Northern Comfort

Some days in between. Time to unpack, time to finally run those washing machines of summer clothes and bring down the empty suitcases to the basement. While the memory is still alive, I decide to order Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands from 1957.


And then, like a Hobbit, I felt like having a second breakfast. Luckily, I am planning on going to the gym tonight.

Helsingborg

Through the train window I look out over the frozen beach promenade. Moments later the sea disappears and the train continues its familiar climb into Pålsjö skog. For long this was the epicentre of my dreams, a site of permanence and solace. In its steep beech forests, much of what once mattered has passed.

All which would have been sufficient if my life was a novel. But it is not and then it would be simply tragic to try to reduce it into one. Instead, it should be painfully clear that the narration is open-ended and that we alone are responsible for keep filling the pages.

Skyscrapers and abras

One last night on the shores of the Gulf before it is time to return to the cold Northern winter. Yesterday evening Lina and I could see the fireworks at the opening ceremony of Burj Khalifa (or “Burj Dubai” as the 828 meter supertall skyscraper was known during its construction phase) and also make a premier ride on the new driverless, fully automated metro.

Again it is not difficult to spot that other and much darker side of Dubai. Yet, crossing the Creek at night in a small wooden abra together with 20 tired Pakistani guest workers I start to think that the real difference is not the exploitation as such but rather the missing layers of physical separation. Unlike back in Sweden, when one buys those super cheap H&M clothes, I am here suddenly face to face with the global underclass of producers. And, talking to the taxi driver from Gilgit up in the borderlands with Tajikistan, I realize that, no matter how unsustainable it may be in many regards, the livelihood of so many people depends on the continuation of this insane dream.

Before departing from this world of palm fronds-shaped islands, I should also say something about the second excursion we made from Dubai. This time we drove north into the Musandam Peninsula. Belonging to the Sultanate of Oman, the Musandam Governorate is a tiny exclave of 25 000 people which juts into the Strait of Hormuz, leaving only 60 km of water between its shores and Iran. Unlike the sands of Dubai, Musandam offered a dramatic fjord landscape and a Batumi-style town called Khasab, complete with cigarette smugglers, navy patrol boats and souvenir shops selling walking sticks with axe-tops...