So I had another dream, a very vivid dream, which made me think of Stephen King's "Secret Window" or if it's called "Secret Garden", I don't remember.
I dreamt that I was out with my grandmothers' brother, beyond Arvika, beyond Dalen, beyond Här slutar allmän väg, about as far out in Värmland as it is possible to venture, the middle of nowhere. I've been there something like once or twice before, but it's peculiar that the memory should be so real in my mind.
It was strange, because nothing really happened in the dream - I was just there, pondering what would happen to it after my relatives there die. Who wants to live there? Who wants to live as far away from the cities as that? The closest place where you can buy anything at all is a gas station, the closest community even resembling a city is Charlottenberg, four and a half kilometres away. Their home is in the middle of the forest, and I think they have about one neighbour that you can at all see from their house.
How do they survive like that, I thought? Two old, old people - my grandmother is in a service home, chrissake - and then it struck me, that people have been surviving like that for most of this country's existence. And they've been doing well.
I can't even begin to get into that frame of mind, though. I could say it would be nice to live a while like that to clear out your mind - get inspiration, write, draw, et cetera, since there's no internet there, no connection to the surrounding world save telephones and mail. Yes, that would be an interesting experience.
But what is it like to live that way? I don't think I'll ever know, and I think there are very, very few of our generation that would be able to survive that self-sufficiently. It's not like they run an active farm, like everyone else they go shopping about once a week, it's just that they can't pop down to the store in between if there's something missing. They can't even pop over to a neighbour save the one old guy who lives a little further than a stone's throw away. And they've been living like this for their whole lives, including almost 20 years of retirement. 20 years of not leaving the house except for once-a-week-shopping and special occasions.
I know a lot of people my age who have grown up relatively isolated, true. But you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, have always had other people around. I mean, at least you've gone to school. I don't know if you can identify with this old couple - it would be interesting if you say you can - but myself I know I could never get into that frame of mind. I'm not particularily oversocial, but I think my imagination would begin to turn the place into Salvador Dali's nightmares after a few months. There's nothing around, a mind-blowing amount of nothing, and - well - it blows my mind.
I find it fascinating. Don't you?
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I have thought about this too, in fact. My initial theory was population density was like coffee density; you're fine drinking watery coffee if that's all you've ever had, but once you get used to the strong stuff, there's no going back. But I must admit there is evidence to the contrary; I usually feel happier in a lonely cottage on Öland than on Norra Kroppkärr. Maybe what matters is not density of people in general, but density of people we like? Arguably, if you could bring your 5 favorite people to the middle of no where, the concentration of likable people is higher than in town, where they are diluted by the "non-likables". (Ha, I'm starting to sound like a Mid-Western American: P)
I was faced with a similar experience during my stay in Castlewood. It wasn't in any way an isolation from human proximity, nor was the geographical isolation as pressing as in your dream, as it was still a small town.
No, my isolation was one of the spirit. Although I had classmates, fellow football players, a host family, and even casual friends, there was no one ot relate to - nothing to challenge, to stimulate to shake me out of my funk. It was a small place, physically, mentally and spiritually, where the edges of the universe drew together and constricted around you like vacuum-packed plastic. It was limbo, in every sense of the word.
I remember sneaking away from the well-scheduled school discos in the gym (with classics like "My Humps" and "Cottoneye Joe" being a mainstay, of course) into the unlit school dining hall and just lying on a table, listening to the muted ruckus echoing through the corridors. I guess I was trying to find the physical distance that I felt spiritually from the plastic-faced wraiths writhing under the flashing lights.
Another example was a teacher asking me with a bemused air why I was "always smiling" when speaking with people. I couldn't answer with anything but a contrived innuendo about "can't help smiling when she's around, of course", but inside I had a deranged sort of epiphany: adaptation. Going through the motions, enjoying my stay, living the EF life. My skin had been fully assimilated by the ever-smiling, never-changing world of small-town America. My mind, starved in the proverbial desert, had hibernated and been put on the back-burner. I was The Man Who Laughs.
David's scenario with bringing people you like to somewhere struck a chord in me, reminding me of the people that brought me out of it: adults (unsuprisingly) such as Adrienne, her mother Kate, and Scottish Colin, who could see past my "immature" age of 17 and, like myself, were aware of the world outside the bordered nothing that swallowed Fantasia. They, along with sporadic e-mails accounting the experiences I was missing (and let me take part in forming ones I could have later. Thank you, Rikard) and the weekly phone call from my parents reminded me of my real self behind the smile.
Maybe it's just me, the urbanized high-browed socialite, who couldn't adapt, much like a deep-sea fish brought into the light. Maybe there's only a certain breed of people that can handle such...scarcity. I know now, that I can't.
I know that when I am home again after seeing all of you, I climb the walls. I can't entertain myself at all. It takes days DAYS to set my mind back on the concept of being alone.
Before 6:th grade I was alone all the time. No mater where I was or how may people there were in my surroundings. I'm not sure why it was like that. I don't think people understood, or maybe I didn't want to understand "them". Either way I was really good at being alone. I created instead. The way I feel when I create is indescribable. I don't need anything or anyone during those episodes. No food no friends... nothing, but the work.
I think it was like this when I lived far out in the forest too.
Oh, ah why did you come to think of Secret window? I can't really see any resemblance.
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