I'm told that every single person is born into a context of stories that make sense of their interactions with the world.

My parents have known each other since my mother was born, when they both lived in Kalmar, and she first visited the house that my great grandfather built with his hands when we were still called Nilsson. Our parents let us name each other, and by that I mean they let one of us (you can guess which) choose a middle name for everybody, which feels something like a family tradition. I'm related to every other person on the planet named Skarsgård, born from a group of brothers who invented a surname from what only the very generous would call the village they belonged to. In the greatest of my delusions, I say that I'll never have a reason to live anywhere but Stockholm, but I know that the place they'll bury me is on the island that devoured the blood of every childhood injury, the island that is waiting for me to come home.

My dad is the Alex of his siblings, the oldest of five (with a smaller but no less crazy age gap between him and the youngest), and every year they debate who really ate the last of the risgrynsgröt the year that my uncle (which uncle this refers to also changes by year) and weirdly never my aunt, in the same way that it's never my sister to blame, accidentally almost burnt the house down. I'm an atheist in a family of them, but there are things you do because they feel familiar, because the people who are buried on Öland whose headstones stick out of the ground like jagged teeth with runes you can still feel with your fingertips when you close your eyes did it for a thousand years before you were born and the people around you will do it for a thousand years after you die – someone sets the pudding out for the farm gnome at Christmas so that he doesn't get angry and do things that bring misfortune.

The first year she remembers visiting, she's tagging along with her own older brother. My uncle and my dad grew up together, their bond outlasting my parents' marriage by almost two decades and counting. The first year she remembers going to what eventually becomes a joint summer vacation spot, shared between all of the siblings, it's a place with fewer memories, and my mom gets the almond in her pudding. When this happens, she's too young to get an almond, really, and marry within the year, but that year, my dad also gets one in his. This is against the rules, even in the land of compromise: no duplicates in your fortune. So begins a joke that is less a joke when they start dating, but hurts when things reach their end and five decades of knowing turns to unknowing.

Sometimes I think it's the year before we learned that my mom had cancer, but maybe it's the year of the separation. Both years we live in the same apartment she lives in now, surrounded by family in every direction. My (then youngest) brother is equal parts too little and never a good enough cook to make risgrynsgröt on his own, but in the determination to overcome youth (his and mine and our sister's), tiredness (mom's and Sam's), and absence (Alex's and dad's and Gus's), he forms an approximation, setting out soggy grains fresh from the bag and dumped into a bowl of water with syrup on top. Nobody sees it get knocked over, but the next morning it's Pollocked its way across the floor, the misshapen trinket from the middle now cracked in half.

After a morning and afternoon of debate (and always with a glass of wine), dad takes the blame, every year, choosing to be the scapegoat for the bad luck. Every year, they know it wasn't him, but they let him hold himself responsible. I remember that this used to make me crazy, the lack of justice, of clear conclusion about who was or wasn't responsible. He'd tell me that nothing really mattered because the sun would destroy us one day. Then he'd tell me that everything mattered, because the sun would destroy us one day.

For her first few Christmases, my daughter was an only child, or too young to see her sister as a person and not an additional pet. Not long after she turns five, me and her and my little brother who isn't so little anymore go to visit the stones near the tall grass that used to cut my shins like razor blades. I tell him that I think I'm the one who spilled the pudding, and there's a moment where he doesn't remember this at all.


WWW / RUB MY EYES / SUMMER SUN						I'm told that every single person is born into a context of stories that make sense of their interactions with the world. My parents have known each other since my mother was born, when they both lived in Kalmar, and she first visited the house that my great grandfather built with his hands when we were still called Nilsson. Our parents let us name each other, and by that I mean they let one of us (you can guess which) choose a middle name for everybody, which feels something like a family tradition. I'm related to every other person on the planet named Skarsgård, born from a group of brothers who invented a surname from what only the very generous would call the village they belonged to. In the greatest of my delusions, I say that I'll never have a reason to live anywhere but Stockholm, but I know that the place they'll bury me is on the island that devoured the blood of every childhood injury, the island that is waiting for me to come home. My dad is the Alex of his siblings, the oldest of five (with a smaller but no less crazy age gap between him and the youngest), and every year they debate who really ate the last of the risgrynsgröt the year that my uncle (which uncle this refers to also changes by year) and weirdly never my aunt, in the same way that it's never my sister to blame, accidentally almost burnt the house down. I'm an atheist in a family of them, but there are things you do because they feel familiar, because the people who are buried on Öland whose headstones stick out of the ground like jagged teeth with runes you can still feel with your fingertips when you close your eyes did it for a thousand years before you were born and the people around you will do it for a thousand years after you die – someone sets the pudding out for the farm gnome at Christmas so that he doesn't get angry and do things that bring misfortune. The first year she remembers visiting, she's tagging along with her own older brother. My uncle and my dad grew up together, their bond outlasting my parents' marriage by almost two decades and counting. The first year she remembers going to what eventually becomes a joint summer vacation spot, shared between all of the siblings, it's a place with fewer memories, and my mom gets the almond in her pudding. When this happens, she's too young to get an almond, really, and marry within the year, but that year, my dad also gets one in his. This is against the rules, even in the land of compromise: no duplicates in your fortune. So begins a joke that is less a joke when they start dating, but hurts when things reach their end and five decades of knowing turns to unknowing. Sometimes I think it's the year before we learned that my mom had cancer, but maybe it's the year of the separation. Both years we live in the same apartment she lives in now, surrounded by family in every direction. My (then youngest) brother is equal parts too little and never a good enough cook to make risgrynsgröt on his own, but in the determination to overcome youth (his and mine and our sister's), tiredness (mom's and Sam's), and absence (Alex's and dad's and Gus's), he forms an approximation, setting out soggy grains fresh from the bag and dumped into a bowl of water with syrup on top. Nobody sees it get knocked over, but the next morning it's Pollocked its way across the floor, the misshapen trinket from the middle now cracked in half. After a morning and afternoon of debate (and always with a glass of wine), dad takes the blame, every year, choosing to be the scapegoat for the bad luck. Every year, they know it wasn't him, but they let him hold himself responsible. I remember that this used to make me crazy, the lack of justice, of clear conclusion about who was or wasn't responsible. He'd tell me that nothing really mattered because the sun would destroy us one day. Then he'd tell me that everything mattered, because the sun would destroy us one day. For her first few Christmases, my daughter was an only child, or too young to see her sister as a person and not an additional pet. Not long after she turns five, me and her and my little brother who isn't so little anymore go to visit the stones near the tall grass that used to cut my shins like razor blades. I tell him that I think I'm the one who spilled the pudding, and there's a moment where he doesn't remember this at all.