To the Gyllebo Lake

Me in you
You in me 
 
We’re walking through the terrain and the woods, a bright and warm day in early September. We throw our clothes off and ourselves in you. Swimming out naked only embraced by the soft water. We’re in you, you are me, again. 
 
You are quite small and surrounded by beech forest, big, beautiful and protective trees, where the wind plays with the branches.
 
You are where I first bathed as a baby. Where I played with my parents and brother in your water. Where I explored along your shore, seeing and touching stones, sticks and leaves. Where your water was warm. 
We used to leave our things close to a big tree on the beach. Have a blanket both in shadow and sun. I sat in my mum’s lap, and she was stroking my hair. 
 
I look inside of me, and I see you lying there calm and safe, you seem to be beyond time, but wherever I go, you’re a part of my time. 
 
I’m the same but I’ve changed so much. Where and how have I travelled up to this point? And your water’s journey, to come here? 
What have we needed to filtrate, and where are we going? 
 
Eels are travelling from the Sargasso Sea to Europe, finding a body of sweet water where they spend most of their lives, 10–25 years, until they one day go through their last metamorphosis and once again cross The Atlantic Ocean, this time to mate and die.  
In the rivers and streams to and from you live the endangered thick-shelled river mussel. It lives from organisms in the water and can filtrate up to 40 litres per day, which also improves your water’s quality. I’m longing for drinking you. 
 
I remember going to you with my brother Ingo and our friend Kristin. 
It was middle or late summer and we were all teenagers. 
I remember the feeling of the water, warmer than the air, it was late in the evening when we arrived to you, and even later when we came home. 
My dad had a friend visiting, this was after the divorce, they were sitting in the kitchen talking and drinking wine. 
 
You are in constant movement and transformation, the water is changing, always new and never new at the same time. Already handling huge amount of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.  
To be polluted, poisoned or controlled are threatening you. Norms and oppressive structures threaten to control and limit our lives. 
 
I never saw him cry, but I saw him drink himself drunk every evening. 
How do we mirror each other into transforming the effects of patriarchy?
 
You’re existing for yourself, in your own right. 
I so far know little about how you want to be, but I know that you want to be yourself, with multiple systems making it what it is to be yourself. 
I want to be wild and beautiful, like you.
I want to be the way I want to. 
Waterful, vulnerable, mysterious, open, playful, beautiful and wild. 
I for sure, want to get to know you more. 
 
This place, you, this is where I first bathed as a baby. 
 
After the dip we are all sitting in a ring on the beach and I’m showing a photo of me and my mum, she’s holding me. This place, you, this is where I first bathed as a baby. 
 
I need to flow, filtrate, evaporate and pour down. 

Keywords
The Gyllebo lake, You, Water, Baby, Time, Journey, Here, The Atlantic Ocean, Rivers, Streams, Filtrate , Movement, Transforming, Wild, Vulnerable, Flow

About the author
Stefan Andersson is a Swedish theatre and performance artist. He has just completed a MA in Performance at Akademi for Scenekunst in Fredrikstad, Norway. His aim is to deepen his research and explorations with water and fluids, the circulation of water both in nature and in humans and other animal’s bodies, and the constant transformation of water: how can we work in, with and along water, in performance to highlight these topics? Both for critical questioning and healing. He has a background in independent theatre companies in Sweden.