Decembernatten was large and black over the desert. The fire was dying. The stars were in the wrong place, if you compared it to at home. The women danced still, to the ramshackle sound of a telephone set in a tin can on the ground.
When the batteries started to run out was told stories. Her voice was more muffled than usual from having sat in the smoke. I felt the same skrovel in the neck from sitting next to her. ”My grandmother always said” – she beat a spark against the back of the hand – ”that smoke followed beauty, so we were about to sit in the direction of the wind.” A wry glance, then broke the western intonationen through ”but it was just that she herself would get the best place”. A laugh, halvoktaven down from the words. ”You need to shake the glass if you don’t want more coffee”.
together with the mountains. A cloak over the shoulders. My brother got the finger avbitet of his horse, when he rode into battle without the saddle. Umm Ali, which invites the city of sweets after having killed an enemy in the bath. With a slipper. Something was elvahundratalet, perhaps, something was yesterday, or never.
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I remember another place: with the snow in the garden, a similar darkness of the sky, the julaftonsmorgon. Another fire to gather around. The floors smelled bonvax, window panes smelled nattfrost, the lights in the glossy sets, the wort smelled faintly of something bitter. The star hung in the window at the night sky in the desert. Mother read “the christmas Tree”, by Tove Jansson, as every year. A point of total stillness, that signaled the end of preparations and the beginning of peace. Minimum igelkottarna need nothing. Do you think Christmas is very hungry? The words are not so important, the main thing is that mom is reading “the christmas Tree” on the julaftonsmorgonen, as the sun goes down in the west and the water flows out of the faucet.
Stories are made to be told again. I do not want to insert any far over the line of reasoning here, but count on it: the purpose of a berättelses structure is that it is going to repeat. (This is why all of the stories are fake. Reality, you can’t remember in the same way). The woman in the wilderness, and a mother at the fireplace worked both based on the same basic principle: repetition.
, but sometimes it feels like that whole life is a fairy tale we repeat, for repetition sake, rather than for the truth. It is not just the literature that repeats, but also our joints. It is not just our voices we use to carry the stories on, but also our bodies, our movements. Our time.
Let me generalize, to be clear. Sometimes it feels like that it is not just our voices we use to carry the story on, but also our female bodies, our female gymnastics. Our kvinnotid.
There are statistics on how much of christmas we carry out, for example. It can be measured in meters, stopped the sausage. Behind the tales at the fire in Diramdalen is another knowledge. How to tie their scarf, how much raisins to be in the food, where freedom begins and ends. Behind julaftonsmorgonen are cleaning, and cleaning, and so a little woman can gno. There will be no christmas if it is not dried out of the kitchen cabinets. There will be no christmas if you don’t get as this out of the ljusstaksfästena. It is not difficult, set them first up and down on the newsprint in the oven. Then use a toothpick to get in the filigranen. The clock moves towards midnight. Don’t forget kopparbyttan.
again, at some point. New for those who hear it the first time. And also it repeated somewhere comes to an end.
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”I can’t navigate by the stars,” she says, and turns for even a spark. ”I never ro to teach me”. ”Shall we read ’the christmas Tree’ in the morning,” says the new in the family, ”is not it a little slow?”
A small interruption, a hack, in the generational line, a habit or a knowledge which has been lost or weakened. She has gps in the phone, and in addition, she lives in town, she doesn’t need to be able to navigate by the stars. And “the christmas Tree”, yes, there are lots of other fairy tales to read out loud.
with the tradition that stays with us. Who will be the next tradition. My? What I intend to bring on? To read “the christmas Tree” in front of the fire, at night, while candles burn in the unpolished paving. And always have the yellow raisins in Umm Alin: built which was named after the mother who was the queen of the world.
Read more texts by Agnes Lidbeck here.
