AFFIRMATIONS IN ACTION: A Collection of Essays and Selected Poems

By Marion Palm

This memoir is a telling of a first generation bi-lingual Swedish-speaking American
poet’s life journey. The title of the photograph is: “A Sunday sailing without wind,”
circa 1900s from a book about Loftahammar, published in Västervik by the town’s
historical society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369406823

Marion Palm

Marion Palm is a prominent poet/singer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the only child of Swedish immigrants and was raised in a bi-lingual Swedish speaking home.. When her marriage ended back in 1982, she returned to her roots in Brooklyn and discovered she could live without a car and use public transportation to get to and from work. She was also able to get back to performing and writing, and that was possible because she lives in a co-op, not your ordinary co-op but one of the original Finnish co-ops.

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Copyright © 2023 by Marion Palm.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/07/2023

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CONTENTS

Dedication

The Dream

Chapter 1 Story Introducing Sweden

Chapter 2 Discovery in the New World

Chapter 3 The War Years, my bi-lingual experience

Chapter 4 Surviving a Tidal Wave

Chapter 5 Developing Identity

Chapter 6 High School Years

Chapter 7 The Fall

Chapter 8 Moving On Up

Chapter 9 The Reset

Chapter 10 Recovery

Chapter 11 Poets Under Glass, Inc.

Chapter 12 Work

Chapter 13 The Music Healing Ministry

Chapter 14 Super Storm Sandy a/k/a The Halloween Hurricane

Chapter 15 Afterward

About The Author

vii.jpg

Drawing credit: Lennart A. Vretholm

I owe my serendipitous life to the kindness of my

family, friends, colleagues, and complete strangers.

I am so grateful. Thank you.

My Daily Routine for Well-Being

Long ago, I learned to spend a few minutes thinking

about my best qualities before entering high-pressure

situations. Repeating a short affirmation daily can help

with confidence, problem solving, as can reading a

passage from a devotional, and performing yoga exercises,

before you walk out the door to start your day.

Dedication

For my grandchildren: Andrew, Samuel and

Julia, and for Andrew’s fiancé Kelsey

The Dream

The Dream, back when I was a child, was to ride the golden goose between Sweden and America. In my dreams, I would fly back and forth from my family over in Sweden and back to my life in America. Awake, I was in America. America was confusing because people spoke many different languages here. I would have to find my way through many different languages and cultures to define myself. Asleep, I am in Sweden. When I was in Sweden, I could think, write and dream in Swedish. It is both troubling and magical to be bi-lingual.

From childhood, through my first marriage, and after it ended, in 1982, I had a recurring dream. In this dream, I would be on the beach by myself on a blanket. The tide would creep up on me and I would have to pull my blanket and toys back on dry sand to avoid the sea swallowing me up into it. I would often wake up screaming from this dream. My parents would comfort me by allowing me to sleep with them in their big bed.

This dream continued to haunt me in my dreams in my forever marriage. I would wake up and recognize the dream. The dream was still frightening but the dream seemed to be informing me with information I needed to learn for my survival.

Late in my marriage, I had this same dream. I was back on my blanket with my two children. The tide was coming in. I had now pulled my blanket up to the retaining wall and there was no sand left exposed to pull my blanket up to. I looked at the tide. Waves were coming in. I had to do something. I had to do something fast.

First, I helped my son get up onto the retaining wall. Then, I asked him to grab his sister. With the children both safe and there to help me, I climbed up and over the retaining wall into freedom.

Running into freedom with my two children, I somehow ran faster than they did. I was always a fast runner. I didn’t think about slowing down to a walk at their pace. I was running and I didn’t look back. Eventually, I found myself in a forest following a stream leading out of the dream.

Affirmation: I am making each day count.

Chapter 1

Story Introducing Sweden

The author is a first-generation in America, actually a

1.5 generation, because her father came here, with his

mother when he was fifteen. It is easier to tell her story,

using poems she wrote before and during the pandemic,

when she (like everybody else in the world) was reflecting

on her own mortality; but, here are her words in prose:

Before, I share my own personal family story, it is necessary to learn about Sweden. The part of me that is American, is a given. I was born here in Brooklyn, New York, educated and married here. But, a big part of me is also Swedish. Both my parents are from Sweden. We spoke Swedish in my home. We had family visit us from Sweden. A family member, my mother’s brother-in-law, sent us a Swedish newspaper every week, and my aunt sent magazines. Plus, there were letters and postcards coming and going to Sweden. So what is Sweden?

Sweden is a country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The Kingdom of Sweden is dotted with thousands of lakes, and rolling hills. Starting up north, villages are few and small, so nature fills in. The capitol is Stockholm. My family is from Västervik, in Kalmar land. The village has a natural harbor and a marina welcomes tourists who come from all over the world to participate, (some by boat,) to enjoy the village’s International Folk Festival.

Västervik’s matchstick factory (where my father and his older sister were child labor at the age of eight,) is now a museum. The village has the ruins of a Medieval castle, felled by the Danes. The dungeon is so short and narrow that it seems impossible for the prisoner to lie down or stand upright. There is a street in the old part of town, that has five hundred year old mariner homes on it. The homes are painted red, have low ceilings, and are rented out by the locals to the tourists. Enterprising owners serve waffles and coffee in their gardens. It was here, in 1982, that I was hosted by a relative on my father’s side who filled me in on family history. She was an elderly lady, who spoke no English, so I was very happy to be able to talk with her in Swedish. My father’s family are shipbuilders, mariners, and craftsmen, gifted in music and the arts, much like many of the inhabitants of Västervik. Benny Anderson, who founded ABBA, the Swedish sensation, lived in a house next to my maternal grandparents.

I learned my father was the first baby to be baptized in Västervik’s new church named St. Petri Kyrka. It was built from 1903-1905. My father was born in 1905 (on Santa Lucia Day.) Her saint’s day falls near the time of the longest night, when people built bonfires. What were people thinking about as they sat around a fire on those long dark nights? Sweden was pagan, when Christianity arrived in Sweden. We have the Norwegian sagas to tell the stories of how people lived before that time. But before I go there to tell what I learned, (about antiquity,) I will finish sharing what I learned about Västervik’s two historic churches. I have worshiped in both of these churches, singing hymns standing next to my grandfather Valdemar. He encouraged fellow villagers to preserve the housing and history, and saw the virtue of interpreting architecture to tell stories about how the people flourished. Many good things happened when Christianity arrived. People became literate learning how to read (from the Bible study.) People learned Christian values from the pastor’s sermons from the pulpit on Sundays. Older churches I have visited, (decades later,) like the church where a the grand-daughter of a cousin of mine was baptized near Stockholm, have pictographs on the walls to tell Bible stories. My father told me, people in his childhood still believed in witchcraft and magic. My mother told me stories about her mother going into the woods to visit a healer with bits of hair and ear-wax for a potion or spell. Church was very important to my grandfather, and for my mother, his youngest child — the one who left to start a life in America.

My parents were