stockholm syndrome

Went to the cottage, my summer paradise. Mostly because my mother forced me to.

It was the first time this year. The family spends most of the summer there but in the winter we never go because there is no heating and no running water, and the roads are usually buried in snow. So in the spring, there is a lot to do: clean out a cottage that's been empty and unused for months, not to mention tidy up the enormous garden. My mother is a firm believer in raking up all the old leaves covering the lawn, preferably every single one.

So I went, grumbling, to rake leaves for more than four hours with my mother ( only half the lawn was done by then, hadn't even started on cleaning the house ). On our way there, I thought of a million things I would rather be doing on my precious day off. Maybe I could buy my mother off with this one day of forced labour, and then not have to come back for another month at least.

When we arrived, we started by stretching out on the sunny porch for a leisurely cup of coffee. It was warm, it was definitely spring, birds were singing, the sea was glittering, peace was everywhere, and dreams of a lovely summer ahead were swirling in the air. After all the raking, I was sitting in the sun again, having a lazy picnic, and I felt my normally busy, stressed-out nerves be hypnotized into a calmness never experienced in the city.

I heard myself saying to my mother: "Let's come here next weekend, finish the cleaning and stay overnight. And then every weekend until September."