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The last snow is melting. We got a month. On my run in the forest today, it was so strange, I saw a fly. In the shadows under the trees, the ground is still covered in melting snow. And there: a fly. It must be so confused.
But I did enjoy the snow, while it lasted. Skiing, photographing knitwear with Natalia. How calm my living room felt, with the pine tree outside the large windows heavy with snow. How, when it fell, the sounds of faraway cars went completely silent. Instead: the whisper of falling snow, like the memory of a light crackle.
Ordinarily, I visit the Bergius botanic garden often. Nothing this winter is normal, but it is nice to remember. Being so close to my place of work, nice weather was generally enough to motivate taking a lunch-time or post-work stroll through it. But this also meant I rarely brought my camera. The seasons got to pass in an ever-evolving present, unrecorded by my prying camera lens.
During the final feeble breaths of 2017, though, I visited the garden several times over the course of a week together with my camera. That time of year in Stockholm, days are short and rarely sunny, so photographing is difficult. But if you are lucky, you can manage to catch the sun. And then, the clarity of that light, making the frost glitter, the crispness of the air. It is unbeatable. And the stillness of the bay under ice. At the darkest time of year, there is a tranquility to the garden that you simply do not get when it is bursting with life.
Next winter, I hope to be able to take in the stillness of the garden in ice again.
Photo: View of a frosty Brunnsviken, Bergius Botanic Garden in Stockholm, December 2017. Posted on Instagram February 24, 2021.
Katja Malmborg 