muster their ability to think and weigh consequences, to make choices - some daring and adventurous, and savour the triumph of winning new pursuits with every challenge. Today, I watch them with great content that the pursuits they have chosen to take in life are worthwhile and meaningful. They have discovered values to guide them and an open mind to hold back judgment against people and situations that corrupt the world they live in.

I remain the mother and parent to my children, but the bond of friendship is stronger and lasting. One can say that close family relationship is cultural and regional. In less developed countries, the family network is strong and basic to one's life. But in developed countries where the state plays a central role in the upbringing of children through welfarism, family ties are not as close and needful. And when children become adults, it is seldom that parents and children meet except during celebratory events of the year like Christmas. One can say that between birth and death, the moments shared in family togetherness is richer among the poor than in the affluent societies.#

A politics of one

The Swedish daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter carried a news item today wherein the leader of the opposition Social Democratic party, Mona Sahlin invited middle road parties to join her coalition party in order to avert what political analysts predict may might be a catastrophic situation if the newcomer Social Democrats (SD) get into the Swedish parliament. But she was politely refused.

Mona Sahlin referred to the Liberal and Center parties in her invitation for "cross over party borders" cooperation in order to edge out whatever decisive role the SDs might have if they come into the parliament. She excluded the Moderate party, whose alliance with other non-socialist parties are currently in power. Just now, the Synovate political barometer shows an even chance for either of the two blocks at winning the national elections next year.

The SDs have had a phenomenal rise in the Swedish political arena. One wonders why it has gained supporters considering its hostile position on Muslims and immigrants which is anathema to everything Swedish politics stand for. What is it that attracts supporters to SD? I reckon that many Swedes who cannot speak openly against the Swedish open-door policy vis-a-vis refugees and asylum seekers and what it is costing the taxpayers to support the exodus of these people into Sweden, are looking for a way to put a break into this trend. But in Sweden, it is almost forbidden to say one's opinion regarding the government's benevolence vis-a-vis asylum-seekers.

The biggest number of asylum-seekers are coming from Iraq and friendly counties such as Södertälje- in the southern suburb of Stockholm have had the burden of receiving the largest number of Iraqi asylum-seekers. Other counties have flatly refused to take in more than their economies can support. With the current difficulties in the employment situation, it is understandable why many Swedish counties are not as open-hearted in their attitudes towards refugees and asylum-seekers.

But it seems a desperate move on the part of Sahlin to invite middle road parties to a cooperation in order to create a majority party and avert a situation wherein a small unwelcomed party could play a decisivie role in parliamentary politics. What I don't understand is, why don't the big Swedish parties analyse what it is that makes the SDs popular, if not appealing? What is it that they are missing out, like the unspeakable fear of an unstopable exodus of refugees coming to Sweden that puts a burden on a over-taxed population? Instead of unblocking borders between the non-Socialist and the Socialist opposition, is it not better to re-examine the issues that make the SDs attractive to Swedish voters?

When the Swedish elections take place next year, the decisive issue is still employment and taxes. The opposition Social Democratic Party promises to do better, and how is not really specified. They have been in power for a long time without any progress in this major problem. On the other hand, the non-Socialists alliance have instigated not only tax reduction for the low-income earners but succeeded in reducing over-dependence upon the welfare system by those who refuse to work, or make honest attempts at getting jobs.

In an open society, it is better to speak of even the unspeakable topics. When humanity and solidarity are challenged by hard economic times, it is more honest to admit where the limits are to one's sense of hospitality.
Sometimes it pays to think of who's footing the bill for the policy of humane admittance of refugees and asylum-seekers that come not only from conflict areas but from places where life promises no future.#