Elli had her 30th birthday party yesterday, on a boat by Söder Mälarstrand. Beautiful place, beautiful evening, beautiful people. The party had a marine theme, and I had dressed up as a pirate. Everyone else from the SRC were also dressed up in various costumes, jelly fish and mermaids and kids’ bathing toys, but except for a couple of other male pirates, none of the other guests were anything else than prettily marine blue. Does that say more about Swedes, or about the kind of people that study or work at Stockholm Resilience Centre?
Once it got dark, we all went down into the big cabin, to dance and eat cake. They were playing old songs by Kent and Håkan Hellström and other popular indie dance hits from my high school days (which would mean early twenties for most of the guests at the party). I remember them by heart, the lines in all the songs, Kent’s I want to have my tongue there, where you are, so close that you become wet (but in Swedish, of course), it’s the songs from my late teens and there’s a melancholy softness to them, a kind of innocence.
It made me feel awkward. I am too young to start feeling nostalgic over old songs, going to parties where the music is chosen based on the number of memories you have with them. I still want to discover new songs and create new memories.
Today, I’m listening to Sleeping At Last. For me, something completely new.
Katja Malmborg 