Mid Sommar

Summer has really dashed up on me this year. Usually I'm hanging out for it, so I must have had other things on my mind. Midsummer is undoubtably a highlight for me. If you break it down into it's simple physical terms, it's really not that special. A number of family members meeting up at a cabin for the day, having a BBQ dinner, and then going home their separate ways again. Big deal, I'd been doing that for years. But this is different. Rather than a poor excuse to get falling down drunk, this actually means something. The celebration of the season, for what it genuinely signifies, and all the emotions that it brings with it, is quite unique. A time to just feel good about life and everything around us.

Maybe you all get that, here in Europe. But coming from the colonies, it's all rather special and wonderful. The former English colonies are too young to have such traditions. Sure, they have borrowed a few, but you can't borrow the emotional attachment. So they really just go through the process without understanding why. The former colonies are the teenagers of society. They are having a lot of fun, but really don't quite know yet where they fit in to the grand scheme of things. They have nothing which is truely their's. Not yet. Growing up there, you don't see it. You have to go somewhere else first to understand.

I know I've talked about this before, but it's worth mentioning the differences around significant calendar events, especially when it comes to Christmas. The biggest problem surrounding Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere, and why they will never really "get" Christmas, is that it's in summer rather than winter. Now that doesn't mean that the difference is superficial with reindeer and snowflakes. It's a different mindset. To anyone who was born and raised in Europe, imagine having Christmas in the second week of July. That's the equivalent. Right slap bang in the middle of the holiday season. Growing up, Christmas was merely the sign that we were all going off on summer holiday. Rather than being the high point, it was simply the warm up. Hell, half the family were usually already away on holiday by the time Christmas Day arrived. So it doesn't have, and can't have, the same significance as it has here in the Northern Hemisphere. People's heads are in different spaces. Can you really compare a BBQ burnt sausage with 4 different selections of herring and salmon ? Of course not.

I wonder sometimes if Mid Summer is more significant here in the north of Sweden than it is in the south. I don't know, maybe someone can tell me. All I know is that is a genuine time to rejoice in the season and to give thanks that we're all healthy and well. It feels nice to belong to something like that. Just sitting and "being" was a foreign concept for me. It's taken me a few years, but I think I'm finally starting to get it.