Ragnar

The problem with writing about your friends is you might accidentally leave some of them out. After writing my latest blog post, I realised I had forgotten to mention a very important person. Here it goes:

I went to college at the age of 16. My new French teacher - Ragnar - was a very keen, modern and... different teacher. My dream destination of all times had been Paris. Well, this teacher organised a trip to Paris. So - in my books, this meant he was ace.

After a few, persuasive talks with my (single) mum - I was off to Paris. This trip literally changed my life - but I didn't know that then.

So many things in my life have been related to this trip - it meant so much to me. It gave me the taste of France. It made me want to go there again, study the language, read the literature, watch the films. Without having done this initial trip, I would not have met my now ex husband, the father of my lovely children. I even lived in Paris during a period of my life.

Some of us pupils returned to Paris for a second time, together with Ragnar. Once home again, we started to meet regularly at our teacher's place, to talk memories, watch our photos and eat French food. These "Paris evenings" were to become a recurring event in our lives. They continued long after we had left school. Later, we brought our children along, even had holidays together.

The thing is, we still keep in touch, all of us. And - Ragnar is still in the very centre of our friendship, a nave around which our social life revolves. Now retired - but ever so active, he still welcomes us with open arms whenever we are back in our home town. He lives life to the full - and as he preaches. He is kind to nature, likes jogging, a very keen cyclist who does not own a car. Every Monday and Tuesday, he shows independent films to like-minded people and he has always been working hard for Amnesty.

We owe this man so much. He has been there for us, for every turning of our lives. Choice of career, for example - I became a French teacher myself. Weddings, child births, our children's birthdays and their various graduations. He has supported us through tough times, as well - not just the good times. Illnesses, divorces and also some funerals of our parents... whatever the occasion, Ragnar has been - and still is - there for us.

This man has been more than just an average friend to me and certainly more than an average teacher!

Friends Reunited

"Now then, where were we?" Some friends are forever. You don't meet that many of this kind, but the ones you do meet are worth their weight in gold. During last week, I have been thinking about the different types of friendship there are in this world. At least in my world - I might not speak for everybody.

As a little girl, I used to play with the boy across the street. We were the same age and had great fun together. He was rather lively and full of energy - and mischief. I was the reflective and calm one. His mum used to say he always came home in a different mood when he had been playing with me. So she encouraged our friendship. We would play corner shop (using leaves and stones as currency), have secret 'clubs', make jam from non-edible berries (!), run around the block, play hide and seek, build snow huts, cut the bark of branches with our little pen knives, play indians and cowboys - even "The White and Red Rose"...

And so came the Big Day. We were seven that year and - school started. Due to some new, bureaucratic Council rules at the time, it was decided that our street formed a border. As we lived on different sides, this meant I was going to one school and my best friend to another. This was clearly not on. We protested. My friend said he would refuse to go at all unless I could be in his class.

After some telephone calls, made by our dear mums, and some swapping around - we ended up in the same school and the same class. Order was restored.

Enter peer pressure... Even though my friend came to pick me up every single morning for school, we went separate ways once we reached the school gate. He walked over to the boys and I joined the girls. We were still friends, but not "in public". We couldn't have rumours going...

I still find that very sad. Our first experience of sexism, albeit on a very local and personal level.

Another friend was a girl from my class. During the age of 9-12 or so, we were constantly together. Looking back now, I think we were pretty creative in the way we made up new things to do, innovative - and somewhat crazy - plays to play. Once, we told each other to have a "password" every time we met. Just IN CASE we weren't whom we seemed to be. (I guess we had been watching too many spy films.) The password procedure was a quick, yet important introduction to our daily activities. We swore to each other we would continue this in adult life, as well - just in case.

In fact, I met this girl recently - after many, many years of silence. Our first words? Well - the password, of course! She remembered.

Another boy in the class was the cause of my first, real crush. We were ever so serious and he gave me a ring he had made in the wood- and metal work class. His words: "I know it's made of copper. But when I can afford it, I intend to buy you a silver one." Now - that's love...

