Jan 31, 2016

Is this the legacy we want?

Sweden is making headlines all over the world this week. During 2016 we will send back 80 000 refugees applying for asylum in Sweden. Is this the legacy we are aiming for?

Late September I first wrote about the refugee situation in Sweden and Europe. I was upset about how Hungary were denying people who had been surviving crossing the Mediterranean, passing through the country, and the Finns creating human walls at the border between Sweden and Finland. I can’t believe how the politics in my country, all the Nordic countries and Europe has changed in only four months!

Norway establishes one of the toughest regulations in Europe when it comes to immigration. Sweden introduced ID controls on buses and trains (ferries were already a fact) on January 5. Only hours after, Denmark started checking IDs at the German border. Refugees are now taking taxi over Öresundsbron connecting Denmark and Sweden, and taxi drivers suddenly becomes traffickers! And Denmark threatens confiscating refugees assets, such as watches and jewelry, to pay for their stay in Denmark! This all is so twisted and wrong it makes me sick to my stomach, and it has nothing to do with my flue last week.

Transporters are fined if not doing the ID checks, in the same time the regulations for documenting the controls are vague. Swedes and Danes commuting over Öresund daily are counting several hours more for their commute, and business is already suffering. Even the Schengen Agreement is at risk because of the Swedish and Danish new regulations.

Rejecting 80 000 refugees isn’t a new decision. The regular number of denying asylum is about half of the applying, and as we had 160 000 during 2015, it adds up 80 000. The Swedish Police Authority is very concerned, since they even a normal year are failing to send off a large number of the refugees denied to stay here. And then there is another and very severe problem: most of the home countries people are leaving because of the terror and wars won’t let their citizens in. So where are they supposed to go?!

The Nordic countries are putting up their fences. It seems to work. There are less people at our borders. Meanwhile men, women and children are drowning in the cold January waters of the Mediterranean. And I feel ashamed. How did we end up here? Who are we? What happened? 

Jan 24, 2016

Canceling

For the first time I am canceling the show. Stomach flue. Beware and take care.

Jan 17, 2016

Acknowledging the last 30 years.

It would have been around a quarter past 3PM. The date I am sure of. January 13 1986.

It was a stressful day at the pre school where I was a teacher. My colleagues were sick and I was alone with a sub who's was doing her first day. Carpenters did some work in the kitchen and the place was a mess. We had just cleaned the tables efter the afternoon snack. I was seven months pregnant and that morning I was informed of some labs, it turned out I had developed diabetes. Hopefully that would go away after the pregnancy, it still was bad news though.

The children were running around as they always did that time of day, afternoon tired and all. In the midst of all that I had a contraction. A cramp that didn’t want to ease out. It just stayed there. And the contraction sort of moved further, to the left side of my upper back. The stomach contraction eased out after a while but not the one in the back. Stuck.

I remember thinking that I would lie down on the couch when most of the children had been picked up, certain that the cramp would let go. But it didn’t. Home in the evening, sure a night’s sleep would solve the problem. It did not. The upper back cramp was still there in the morning. Every morning. I never returned to work before my first child was born. And that was the start of my career as a back pain patient and a very different life.

I am often thinking it is a blessing how we don’t know anything about the future. “If I just lie down and rest this will ease out (and I will be as I am used to being, back to normal)”. Was my ignorant thought, and why would I think something else? If someone had told me in that moment:

 “No my dear, this will never ease out. This is the start of a pain that will be your companion for the rest of your life. It will grow worse and finally cripple you so you won’t be able to take care of yourself.  You will not be able to carry that little baby you are waiting for, nor his brother. And you will be constantly tired, having very little patience and always feeling like a bad mother”. 

If someone had told me that.

It’s been 30 years now. Exactly half my life. Do I want to call that an anniversary?

Half my life. Although it feels like all my life. I don’t remember what it was like being pain free. I know I was. I had a life where I did everything people do. A normal life. Including loving dancing and going downhill black slopes in the Alps. I know I did. Watching downhill competitions on TV I can feel the movements in my body. I feel my thighs burn at the end of the slope. As I can feel the floating freedom watching people dance. 

