I love Lucy

While spending a year abroad, foreign students can experience a certain loss of identity – who are you when stripped of your language, your family and friends, and all your favourite hang-outs? And if you couldn t bring your guitar, your car, or your pet ferret along on the trip– if no one grasps the excitement (let alone the rules) of American football, or appreciates your impromptu, corridor-kitchen slam-poetry sessions, how do you still be you?
It s a vital question, but not one that I’m qualified to answer. Those who fear this loss of self evidently spent fewer high-school years in clogs and rainbow toe-socks than I did. You’ll be people who learned to use no-frizz hair products in a timely fashion, and who never had an artistic hat-making business on the side (which you felt compelled to advertise). No, I thought of my first year in Sweden as an escape from everything I had made the mistake of being in the past. A clean slate.
That was, until St. Lucia s Day.

Being new to the holiday, I didn t grasp what an honour it was to be chosen as the school s Lucia at first – to lead a procession of singing choir-members through the high-school hallways, dressed in a white nightie while balancing a crown of flaming candles on my head. There was also a solo to perform. The fact that the choir had waited until I was away with the flu to elect me for the position did nothing to allay my fears. I d heard less terrifying descriptions of nightmares.
But then my host-family seemed proud. A Lucia in the family? Having two sons, their past Lucia photos featured only dunce-capped star-boys. The father collected mormors starched night-gown with the hand-stitched lace from the attic; the mother dug lingon berry plants out of the snow and spent hours nimbly stitching plant sprigs around the metal base of the crown. Eager to contribute, I suggested the addition of my badge-bespangled dinner-jacket to the costume – the uniform of all Rotary Exchange students. I was encouraged, with nervous smiles, to go back to practicing my solo in the downstairs bathroom.

On the big day, I felt panicked. The anonymity I d enjoyed in my Swedish high-school was in severe jeopardy. As we slowly paraded through the high-school hallways, the metal crown proved heavier and warmer than I had expected, and I guess my head was smaller than the crown had anticipated. As it slid back down my head, I realized that I should have spent more time practicing the fire-balancing act part of the show. The two girls carrying water-soaked rags directly behind me were equipped to deal with an all-out hair-fire – but not the generous puddles of wax collecting atop the candles. I bowed my head forwards, praying this move would keep the candles straight.
So once I reached centre-stage and the auditorium of high-school students had hushed, I ignored the choir-master s fervent chin-up signals. As she sounded the opening note of my A cappella solo, a small alarm in my brain signaled that this situation had far greater potential for humiliation than mere exotic footwear or mushroom hats. I was also struck, after the second verse of my song, by a stream of searing wax down the bare skin of my neck.
I can t be certain that I stayed in key after that point – but regardless, the students cheered and I was called Lucia by strangers the rest of that year. It turned out to be the only name I didn t mind being called during my high-school career.