Nurturing the flora and fauna of my being
A slow weekend in April - sweet memories, nostalgia and quality time with your lover
You rarely realise you’re caught up in the moment until that moment fizzles out — the weekend is upon us, and for the first time in months we have no plans for it.
Soundtrack of this piece; Kacey Musgraves - Heart of the woods
We woke up around 7am, but decided to stay in bed for a while. My love got home late last night after spending the evening in the city, eating dinner and attending a concert. When we woke up we were both fairly sleepy, but well rested nonetheless. The morning consisted of the two of us, brewing coffee, cutting up strawberries for breakfast and trying to decide what to do for the day. See, I come from a family where rest and slow weekends did not really exist. If I wasn’t going to different flea markets with my mom and my grandmother, or digging in the garden and replanting different plants and flowers, I was getting ice cream in the city with my dad. The day was to be spent outside, especially if it was sunny. Staying in my room on a sunny day was criminal, and I suppose I live by that to this day.
We both enjoyed not having plans, though. Taking the day, the little moments just as they come. We agreed it was just one of those days where we’ll take it easy, a day that we did not even know we needed, a day just for the simple pleasures we rarely have the time for. We decided to go outside for a walk —maybe to justify not doing anything extravagant for the rest of the day, maybe because it is our favourite thing to do. The two probably goes hand in hand. Our walk then became a ‘quick’ run to the plant nursery where we picked up two new plants for the apartment. We also managed to squeeze in a grocery run as well. We had exceeded our expectations of us on this supposed ‘slow’ day, so returning home to the comforts of our home felt like a victory in a sense. It was quite early still, so the day was blooming with possibilities. High on our victory-streak, we rearranged the entire apartment. Put the bed where the couch used to be, moved everything, even the giant bookcase! And the new layout is fantastic, it is almost silly how we did not realise this sooner. Feeling like we had accomplished more than enough, we could enjoy our slow afternoon without feeling like the day had gone to waste. We did get a lot of things done in a short amount of time and in the comforts of our neighbourhood. No longer trips to the city or anyplace else, just the two of us cultivating our little life.
What were the simple pleasures we wanted to do on this extraordinary day? Well, I wanted to watch The Office in bed and fall asleep to the sound of Micheal Scott in my ears. Alex wanted to play God of War — and so we did. And it was awesome.
Sunday came, and we had talked about going to Skansen if the weather would let us. Skansen is an open air museum located on Djurgården in Stockholm. It is also our favourite place on earth! We try to go multiple times a year for different reasons; to see the animals, watch the flowers grow, enjoy the history of the buildings, see the aquarium, learn about the baltic sea, have a good ol’ fika — and this visit was mainly focused on the animals and the flowers. And our packed lunch.
There is nothing quite like spring in Stockholm as I have previously stated in other forums, but there is sincerely, nothing better than spring on Skansen. Both Alex and I have our individual history for Skansen, and we share the love for it. I basically spent my entire childhood there, and so all my most precious memories are directly tied to the place. My grandmother (whom I have also mentioned quite a lot, lol) used to take me there every year, and similar to how we’re doing it now, she brought me there with different agendas too. The first visit was usually in spring, around March or April, depending on the weather. After spending months in the cold and dark winter, the first thing I wanted to do when we got there was to see the bears. Always the bears. I could spend hours watching them as a child, a trait I never outgrew. We usually made several visits in Spring, one for the fauna and one for the flora. That way, she could teach me about all the different flowers and plants growing without me running away to the bears every chance I got. I especially loved going in Juni, June — when the bleeding hearts would bloom and she would tell me all about the flowers that grew alongside it. The bleeding hearts have come to be a core memory for me, whenever I see them I get this overwhelming wave of nostalgia from all of our visits to the gardens of Skansen. How my grandmother would sneak flower-cuttings into her plastic bag with dampened paper towels inside and then raise them in our garden back home. The tours she would take with me, confessing where she got all her flowers from, which castle she basically robbed of their precious flora, the latin names for all the flowers growing on Skansen, lecturing me, preparing me for a life filled with colour and knowledge. We continued this tradition well into my young adult-years. We brought our aquarelles, paper and our paintbrushes and placed ourselves throughout the park, painting what we saw, what we felt. She is an excellent artist and her eye for detail is beyond brilliant, it is godly. I chopped away at my poor attempt to capture the light the way she did, the colours she so perfectly could identify, the shapes, the lines, everything she did so effortlessly — I butchered. She never admitted that to me, though. No. She always let me be terrible in the name of self-growth and self-exploration. Even though she taught me everything I know, she never made me learn. She was just setting a fabulous example, and I wanted to follow that as I grew to be my own person. That is one of the reasons we have made it a priority to visit Skansen every chance we get; not only is it bustling with sweet sweet nostalgia and happy memories, it is keeping something in me alive.