But, it’s like there is a gorge. Where my before-pain-life ended and the next part of my life started. They are not connected. It’s like the before-life was someone else's life. And my guess is that’s why I feel there was nothing before the pain. Like the pain has been there all my life.

How am I doing today, on this 30-year anniversary, what’s my status? Well, I have been in one of my better periods for a while, for which I am very grateful. A little bit more moveable and my body less scared. These last days I have been able to extend my (accompanied) walks all the way to the creek. It has been fantastic. Last time that happened was exactly a year ago. Four walks at that time. Four walks now. But today I got worse. So we’ll see if four January walks is a pattern.

I am not complaining though. Other than that and since this summer very problematic feet, I am healthy. I am well. But this week I feel a need to acknowledge these past 30 years.

Jan 10, 2016

The joyful process of film-making

On Wednesday it happened. All the edited sequences in order on the timeline. And hey, only two hours, what a relief!

For the last 2,5 years I have been working on a film, on commisson. A portray of Krister Olsson, owner of Balticgruppen and The Developer in/of Umeå. For different reasons it came to be a slow process and has been a great companion to me.

Producing a documentary film is a process in many steps. Research, planning the shoots, the shooting, going through the material (naming the sequences and files, writing protocol to make it easy to navigate the material), putting together the script for editing, and finally the editing.

The film is actually two stories. The one about Krister Olsson, and the one about his latest project Väven, the new waterfront building for cultural arts in Umeå. And the two stories are told parallel.

Earlier, when a film was shot on a video band with a certain length, you new exactly how much material there was. 8 hours, 12 hours, 16. Today, as footage is stored on memory cards and hard drives it is impossible to know. In this project, it was a lot, that I knew for sure though.

The other thing was, I was certain the footage was really good. The building process of Väven is fascinating och the about 20 persons interviewed about Krister Olsson, all delivered. In a way both a nightmare and a dream to dig in to for finalizing.

To me, getting ready for traveling and putting together a story is very much related. You have a deadline. You need to be on the airport a certain time and you have a date for the broadcast or delivery to the client. And the time up until the deadline is basically packing too much stuff in a way too little space. This is the time when deadline nightmares show up in my sleep. They are all like being too late in the studio for a live cast or having to throw out things from my luggage at the airport. Horrible!

Every step in the process of film making has it’s own deadlines and consequently it’s own nightmares. But I also love every step! The research when I get to know the subject and ideas for how to tell the story comes. The planning for the shoots (it’s becoming real!), the shoots (it’s happening!), going through the footage (yes, it’s there and it’s looking good!), writing the script ( this was what I had in mind and it seems like it’s working!) and finally the editing. Yes the editing.

For me editing is pure pleasure. And has always been. In the old days while putting together a radio story, literary feeling it finding it’s form in my hands. At the TV station, in company with super experienced editors in the cozy dark of the editing room. And now, together with my youngest son in my bright downstairs office.

I am an organized person alway well prepared. And I often have a clear picture of where I am going. But I also love and need the input of my crew, and the collaboration with the person doing the actual cutting is crucial. At the editing table that’s where the story comes to life. What’s been an idea in my head and on paper will now be tested. Will it work? Will it really work?

In this case, we started putting together the themes for the interviews and I could tell right away that they would be very interesting. And way way too long! The second round we managed to cut them considerably but we were still far from what would work from a viewer’s perspective. There was also the story about Väven and different parts to add which would make this a motion, a flow, a journey, a film.

 The deadline nightmares began rolling in during sleep. And I had a constant pressure over my chest. On Wednesday all the sequences were edited and done, and we started putting them on the timeline in the editing system. Adding one to another. In order, the way we are thinking it would work the best. Part to part. Piece by piece. I glanced at the time code at the end of the last sequence. 2 hours and 5 minutes.

