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.

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.

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.

Old time Christmases in remembrance

When I was a little girl, Christmas was a a crowded and sparkling three-day event. They all arrived the evening before Christmas Eve and filled every corner of the house until Annandag afternoon, the day after Christmas Day. Three generations, tons of food, fika and lots of presents.

My mother had a brother and a sister, Arne and Inga-Märta. We took turns celebrating Christmas in our home in Nordmaling south of Umeå, my uncle’s home in Robertsfors north of Umeå, and my aunt and grandma’s home in the city. We were six cousins, and then there were my mothers three great aunts. Altogether fifteen people under the same roof for three whole days. And it wasn’t like we had mansions, just regular homes, where did everyone sleep?!

In my home, the preparations for Christmas started early. The house needed to be cleaned from top to botton before the guests arrived, and decorations were not allowed until the house was shining and smelled from detergent and teak oil. But oh the joy of finally putting up the Christmas posters and of course decorating the tree.

Most of all though, the anticipation. The knowing it would happen, they would soon be there! Later I put a name on that anticipation, the Pär and Lena-feeling. Pär and Lena are my cousins and there was nothing more fun in this world than getting together with them. And now, three whole days, and it was Christmas!

Now, you should know that Christmas in Sweden is a lot of eating. 15 people were each day served breakfast, morning hours fika, lunch, afternoon fika, dinner and evening fika. You know by now fika is a sit down coffee/tea/lemonade with a cardamom bun and some cookie. But a Christmas fika is an overload of special Christmas cookies, served (by that time) at least twice a day. I thing the evening fikas might have been sandwiches. And then, of course, there was the Christmas candies too.

All this was cocked, handled and served by the three women in the family, my mother, her sister and my aunt Eva, married to Arne. My father, who was a pastry chef was somewhat involved too, I’m sure there also must have been a Christmas cake.

Trying to remember myself in all this, I have this feeling of us kids running around in our own universe while the grown ups were chatting and laughing, taking care of the kitchen, and there was always some table to be set or a table cloth to be shaken in the cold out the back porch door. The great aunts were often resting thanks God, cause I really disliked having to be polite putting up with their conversations.

But, in spite of the great aunts, Christmases were heaven to us children. Imagine being together from the minute you are waking up until you are forced to bed for three whole days! Then again, imagine the emptiness when having to separate, watching the tale light of the cars disappearing down the snowy street.

I am recalling all this, this Christmas. Christmas Eve was here, at the end of the road. We were unusually few this year. First time without Trouble 1 who spent Christmas withs his girlfriend Fay’s family. So we were only six here, very calm and relaxed. And as we have put the early morning Christmas service -julottan- to rest, there was no singing to prepare (quite strange) and we could stay up as long as we wanted (quite nice).

But when we split for the evening, it was still only for a few hours, because on Christmas Day my aunt Eva had invited all my relatives for a Christmas fika! The great aunts are of course long gone, and so is my mother and father and my uncle Arne. But Evas apartment was crowded, warm and full of Christmas cookies and candies. It pretty much felt like an old time Christmas this year.

And what about Annandagen? Well I guess I am not a little girl anymore. I felt quite happy on my couch drowsily and accidentally watching a parade of seventies dance movies on TV by myself.

Letting go of a life line

When does this story start? When my father died? When an old friend found me in a dreadful state of mind? When I was born?

Yesterday I closed the door to her practice behind me for the very last time. It’s almost impossible to grasp.

Let’s call her Eva. She was a 50-year birthday gift from an old high school friend. He and I got together after many many years. At that time my self image was so distorted I didn’t think I had a right to exist. The year before, when my father died at the same time as my ex husband and life companion got on with his life, I promised my sons to find someone to talk to. 

I did, and it was a disaster. I left every session in tears, feeling even more deserted and completely lonely in the world. I expected therapy to be tough so I forced myself to go back every week, until an old colleague one day found me crying in the rain at the parking lot afterwards, telling me this wasn’t right. Tough yes, but not devastating. How would I know? There is a downside to being persistent.

This was when my high school friend and I got together. He was very concerned about me and told me about Eva who he had been seeing for some time. Would I like to meet with her?

I was burned. And it was with great fear I decided to make a new try letting someone into my bleeding wounds. But I did.

For a long time I had been aware of the need to look at myself and the circumstances in my life, such it had been and such it was. I knew, if I started doing so, it would be for ten years, possibly the rest of my life. Eva and I have had 9,5 years together now.

