*Apparently
Mortified when it comes to spelling errors, my own and others. We might return to Uppsala a year on from the ordeal we went through cause it is a lovely city especially in the dark of November when the soul of Bergman feels more present than ever.
The 100th birthday of Bergman celebrations there last year made the whole place feel very special and walking in his footsteps where he actually filmed my fave movie that's become a Christmas tradition made me feel very humble.
In June 2006 I spent a very romantic weekend in Uppsala when we celebrate the weekend of Pingst when a lot of swedes get married and there is some kind of record in number of weddings. I met her online and she was adopted from Korea and she just had this wish to have a man by her side for that weekend.
She lived in a quite posh newly built house in a flat and right from the start we got on which seemed to surprise her a bit. She had such baggage from her past and had been married in Gothenburg for years when she worked as a midwife. But she went through divorce and ended up in Uppsala working for a company in Ireland specialising in medical products for women. She made insane money from this job with little effort.
Her last ex used her and worked as a bus driver but wanted to coach a hockey side in Uppsala for boys and he did and she went along as a nurse during games. A sofa potato he was who at the end of one summer went "but we haven't done anything for me and my birthday this summer" so she had to fork out for a luxury cruise in the Bahamas for the both of them.
She did have a shopaholic problem so that weekend we went to Stockholm and shops in Uppsala and she bought a tv which was state of the art at the time and so many other things that the guy in the store went "Maria, we can not allow you to shop anything more now" laughing as he said it.
She admitted she wasted loads of money on the cruise on white gold which was one of her favourite items to buy. Anyway, online I ended up chatting with one of her best friends in Halmstad who used the same contact website. It was of course extremely weird but a bit fascinating as well. The same friend who called her in her top of the line Volvo when we drove to Stockholm cause her and her friends used to gather somewhere in Sweden now and then scattered across the country as they were. Her friend and me analysed Maria and all her issues but in a loving and caring way as we both wanted all the best for her.
Maria just wanted to find love and was so echausted from her years of messy relationships she fell asleep in my arms. She said I made her feel safe and relaxed cause she handled her anxiety by doing things all the time which always lead her to shop and buy things as she could not relax at all.
I've never met anyone who wrestled with so many emotions inside her and seemed to refuse herself happiness and what other people around her had. She said she would throw away the great income for a life with a regular guy and a normal life.
Our weekend was amazing but I think we both knew that the whole thing was just about comforting each other for that weekend only. We called a number of times and her swedish adoptive mother answered one time when Maria was in tears torn between me and all the other things in her life. I told her straight that her friends were not good for her wanting her to stay miserable and not finding happiness that they themselves already had and she got mad but in the end silently agreed with me.
Through her friend online she was told that I felt that it wouldn't work with Maria being all over the place and not sure about anything. Perhaps the tight friendship she had and the things they got up to felt like something that wasn't my scene.
Last time we spoke on the phone she left for Gothenburg to see her 3 female friends which included a air stewardess and they knew a man that loaned them his sailing ship so for a week they sailed and sailed for real out at sea not just floating about near land.
Years ago I found her online which was easy cause of her posh surname and she had married a regular guy in the shape of a guy from a finnish family who seemed to be into easy quiet things like fishing so in the end she had a yellow house just outside of Uppsala away from the stress and I wish she was happy and still is.
With her I made love that weekend in a way that was soft and respectful where we met halfway and I am glad I dared to visit a complete unknown like that cause it taught me a lot about life and her and myself.
Maria, Many Miles and Years From Here
"Maria, Maria, do you see the meadows blooming?
You give everything you have from an open hand
Maria, Maria, soon the meadows will be empty
And you don't get to be a child anymore
Maria, Maria, there's so many roles in our play
There are so many tricks you don't know
But with time you'll learn all sorts of things
And my hand will be so foreign to your hand
A winter might come, then the roads will be empty
And the snow falls all around your house
You will yell perhaps that the nights feels too long
And dry the blue tears on your blouse
Maria, Maria live for the good times
And when you're sad, feel that I'm near
Maria, Maria, the day you stop wondering
You'll be many miles and years away from here"
