January, new year, same old cold and snow

Days pass slowly. I move slowly. Whole life feels like a slow motion movie. 

Winter is harsh, and mornings are the worst. I wake up and it’s dark. I have lunch and it’s dark. I go to bed, it’s dark. I don’t feel like getting out of bed, but I do. I go outside just to feel something. All I feel is cold in my bones. The sky is grey and the streets are white. Pebbles thrown all around make crunching noise under my boots. I see people passing by, bundled up in multiple layers of clothes. I can notice only fragments of their faces between the cap and a scarf. Some chat, but most are quiet. On their way to do what they think they need to do. Only kids seem to enjoy it. Nothing stops them, not even this harsh weather. Some people still ride bikes, but I gave up riding mine at the first glance of winter. Feeling the wind rushing into my face while I’m trying to get to my destination was too much. 

I observe my surroundings. There is something sad but also… calming? There’s a bit of joy too, but I’m too grim to acknowledge it. Christmas lights blink and give some hope in this darkness. Tiny snowflakes start falling, I can feel them melting on my face. I look up and see emptiness. It’s quiet, that’s for sure. 

I go to Espresso House, to find some coziness there. To enjoy my coffee and my book. But it seems everyone had the same idea. Place is overcrowded and I barely manage to find a seat, and when I do it’s next to a group of teenagers who apparently find joy in breaking sugar packets into small pieces and throwing them around. One of them even finds it appropriate to spit next to his seat. They are loud. I can’t even understand them – their Swedish is better than mine, but I find it to be a bliss this time. I have a feeling I wouldn’t even want to understand them anyways. I finish my coffee and kanelbulle and I head to the library. 

There’s not much to do in this small town, and when winter hits all you want is to be somewhere inside. I don’t borrow books. I just sit near them. It’s comforting. I don’t borrow because I’ve bought so many books that it would take me years to finish them all, so I’m focusing on those books right now and ignoring the free ones. So intelligent, I know. I remember the Stockholm library – the massive graphic novel section. I’d spend hours there just looking through shelves. Here, I don’t do that. Here, the collection is one square shelf and almost all is in Swedish. The library is a nice place, but I struggle to find a good seat. Desks are taken, sofas are taken, so I find one lonely chair under the stairs. It’s a strange spot but I find my coziness there. I take out my laptop and I start writing.