How can that be a relief? Two hours is a really long film! Yes, but the truth is I could have made a series in three one hour episodes out of this material and it would still have been interesting. And although we had cut the interviews more than I wanted I had expected to land on three hours at our first stop on the timeline. So two hours is manageable and really good news! Now, the intention of course is to edit the film down even more, but believe me, we have already killed so many darlings there is probably a separate heaven for them somewhere. 

I can’t say though, how much I am enjoying this part of my work. To watch the story unfold on the timeline. To compose it. To find the rhythm. To see how the idea I started out with 2,5 years ago (which I had been pitching for 9 years) becomes the film I have been dreaming of and hopefully a story Krister Olsson will appreciate and be proud of. The gift he intended for his children and grand children.

Jan 1, 2016

2016, my bucket list year

Roses are exploding the cover of my journal for this new year. Roses in strong, crisp and powerful colors. Finding that journal I felt energy and inspiration running into my body. Yes, this will be my 2016 journal! This is what I want to hold in my hands and close the day with! This is what I need to take me through this year, the year when I am turning 60. And starting my life without my support and guide Eva. And will be done with a big film project I’ve been working on for 2,5 years. The feeling of 2016 at that time was an empty hole.

It sounds silly, but I really think it was the rose covered journal that changed the energy. Suddenly I felt like there could be something in there. Yes, Eva won’t be there, but maybe I am strong enough now to do this by myself? And the film will be done, but it will give me time on my hands and what can I do with that? I am turning 60, but might I also turn that into a good thing? Can I make my 60-year anniversary the year of my bucket list?

I do have a bucket list. For obvious reasons my bucket doesn’t contain mountain climbing and traveling the world. My bucket needs to contain things within reach, as well as I could preferably handle them myself. The latter is somewhat hard to fulfill, but there is actually this one thing I think could work. And that happens to be my priority nr.1.

In 2002 I had a photo show at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. It was big, 44 B&W pictures and 8 color, and it was commissioned by the museum. In 2007 the regional museum in Umeå, Västerbottens museum, also put up it up for display.

The show is pictures from Seattle and my little Swedish village in the woods, and the name is Away is Home, Home is Away. It was produced in a basement at Boyer Avenue and a laundry room under the roof of my Swedish in the woods-home. For years now, the show has been stored in boxes in my office, which is too bad because I am actually really proud of my work.

The pictures are now digitalized (thank you Trouble & Trouble + girlfriends!), waiting on a hard drive for me to start the next part of their lives. The prio nr.1 on my bucket list is to make a book out of the show. I have all the parts since the display, texts in Swedish and English, it’s just putting it together. I don’t imagine there is much of an audience for Seattle and a small Swedish village, so the idea is very few copies, basically one for me and one for each son. And that’s gonna happen!

Nr. 2 is another book. The original idea was putting together texts I have written over the years (not the blog) accompanied by my photography, arranged for every text. But as I can’t shoot any more I would love Trouble 1 to illustrate for me. Which means it’s not entirely in my hands. So we’ll see.

Nr. 3 is even more tricky. Since my early twenties I have written quite a few songs. At first I was writing lyrics to existing music, but over the years I have come to create a number of melodies too. They are folksy ballads, except for the ones in English which are more ballads than folksy. At the soon to be age of 60 I feel it’s time to sing them. I really really would like to sing them. I am not so concerned about my voice any more, I feel it’s more about telling the stories. But to do that, I would need to find one or two musicians who would like the idea of my stories too. And there I am lost. And too embarrassed to bother anyone with my bucket dream.

Well, there is much more on my list of course. I feel though, that the idea of realizing these long carried projects is something really valuable to hold on to. To look forward to. To be determined about. To visualize and hopefully, to realize. I am setting my goal to make my 60 year-anniversary year, my fulfilling of the bucket list year. And I even feel a little bit excited!

PS. Of course turning 60 is a good thing! I had a cancer scare right before Christmas, but I was spared this time. I am okay, relieved and very grateful and happy to still be here and going towards 60.