Rest in peace L-G D

Ok, here goes. I don’t really know how to write this, so I’ll just have to see how it turns out as I type. I’ve been avoiding it to be honest, as the thought of writing this post has made me sad for weeks, but I feel ready now. At the end of October my beloved godfather - my third parent - died. He had been ill for a very long time, and it was expected, so it wasn’t a bolt out of the blue. I’d managed to get to the ripe old age of 47 without anyone dying on me, so when it became obvious that the most likely person to do so would be him, rather than run away from the fact, I tried to prepare myself as much as I could. I read books about what happens physically to our body as we die, how it is to work in a hospice, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on death. I trained myself for three years to understand and accept the inevitable. I think we in the West have become too good at refusing to accept death as a fact of life, and maybe even think that we’ll all cheat it somehow? David Hockney’s line “The cause of death is birth” rang true, as did the Buddhist concept of impermanence. It made the phone call I got from one of my sisters telling me that my godfather had finally died much easier. In fact, I felt very calm about it. It helped that he had a good death; he died in his sleep, with one of my sisters in the room with him. He was not in pain, and he was not on his own. It felt like a fair trade-off for the past three years, which had been incredibly tough and painful for him - and us. This wonderfully loving and eccentric man, my dad’s best friend, had no immediate family of his own, but through my dad he got one, a large Somali/Filipino mash up of a family. He lived in the apartment upstairs from us, and his door was always open, and for the 17 years I lived in Sweden it was a great comfort to know that he was always just one flight of stairs away, his casa my casa. He was the one who gave me my first camera when I was 10, which turned out to be the most wonderful gift anyone could have given me. As my friend Z wrote to me on the day he died: “ RIP dear Lasse. And thank you for introducing the camera to little Fatima. You will live on in each picture she takes.” I couldn’t agree more.

Within 48 hrs of receiving the news I flew to Stockholm, as he had stipulated that he wanted a muslim funeral (which happens within just a few days after death), a nod to my dad perhaps (or a hedging of bets, in case there’s an afterlife?), so speed was of the essence. One of my sisters, who had been his carer for the past five years, had arranged that we could see him one final time before the funeral, and it felt completely natural that we should do so. I’d never seen a dead person before, and it was truly one of the most intimate, loving experiences in my life. It felt like such an honour. We spoke to him, of him, laughed and cried. It’s an hour of my life I will never forget.

Me and Lasse in 1976. I’m sure he insisted on me wearing the top hat, as that was very much his sense of humour.

I miss you so much Lasse! Accepting death might have been easy, but grief is a different thing altogether. It was something that I couldn’t prepare myself for, but at the same time I’m relieved, as my calm reaction to it all was also slightly confusing. I know my grief is my love for him continuing on, and that is very comforting. RIP Guffar. Jag älskar dig.

Ready, steady... go?

Heeeeeey. I didn't mean to take a break from the blog, but here we are. There are several reasons for why it happened, and as it’s now been so long, my question to myself recently has been “Where do I even start?”. I know where I should, but that post will take a while to put together, and will be pain/joyful to write. So I’m just dipping my toe in, giving a life sign, waving hello. I’m here, all is good, and it’s time to take the time to be here again. Hope you’re good.

A summer summary

Woohoo - summer’s over! Thank fudge for that. Never have I ever wanted it over so quickly; maybe it was the intense heat, the drought, the looooong days with not much going on, but boy am I glad that it’s DONE. I’ve come across a few articles in the past couple of weeks with titles like “How to make summer last” or “Hold on to that summer feeling” and I’ve been shaking my head, feeling like I live on another planet, one were I want routines back, the cold and the dark and the quiet, and hibernation. Weird - I know. I think I just have three words for it, and that’s “cold water swimming”. It’s changed my life and has changed me. Summers are kind of a drag now.

