i have always been prone to nostalgia. red hot nostalgia, stomach-churning nostalgia, weakness-in-the-legs nostalgia. my childhood displacements from the places i loved probably spurred its growth. now it doesn't take too long for any of its varieties to rise up within me swinging like a cobra and play tricks on my emotions.
the exact type of nostalgia i feel for stockholm is difficult to describe. it has been stirring these days, one year after i left the city in which i lived for half a year. there's a thin whitish film on the surface, and a warm, golden heart on the inside. i did not spend too much time there for my nostalgia to grow mythic roots, but neither too little to avoid being itched and carved by it. now it has an equal place in my personal atlas, along with dalmatia, munich, iceland, usa, and london. stockholm, the city on islands; the city of wispy dreams and loving lovelessness.
the view from my room in rinkeby was nondesript. the one from my hornstull abode was more dynamic. i remember them both. sitting by the window, watching snippets of stockholm life. or how gamla stan would appear ablaze when the train gets out of slussen. or haga parken in september, or countless of rounds around skeppsholmen. the beauty tears are made of.
i left stockholm on 9 february '14 with a bird in my chest. its dysthymic wings still flutter at times. but the bird might have gone.