She has been the exact opposite to my first, I would say traumatizing, experience. Eva is a warm and loving woman with no need putting up a cold distance to her client. I have never felt diminished and belittled, never evaluated and judged. Eva has the wisdom of an old soul and no high horses to sit on. She knows that she doesn’t have all the answers. She is a fellow human being who has made her own path in the labyrinth of counseling and therapy, and me, in my turn have given her to many friends around me.

There is this movie, Shall We Dance?. Susan Sarandon is the wife hiring a PD (Richard Jenkins) to spy on her husband (Richard Gere), when he starts acting out of character.  In one philosophical scene the wife asks the PD why he thinks people marry. Out of passion?, he says. No, she responds, we marry because we need a witness to our life.

Depending on what life has brought me these last 9,5 years I have seen Eva once a week or every other. She has been my guide, my support and my friend. Not outside the practice of course, but in her warm and safe room she has been my friend. She has been with me through everything I’ve been through, she has watched it all. She has been the witness to my life.

Whatever happened in my life, and God knows it’s a lot, there has always been Thursday. When I got to curl up in Eva’s warm corner to share. To let it all out, to let go and give in, to learn and get perspective, to look deeper, to strengthen myself, and to be full accepted just as I am. Eva has, many times, been my life line.

But now, she is moving on. And it’s time for me to say good bye and thank you. And start my life without my Thursday routine.

Sweden, becoming a fortress

I am watching the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau welcoming the Syrian refugees. Giving them permanent residence permits at the airport terminal, social security numbers and health cards. Inviting them to become Canadians. Expressing it’s a wonderful evening. And I am thinking wow. It is possible!

I am not proud to be a European theses days. And I am ashamed to be Swedish. I am even ashamed about my city Umeå. In only a couple of months Sweden has moved from letting everybody in need in, to building a fortress. The national conservative party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) much despised opinions about refugees and immigration have in a very short time become politically okay and the Social Democrat/Green government this week agreed on a law which will definitely change the earlier polished image of Sweden for the worst.

The pressure from the masses fleeing from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan is high in the bottle neck passage between Denmark and Sweden. ID controls on the ferries is already a fact. And on the new year there will also be ID checks on trains and buses. The reason, in the this week passed proposition, is “a severe threat to public order and internal security”. And the purpose is to make less refugees come here, and transform Sweden to a less attractive country. What a goal.

A severe threat to public order and internal security. Now, this is interesting. 154 758 refugees have , this far, sought for asylum in Sweden 2015, twice as many as was predicted this summer. That’s a lot. And we weren’t prepared. Of them, about half the number, gets to stay in Sweden.

The situation at the south Swedish border is very difficult. Unaccompanied children get lost and vanishes. Malmö (Malmoe), where the peak pressure is, this week asked five other cities to let some of the pressure off, helping Malmö out, becoming transit locations for unaccompanied children. Umeå was one of them. All the cities except Umeå responded yes. Apparently we couldn’t handle it. Note that Umeå is scoring very low welcoming refugees in general. A city with the self image of being open and tolerant.

We can’t handle it. Public order.

Sweden is a well organized, well functioning and well being country. The tolerans for disorder is low. What we perceive as chaos might to others be serenity.

The word chaos is used a lot here these days. As well as out of control. The refugee situation is so chaotic and out of control that we need to take a breather.  That’s why the ID-controls on ferries, buses and trains. The Swedish government in the proposition this week even tried to sneak in the option closing Öresundsbron (the bridge connecting Sweden to Denmark) if necessary, but that one didn’t pass. And who is going to handle the ID checks? Well, people working on the buses and trains! Evaluating Middle Eastern drivers licenses!

I know the situation is extremely strained and I appreciate the concerns. It’s not ideal people being on the run from terror for months finally arriving in the country for their goal, having to sleep outside in the cold because there isn’t room for them inside. But it’s probably better than being rejected and sent away. 

It’s not ideal being offered beds in tents, but it’s a roof over the head and the tents are warm. It’s not ideal being too many in an asylum accommodation, but there is food and clothes. It’s not ideal starting school without interpreters, but the children get to meet Swedish kids having a chance for friends in the new country and learning the foreign language from there.

But we can’t handle it. And I would say it is not in concern over our guests in need not being treated as well as we expect us to do. It’s about our organized country being stirred up by the disorganized world coming here messing with our systems and protocol.

