Kalena: one is thinking a lot about the power of the landscape in the United States

One last time I stand in the rock rain in Minnesota. We have passed in mid -May and it is as cold as a bad election evening in Sweden.

The first time I came here was snow in October. The second time I came here was snow in April. During the third visit, in January, snow shortages and the ski enthusiasts in Mora prevailed could not fully implement the American Vasaloppet.

The railing to the stone staircase is wet, when I walk down to the beautiful greenery in the Swedish Valley in Saint Paul – the former slum area Swede Hollow in Saint Paul where so many poor Swedes camped (author Ola Larsmo has portrayed the valley in DN reportage And book that also became a play on Dramaten).

I have giggled many times that the Swedish emigrants chose the part of America that has the most unstable weather.

Although it is of course due to What you mean by unstable weather, for Minnesota is both similar and different, and as so often here in the United States there are extreme phenomena, grasshoppers and thrombus.

And if we are to talk about really unstable weather now, we can of course mention the hurricanes along the east coast and drought on the west coast.

I don’t really know where I wanted to come.

Maybe you think a lot about the power of the landscape in powerful North America. Are we finding the places? Or are it the places that find us? How long does it take to change landscapes in the body?

After the fire in Lahaina on Maui Last summer, I met a sea captain who cried bitter tears when he talked about how he lost a shawl from Värmland in the flames. It was an inheritance from the childhood home in the Midwest. He himself regarded Hawaii as his place on earth.

Vilhelm Moberg lived on the magical coast of California when he wrote on his epic about the emigrants who left Småland for Minnesota. The Swedish valley in Saint Paul was taken over by Poles, Irish, Italians and finally Mexicans.

My grandmother’s sister Lisa moved to the Midwest in the United States a hundred years ago. I have managed to get in touch with her daughter’s daughter, my chore, on Facebook. She lives in the pleasant dry heat in Arizona and plays a lot of golf.

Read More boutssuch as kalena If when the United States suddenly won’t go shopping anymore.