Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2022

Writing: what good does it do? What purpose does it serve? It amuses me to sit and write, it clears and sharpes my own thoughts, but what purpose does it serve in the greater realm of things?  The greater realm of things seems to take an ever more important role in our lives. One can’t consume any media in this country today without being reminded of geopolitical reality. I listened to a favourite radio show of mine, supposedly light entertainment with comedic banter, witticisms and puns, and what did they talk about: arming for future conflict. 

It’s an obsession- an all encompassing terror- this ancient inherited  fear of the Russians.  And like we were reminded not so long ago, there’s only a stretch of water separating us from our great eastern neighbour. And now Lavrov has yet again threatened the world with nuclear warheads, and the onslaught of World War III.  This obsession is nigh on debilitating. It seeps steadily into every aspect of life, and I’m starting to wonder if anything I do, from folding the laundry to teaching grammar, actually has a meaning in the greater realm of things.

I decide to take a walk to clear my head and attempt to come up with something to write.

The jackdaws make themselves known the millisecond I decide to leave the cottage I inhabit. Indeed, we share the same accomodation, the jackdaws and I. They crowd together in the alder trees, the giant aerials and on the barn roofs, and flocks of graphite crow birds  fill the skies over the fields newly spread with manure. The scent is overpowering, or perhaps stench, depending on one’s tolerance of the finer points of country living, and mingles with the salty ocean breeze off Kattegat. 

Hares, looking very much like rabbits, frolic and play in the long grass and they make me think of Beatrix Potter and her Peter Rabbit. I almost catch a glimpse of Peter’s pale blue jacket as he dives into a ditch before a budding birch tree.  But one early morning , I witnessed one of the hares attacking the jackdaws, chasing them away, and I am still perplexed as to why. Perhaps the hare strove to protect its young from the omnivorous and savage  crow-birds, or perhaps it just enjoyed teasing them. 

My cat, who has a very similar brown coat, bullies and teases the jackdaws continuously. In fact, I think that dear Charles has declared war on the Jackdaw Nation, as he sits sentry high in the disputed pear tree. At its foot, Otto lies buried. He was our hunter-our larger-than-life black alpha cat: the slayer of magpies in flight, of foxes, and fathers. He stalked the farm endlessly and kept all would-be invaders at bay. Otto won his position here through patercide, and he was a Vallby legend long before he left this life in July of 2018, just twelve days ahead of my grandmother. 

And a little further off lies our seafarer, the truest of friends, our Sinbad.  He was smaller,  furrier, cuter  but just as vicious. And just as black.  Dogs feared Sinbad, and no cat with a modicum sense ventured onto his turf. He too waged war against crow birds. But his nemeses were not herds of jackdaws, but the dreaded crow dichotomy: the magpie. My feline friends find meaning in this constant, unending conflict against the Corvus clan, and hence I must conclude that holding out against the crows must be a worthwhile endeavour. And I assume this would be Corvii of all descriptions- both actual and metaphorical.

Food production is another  worthwhile task- and indeed a human necessity. I live next door to a dairy farm- some 300 metres of fields- separates us.   I can hear the cows bellow  through my kitchen window, and I see more agricultural machinery pass by my front door than automobiles. Perhaps it’s like my husband half-jokingly suggests – we should start a commercial organic strawberry patch. We already have the tractor. It would doubtlessly be a worthwhile endeavour.

And writing? Is it a worthwhile task? The Old ones believed in the magic of runes, and writing is still magical. Through writing, I create new worlds. Like a goddess, I can mold reality  into shapes both profound, fantastic or commonplace. Writing at its heart is paradoxical; it can expose injustice, build bridges, uncover truth and lead to salvation. But writing can also disseminate slander and falsehood, construct conspiracy theories, spread hatred and lead us astray. Writing is simply a tool in the hands of the writer.