RIP Montserrat Figueras (1942-2011)

Today i was so sad to hear that the catalan soprano Montserrat Figueras had passed away, aged 69.
She was married to the violist and conductor Jordi Savall, together with whom she performed and made many great recordings, mainly with the ensemble Hespèrion XXI, which they both founded in 1974, specializing in music from medieval times to baroque.

Montserrat Figueras with Hespèrion XXI, lead by Jordi Savall: Cáncion Sefardí

LOSS.

My father, painted by his good friend, the late Stig Claesson.

Four weeks ago my dear father died, aged 86.
He got pneumonia, and as he had COPD after a lifetime of fervent smoking, and stubborny refusing to quit, his lungs could no longer cope. He moved to a nursing home about a year ago, as he had gone weaker and weaker over the last years.

All my life i've been aware that i would lose him while i was young, -it's not like when my mother suddenly died, aged 64, more than five years ago, -that was a shock i haven't quite recovered from today, if i ever even will... -But it's still sad, as i had naturally hoped for him to get better, though it seemed more and more unlikely. In the past five years i have watched him... like land eroded by the sea, more and more bits of who he was falling away and his clear periods getting fewer and farther between. Because of his diabetes and stubborn refusal to do any kind of excercise offered him, he had also lost use of his legs.

Over the years there have been so many scares and false alarms. He had fallen numerous times, there were so many nights waiting for hours in the emergency room, thinking, and fearing that this might be it.

So the night before he died i was with him for a couple of hours. He was in a morphine haze and unaware of me being there. He was just lying there twitching slightly and breathing strenuously. Shortly after ten i tried to say goodbye to him; i took his hands, -his hands that he would normally have clasped firmly around mine, but now they were all limp, and i should have recognized the signs, but still i went home, strangely convinced that he'd be alright. So i got home and went to bed, and at about six in the morning a nurse called and told me that he had passed away. I went there immediately, and then i just stood there, all numb, looking at him. His hands were still warm, but there could be no doubt.
He was no longer there.

One of my father's self-portraits, probably 1980s

I regret that i might not have visited him as often as i could have since he moved to the home, only a few times per week at most. -sometimes he would call me at four in the morning, thinking it was afternoon, and asking me where the hell i was.
I went there as often as i had could of course, but can't help but feeling like i just dumped him there. That i abandoned him.

My biggest comfort is that I did spend so much time with him in the years between my mother's death and before he got too weak to do anything at all. I tried to get him out of the house, go to see exhibitions and go to museums, movies, restaurants and for long walks. And it's also comforting to think of what a long and eventful life he had after all.

So now i am an orphan. -though at times i've felt like i was his parent, i often feel like i have the mental capacity of an eight-year old. I've been held back by all of this, hardly realised any plans, if i ever even had any... i haven't had the energy to take up studies or do anything at all. In a way i am now free to start living, but i don't know where to begin... -and sometimes, i must admit, i feel uncertain whether i even want to, and just falling asleep forever seems so incredibly tempting, but as i have a fear of blades, heights and pain in general, and have no doctor to give me any kind of pills i guess i'm going to have to go on living.
Hopefully someday i'll even learn to enjoy it again.

Me, aged five, photographed by my father.

One of his favorites with Jussi Björling.

A gloomy anniversary.

Yesterday it was five years ago since my mother passed away, aged 64.

It didn't feel any different from any other day of course, i just thought it worth noticing, and simply saw it as an excuse to write a new post, the first in months. As i've said before... I would post more often, but time always escapes me, and i can never think of what to write. I detest time, and how it just relentlessly swoops by.
And now five years have passed since that awful day, -the worst i've ever experienced.

I both wish to be close in time to when she was still alive, yet i want to have that horrific event as far behind me as possible.
So yesterday i simply lit a few candles and sprayed a little Mitsouko, her signature scent -the only one she ever wore, in the air. That was all i could do.

Mother, photographed by my father, possibly in the early eighties.

with Moa, about a year before she died, photographed by me.

