Solidarity in the end after all...

Written in response to: Write about a character pretending to be someone they’re not.... view prompt

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Christian Contemporary Creative Nonfiction

 Solidarity, it was all to her. Human understanding. But perhaps not religion to start with. Not in her youth, not at all. It was not common to understand religion back in the 70s in Sweden...No really not…

It was just this thing, trying to grasp a greater understanding of life... Lin wanted it all. Bob Dylan. Music from the 60s to reveal it all. Loose up all hidden dreams. Let things go away. But it was not excactly moral,. Rather, it was a totality of Mankind. A kind of dream to belong and to let the godamn whole world be a part of the planet. For the sake of love, peace & understanding. A 60s kind a´ thing. A kind a´ 70s-hangover! Or no? Just to grab it all.

It was just that her nervous system wanted it so bad that it was too much to handle. She could not face each and every individual on – well, really: on what level?

It should take Lin many years to understand that her childhood trauma wanted more from solidarity with Mankind than a short-lived-romance with some kind of a boy, a lover, a man. She was more of a neutral Swedish lass when it came to passion (oh yeah, sex was okey in relation with solidarity…) - but then again?

She met BB, a man at age 27. She was 21. He had this long hair yelling out compassion for the hippie epoch. A hippie in waiting. So was Lin. No more wars. No more problems. And under the flag of free love; solidarity should have its smooth way into an anarchistic society. Just pure – but really? Was it that simple? She acted out like a hippie. But from where did this idea got into her? Was she really that free? Or did she act free? Did she pretend freedom?

She read all the Feminists book published in Sweden. She felt a shame, but thought that her guilt should be washed away by the river of love-peace-f-ick-understanding. The dream of the nobel Indian took her to courses held by white men and woemen. Rainbow warrior she should be. But could not catch up with the word. Was it a pun? War-I-or ? War of the overfed love? War of the overfed democrazy? War of anything, because it was like the Indian freedom asked nothing in return. She was nervous about it. Felt relief at the Rainbow seminar that she didn´t have to face ”true”Indians. They would have shaken up her nervous system and made her look like a white upperclass brat.

Oh no, she was no brat. She was on her journey to play out her inner Indian. Mowgli perhaps? Perhaps Crazy Horse? Feminism went together with the free Indian spirit…

Lin felt okey somehow but really – was she brainwashed? Yet…

Yet, there was something else in the soul nagging on her conscience. Was this a right thing to do? Was she prepared to be a Sundance girl? Only that, and nothing more ? A picked up persona? From the time of the revolts… What was her true self?

She lived in cosy Växjö. Began studying religion, history, Natural knowledge ( a kind of humanistic science), tried some math but failed, Swedish – äuhum? She had read a lot but felt her brain stucked ...Was she to pretend she was the Indian? Did it make her look like a fool?

She walked around Växjö city, singing Indian songs. The town did not exactly scorn her, but thought something. Why on earth did she do it?

The fact that having lived in the richest Western society somehow made Lin feel lost. Rich. Overfed with freedom and democrazy. No stop-button nowhere in the Western search for all and everything. To escape the Capitalistic overfeeding of anything goes, she was bound to leave her own cultural heritage to try another world, another persona, another mode, another way to talk matters through. It was not even a lie, it was in accordance with what Capitalism promised. Anything as anything can be sold on any market. To be against the utter racism, people had to become like Indians to not feel responsible for their Western ancestry. Free yourself under the totem of an eagle! Free the mind, soul and body! Free – but on the path up to another freedom there was awaiting the trap. From one absurd Capitalistic freedom into a Stoneage so-called-wisdom-of-releasing-the-inner-truth ! Finding your inner world…

Then she had a weird psychosis. It really took her all the way down to the bottom of her soul. She knew she was Crazy Horse. Now she got it. But woke up after the disease, sat talking with the Harvard-educated doctor. The doctor said she must leave all things about reincarnation:

”Now Lin. You are Swedish, and European. You cannot escape the hard core facts of life. You gotta come out of your daydream. Have to face reality. You have no inner Indian, that Horse is a fake. Think about people of Americas!...” Lin did not want to listen. She felt deep inside of her that she had found her inner Indian. She knew that 64 shamans had helpted her with her fear. Now her Rainbow Sufi friend said she could become a shaman.

She left the mental hospital. Got a work, state-owned. Lots of people were working their as a kind of help from the society. People with physical, social or mental problems. A clown kind a´ place. Everything out of the box. This made Lin go on top of herself. Men trying to seduce her. A Buddhist from Stockholm who took her to the forest. She said he had been Japanese in past life. She decided she would be his Rainbow Zen master and he was a sort of her pupil. But was all this joking of Zen something true to Lin´s own spirit? A joke? A Zen Buddhist joke ?

She had been quiet isolated for many years. So she tried to hook onto New Age movements, little bit here and there...As a game, a waste of time… making the hours pass.

