One day, someone had written this on the wall of the Skarpnäck tube station. It says: Who cares if the weather is getting worse if people refuse to remove the icicles from their hearts.
Interesting thought. Although, being a master student in sustainability science, I wouldn’t say I don’t care at all about the weather.
A weekend in the end of September, a group of friends and I packed our bags full of food and took the boat out to a cabin in the archipelago to have a late crayfish party.
It was nice, to get away, to get out, and to spend time with friends that I’ve known for a very long time. Speaking Swedish for a change. Talking about Swedish culture, not as the one who has to explain the oddities of my native country, but as someone who’s recently become quite out of touch with the goings-on in contemporary Swedish literature, film, music and politics and having things being explained to me by other, more up-to-date, even professional pop culture people.
Eating too much, singing Swedish schnapps songs and wearing silly hats. We even went for a midnight swim, me and the three boys. Kirke and Hanna didn’t dare. Later, when undressing for bed, I noticed that I had managed to scrape up an ugly row of scratches on my leg when climbing up out of the water in the starlit September darkness. The scars are still there, on my knee.
The sea is a beautiful thing. I spent big parts of my Sunday morning standing on a rock, looking at the small waves making the seagrass move with such incredible grace.
Leaving the island, it was very windy. Kirke wanted to capture my hair flying, but I can’t believe how tired I look. I don’t remember feeling tired. But I guess it was the whole fall, from August to now, I over-strained myself for many different reasons and that leaves a mark. At least I was happy, there on the wharf, waiting for the boat in the sunshine.
And so where the others.
The amazing three. I’ve known Hanna since I was seven, and Kirke since I was eight. There is a security in it that can’t really be explained. Something that circumstances can’t really touch anymore.
I had a walk with Elin and Ruth on the last really warm day of the season. I gave them the bag I was supposed to give them on Ruth’s Welcome-to-the-world-party, but that I hadn’t managed to finish. Babies are amazing. Especially Elin’s.
And that life can turn in so many different directions, you meet people when you happen to be in the same place and then things change but it is still possible to meet and talk and share about each other’s lives, still making sense for each other. Making life so much more rich.
Katja Malmborg 