I’ll tell you what didn't help either. I missed out on our first holiday abroad together as a family in 2 &1/2 years. Something that I’d so intensely looked forward to, found stressful to book many moons ago, and in the end managed to clear Covid by one day before departure (!). We were due to go to the Dolomites, back to the same place we went in 2008, but this time with Oomoo. It was going to be amazing to be in the mountains again, showing him all the crazy beautiful places there, but it was not to be, not for me anyway. Buddy had been poorly for about a week before we were due to go, and right up to the last minute we didn’t know whether the holiday was a go or a no. Seven hours before our cab was due to pick us up for a ridiculously early flight, it was decided that I’d have to stay behind and look after him, so I unpacked my suitcase, hugely disappointed. But you know, in the scheme of things, not a disaster, just really crap timing. Anyway, we FaceTimed daily and I got sent pictures like this, which made me both happy and sad (that’s O over there, enjoying the view).

Buddy’s fine now, the meds I had to give him twice a day for a week sorted him out. I was also happy that I could look after him during the insanely hot heatwave that hit us mid-July, making sure he stayed in the cooler parts of the house, because look at him - that dude is basically wearing a fur coat 24/7.

19th of July, 7.29am. The day when we hit the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK, +40.3c (104.5F). I’d already spent the previous day indoors in the coolest room of the house and not moving much. I didn’t want to repeat it, so I went out for an early morning walk in the park, which is what everyone with dogs were doing too, before it got too hot. See the tall grass to the left of the picture? It should be a deep green and not a fire hazard. It’s no understatement to feel like we’ve gone past the point of no return with climate change now. It feels surreal to live in a time which is so amazingly shit on so many fronts, all at the same time.

But you all know that. And you didn’t come here to feel down, so let’s change the subject. This is the one picture this summer that I took, that I felt properly excited about taking. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it’s a real rush. It’s of course totally subjective, and you might find this picture meh, but in my eyes it ticks a lot of my boxes; a graphic shadow, nice colours, an anonymous child, and catching that second of her hand floating in the air before she grabs hold of the next handrail. AND that she’s under a “sun” wearing a sun hat. Noice.

Actually, going through the pictures for this post I remembered that the summer wasn’t all that bad. There were lots of good things, like feeding my eyes and soul with some great exhibitions. Really enjoyed Fashioning Masculinites at the V&A; I would wear all of these outfits (but then I do wear a lot of mens’ clothing as they’re so much nicer, but actually these are quite feminine or at least unisex 🙃). The two on the left are underwear from the 1700’s (I’ve got a nightie very similar to the first one -ha!).

Edward Munch at the Courthauld was another highlight. Very small but very good.

Also made our way up to Cambridge to see Hockney’s Eye at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which was absolute genius. I love that man’s art and mind so much.

On another boiling hot day me and my gal pals and Oomoo went to Oxford to see Ruth Asawa at Modern Art Oxford. I only realised looking back at my post from the London Asawa exhibition two years ago that this one was way smaller and not as broad. Still, it was great to see and the perfect excuse for an Oxford day trip.

One Friday evening me and my gals A & D went to see Football: Designing the Beautiful Game at the Design Museum, an exhibition that I initially was going to pass on, but after having checked out the website I realised that it actually looked really good. We all loved it, especially as A & D are graphic designers and I used to be one.

It’s not often that I bring O with me to exhibitions anymore; now that he’s old enough to say ‘No thanks’, rather than have no choice and get dragged along, he usually does. But in a long stretch of not doing much, and needing to get out of the house, I knew that he might be a bit more interested in Futureshock at 180 The Strand. There were only two good things in there, and this was one of them, Daydream v.6 by Nonotak. Like one of the best things I’ve seen in ages. I’m glad that you weren’t allowed to go inside it or it would be ruined by everyone capturing for their socials. Oh wait.

Last but not least I saw Etel Adnan’s Colour as Language at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago. Adnan was a published writer and poet who had been painting for 50+ years, and found fame with her art at 87 a few years back with her colourful and minimal abstract paintings, and well deserved too. If that’s not inspiring I don’t know what is.

