Saturday morning

21 January 2017

— a wood dove the size of a football keeping sentinel on the edge of our patio

Good Morning All,

Yikes, I forgot to tell you about yesterday’s best moment!

In packing up our Hultoften home we found Britta’s shoebox full of old 8 millimetre home movies, some filmed by her, others by her mother, and a few by her brother Joe or me. Despite our being more than a tad busy fulling the junk dumpster and the treasure boxes, Holly was adamant we get them immediately digitalized before some film fungus swooped in. North of Copenhagen, Johs located a fellow who does that sort of thing out of his own home.

We have been watching the results in enstallments. Around 7:00 yesterday morning before driving to the airport, and 1:00 a.m. Holly’s time in Lebanon, NH, we got up on Skype together and simultaneously watched four of the five-minute long films. The first two were of Britta’s and my wedding. I got through about eight seconds of the first one dry-eyed, but so what?! Talk about the beauty of the bride! Talk about  the backdrop of our wedding in the yard of the mission station, range upon range of mountains disappearing into purple and lavender haze, and the rose garden full of May blooms. And me, just for the record, wearing a pair of red socks for the occasion.

I cried through the second wedding film, as well, but that was as much from laughter. For years and years, I’d been telling the kids of the legendary film Mormor (my mother-in-law) had made of my nephew Mikey (Esther’s son) at age around one jumping up and down in a harness attached on springs to the ceiling. Unfortunately, she forgot to put in a new film before shooting our wedding, so that as Britta and I are standing together while her father reads us the vows here’s Mikey gleefully jumping up and down on our shoulders. I figured that film had long since been lost, probably eaten by the white ants, and I assumed the kids had long since decided I’d just made up the story. But there it was! There it was!

If anything, the other two films were even better. One is of Johs in Britta’s arms in the hospital 

during the first hours of his life. He’d never seen it before. Imagine being a father sitting next to his son when at the age of 39 he watches the first day of his life. For that matter, imagine being the son! I’m 99% sure I filmed Holly’s first hours, as well. Surely do I hope so, but that film must still be in the works.

The last film was a sheer joy! In our Hultoften side yard, Johs is standing on the stump of the plum tree. He is at age 9 or 10 in a rented Tuxedo. With a baton made of cardboard and aluminum foil, he is conducting an imaginary orchestra while Holly, 7 or 8, in a pink tutu, dances around him, spinning and floating above the grass. There are times, I swear to God, she seems weightless, as though the ruffles of her tutu are a blown leaf she is riding on a warm zephyr. As if that were not magical enough, she sent me a copy of the digitalised film this morning, now set to music from The Nutcracker. The music fits seamlessly with her jumps and spins, as though she must have been playing the same music in her head all those years ago.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron