My childhood home - ATT SMAKA LIVET. Vi – Arletta och Ellington – är två personer med olika ursprung och bakgrund. Var för sig och tillsammans söker vi livets smak i upplevelser av konst, kultur, mat, resor, relationer och friska frukter. Läs och känn vilka smaker som lockar dig.

I want to describe the view from my childhood home.

Nightly snow landscape. Smensgårdslyckan 22/1 1967. Aperture: 8, time: 12 min. Photo Ellington ”from my bedroom window at 00:20 – 00:32”

These pictures were taken from my bedroom on the second floor when I was 20. I didn’t live at home then, but I often came to visit. The first picture is a bit special. It was taken with a shutter speed of 12 minutes in the middle of the night on 22 January 1967.

March winter seen from my bedroom window – Smensgårdslyckan. ”Korset” to the right, ”Pansarn’s” to the left. Stafsinge church is seen on the hill. Photo Ellington 1967

The second image is the same view one and a half months later. The area up close is Smensgårdslyckan and it is just before the ground frost thaw. Beyond the fields, you can see the white manor house of the farm that Smensgårdslyckan belonged to. The farm is called ”Korset”, and the farmer was called ”Kórsen”.

”Ground thaw coral”. Ground frost thawing at Stafsinge church. Photo: Gillis Häägg in the book Solaglaning by Walter Dickson and Gillis Häägg, 1964

The Ground frost thaw was an occasion we used to look forward to. It was fabulous to see it steaming from the ground when the frost let go and the sun was playing with the shapes formed by the fog over the field. As I talked to my younger brother about this, he remembered how one day we called the Falkenberg photographer Gillis Häägg and told him that he must come over for ”now the ground frost is going”.

Smensgårdslyckan with the front road towards Gläntan, where I lived. Oxal tree in backlight. 5/5 1967. Photo Ellington

The butterbur blossoms at the front road to Gläntan. In the background, Smensgårdslyckan. 9/5 1967. Photo Ellington

Hay fences at Smensgårdslyckan 12/6 1967. Photo Ellington

Smensgårdslyckan and the other fields in front of my parents’ home opened to the light. The sun over Stafsinge hill and the open fields colors my memories.

Anders Karlsson at Korset was the farmer who owned and tilled Smensgårdslyckan. Here is one of his dairy cows photographed by Ellington in August 1966.

Meeting in the evening sun at the edge of Smensgårdslyckan in 1966. In the evening and the afternoon, the sun was always so beautiful over the fields towards Gläntan. Photo: unknown.

Authors Céline-Marie and Walter Dickson with daughter-in-law Eva and grandchild Anna in the evening sun at Smensgårdslyckan, summer 1973. Photo Ellington

Sometimes I make a detour to my old home. At times I’ve knocked at a neighbor’s, and over a cup of coffee we’ve joined the now with what used to be. When I get home, I’ll go find my analogous photo albums and I reminisce.

Evening sun through the oats at Smensgårdslyckan. Photo Ellington 1966

I reminisce. Remember days, and people, and feelings come back. Humility, sadness and joy, and above all, the light that comes with all the memories.

The other day I visited my childhood home again.

My childhood home now. Photo Ellington 2/1 2018

Björkängen and Dals Ängar the new area is to be called. Smensgårdslyckan used to be the name of the area because there was a smithy. My former neighbor Karl-Einar Karlsson who lived in Skärslidarna told me about this.

It’s hard to find a better word than shock for what I experienced. Certainly, there was light, albeit January, but from the house, the garden, and the little road ahead, the light was gone.

Certainly! One must build on fertile farmland. But you can also let the light in.

My childhood home in the shade. And I think: ”The precious topsoil has been put on high, right.” Photo Ellington 2/1 2018

It is of course humbling when everything changes. It’s easy to think ”trampled and ruined, ruined and disgraced”. Or you can think ”It will never be like before, can just get better ”

And I talk for a while with two women living in the house today. ”Is it true that you have lived here as a child?” And I tell them. And then the light comes back.

Ellington

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