A sign of life -and a little talk of death.

Summer just exploded in my face, and now it's almost over. Luckily i am very much of an autumn-person, even though i adore all seasons -even winter if circumstances are right... -and as last winter was so remarkably cold -albeit with many beautiful, perfect Narnia-days -i just longed so badly for summer; and during the spring -which was rather an extension of the winter -if it weren't for the budding trees one might have thought it was mid november. -and now summer is nearly over; a summer that has been unusually warm, sunny and lovely when swedish summers are often known to mostly rain away.

I hope -as i've said a hundred times before -to at last be able to post more frequently here, i hope to finally get my cluttered apartment tidy, -it has become a veritable mayhem of piles of papers, half-filled bin bags full of assorted trash and wobbly towers of books, cds and dvds -even dishes which feels so nasty!-very Grey Gardens; minus cats, raccoons and Jackie O.

Time has -as it usually tends to do- slipped mercilessly through my fingers, and i've been battling slight bouts of depression and haven't had the peace of mind to tend to anything, -i haven't even drawn for months, no, years!

Early in the spring, my dad moved into a nursing home which has been a terrible ordeal. -not to mention watching his alzheimers - or whatever it is, he hasn't been diagnosed - advancing more and more; he used to at least have some moments of clarity. -but at least i'm sort of prepared for it, and it has been a long drawn-out process- not like it was with my mother who, aged 64, went from her old brilliant self to a hapless spectre within just a few days, before she passed away. That was a shock i still haven't quite recovered from, even now, five years later.


I hope you like my new look and my new header -a picture of my mother and her first "mother in law" -probably taken by her then-boyfriend in the spring of 1966 in her little apartment -which was in the attic of a rustic 18th century building with no electricity or running water, where she cooked on a wood-fired iron stove, and might've sat and enjoyed a cup of lapsang souchong in the light of a kerosene-lamp.

She loved it there and lived there for the rest of her life -even though she later moved across the yard -where I was to grow up...



Me with mum, (above). Me, aged 5 (below).

Hope to be back soon. See you!

Comforting myself.

Just to comfort myself i' m posting a fiew pictures i took some two weeks ago, it was staggeringly cold, almost -10 C - And i took Moa for a walk around Djurgården - to Stockholmers what Central park is to New Yorkers - and everything was so beautiful... I'm sure by now the ice on the canal is completely gone, and the ground all thawed and soaking wet. But at least it doesn't rain and i so hope that the cold will return...or maybe i should just move to Provence or something -now that the entire northern hemisphere of the world seems to be enjoying a proper winter -except for us...

June

"By the rushy-fringed bank, where grows the willow and the osier dank My sliding chariot stays.
Thickset with agat, and the Azurn sheen of Turkish blue and Em'rald green, That in the channel strays.
Whilst from off the Waters fleet Thus i set my printless feet. O'er the Cowslips velvet Head, That bends not, bends not, as i tread." ("Comus" Dalton, efter Milton.)
Even though i love all seasons and months of the year, i am now longing a bit for June, i know June will return, -if the whole atmosphere doesn't melt down before then of course. We can only hope it doesn't. The rhubarbs! -oh, how i love rhubarb! But i've heard that if you eat it too often it can damage your kidneys, it's fortunate that one doesn't.
-My beloved, departed mother, i remember, told me of an early morning...probably in June, when she was young, knackered after a night at the Operabaren fetched some rhubarb-stems in the garden and chopped them to bits to make a crumble or perhaps, a lovely rhubarb-soup. -suddenly she jumped and discovered that she very nearly had severed her own finger! The blade of the knife had gone well into the bone! End of that dazzling story. Oh, how i miss her! I can still remember her lifeless hand in mine, in that dreary hospital room. I don't think i have gotten over her dying, or even dealt with it. It just can't be this easy to go on without such a person...it's probably coming to me any day now...or in forty years, a life long loss. Here she is, just a fiew months before she died, when i couldn't even imagine the succession of ruthless horrors that would soon accost us.