Later in life, I met other people who have all been very close and always there - in good times as well as bad. Some share my adolescent past, it was all about growing pains, partying, music, politics, "Inter Railing" and - love.

Another dear old friend brought his wife over and came to see me recently, here in England. Great when that happens.

One particular friend shared my passion for Paris. When we weren't actually in Paris, we would be on the phone for ages, each with a map of Paris in front of us and just go for a "pretended walk" together, along the boulevards, Montmartre and the Seine... or meet for a coffee and a "sandwich au jambon", looking at old photos. She has become my ultimate best friend who knows my feelings about just about everything. We can laugh, even without laughing.

All these old friends are still present in my mind, and will be until the end.

Then, there are new friendships. I have never been a great fan of Facebook - although I am on it. But I must admit, Twitter has given me many new friends, many of whom I wouldn't want to be without. Some people think Twitter is about checking out celebs. It couldn't be further from the truth. I follow quite a few people - or 'tweeps', as us Twitterers prefer to say. The strange thing is, you get to know each other's habits, mood swings etc. to the extent that they feel almost equivalent to your old friends.

I find myself thinking: "Oh, he's up already, even if he went to bed so late last night." "She seems as if she needs some support today, something is not quite right." "He's in love." "She needs to get a life."

I have met some of my "tweeps" in real life, too. It is a strange feeling when you meet and you already know quite a lot about each other. You can cut the 'small talk' and just go straight to what it is you want to say.

I would not want to be without any of my friends. Old or new. Friendship is hard to define and - sometimes, it can be mistaken for something else.

I only know that with real friends, you can just take up the conversation where it stopped - even if that means going back 20 years or so in time. Real friends are forever - like bricks in the wall of life.

Homeward Bound

I met an old teaching colleague yesterday, whilst strolling around in my wintry, Christmas cardy home town in Sweden. We had been working together in the 80s and 90s and had not seen each others for donkeys years.

He came to talk about how it is living in two 'homes', never really feeling at home in any of them. He asked me how I felt about living in the UK and if I was missing Sweden a lot. Although he had only moved from one part of Sweden to another, his longing for his original 'home' had become stronger and stronger with age, he said. It must have been over 30 years or so since he moved.

When he was here, he kept thinking of how much better things were over there. But once he was there - he experienced some kind of 'Is this it?' type of feeling and wanted to come back to his present 'home'. The grass is greener, you know.

I guess we all build up a perfect picture of how our childhood homes were and, with age, with things moving on - they change and maybe not always for the better.

My late uncle lived most of his life in the USA - a place he had been longing to go to ever since he was young. Back in the 50s, his dream became reality. After a week's journey on the mighty 'Gripsholm America boat' which set off from Gothenburg, he came to settle there.

With time, he started to compare the countries and thought less and less about America. Sweden was the place to be. But, with work, family and friends - he never really complained and kept the home-coming dream within himself.

He wrote letters to me and I could read between the lines how strong his homesick feelings really were, even if he did his best to disguise them. Every time he came to visit, I recall seeing him looking out over the lake in our home town, with tearful eyes and - he hated saying goodbye.
In his old age, when his son had moved to another part of the US and his wife died, he eventually did move back.

But times had changed. He was of course older, most of his old mates had died and - well, things were maybe not as exciting as he had imagined.
He ended his days in a home, suffering from Alzheimer's. As it happened, I was in Sweden on a visit from the UK when he died and I sat by his bed, holding his hand as he took his last breath.

I wonder if future generations will feel as torn between two continents as he did. Today's world provides ample possibilities to travel and settling down does maybe not have to be for life, in the same way as it used to be.

I said to my colleague "I think I am the sort of person you can plonk down just about anywhere in the world and I will adapt." If you think about your whereabouts as temporary, wherever you are on this planet - you avoid feelings of loss and longing. It is the people who inhabit these places that matter, not the actual places themselves.

Or at least - that's what I would like to think.