Veil Two

The “Quest”ions of Swedes...& Filmic Images

As I sit alone in my room, light sprays across the wall with a spattering of color; prisms, like those pinned to the window of an earlier Pollyanna. They roll with some unseen breeze, moving the tiny chunks of rainbow, as do the crystals I’ve laced upon my window blinds...rocking to the left and to the right. Always with a soft twist.

I've been watching a movie that takes place in 1907; it's in Swedish and tells the story of a woman caught tight in a marriage that offers only hardship for she and her six children. Maria happens upon a camera, buried beneath family linens. She carries her curiosity to a camera shop where the owner gives her the slightest instructions on how to take a picture. Loaded with new knowledge and several blank photographic slates, she heads home. Photos of her children, the family cat and then a young girl who has just drowned, are among her first photos. Returning to the shop, the owner is delighted, asking for the deceased girls photo in exchange for future equipment. Eventually, Maria returns for more than film. Friendship.

The way the world looks thru the lens of a camera is sweet. It is still, distilled and resilient. This is one world that can be turned, lit and hued to become something new; only step back for the whole worldview. Sit with it, turning, sensing, tossing it to the sun and you will be rewarded with an image never experienced before. What world opened up to this Scandinavian mother in the film “Everlasting Moments?”^[1] And, what world opens to me, a camera coiffing woman, also of Swedish descent. If my heritage is to tell me something about my self and my inset responses, what can I learn from the water working Northerners that I so resemble, yet have only once visited? This is my “quest”ion to be answered, as I linger on, living with my ears and eyes open to those seemingly so like myself.

The film progresses and Maria finds esteem, revenue, pride through a photo purchased, taken at just the right time capturing just the right image. This event proves most valuable, as local newspapers thank her with her first financial freedom of cash. No matter the form that funds come in; yen, marks, dollars or krona, this cartoon-like paper and coin, offers more than flirtatious stimulation, instead, a full fruition of realized independence! And now, man returns home from another’s bed, war, or wine, and wife has moved on. His voice becomes muffled and ignored in his own home...she now wears both skirt and the pants in the family. Maria’s learning continues as success flames her passionate fire for perspective and clarity. Somehow the effort of standing tall doesn't take near the work it once did. Her pull - education becomes paramount to the leaving, less leaning. Her standing - pride becomes full to the brimming, less bewildering. And, her path - life becomes open to the stream of choices flowing towards freedom. How then does this film end?

The old and other, rises up trying one last time to take submission, shoving, forcing...threatening. But Maria pushes back, sometimes in ways that she’s not proud of, watching herself become someone else while those closest to her require the sameness to always be there for them.

Shop Owner, “What do you see when you look through the camera, Maria? You see a world there to be explored, to preserve, to describe. Those that have seen it...they cannot merely close their eyes. You can’t turn back.”

My...or I mean, Maria’s eyes, well with tears, then a sniff and a shrug like smile crosses our lips. Shop Owner is right. With the future clinging to our ankles things begin to fall apart. House, home and health all suffer, directly...or, in. Choices become more difficult for us all but clearly the path has been carved out through sadness or neglect...not easily erased or sheared by need. Desperation and dead ends accompany every move and unless an other steps in, there seems no end to this ending. Then, without the hint of expectation, the peripheral distraction, friend and temptation retreats...Piff, Paff, Poof!

The heart of the matter remains, the learned talent, new insight and subsidy of craft learned. Better this way...pure and clean. Alone but so busy with the other others, who no doubt are grateful in their own needy way, that all is relatively untouched, unchanged.

Not so for me, for we, for the every-woman, and every-person who’s suffered for their dreams, even when they weren’t their dreams to begin with. Suffering then succeeding, to absorb strength from the study while encouraging spirit and new lust for life.

9. Heart Day Lily

Both our hearts are weak, Maria and mine. And as the film comes to a close she succumbs to the darkest and dampest of dreams, unearthing my own fear.

Stricken with ill heart both in love and life I cringe and cry just for a moment, contemplating the when of my own eternal sleep. Alone again. So, Norse or Swede, filmic or organic, thoughts of love lost, craft gained and hope enduring; set stills for eternity within a frame of color and lifelong imaginings. And, for all interested in taking yet one more breath, it appears seamlessly...very much the same, for us all.

^[1] Everlasting Moments, (2008), DVD. Directed by: Jan Troell. The Criterion Collection and IFC Films. Sweden/USA.