How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

If anyone asks me if I believe in ghosts, I tell them it's not that I believe in them, it's more that I just don't not believe in them.

But the truth is that my heart, the irrational part of myself, most definitely believes in them, no matter how skeptical the rest of me is. I remember when I was nine or ten, I would play the piano and wonder if the ghost of Bach was listening, and if he was insulted. Or if I played well enough would he appear and tell me how good I was (he never showed up, definitely a testament to my poor fingering, overuse of the damper pedal and tendency to play so fast that the notes would get all tangled up in knots and I'd have to start over again, which drove my father mad).

Just last weekend, when the husband was in Gothenburg over Saturday night, as I finally turned out the light and pulled the covers up tight to my chin, feeling very alone in bed, I wasn't worried about someone breaking into this vast apartment, I was actually worried that I would open my eyes to find a nasty spirit floating above me. Or something like that.

Not that I've ever actually seen a nasty spirit floating above me, or for that matter, a spirit of any kind above, below or beside me.

The problem is that no matter how hard I try, I can't will myself to really not believe, no matter what I say about not believing and not not believing.

I think it's time that I just give in and tell people, well, I've never seen any but yes, I suppose that I believe in ghosts.

Do you?

The Swedish word for the day is Spökslottet, which is the name of a mansion not far from Odenplan, and means the ghost castle.

- by Francis S.