Fröll

Every summer at my aunts beautiful yellow house in Sweden is coloured by special moments and themes. Moments that are pressed into tiny diamonds of the hearts and labelled like summer jam.

One summer it was the countless visits to Zetas garden centre.  I had just returned to Sweden to stay for good, I thought, and the Swedish names, like stjärnflocka and smaragdnäva blew my mind. Kina ran around like an euphoric lunatic between the fifteen different kinds of lavender and the huge, homemade cakes and steaming hot lattes in their café didn’t exactly make us want to stay away either.

The amazing salsa verde that we made for a barbecue evening in the garden seems to have made its way to my personal summer memories top 10 (you’re a foodie or you’re not). Another summer it was Jesper’s campaign to get permission to buy Assassin’s creed that made me chuckle til Christmas when thinking about it. He must have used up hundreds of post-its that summer, all very strategically placed and so funny.

Our yoga summer is not forgotten. Out in the garden at sunrise, stretching and breathing away. It’s a good thing we had those Önellian amounts of food to compensate with or we would have become way to healthy.

This year, the one phenomena that enframes all the glittering, joyful, tearful, precious moments – is fröll. Yes I know, I am going to have to explain this one.  Even I didn’t know what it was until a few weeks ago. See, fröll is that golden brownish wheat bran-looking stuff that will come flying down from birch trees and land in your morning yoghurt. It will look like bugs in your coffee, will give a wooden accent to your chardonnay and drive you crazy if you ever try to extinguish them from your home with say a vaccum cleaner, mop, steam cleaner or nuclear weapons. They are everywhere. Now, I am quite sure my aunt made up this term. If I google it I can find some Icelandic lady called Hrölli Fröll. Some people call the decorations on a wrapped gift fröll. But on Segersminnevägen 38, the totally official and scientific term of nature’s own, annoying wheat bran – is FRÖLL.

The thing is, there is this funny and amazing secret about fröll. Much like friendship or love, we see it, taste it, try to clean it up, take it for granted or accept it. But we don’t often take a good look at it. I mean really looking, with our heart. If we would, we might discover something very special. Looked at very closely, like this photo shot with a macro lens, fröll, my dear Kina, is just like the friendship between you and me: unexpected, beautiful and angellike.

Love,

C