Our visit was similar to how me and my grandmother used to plan it. The first visit of the year shall be fairly laid back considering how overwhelming it can be when all the flowers are growing, the sun is shining and the animals visibly content in their enclosures. Spring is a busy season for Skansen. Between the cold winter and the amusement park not being open just yet, it is the only place where you can walk around with children and have them enjoy the fresh air, nature and have lots and lots of fun. So we had that in mind when we bought our tickets and began our journey at the escalators. We took our usual route, the one straight through the towns square and along the mountain, passing the reindeer and moose, the horses and then the main event; the bears! I cannot describe it, yet the feeling is the same as all of the other times before. I am filled with childlike wonder as I’m making my way to the barrier, looking over the rails and seeing a bear softly nestling its giant fluffy head into a pile of hay. In that moment I feel an immense amount of gratitude, not only is the meeting with the animal as amazing as always, I have found a partner who is equally as thrilled to be here as I am. Together we watch the bear make funny faces, its nose in the air, yawning, licking the ground. A joy and delight to be in the presence of such a powerful creature.
While I can stand still and watch the animals for ages if time would let me, Alex is taking pictures on his good camera that I know will capsule this wonderful day in a precious keepsake that I get to return to in the future. See, as happy as I am to be here, I am also devastated that this moment will not last forever. I think Alex knows when the feeling of dread takes over me, because in that very moment he nudges me to move onto the next enclosure or shows a really good picture he took of the bear, a picture that we can keep forever and remember this day. I feel fine in that moment and we walk towards the enclosure where the wolverines are running amok.
It is like Skansen knows exactly how to cure my separation anxiety to the bears, because the next passing enclosure is where they keep the wolverines. And they are soooo silly that my anxiety almost vanishes. They are running around, chasing each other, their little heads looking up to us curiously, their giant paws makes them look like plush-toys. There was only one running around this visit, but we could see one sunbathing atop their little mountain. We could move on in peace and in good spirit, my anxiety intact.
We know the map like the back of our hands, that is why we both were almost skipping to the next one where they keep the lynxes (Alex favourite!). Their enclosure is beautiful with lots of green bushes and trees, birches and a small pond, small tree-huts around the place so the cats can hide from the eyes of the public. We have been spoiled rotten every other visit, meaning we have seen lynx-kittens walking around in the grass, their parents strolling around, eating their lunch in broad daylight. That is why it felt okay to not be able to see them this time around. What we did see, in the enclosure right across from the lynx, an arctic fox still in its white fur, sleeping in the hollow of a tree. The sight so unbelievably adorable it almost brought tears to my eyes.
The rest of the walk was beautiful, too. We saw horses, goats, ducks, sheep while we made our way to the garden to eat our packed lunch. We found a proper bench, surrounded by spring-flowers and apple trees and witch hazel. The sun high atop the bluest of skies. Alex made a salad for us to bring here and we shared it on that bench, and dare I say it was one of those moments where you just know it’ll become a core memory. We sat there for a while, talking, enjoying the sun, I think I may have talked about flowers. We made our way back and felt happy with our visit, a new flood of people had just entered the park and we decided it was our cue to begin the journey home.
On our way we walked through the Old Town of Stockholm, beautiful buildings, lots of people, lots of cafés. We did not really plan on this, but we decided to browse though the Sci-fi bookshop on our way to the tube. We left overstimulated to our very max capacity, but with a new card game to try out once we got home. Fungi, a game about mushroom hunting, very Scandinavian.
We made Swedish pancakes for dinner and then played fungi all evening until it was time to prepare for the next day, which is today. Yesterday I felt that weird anxiety again, like the moment was fleeting, I could see the wonderful day we had just had starting to slip through my fingers. Alex reassured me that more of these days were to come, and then we brushed our teeth in our bathroom, gave each other a goodnight-kiss, fell asleep in our bed, in our home. I woke up to him going to work this morning and since then I have had this entire piece sitting in my lap, waiting to become something. And so it became.
I have lots do to, actually. Uni-things to take care of, sunlight to bask in, food to eat, coffee to brew, plants to water. The weekend feels like a sweet memory, a state of grace floating in the back of my head, almost like it did not really happen, but it did. What I take away from this is that as Spring unfolds, and Summer is just mere weeks away, more days like these are needed. We are not supposed to have things going all the time, some days are for resting and for nurturing yourself. I truly feel that this weekend of ours repotted our roots, gave us new soil and new strength as we enter this week. It is after all a treasure to live and breathe and look forward to things, and I look forward to the next time we visit Skansen.
That is all for now, I think.
Love you!
Amanda
So sweet!! Simple pleasures and slow passing, happy days. I loved it!
Jösses vad knepigt att skriva i detta forum. I alla fall skriver du mycket poetiskt och jag ser att ditt sätt att beskriva vad du ser överensstämmer med ditt sätt att måla och det är bra för då är det ärligt uttryckt. Tack för ditt erkännande av min betydelse för hur du uppfattar bilderna som hamnar på din näthinna.