The now viral video of Justin Trudeau welcoming and dressing Syrians just out of the airplane is of course a well arranged photo op. The refugees look like they have had a make over already on the flight. And 25 000 people is not many for such a big country, but it’s more than the even bigger U.S. and a lot of the European countries. And the photo op is still real. The facts are real and the Canadian prime minister is expressing an open face, a warm heart and generosity.

In Europe, all I see now is strained shut down faces. Cold eyes. Building a fortress. Even my own country. And that, to me, is very painful. I am thankful, this Lucia Day, for the new Paris climate agreement sending a bright light telling that it’s actually possible for the world to come together. Thank you.

It's been three years now

3PM and the December darkness is falling with the semi cloudy sky behind my grandfather’s crummy mountain ashes as a back drop. I feel like those trees. Old. Beaten. A couple of them I have taken out already. The rest are way over due. Sad and week. The storms tend to make an end to rotten and hollow stems now and then. 

When I was a child, we had our hide away in a tree house in the sturdiest one. I can still feel the power in my body climbing up there, and the freedom on the platform in the greenery, sensing the movement of the tree. Looking at the world from above. Later, I let my family’s clothes dry on a line between two of them. Tiny colorful baby clothes, eventually transforming to over size black teen age t-shirts.  And of course there was a basket hoop. Those crummy trees carry life times. As I.

They are my view from the couch where I have lived my life for the past three years. Yes, it’s been three years now since my back crashed in such a bad way I have never recovered. That’s not what I pictured that day of course. I had crashed before, sometimes it lasted for a couple of weeks, once it took me six months to get back on my feet. But I always did. Not this time.

It was a huge step letting strangers into my house to help me out. It was giving in and letting go of my autonomy and power. But I had no choice. I had to save my children from being completely burned out taking care of me. And in Sweden society has to step in when you are in this kind of need.

But I have been, and still am, forced to fight for my rights. It is the City of Umeå who makes the decision about how much aid I am allowed. The officials are not too generous, and often heartless. I have even been to court in these matters, and lost.

My salvation is the company I am hiring for doing the job (which the City pays), a small local one, Civil Care. They have stood by my side all through these years and are doing everything they can to make my life as tolerable as possible.

So, what is it like, my life? Well, it’s basically tied up in strict routines and pain. I occasionally have better days, but I can’t cheer on those in public out of fear of the City cutting my aid. The treatments and different medications, which are an absolute necessity, are expensive and economy is a constant struggle and dread as my possibility of working is significantly restricted. During my better periods I sing in my choir, even though some of my alto colleagues’ patience with my coming and going and special arrangements is at it’s end. And, as I can’t get around and not plan for socials or throw parties and get togethers, I don’t really see or hear (with a few exceptions) from people any more. I’ve always seen keeping friendship as a job (which I was happy doing), and when I am not doing it, it doesn’t happen.

Do I sound bitter? Of course I am. Bitterness is a severely forbidden feeling, so shameful it’s generally hidden in the dark, disguised in looking from the bright side and smiles and things could be a lot worse and I’m okay and there is so much to be grateful for.

Which there is. Truly. During the last two years I have, in spite of my physical restrictions, been producing a documentary, a portray, an assignment it took me nine years to land. Extremely inspiring and rewarding. I live in a country which is for the most part safe and where taxes makes society take care of people in need, like me. Through Civil Care I have several new young friends in my life, and I get to see people every day. My sons are nearby and I am still in the house I love, my home on my grandparents home stead. And I did my final check up at the oncology this spring, after five years of treatment.

Still, of course I would choose a different life if it was within my control. I would have my meals at the kitchen table. I would take long walks and work out at the gym. I would sit at a regular chair during the choir rehearsal and stand through the concerts, like everyone else. I would put all the kitchen utensils in the right places. I would drive my convertible, top down, in the sun with the wind in my hair. I would hunt for and work more. I would go back to Seattle, make my temporary homes in my choice of neighborhood for the time, walk my favorite spots, drive my favorite routes, watch the sunset in Gasworks Park and Highland drive, put up a Seattle office and produce my film portrays there too, so many interesting people who have stories to tell! And I would travel to Italy, find my perfect place at the see and practice the Italian I’ve been studying every day for years now.

But most of all I would invite my children home for dinner. Cook something nice for them. Prepare the dessert. Take care of them. Pamper them. Adjust the screwed up upside-down relationship life has put us in. Be the mother and make them feel the safety coming home as my children.