För de som tycker att jag är en arrogant ordbajsare, vilket jag säkert stundtals är, så vill jag bjuda på en uppsats dottern skrev i veckan angående ”my hometown”. Där kan vi snacka ordbajseri, om än vackert, på hög nivå.
Tibro in the Summertime
By no means is Tibro a tourist destination. She quite perfectly encapsulates the bold despondency analogous to that of any other quaint small town. An atmosphere of unwavering emptiness seems to swathe the area, and yet she seems to demand exploration, demand an appreciation of her dreary charm. Throngs of forest encircle her and sometimes a deer will slip from the trees to amble along the brittle concrete road, the rhythmic tapping of his hooves an otherworldly echo in the almost breathtaking silence brought by a Tibro dusk.
And yet in all her silence she seems to bustle, for as you follow her towards the city she does not go thirty minutes without the rush of a car or train or bus come driving upon her. Indeed if you sit by the lake or the bridge you cannot wish for the silence that seems near inescapable within the neighborhood - ensue the eternal bumble of water upon stone and the slick collision of ripples upon the muddy riverside. On occasion there comes a harmonious birdsong seeping through from the woodlands, carried not in the wind but in a summertime draft, in a crisp chill that brings with it the permanently earthly tang of the forest.
One is struck by the bitter charm so patently exhibited by the residents of Tibro, for the pathetic, unfulfilled yearning to sidle from its agreeable, conforming comfort is one that does not linger so much as shroud. A certain pleasant contentment may come from a simple employment in the town or in a neighboring town- yet pleasant contentment does not satisfy: it merely causes the eye to wonder, the mind to daydream, and in an untroubling town like Tibro this collective dissatisfaction is heavy. It presents itself in the poppy-speckled gardens so meticulously trimmed and cared for, in the same somber walks through grey town and through green forest, in the same potato-dinner smell that clings to the air- things no truly happy man strictly submits himself to.
Tibro is a consolation. She risks boredom for the sake of her pretty, minimalistic charm. Her umber buildings are not so petite as they are stunted, half-hearted, ersatz. Why, her beauty only truly lies deep within the silence of her woodlands, in her secretive allure exquisite to an almost chilling degree- indeed, it unlocks perhaps our most primal instinct to marvel at that that is purely beautiful, that is unmarked, unblemished, untouched. As you gaze up into the trees that track boundlessly skywards towards a bewitching azure you cannot help but fear its looming ephemerality- the ever-apparent ephemerality of all worldly beauty. Whether it be you or Beauty gone first, you will simply never see it all. And you leave Tibro with this fleeting memory, until she is nothing but the damp, earthy smell in your coat.