Fire and freckles

My French muse with hair of fire talked happily of her new found love and life in Sweden as we roamed around my island home taking photos back in the light-filled summer days. My baby bump was almost non existent then and we climbed through overgrown trees that dug into our skin and pulled at our hair. I lost lots of these images but here are a few of the survivors. 

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Lost words

Words have abandoned me these last weeks and everything feels flat as I watch each character form on the page. So my images will have to speak for me. Here are some photos of recent experiences, of friends, of life. I hope that my words will come back to me soon. I hope you, my lovely readers can be patient with me.

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Spring wilderness

Spring in Sweden means deep, moss covered forests with soft, golden light bathing the semi frozen ground and trees. It means fires in the evening with smoke that seems to change colour as it rises into the cold air and glowing sunsets bringing with them the bitter chill of the nights. It means late walks in the trees when the world is quiet and the moon reflects off the ice and water so it feels like you're living in a dream world and Spring means the first swim of the year in the cold water. 

We met an old Chinese man while sitting in the sun one day who spoke only Mandarin but managed to explain to Rasmus how to make me a quarts necklace. Then he watched us skim stones across the water while enjoying his cigarette and listening to old chinese music blaring from his phone before continuing on his way. 

Spring in Sweden in like being reborn again and you can see it in everyone's eyes. Winters here are long and hard and when the weather turns people seem to transform too, worshipping the sun and warmth like in no other place I've been. 

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Topless, cold and hiding from the neighbours we photographed on a miserable Sunday afternoon underground in the laundry room and afterwards we made dinner together while talking about life and good food. This is my first shoot showing someone else's skin but hopefully not the last. Nudity is beautiful.   

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Easter again

After long train trips and large meals with family we napped in the light of the warming afternoons and played with August in between our lazy sleepiness. It was calm in the town, away from the big city. The melting snow on the ground was inviting and we took long walks with our friends. Despite my clumsiness Rasmus and I even went skiing across the still frozen lake lying at the bottom of the town. The ice moaned and cracked beneath us and Rasmus laughed warmly each time I found myself falling to the ground in a frenzy of un-coordination and panic. Hours were spent outside of the house, August playing eagerly with his grandparents as they sat in the sun for never-ending coffee breaks. It was bliss and time stood still.

One night after friends had visited, we went into town and before long I found myself dancing in an underground recordning studio to music I hadn't heard before with a blur of faces I knew and also many I didn't. I danced wildly and thought of nothing, only my sleeping baby now and then and hoped that all was well, trying to tell myself that to be away from him was OK even if I didn't really believe myself. There are strange moments like these where I return to being some crazy young thing where I stop being a mother for a moment and pretend. I always thought that when you became a mother something changed, that you looked different in some way. But when I was dancing there, in the middle of the night, I wondered how anyone could know that there is a tiny, new person dependent on me, that this dancing girl was a mother to a fragile baby and I don't know why but I felt so special then, like I had this beautiful and precious secret and two different lives that were both full of excitement for such different reasons.

When we were called home because August had woken I almost ran. The switch from crazy to mother had gone off and all I wanted was my baby in my arms. When I walked inside a sad little face greeted me, arms outstretched towards his mama. I took him quickly and put him to my breast. His cries were replaced with deep long breaths and I stroked his head as he eagerly drank. He slept wrapped in my arms, warm and close and I fell asleep too feeling his tiny breath against me.

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