It is rather cold to swim in March

We have an expression for it in Swedish; the PrippsBlå-summer. It is the idea of summer perfection, where one hangs out with a group of friends; swimming, boating, eating, drinking and, most of all, laughing. It can for example look like this. And yes, it is a beer commercial. This commercial catches a very powerful wish of belonging and it goes well together with the precious summer time when the evenings are bright and we start living again after months of cold weather, non-social activities and lack of day-light. 

I had one of those evenings earlier this summer and it was a very memorable one. It made me wish that those gatherings should happen more often and it is easy to assume that the atmosphere has something to do with perfect conditions. What is hard to remember is that even though that evening had every ingredient of the PrippsBlå-summer, it also contained loads of other things; interruptions, non-listening, resent and defense. However, in the moment it didn't matter, since the sense of belonging was so strong.

I once read that the actual commercial was filmed in March and any Scandinavian knows that there is nothing lovely with a swim in March. Which means that the commercial isn't fully what it looks like. As reality. It doesn't take the value out of that evening, though. On the contrary; when I managed to take away the wish for perfection, I had quite many of those evenings this summer. Belonging is a somewhat powerful feeling. It is still rather cold to swim in March...