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There is a woman I see most mornings when I shop at the ICA. We exchange greetings of familiarity when we spot each other. Then, today, things went up a notch. I was waiting for her to choose a dairy product before I reached the milk when she turned, saw me, smiled and said something in Swedish.
The woman was about my age and seemed surprised when I said I didn’t speak Swedish. In Swedish. She then tried to repeat what she had said with hand gestures. She used a wavy hand motion then shook her head as if to say she couldn’t mime what she wanted to say. She continued shopping.
Later, at the checkout, she was queued up behind me when I addressed the woman on the check-out in my very limited Swedish. The woman from the dairy aisle looked at me and said that I did speak Swedish after all. I replied: “Jag pratar lite lite lite lite lite svenska!” This made her smile.
Then, seemingly unconnected, as I reached the pedestrian bridge on my way home, a man was standing by the big grit bin, an empty ICA bag in his hand, smiling at me. He spoke to me in Swedish. I told him: “Jag pratar inte svenska.” This merely prompted him to rattle off some more Swedish.
Obviously I have no idea what he said though I did recognise the word for ‘car’. I assumed he was asking me why I hadn’t driven to the shops rather than slog it out in the snow with my trolley. In case I was correct, I replied: “Jag kör inte bil.” I continued on my slow way up and over the bridge.
A little later, a bit before reaching the cemetery, he walked by me with a cheery stream of Swedish. Behind him was the woman from the dairy aisle, who also said something cheery. I said something vaguely encouraging as they walked by me.
It was all rather odd. I was going to mention it to Inge but, as you can see, the dead are completely covered in a wintry blanket.
She would never have heard me.
As I walked the rest of the way home, grimacing through the woods as the pain in my ankle persisted in bothering me on uneven surfaces, I thought some more about Collapse, the book we just read for BookBusters.
It seems to me that humanity is just following the normal course for any species on this planet. As resources diminish, so does the species. This happens when the quantity of animals outweighs the resources available. Just because we have so-called ‘big brains’ does not make us impervious to the natural course of things.
I realise that an awful lot of humans put us outside of nature but that doesn’t alter the fact that we are a climax predator within nature and are, therefore, bound by its rules. If we use up everything, then our species needs to be thinned out until things improve again.
Anyway, it was just a thought.
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North Bergen views 69. I wrote to the website host, asking them if they were responsible. They responded, saying no and asked if it was causing any problems. Curiouser and curiouser.
