After Life interrupted

"Where is Shrimp? Our fluffy darling Shrimp disappeared Friday evening September 25th. He's only 4 months old. The fur... "

Sneaking off into the cold during a lengthy film rendering session can be a lovely thing and an hours walk at Långholmen do wonders. That's what I did last Friday, leaving the snugness of Filmcentrum Stockholm and going out for a camera and Ella tête-à-tête. My cameras never disappoint, and I'm trying to improve my mastership. One day. I need my slow pace.

I loved feeling this chill nestling its' way up my bones. It's a chill of my childhood when there was snow and ski trips and toboggans and a family that is now reduced to three out of five. Oh I can't take thinking about it, it makes me so sad. I try consoling myself by the aspect of time, human condition and so on, but it doesn't help. It only increases the feeling of sadness.

This weekend Glenn and I began watching After Life, a film I've never seen but only heard great things about. I was quite unprepared for the greyness, monotonicity and bureaucratic side of it, not to say that made it worse. What I had imagined I'm not sure, perhaps something white and glossy or my childhood's Christian heaven that keeps haunting me, complete with clouds, mist, St Peter, iron gates and a never ending dark space, ready to succumb and swallow.

However, we stopped in the middle and kinda drifted off. I was so deeply moved by these memories, especially the egglike little lady who was in a constant nine years old.

Memories isn't easy, especially the loss of them. When a person dies what do you actually lose? This is a question I've pondered at length, but that I'm not sure I'll get into here. I'm kinda saving myself for a future movie script. I think memories and the death of a memory would be a great topic for a film. Though hard to write, on both a personal and skills level.

My point is, I started as I assume everybody who watches this film does, pondering what memory I would choose for my after life, and I do think it would be one of the ski trips me and my family did on the fields behind our house. Märsta that I come from is a bundle of 60's ugliness (not the good 60's, but the mediocre mass produced 60's, I'm not even talking Bredäng charm or nothing) surrounded by farms and fields. The fields themselves are surrounded by ditches that you need to somehow - jump or climb - cross to continue and get into the woods.

Oh the open sky, the skiing overalls, the family that is long since gone. Our dog, an enormous strong New Foundland. The sound of snow, the cars disappearing in the distance. The sense of speed and recognition. The tree trunk where we'd stop for hot cocoa and cheese and prickig korv sandwiches. I can barely write this, it's too hard.

I just might have to watch this film to the very end. And one day write my script. I already began once, too soon after my father's death, and it turned into mush. "Private but not personal" or "art but not therapy" I believe in.