Podcast: Tankespjärn

The wonderful Helena Roth asked me to join her for a series of five conversations for her Tankespjärn podcast, and of course my first question: what’s Tankespjärn? Here’s how she frames it:

“Tankespjärn consists of two words: Tanke means thought. Spjärn means to resist, to brace against, to use as a starting point upwards/onwards.

As a word-mashup, tankespjärn points to those moments where you hear or see or learn about something, and your face scrunches up, and you go Huh? because what you just heard, saw or learned simply doesn’t fit within the framework of your current understanding of reality.”

I love it. We wandered. We explored completely unchartered ground. Helena has a gentle way of teasing out still-simmering thoughts and granting a license to bring them to the surface. Lately, for me, it’s how my changing context shifts my take on so much: grief, identity, human resilience. It’s so tectonic I almost wish I could rewrite Notes for the Everlost, or add one last chapter. We change around our books, shifting our perspective. The world changes around our books, shifting their meaning. As authors we need to honour what they are, a version of us frozen in still-life. But ultimately, we can’t amend them. That’s why we need to write new ones.

Here’s how Helena sums up our first of five conversations:

“We touch upon houses (have you ever had a house look down its nose at you, for instance?) and character, but also history, touching on the big events that we read about in textbooks. But more specifically, pointing to the import of the tiny stories, the unremarkable lives, the everyday reality of all those that came before us. Prepare for a few rants too, at least some of which I am certain will shower your day with some (possibly sought-after) tankespjärn!”