While doing fieldwork in Ouahigouya, I got this urge to drive. The freedom, I guess, and being so physically in control. I started planning a trip to the cottage for as soon as I was back in Sweden, for rest and concentration, an article reading retreat, if you will – but mostly because I wanted the chance to drive.
So when all the have-to’s were dealt with in Stockholm, I took Anna’s car and drove the 85 kilometers south to Hundby. Oh, the joy of driving. As an environmentalist, I’m ashamed to admit this, but I really love it. I think my next holiday will be a road trip.
And then getting off the highway, turning into the mosaic landscape that is Södermanland – fields, small hills, lone houses, meadows with horses, villages and lakes. And the forests. Standing, like a wall next to the road, the conifers dark and ominous, the oaks, aspen and birches bare. The density similar to that in the rain forest in Ghana, but the colors so different. That there are so many versions to the concept of forest. It’s amazing.
When I arrived at the cottage, dark was just about to fall and it was so quiet. I lit a fire and made dinner, wrote a little and watched a movie. And then sitting, with a glass of whiskey, looking into the flames. I can’t see a single thing outside the windows. This house is like a tiny little universe, and outside – a dark nothingness. There are no sounds, except for the fire, and my fingers on the keyboard.
If this is a good idea, I do not know. I always have this longing for seclusion and quiet, for being allowed to focus without distractions. But sometimes, these perfect ideas of ours don’t pan out the way we plan. We’ll just have to see, I guess.
Katja Malmborg 