For the communicator Moa, Luleå enables her sense of being present
The communicator from Stockholm, who studied at Berghs, grew tired of conversations about jobs and mortgages and longed for something different. In Luleå, she has found what she was looking for. "Here, you can socialize without having to overplan life or pay a fortune just to meet in town. There's more space to be in the present. I heard the world's best expression during a yoga class recently. "härvaro". That's Luleå for me," says Moa Szybalsky Hjalmarstål.
Stockholmer Moa Szybalsky Hjalmarstål doesn't regret moving to Luleå.
– Here, you get more life for your money, on all levels, and we work to live, not the other way around, she says.
She was born and raised in Gröndal in the southern part of Stockholm, but with a father from Kiruna, northern Sweden was not unfamiliar. All holidays during her childhood were spent there, with her grandmother and grandfather.
– It allowed so much play, just being able to run straight into the forest and jump into the water. This was before the advent of mobile phones, it should be added. In Fjällnäs, everyone knows everyone, or is related to each other, so there were no rules about where I could go in the same way as at home in Stockholm. I love that I am physically closer to Fjällnäs now; it's so fun to see my soon-to-be seven-year-old daughter Kali, during her breaks, running in the same hills as I did at her age, says Moa Szybalsky Hjalmarstål.
The journey to Luleå began in Thailand. There, she met Gustav, a Luleå resident who would cross her path several times. They met again in Sweden several times and became more enamored with each other than at that first meeting on the beach. But they were in different phases. Five years later, she, through a joking Facebook personal ad, got in touch with Gustav again. She had just graduated and been headhunted to a production company in Stockholm, and Gustav worked at a restaurant – in Luleå.
– I went up to meet him. He was at work when I landed but said I could just go to his place. The door was unlocked. I locked the door out of pure Stockholm habit, and when he came home, the first thing he said was, 'Why the hell did you lock it?' Maybe not the reunion I had envisioned, she says, laughing.
Despite years at art school, it is now mostly her daughter Kali who paints, but this fall, Moa plans to pick up the brushes again.
This time, they wanted the same things. It was March 8, 2013, and a year later, they were married.
– It was the fourth time lucky in a way. It felt reassuring for the future that we now had statistics showing that we always find our way back to each other, fall in love again, whether we are 20, 21, or 26.
However, Gustav made it clear early on that he would never move to Stockholm. So, if they were to live together in the same place, it would have to be Luleå, something that suited Moa well.
– I remember at the same time standing at Kåken in Stockholm and feeling that everyone I talked to eventually just melted into one and the same person. It was the same conversation about jobs, education, and clients. I felt that there must be more than this. I'm grateful that I got to be a young adult in Stockholm. But I'm really happy that I got to be even more of an adult here, she says.
Today, she lives with Gustav and their daughter Kali in the Svartöstaden residential area, with the steelworks as a neighbor on one side and the sea on the other.
– The first time I was there, I fell in love with all the lush gardens, Dylan was playing from some window we passed, and the beach was absolutely magical. I felt that I want to live here. Svartöstaden reminds me a lot of Gröndal, which in turn is located by Cementa and Mälaren. I usually say that I thrive best between industry and water.
In Svartöstaden, there is a strong sense of community, Moa Szybalsky Hjalmarstål says, noting that people in the area keep an eye on each other's children and almost take collective responsibility for them. Moreover, there is incredible drive in the area, where the interest association annually organizes yard sales, pub nights, concerts, and beach events for children, she adds. The annual Halloween celebration now attracts a lot of people from other parts of the city.
– We live near the water, so just go down there in a bathrobe. I think that's how we'll be identified as 'Kali's parents' when she gets a little older, she says with a laugh before continuing:
– It feels like living in a Christmas card in winter and in a vacation spot in summer.
Since arriving ten years ago, she has worked at most of Luleå's advertising agencies as a copywriter, digital marketer, and project manager. She has also attended art school at Sunderby folkhögskola—where, after completing her education, she transitioned from participant to employee and took on the role of communications manager. She has worked for two tech companies and earned some university credits in pedagogical Swedish as a second language.
"There are incredibly fun employers up here. I also feel that you are given the conditions to really forge your own success here. Of course, it's also gratifying that there are significantly fewer up here, so far, with my degree in hand. In Stockholm, 28 people graduate with the exact same diploma every year—who then all apply for jobs in exactly the same places. It naturally means that I stand out in the job market in a different way here
Since April, she has been working as a communicator responsible for the place brand at Luleå Municipality.
– I want to show that Luleå is a city where there is a lot of curiosity and openness. Both for new people and new ideas. People don't say 'no,' they say 'let's try.' I feel that there is a basic security, both in the residents and in the municipality—a confidence that we know we are good, and now we want to show it to the whole world. Everyone fits in here. All the conditions for 'presence' are here," says Moa Szybalsky Hjalmarstål.
Text och bild: Vinter