What else?

well, there were two summer haircuts,

a very tiny bit of wildlife on our front room window right before bed one evening

lots and lots of watching TV

and staying inside away from the heat.

There were also a few day trips; one with A & D to Cambridge,

one with the guys to Brighton

and one earlier mentioned outing to Oxford. I enjoyed all of them immensely. I like the pace of a day trip.

There was also a trip to Kew Gardens right before school started,

as well as one week in Amsterdam, which we all got to go on, although Mr Famapa had to leave a few days early for a job in Warsaw.

And here’s a morning after a sleepover a week ago, right before the house schedule moved into autumn mode. Hope your summer was a-okay, and if you like, tell me about it :)

Elsewhere and at other times

I’m the sort of person that goes to bed on holiday with the camera next to me, in case I wake up in the morning and see something I want to take a picture of. You never know what you might wake up seeing.

Z and D having a little early morning chat. We were surprisingly fast for four people to get out of the house and on our way.

Tourist pic time!

A managed to prop her phone up on Z’s bike so we could all be in the picture - in front of the windmill. Came out really good!

I wanted to repeat the perfect Sunday (on a Sunday again - nice!) so off we cycled to Het Schoolhuis in Holysloot for some lunch.

Got the best table in the garden. Thanks Z for the pic :0)

After lunch we picked out a scenic spot and meditated together. One of my favourite memories of the whole trip.

We then went for a little walk in the ‘hood. D & A spotted

this guy, before we did.

Time to cycle back into town.

This man caught my eye, and clocked me taking his pic, and I made sure I smiled at him, because that’s what a polite person does. Makes for a nice shared moment rather than being a picture taking robot that just continues on without acknowledging the other person involved.

Had to stop and take another picture on Haarlemmerstraat, this time of this building that looked heavily influenced by Alphonse Mucha.

See what happens when you smile and take pictures of strangers? You get smiled at back.

Walking through Westerpark this caught my eye. Kudos to anyone who bothers to bring a hammock to a park.

Our destination? Rainarai of course. We tried to dent the massive portions as much as we could, and delicious as usual it was too. I know it looks like A is ‘gramming’ here, but she isn’t. Not everyone carries a big camera innit.

And on the way home we had to stop and get off our bikes to look at the incredible full moon. Alas, this lady doesn't travel with a zoom, but take my word for it, it was huge.

On the Monday morning the peonies that Z had bought had opened up; I’ve never seen peonies this colour in the UK.

This was the day that we went to the Rijks, and moseying around the Jordaan afterwards we had a nosy in this empty house. Some jammy sod must’ve moved in there by now.

While we’re looking at houses, let’s look at some more. These are at the edge of the Red Light district, in fact just around the corner from Ons Lieve Heer.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Amsterdam by now, but I always do a little research before I go, and somewhere I came across pictures of this bar, In’t Aepjen. Amsterdam’s bruin cafés (pubs) have never really been on my radar before, but I remember walking past one that looked really cosy last time me and Oomoo where there (in fact the interior of it inspired me to get rid of our white walls at home), and thinking that I’d really like to go to one one day. Well, child free this time round we went, and lovely it was too. It was very small, but not packed and loud like a pub can be, and we tried some jenever for the first time, which gets served all the way to the top of the glass, like in the picture to the left. You then have to kind of bow into the glass to have your first sip. Fun!

D saying something… surprising/shocking? Whatever it was I missed out, but it was worth it. Love the reactions.

We only stayed for one drink, and this was what met us as we came out. ‘Hope for another life’ it says, according to Google Translate. Maybe that is what it says - but I don’t trust GT.

These guys obviously didn't stop at one drink. Maybe they were hoping for another life.

D, on the Eurostar, on the way home. So there you go, that was our girls’ trip to the Amsterdamsch, something we dreamt up last summer, when we saw A for the first time since all the lockdowns, and wanted to make up for lost time. Having this trip as something to look forward to, all the way back then, was invaluable. I hope we’ll do plenty more of them.