I was sitting in the loom room, spinning, and listening to Johan Rockström’s Sommar i P1 podcast. He is the director of the research center where I work and a professor of environmental science, and he was talking about all the ways in which we are screwed, climate- and environment-wise. He also said that this is the year when we really can change our direction, what with all the meetings and the new SDGs and so on, but I was having trouble taking that in. The positive, constructive stuff about how we still have reason to feel hopeful.
This is what I’ve chosen to do with my life now, work for a better, more sustainable use of our planet’s resources, but it is hard. All the reading that I do, there are just so many things that need to be fixed. It is overwhelming. There are so many places to start, that it feels impossible to choose and I (almost) end up not doing anything at all. Directionless. Motionless. Spinning yarn by my lonesome in a dusty loom room on a farm in northern California, hiding away from it all.
But I got myself out of there. The setting sun was painting the hills golden. Oscar and the guys were working on the motorbikes down by the workshop, Lorri was about to let the horses in for the night. And I just stood there, taking it all in. Letting the sun wash over me. Dot came by to say hi, but quickly lost interest.
I thought: I will need to remember this. When November in Stockholm is cold and dark and seemingly endless. When the scientific articles are too heavy, and the writing just won’t come. When getting up in the morning feels way too hard, because the sun won’t come up for a couple of hours yet, if at all. I will need to remember this. The smell of dry grass and animals. The sounds of tools against metal and the evening songs of the birds.
The light. I will have to remember the California light.
Katja Malmborg 