A while back, I wrote briefly about "Pippi Longstocking", a book I got as a gift from a German friend. It's famous in Europe - especially Germanic countries -

I’ve never read the book, but I got an idea – the exploits of a little girl who triumphs over her fears and anxiety, has superhuman powers but seldom uses them and is a bit of a wild, untamed spirit. Pippi is attached to her home and her (very) few friends, but takes a trip every now and then with her father aboard the Hoptoad.

The interesting question for me is what happens to Pippi when she grows up?

The easy answer is Pippi will never grow up, because she doesn’t want to. She’ll probably take on Father Time with her superhuman abilities and most likely win; after all, she fought policemen who were going to take her to an orphanage against her will..

I think I got an answer: I’ve met her. And today is her birthday. I was going to write on her wall “Grattis på födelsedagen!”, and I actually did, only to realise that everybody will and already did wish her the same thing. I could wish her the Sugarcubes song, but that would most likely remind her of some Chilean symbol:

She lives in this house over there,
has her world outside it.
Grapples with the earth with her fingers and her mouth,
she's [twenty]five years old.
Thread worms on a string,
keeps spiders in her pocket,
collects fly-wings in a jar
scrubs horse flies and pinches them on a line.
she's got one friend
He lives next door,
they listen to the weather,
he knows how many freckles
she's got,
She scratches his beard.
she's painting huge books,
glues them together,
They saw a big raven;
it glided down the sky,
she touched it.
Today's a birthday,
they're smoking cigars,
he got a chain of flowers,
Sows a bird in her knickers,
they're smoking cigars*,
lie in the bathtub,
chain of flowers.

* – in an MMORPG

Maybe, to make it more personal, I should wish her a Romanian song (MP3, trilulilu) by Alexandru Andries.

Perhaps I should write for her a poem, but I won’t. I’ll just tell you that her eyes are beautiful and green and sometimes blue and blink far too often for my liking. I discovered, however, that the blinking stops when I get really close and I peer deep into her soul. It is then when her pupils dilate, and yet she’s not afraid or petrified: she avoids the natural succession of steps.

Words don’t come easy to me, which is why to see the rest (possibly a poem) you will need a password.

I shared with her, before losing her, my Memories of Sweden (and with you everybody else, tomorrow next).

Sources / More info: ig, w-pl, 10-bd, aa-acasa