I cannot focus. I have not written, properly, since Burkina Faso the first time. When the people overthrew the despot, in the fall and winter of 2014. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about – it’s just. The energy to put the thoughts into words. I have not been able to muster it.
I am in Hundby, my father’s summer Eden, and on a whim I packed my journal. I have not written in it for a year, the last note in it is dated Monday, July 18th 2016, it says [translated from Swedish]: “Yet again, the days have passed, I am too tired in the evenings to write, or I have trouble going to bed. I was in Björkskär with H, M, K and J. And today I came home from a weekend in Hundby. Officially, I have not started my vacation yet, but it’s basically as if. I am very tired of my job, even though I really think it is interesting. I have to start writing a more interesting journal. I’m bored already writing it.”
After that, silence.
But I am here now. Making myself put pen to paper. Actual pen to actual paper. (When you read this, it will be a transcription after the fact.) Maybe that is what I need. Being able to see something take form. Follow the words with my fingertips, eyes closed. (So much of my world is digital, I wonder if my obsession with knitting is a protest, a need to have something to touch.)
I hope I can manage my assignment of energy. Summer is really the time to separate the years, the holiday a time to reboot and change. Pink sunsets the time for kind thoughts and forgiveness. I know, I’m sick of myself writing about how I am going to change, that I will start writing again – but now maybe I will? Things actually have changed, I’ve moved apartments, I have a new job, and with that, new colleagues. When to start a new routine, but now? I will.
I will.
Katja Malmborg 