In that forest the Buddhist wanted to have sex with her. It didn´t work out too well. A laughter and a Zen joke after it. All jokes she had to play out. Pretending she was no more shy or no more blushing the skin off herself...Redface? Yeah for sure!

Slowly she felt – that perhaps! After her studies she had to find a better job. Could become a teacher in Swedish and English. So that is why she headed for Britain. Her ”Indian” soul said that she was going to face Europe now. In Britain there ought to be knowledge of why and how – and all things about why past life Europeans had been fighting her down.

She took the ferry. Hit the road. Ended up at the port. Took the train. London was a kind a´ small town feeling. Weird. So huge, yet so manageable. Crazy. On her way to North Yorkshire. Got off at York. Beautiful scenery, but walls clad in black soot. Weird look. She was now on her way to try another solution.

Met her host family at the railway station. She did not want to hurt the planet. Nice houses. Small but nice. So she washed her body with vinegar. Soap polluted the soil she thought. Vinegar smell all over the bathroom.

Finally at that language school problems just got over her. Her ”Indian” had to learn how to lie. The classmates were like enemies. Her rainbow warrior soul had to combat them. Fight them all. If she had better karma the rest were to be damned. Damned somehow. Odd but – true?

She did shout. Yepp, Lin did yell at that Latino woman. Like Lin knew that rainbow knowledge was – but no, then again! Suddenly Lin felt like having done something totally wrong she had to correct herself after the power structures of Britain. So now she began trying to take on a British past life persona. Began talking way too fanciful about being an Aristocrat.

Yepp. Now she was a soldier of Skåne. She had to pretend things to get away with everything that seems so true, yet false. A schizofrenic mood got a grip on her. Touched her all over the place. Why?

BB, the hippie boy had a big part in it. He had been part of her lie. And that Feminist of Denmark who had been declaring that marriage was wrong. This is where Lin´s longing for a higher and bigger solidarity came in. Something for the whole godamn planet. No marriage. New family structures. Gotta try it all. BB was hurt. He took no liking in free sex. Did not let Lin go free somehow. He wanted her so bad for himself. This made Lin come in between a lie of who she was. Free sex? Was that her true spirit? Did she act upon a lie? Or a group pressure? Godamn it all!

Her way to behave was out of the way. How could she tell herself to follow the truth, now that truth was sold everywhere on that Global market? Capitalism? Socialism? Feminism? Was she a sole liar? Lied about who she was? She was working class on her mum´s side of ancestry. A soldier-heritage on her dad´s side. A mixture of all and each. Who did she act like? And now she was an Aristocratic liar, telling things she did not want to hear herself. Said that she was extremely Conservative, which was a lie. But now that she subdued under the British structures she had to be like that. A lie, very well, but it all went wrong…Or did the lie work her own way at last? Making her see other things? Like the ”other” - no?

Finally she was entangled in all her lies. Everything ended with sort of a weird extremism kind a´ thing. Extemely Conservative – hu? Odd…

And off went her free Indian spirit. Off went her thoughts about reincarnation. Was her spirit just a weird kind a´ Western lie? A European lie about politics and science? Godamn it! Fake it till you break it…

Took the ferry home again. Had to work herself off with the feeling of being a fake Indian. Rainbow warrior. But her spirit was so intermixed with all kind a´ things that it would take her several years to got the right thing in the correct corner. Religion was not, after all, that easy to play with. A Zen joke perhaps?

She was to leave Växjö. Had to study Media and linguistic – a scientific way into languages. A European approach, leaving her past life thoughts behind. Yepp how silly.

When in Britain her inner soul had been seatching for this very life, and it was – just Sweden and Swedish! Odd but true. The lie that her nationalism of Vikings was racism was a bone yet to be chewed on. And finally…

She worked herself through European studies at a Folk High School. Worked herself through each and every region in Sweden. Had to visit all counties. Yepp. Had to stand tall. Not as an Indian in this life. But as another – perhaps yet a daydream – a kind of Viking on tour on the Global market.

Could she sell a Viking spirit on the market?

”Bards from the Nobel land!” It was the title of her anthology with Swedish-speaking poetrie. A translated heritage now out everywhere in lots of bookstores. It was odd, but had all began with a fake and a lie...and now? Viking bards are to be there for sure, no matter what cost. Perhaps it was her third world war. Blood sweat and tears that made her study – whatever!

And yes, her Sweden had given her a kind of backbone after all. A kind of freedom, if not just sexual, but kind of political. But this ”kind of” was so true to the point in a Swedish manner, LAGOM. Just like – ”sort of it” was more Swedish and more true. Not a 100% truth, but enough was enough...no more than that. The lie had showed her the pathway into Sweden…

And the rest of the world had their own heritage. It meant something. To the whole planet after all in the end...

August 20, 2021 10:58

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