Chapter 4: Malm?ite — Vanessa Asell Tsuruga

It was the end of October 2020, and I was trying to declutter my many me’s. A year when the inner symbiosis got shaken up, I figured that listing and defining my roles — and responsibilities! — could help decipher who I was as a person. Who I wanted to be.

Read the full Letter from the author here.

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: Me

Chapter 2: Madame Butterfly

Chapter 3: Magazine editor

Each chapter has six segments:

Meaning: Definition of role?

Map: So wait, how did I get here?

Milestone: The enablers that made it possible?

Magic: Highlight moments

Missing: Challenges, regrets, and missed opportunities

More: What is still to come

Meaning

baby girl born in Malm?, in the Sk?ne province of Sweden

Map?

Many times in conversations with my globetrotter mover friends, I’ve thought about how important one’s birthplace is when as a matter of fact you had absolutely nothing to do with it. It makes you who you are. I am from ______. I was born in ______.

Usually, my answer to the above is that I am from Sweden. I was born in Malm?. You see, they overlap but they do not match. In my case, it stems from me leaving Malm? at the age of one. From there onwards, my life had little to do with my birthplace. The literal meaning, birthplace, is a constant but emotionally I do not have the connection I wish I had.?

At the time of my birth, my parents were living on Kornettgatan street. This precise location has followed me in administrative documents over the years. St Pauli parish was in my passport because that is where I, as soon as I screamed my first scream, belonged.

My parents had no prior connection to Malm?, other than work. They were in their late twenties. When work offered new horizons closer to the capital up north, they moved. And I followed along. In a Volvo.?

Sometimes I envy people who lived in one place their whole life. From my point of view their life seems void of longing, or of acting on impulse to move. To change. To pick up and settle elsewhere. From the beginnings in Malm?, I have enjoyed a five-year moving cycle. I am unsure whether you make a cycle or the cycle makes you. I keep pedaling. When four years come up in one place, I start looking at the bigger world outside my window. And come to think of it, this is exactly what I was doing in my second home in the Sk?ne province of Sweden. I was standing in the window, calling out the first word I ever learned. Tractor. Schlako, as I pronounced it. My views pushed for expansion. The cycle began.

Milestone

I returned to the place I left at one some four decades later. In the spring of 2020, to be exact.?

I had released my Swedish debut novel F?rg?tmigej f?r alltid on International Women’s Day and I was looking for someone to translate it to English. Half brain, half heart, translating fiction goes far beyond the technical knowhow based on vocabulary. Translation is a skillset. Being bilingual does not mean you are a translator.?

After throwing out a few questions on Facebook and LinkedIn, I came across Svengard & Co, a Sweden-based duo who had just set up their business. Maja, a Swede, Dave, a New Yorker. And guess what, based in Sk?ne, the province I had left in the late 1970s. We began a partnership, grounded in mutual goals of each growing our repertoire — I was going to self publish Forget-me-not Forever, while they wanted more translation jobs moving forward.

Through weekly Zoom calls I connected back to my beginnings. I lived their seasons, ate their kanelbulle cinnamon buns, and celebrated our accomplishment from afar when I released my book, on time, on schedule, on October 1, 2020. My house in Tokyo was pumped with happiness, eating sushi, and dancing to Avicii.

In an ever changing world, one’s birthplace is a constant. And while it may not be a location we visit often, we definitely travel there in our minds from time to time. During these journeys, it all makes sense. A moment of clarity. A sense of place. Thank you Malm?, for making a return in my life.

?

Magic

Let’s stick to the location of Malm?. The storytelling has more to it.

I mentioned that my family had sushi and danced to Avicii on the night of my book release. Both worlds came together. Japan and Sweden. And on a more granular level, my birthplace came into the picture. The Swedish to English translators, Maja and Dave, had invited a journalist from Norra Sk?ne newspaper to their office to tell their story of an American-Swedish couple settling in southern Sweden after a few years in Brooklyn. The news peg was the launch of my book.?

Somewhere before the sushi, the journalist turned to me and asked me a few questions over Zoom. A few days later I was featured in the Norra Sk?ne newspaper.

Life had come full circle. A journalist in the place I was born telling my story.

The once upon a times of one’s life are all waiting to be written. If we stay on track, the beginning and the end will connect, via a lifetime of a million words in between. Yes, a cycle.

Missing

To be totally honest, Malm? itself is missing from my story. I hardly ever speak about it. It is not part of my identity. I don’t even know the city that well at all. I was born in Malm? in the south of Sweden, and that’s where my self introduction often ends. I don’t delve. Sometimes when I know it can make an impact I throw in that it is Zlatan’s hometown.?

Malm? is a case of being left out because I have strengthened my strengths. Let me explain what I mean. When prompted to say a city they associate me with, most friends will say Barcelona. Almost one hundred percent for sure. Barcelona has become a large piece of who I am because I became a large piece of who I am in that city. Five formative teenage years. When I go shopping – which rarely happens because it’s an overwhelming experience – I will hold a piece of apparel and ask myself: Is this Barcelona? Yes and I will probably buy it. What Barcelona is exactly is hard to pinpoint. It is magical. Magic.?

Malm? will never be magical to me in the same sense. But it is a rock that formed my beginning. On a trip in 2013, I picked up and packed a cobblestone lying around in a big pile. I am sorry Malm? if you are missing a piece. But it did make me complete. It has a prominent place in my home in Japan. Real. Tangible. Heavy. In our move from Kobe to Tokyo, the cobblestone disappeared. It was no more. That is exactly what is missing. My Malm? cobblestone. Then it appeared again. My heavy heart lightened.?

More

I want to nurture my new contacts in my birthplace. Hometown and birthplace by the way, are they the same thing? Even if they were, I am not comfortable calling Malm? my hometown.?

Over the last few years I have worked with Anders Eklund, a film producer based in Sk?ne. I was executive producer of Beyond Champions, an eight-episode series featuring global ASICS sponsored athletes. Moving stories of great athletes. The filming took us to Tokyo, Cape Town, London, Miami, Portland, Atlanta, and Stockholm.?

I am certain Maja, Dave, and I will cook up more things going forward. Our trio has that extra something.

During the pandemic, I approached WAPI, Word Audio Publishing International, with Mattias Lundgren at the helm. Started by a couple of musicians who knew their sounds well and looked to expand, WAPI is a very profitable company in Sweden providing audiobooks. They declined taking my two novels into their audiobook portfolio.

From afar, I supported the creative talent brewing in my birthplace. And became part of it too.?

To be continued.?

Once the conversation spreads beyond the words you are now reading, positivity and empathy are key. BE KIND. Bring value and relevance to the discussions. Be helpful. Encourage one another. Highlight trends. Share case studies, resources, and your network.

Together, let’s #TalkAboutGoingPlaces.

I’ll be bringing you new chapters regularly.

Until soon,

Vanessa ?sell Tsuruga