Life in Review 2: My own love story

Time magazine's issue of August 20th this year, features an interesting article on the vanishing Hollywood love stories. How did it happen that moviegoers lost interest in love stories such as the famous "Casablanca", "Gone with the Wind", "Titanic" and other classic love films. These days, it is more about violence, wars, science fictions and comedies, and even magic. Unpopular films mean low revenue because ticket sales stink.

What has happened to the old fashion "boy meets girl, love at first sight hits like thunderbolt, courtship begins and many years later comes a wedding". No, apparently this has gone out of style. These days, girl seeks boy in some night spots, have a drink or two, goes to " mine or your place" and have sex. Just a one night stand, just sex, nothing more, they would rationalise the following day. Oh yeah! twas just part of a drunken night.

I think we should each have a love story to remember, no matter how old fashioned. A love story that truly warms the heart on winter days, one that survives either parties beyond the grave. Because when nothing remains but memories captured in pictures and video films, it is one's true love story that lives on. It is the afterlife beneath a tombstone.

My greatest love story goes like this. I was a foreign correspondent in Manila invited one evening to a presidential cruise to honour the visiting Iraqi vice-president. Majority of the guests were chiefs of foreign diplomatic missions and government ministers. I was sitted with the Philippine ministers of agriculture and cultural minorities, a Geneva-based Jamaican ambassador, the Danish charge' d affaire and the Swedish ambassador. It was a lively conversation in our table. The Jamaican ambassador was flirting openly and the agriculture minister encouraged it. Even the Danish charge´de affaires followed suit. Only the Swedish ambassador remained quiet.

It was great to be the only female in a table of men energised by scotch. No one paid any attention to what the Iraqi vice-president and the Philippine prime minister were telling the guests. Was it the promise of oil? Who cares. Then the Jamaican ambassador passed on his calling card. When the boat returned to Manila bay, we said our customary "Good-byes" and "Do you have a ride home?" kind of gesture. " Yes, I have, thank you!"
Then I discovered underneath my plate the Swedish ambassador's calling card. It read: " Tomorrow he, the Jamaican will be gone, but I will still be around." This was January 13th, 1982.

All was forgotten. I went to Southern Philippines for a 2-week long coverage of a paramilitary group terrorising the local inhabitants. Remember, this was Marcos authoritarian rule and the military lorded over the countrysides.
Upon my return to Manila, my secretary handed me several call slips, all from the Swedish embassy. I played coy and ignored it. The calls went on and sometime in March, I agreed to a dinner date with the persistent Swedish ambassador. He was Bo Kälfors, ruggedly good-looking, very sun-tanned ( from golfing ) deeply penetrating eyes and long gigolo-like hair.

The dinner was very romantic, the conversation was sexy and the questions were frank and honest. No. it was not red wine influenced. He asked, if I would like to be his "sambo" (live-in) in his next diplomatic assignment. He was nearing his end of tour in Manila. I didn't answer. Thought it was the wine talking. Then came the lunch date, and more dates. I allowed the courtship to flow its natural course, like a river. We became engaged in May ( my birthday) and had a big party with media friends and politicians. It was mesmerising how fluid the events took us. I made no attempts to hinder it. Around May, he was asking his cousin in Sweden to start looking for a romantic little church where we would marry.

The wedding took a detour. I was previously married but separated. My former husband, also a journalist, joined the underground movement against Marcos- was eventually captured, sat in jail for seven or so years, freed and ala-Mandela went into politics. Anyway, it was only in Dominican republic where I could get a divorce because the Swedish authorities said I had no residence and had not lived with the Swede about to marry me.
So, it took a long way to Drottningholm's chapel ( official residence of the Swedish royalty) as we crossed the Pacific ocean to get to the Caribbean's Dominican republic.

The end of this love story was, we married in the mid-summer day of June 26th, 1982 amidst family and diplomatic friends. This love story has kept us together for 25 years - through wars and conflicts ( in his places of assignment from Africa to Bosnia) , the ups and downs of life in Sweden. Until one day, his weak heart gave in and on May 16th this year, he passed into eternity. I don't feel any emptiness because we have a love story that lives forever.

Lifestyle: The Swedish crayfish tradition

The month of August ushers in an important Swedish tradition, the crayfish celebration. A long time ago - I was told at a recent crayfish premier party - only the wealthy landowning Swedes who owned properties that included lakes had access to this delicacy. The harvest took place in August, the cooking is very Swedish, of which the most important ingredient is the dill crown. That's where the unique taste and smell comes from.

Then came some pest that corrupted the fresh water habitat of the crayfish, and the Swedish tradition was threatened with extinction. Luckily, some enterprising Swedes found other sources abroad in countries like Turkey, the USA, Spain and China. Crayfish prepared the Swedish way was imported in big quantities from these countries and the Swedish tradition found a new lease of life.

In recent years, crayfish came back to its fresh water habitat and avid Swedes began fishing the homegrown delicacy again. The Signalkräftor sell between SEK450 to 600 per kilo. One true-hearted crayfish enthusiast I know is Lars Hedfors, who without fail treats his friends to his annual harvest of crayfish. Lars is married to a Filipina, Mary and both have been delightful hosts to our yearly crayfish celebration. For Lars, a crayfish party consists of a first course - " to line up the stomach" for the heavy vodka and snaps drinks, the crayfish in big platters, the side dishes of toast bread, or hard bread, buttered and lined with ripe brännvin. Unlike in Louisiana where a pile of crayfish (called crawfish) can be served right on the table without plates, the Swedish way is more colourful because of accesories like napkins, lanterns, placemats and hats all of which have decorative crayfish motiff. The occasion becomes a celebration.

To start the race for as many crayfish one can consume, the first tail requires a short speech, a vodka toast "Skål!" and in it goes, marinated in alcohol, straight into the digestive system. The party is ever punctuated by "Skål!", a song and another tail. True crayfish eating requires genuine slurping and sucking of the crayfish head, for its butter and eggs. That's truly the best part of the animal. And the sucking has to be hard as through taking the very last breath out of one's beloved.

Lars Hedfors believes that crayfish eating is almost a religious devotion, in the way one savours every bit of the animal. And when his guests show this kind of devotion, as did my husband Bo, he says he feels rewarded for all his hardwork from catching to cooking. " It makes everything all worth it", he says.

Life in review

The measurement of life is not how long or short one has lived. Is it a straight highway without stops in a landscape of plains without hills, valleys and mountains. Or, is it turns and bends without sure destination
in sight. Is it a planned long journey where every stop is expected and outcomes determined or just a long
journey without thoughts of any light at the end of the tunnel.

When one deciphers what life is for oneself as well as for others in a never-ending interaction of many individual histories, and how such interactions have resulted in millions of episodes, of which some may have created great impacts upon many peoples, do we think that we have lived a meaningful life.

But life is not always how we want it to be, no matter how well we plan if only to avoid pitfalls like pain, sickness, loneliness and worst, poverty. The "here and now" of life could be all roses without any thorns in sight but somewhere is an inheritance of loss, if I may be allowed to borrow Kiran Desai's book title where previous generations continue to impact the present. We could find ourselves hostage to a past without any redemption in sight.

One is reminded of the ancient rivalries and hatred between the "nations" of former Yugoslavia, of a conflict that runs so deep in the psyche of every inhabitant in this region. There is no way to measure how far back the conflict had begun, only that its full eruption was not too long ago and mass graves are still being discovered.
How many lives were lost, how many souls scarred forever.