POST PRODUCTION BLUES

Coming back home is easy. Easy and so beautiful.

It strikes me that I'm pulling a bit on my dress; wrinkled by an airport,

delays, a window seat & some slumber and I smile at myself for

still having a humming bloodstream at seeing each other again.

Quickly I pinch vain roses of warmth & wakefulness onto each cheek,

before walking through the sliding glass doors and out into the arrival lounge.

- Mama..! He's two and a half with the fast legs of longing despite it

being almost midnight. He runs towards me with white flowers held high.

Behind stands his papa with those same dark, syrupy eyes and smile.

I know that smile inside and out by now, he's got a humming bloodstream too.

Coming back home is the easiest thing in the world. And so damn beautiful.

back home has perfectly unclean windows. and now flowers chosen by a little boy.

He says - You're glowing, darling..! 

He says I 'always have a special radiance after I've been off shooting'.

And I feel it myself, can see it. It's almost strange,

my skin is actually clear and full of lustre, the eyes too. But also the soul,

so maybe it's not strange at all. I do, after all, feel undeniably so much like.. myself.

Behind my skin are days of feverish and messy and almost intoxicated togetherness,

my most beloved part of work, the part alongside those other four women.

jossi, sthlm | photograph of fuzzy quality, but miss madsen is fantastic and has to be here still

In Stockholm, we talk about how everything has taken so much longer

than we wanted, - & it was 'supposed to' with Makers and Muse.

Sometimes things don't happen in the way you thought they would,

despite very hard work and the best of intentions.

Being able to talk about that with each other is so freeing.

We look each other, truly, in the eye when we toast in dark red wine

and there's a respect in all of it that I adore.

Because all of us listens and wants to understand.

Because the friendship is most important for everyone there,

and because of the care for each other; for everyone to manage,

inside of their own lives with entirely diverse struggles & difficulties.

Exactly because we truly can look each other in the eye, 

both with dewy glances over the wine glasses, - & with morning

eyes sitting in each other's beds at dawn, before starting anew.

That's all why our days together are, in reality, magic. 

Back home the post-production work starts, taking care of

the time we spent together. Beneath my skin are days of feverish

and messy and almost intoxicated togetherness; my most beloved part

of the work, with those other four women.

I get, as always, hit a bit by the post-production blues.

The lustre of my skin also seems to fade a bit, in the company of laundry piles,

nursery schedules & long hours in front of the computer screen. 

Working on the photographs and the fact that we, after all, now should

be able to launch both Makers and Muse & Lemholt N' Bergman  

feels perfect and lovely in face of the inspirational season of autumn.

In the middle of the always missing s o m e o n e that moving to

another country entail, the freelancing life, the uncleaned windows, 

- & the fact that things don't always go the way you intended, 

i, after all, feel just more and more at home. 

☾

photograph no2 is taken here at home - all others

in the lovely home of Sara N Bergman