Tucked away in a placid perch in Vasastan, emerging daily to ensconce ourselves in the warm, not torrid, embrace of the Swedish summer, it is easy to stay blissfully unaware, purposefully disconnected from the mounting frustrations emanating from the larger world. While still attending to work matters and tuning into the adventures of our friends and family back home, we are delighting in the escape of new routines, new acquaintances, and the bliss of being free from dispatches about the surreal state of American life.
Having traveled in many locales over many decades, I am hard pressed to remember a time when our country’s regard as viewed from those abroad was so comically low, when discussions about the U.S. were couched more in pity than anger. Over long kilometers with Dopest Runners, my temporary run club, I have had many conversations that centered on wonderment whether the news reports could possibly be true, whether the Swedish media has possibly misapprehended or caricatured the daily absurdities. Having the same questions, trying to parse propaganda from reality, I am not a source of any good response, but I have appreciated the genuine concern, processed it as a beautiful species of care for fellow humans. The Swedes are truly lovely people.
Being uninterested in, or possibly just exhausted of, contemplating these issues, my responses are uncharacteristically neutral. Or, if not strictly impartial, at least balanced in that my acknowledgement of these hard times is counterbalanced by a focus on the incredible qualities of my home valley. Instead of lamenting some fresh intrigue in Washington, I talk about the high mountain lakes, the friendly Colorado vibe, the good and earnest people that populate the place from where I am proud to hail. Honestly, I’m tired of my country’s problems keeping me up at night and I find that discussing the upsides has blessed me with untroubled sleep.
Although I would relish the mischief allowed by diplomatic immunity, I am no formal ambassador. And yet I have a role in fomenting the increased standing of my country in general and the Colorado mountains in particular. It will not surprise you to learn that down in the tourist-laden districts of Gamla Stan and Norrmalm, there is a species of American traveler irking the local populace with a disturbing combination of incompetence and entitlement. This type is not endemic to the States, but given the aforementioned currently low opinion of my countrymen, the Yanks are particularly prominent.
And so, in the manner that I was raised, I am taking the extra effort to be friendly, to be understanding, to be patient, to be gracious, to consider myself a visitor and a guest and not a person demanding service and attention. I am keen to ask after local customs, to learn a bit of slang, to really get to know people as more than passing humans, but as fellow inhabitants of the same planet. It is easy to appreciate this place; it is incredible. The food is otherworldly, the views are insane, the entire vibe is something that you really have to feel to even believe.
I am excited to go home, but I will do so with a hole in my heart, a piece that will remain here until I return to claim it. I have learned a lot about how the Swedes view existence and their society and it has informed my own perspectives on my homeland. And, in turn I will hopefully leave behind at least one example of an American that understands the bonds between people, grasps the way to try to live a happy and not aggressive or aggrandizing life, and that laments the destruction that those in power are wreaking on our native and foreign soils.
With the lessons gleaned and views shared in this informal diplomacy, I can still be proud of America and burgeon its reputation, while still being patriotic enough to question its direction and urge a positive shift.