“Go meet a nice Swedish boy!” my host mother called out to me. It was my second week in Sweden, I was twenty-three, and enjoying my stay. Officially I was there studying their health care system for my master’s project. In truth, I had just wanted to travel and have an adventure. “I’ll see what I can do,” I called back.
Three months earlier I’d had a dream. It was on Valentine’s night, after having a party with my single, and not the least bit bitter (OK, maybe a tiny bit) female friends who also did not have dates on this annual night of relationship-status reflection.
(Cue dream-land music) I was taking a bus (no one I knew took the bus in Los Angeles, but it’s a dream, so work with me here) to a night club. I walked in, and saw HIM. He was someone I felt I knew, and handsome, in a good-person way that makes you just want to smile. I was so happy that I immediately hugged him. He took my hand, and led me outside. In my journal (yes, I did write this down) I describe it as a French courtyard with cobblestones and window boxes with flowers. He leaned down and kissed me, one of the most romantic kisses I’d ever had.
I then looked up and saw three moons in the sky. “Wow!” I exclaimed, “Look at the moons!” as if three moons in the sky wasn’t that unusual.
When I woke up, I was smiling. I felt happy, hopeful.
Maybe the guy I’d just met at a dance club a few nights back was the one! That annoying voice in my head reminded me that the number he gave me, upon urgings from his friends, had been the wrong one. All four times I’d called it. And for some strange reason, he hadn’t called me either. I checked my message light just to be sure. Still not blinking.
I told a friend about the dream, and she said that three moons means three months. “Three months?” I whined, “I don’t want to wait that long. And anyway, I’ll be in Sweden.”
However, three months and two days after the dream, I was on my way to a pub with a new Swedish friend. She was bitter about a recent breakup (some things are universal I was learning) so we chose a place where she wouldn’t run into her ex.
We sat outside at a table for four. We ate dinner, and talked. All of a sudden I noticed the moon overhead, it was beautiful. “Look at the moon!” I said to her. All of a sudden my dream rushed back to me. I got the chills as I noticed the cobblestones on the ground, and the fake windows with flowerboxes underneath them, made to create a scene. I didn’t tell my friend about the dream, but jokingly said, “I’ve got to meet me a Swedish boy!”
Five minutes later, two handsome guys came over to our table. They spoke in Swedish, and I smiled and nodded, pretending I could understand. I thought they were asking to take our extra chairs. Suddenly they sat down with us! That had never happened to me in the U.S.
My friend informed them I was American, and they immediately switched to English. They were brothers. The older one, sitting across from me, liked to talk. The one sitting next to me was almost silent, except for offering English words when his talkative brother got stuck. After the conversation lulled, I turned to the quiet guy next to me, and felt an immediate connection. I had this almost-uncontrollable urge to put my hand on his knee. As if I knew him already. His name was Mats.
My friend went home around midnight, but I stayed out with Mats and his brother. I was in a country I barely knew, with two guys I had just met, but I felt very safe. We went to another bar and he bought me a hot chocolate.
It was love.
Around three a.m. it was time to take the last bus (yes, bus) home. They walked me to my stop, and we exchanged numbers. He would call me the next day (significant for all you “Swingers” movie fans out there) and we would have our first of many dates a few days later. 11 years later, we are still together. Married, with young children, it’s nice to remember the romantic way we met.
Somehow, amid the diaper changes and sleepless nights, we need to connect again like we did that first night we met.