If you saw us you’d probably hate us. We look like the cast of an insurance commercial: shiny, happy us. The perfect little family, living the perfect little life.
Wasn’t that another perfect day? is what we always say at the end of days like these. A confirmation. A promise. A warding-off of any days that might be anything less. But most are perfect here in Sweden, many more than I can count.
It’s so beautiful, especially now in the middle of the summer, all dappled, dancing light and gentle sun. The little red wooden house we live in is out of a children’s picture book – nestled in the forest, snug as a bug, with the trees all around and the garden lush and blooming, an abundance of life – vegetable patches thick with leaves, bushes heavy with sun-ripened summer berries, the smell of blooms everywhere, heady and sweet, drawing in the bees with their charms. The summer evenings are endless and still, the sky bright well past ten, and the vast lake pale and calm like the very faintest shade of blue on a color wheel. And stillness – everywhere just the sound of the birds and the rustling of the leaves on the branches.
Our lives here involve no traffic, no pollution, no upstairs neighbors blaring music or downstairs neighbors screeching out their misery; no litter on the sidewalk or rotting Manhattan trash or sweaty L-train commutes to work, no crowds, no tourists; no daily encounters with rats or roaches or perverts or street preachers. No. Nothing but this, an impossible life of lightness and dreams. Sam and the baby and me, on our island of three.
Like most mornings after I put the baby down for his nap, I went into the kitchen to bake. Today, a pie from the blueberries we’d picked in the forest this past weekend. I made the dough myself and rolled it out, pricked it with a fork, baked it blind to crisp it. The sun was already streaming in through the big open windows, rays of light casting themselves across the floors of our bright little house. The ripened berries I cooked low and slow, excising out the juices over the heat with maple syrup and a stick of cinnamon, careful not to let it all burn and spoil. Sam in his studio smelled the butter and the sugar and the sweetness of the fruit; he came out to the kitchen