silver

I got my first silver bangle when I was fifteen. My father and his second wife took us to Jamaica and I came back to Canada with a thin engraved band around my wrist. I went to Nevis when I was thirty; I gave my aunt some money to help with her expenses and instead she used it to buy me a thick silver bangle. Over the years I acquired more and more until I couldn’t write on the board without treating my students to a jangling symphony. My favorite bracelet wasn’t a bangle at all—it was a series of linked silver cowrie shells. I don’t remember now why I stopped wearing my bracelets. I hardly wear any jewelry these days but when I went to the Swedish History Museum today and saw the hoards on display, it reminded me of my magpie tendencies—I like shiny things and I collect them but rarely put them on display. The Vikings exhibit in Philly didn’t include any cowrie shells but the one I saw in Colorado a couple of years ago did. For three years I’ve been gathering these connections, trying to make the Viking world feel familiar in some way. Yet here in Sweden I feel very foreign. I don’t speak the language, I haven’t seen many Black women, though a sister from Cyprus stopped me on the street to ask for money. I thought she wanted directions at first but with a map in my hand, I clearly wasn’t equipped to do that. But I guess I looked privileged—and I am. My social anxiety makes travel pretty challenging sometimes, but yesterday I had everything planned: got up and went for a run; did some laundry and then packed; I got to the train station in Philly, took Amtrak to Penn Station, got the A train to JFK, got my bag checked with the help of a kind desk agent, and then seven hours later I was in Stockholm! I’d bought my bus ticket in advance and when I got off at Central Terminal, I just asked the teen at the information desk to point me in the right direction. I’d already printed out a city map and had my hotel route traced. Got checked in, got cleaned up, and went over to the museum, which is just a ten-minute walk away. Everything felt easy and yet I felt a little blue at times today…not sure why. I think the language difference is real; you just feel shut out even when people aren’t talking to you. Almost everyone speaks English as well but I don’t know Swedish culture and history the way I know the Brits. In the UK I can take a lot for granted, plus I have friends there. I’m on my own here in Stockholm but I’ve got plans—back to the museum tomorrow before the Vikings exhibit closes, then a walking tour of the Old City, and then I’ll hopefully start to write. There’s limited daylight here—sun’s up at 8:30am and gone by 4pm. I missed the Northern Lights and the museum at Birka is closed for the winter, so I’ll have to come back. On the ride from the airport I kept noticing how many birch trees were growing in the fields. I feel like I’m HER, in a way—this frightened girl I’ve dreamed up who left her mother, her home, her entire world in Iraq/Iran to start again in Birka. If she arrived in wintertime, the snow and cold would have been a shock…and then birch trees. I’ve always loved them but for a girl accustomed to palm trees and brown-skinned people and a warm climate, what a shock—“Even the skin of the trees is white…” I’ve reached out to a migrant settlement group to see if I could donate some books. And I might attend their free language class on Tuesday! Couldn’t keep my eyes open a while ago and now I’m wide awake. Will read my new book and see if that puts me to sleep…Christina Myrvold is hard at work on a cover for The Ring. All my girl needs now is a name…