Elna Karlsson

The sign welcomes me like always as I drive through the woods. This is the place I grew up in and now I’m back, I’m visiting. I do no longer live here, and nowadays I have start noticing the sign that always has been there. I often think about it, the sentence has been etched into my brain. That “This is the place I come to, when I come home”. I do no longer despise this place. I welcome its welcoming when I drive thought the woods and pass the sign. It’s okay that this is my home, because it’s no longer my only home. 

Outside the little village Kilafors lays Lilltjära. Between meadows and grazing horses, a winding path leads to an old school. No students have been studying here since 1996. I grew up here, with my parents, my two sisters and my grandparents. And of course, all the dogs. And chickens, cats, cows, horses, rabbits, sheep. As children, naked and covered in dirt, we ran around here. Through the flower beds where mum was trying to grow flowers and vegetables. Beauty and food. Kids, dogs and chickens. All running loose, playing.  

When I was 4 years old my first sister arrived, Nora. One year and five days later the next one came, Greta. I relate to them, their inner as well as outer. Faces that has traces of my own, the nose I share with Greta and the crooked tooth identical to Nora’s. Two examples of many. I often return to painting them, Nora and Greta. Faces that feels safe, recognizable, familiar and warm. Being drawn to painting them in particular felt like a coincidence, but is something you choose to do ever a coincidence? Something that drew me to paint the very faces I have been exposed to all of my life; faces I have seen develop over the years. Which create a depth, layers to how I see them. Perhaps it acts as an alternative to a self-portrait. Where I can depict a part of myself without it falling into the box as self-deprecating. And a self-portrait will always be recognized besides its creator. I can hide the fact that it actually is my family. That fact can be as relevant for the viewer as I let it be, it’s up to me. I can choose to keep it hidden from the stranger, a secret between me and those who know us, me and my family. And I can choose to have that fact as relevant as I want it to be. The point is that I can make that choice. 

I felt stuck early on in my life. I quickly decided that I wanted to leave, away from where I was. Being in a place you don’t choose for yourself will probably often become a feeling of being stuck, forced. I longed to leave. To discover beyond what I had already discovered. I remember someone once telling me that a noise is just a sound you don’t want to hear, that it’s a definition different for each person. That a noise is a sound you don’t welcome. And, I guess it can be the same with places. Lilltjära was a sound I didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to welcome. 

When I moved to Bergen, the goal was to discover new things. I tried new techniques and materials. New country, new environment, new people. New, new, new. All the focus was on the new and away from the old. Away from where I came from. The first year in Bergen led to new perspectives. It changed my view on my background and on Sweden. My focus on the new and unknown is now changing, and moving towards the opposite. With new eyes I look at the farm I grew up on. Animals and family. 

Nowadays, with some distance, my feelings and thoughts towards this place is different. I romanticize and I embellish. I allow myself to have this view on Lilltjära, and I do my best to keep it that way. 

And these days, Lilltjära and my upbringing have become, not only an idyll, but also an ideal. An ideal where we are close to animals and nature, in contact with what we eat. Where we see the consequences of the choices we make. If we eat meat, we have also seen and taken care of the life we choose to end. We have also been standing, filled with dirt, on the field picking up the potatoes for the winter. 

Although it feels like time has been standing still back home from the day I left, I also notice that things have changed. Even if I fall back into old roles as soon as I arrive to the train-station in Kilafors for a visit. 

I notice that nowadays my grandmother has started to call me, and we talk about the rain. She tells me that they watch the weather report every day, so I don’t have to tell her. And I no longer have animals present in my everyday life. With us kids gone my parents has more time, so they call me too. When I visit them, I am the big-sister again, and Nora and Greta, they play their part as little-sisters. And I hang out with my dad in the kitchen. And I find myself enjoying it, because as time passes, I’m starting to relate more to him. But I try not to. I resist, even more when I am back home. Like a teenager in protest. 

When I moved away from this place, I started to reflect on the reaction I got from people when I told them how my family keep, kill and eat animals. I have many times felt the need to explain, defend. And I still feel that way from time to time. Explaining myself and defending my family, to the same people who goes to the store and buy the cheapest meat they can find. Meat from animals that lived their life in misery before they were slaughtered. Whereas I stopped eating meat when I moved out because it felt unnatural for me to have that relationship to the life taken. 

This disconnection to the meat, to the animals, feels wrong. And dangerous. Cause the path we are now walking, with the distance we take from this, the ignorance from the reality in meat industry many chooses to live in. That’s not only dangerous for the animals, but for the planet. But I also acknowledge that I had a childhood that could give me this knowledge and experiences – and that not everyone has the same opportunity.  

When I see eggs in the store, I’m thinking about how I was sent out to go and pick up 3 eggs when my mum was cooking dinner, it’s going to be pancakes. Or how dad was standing in the living room taking care of the meat after the annual moose hunt. The roasted chicken in a plastic wrap makes me see our chickens running loose and the cars patiently waiting when they run across the street to our neighbors. When I see the milk standing in line inside the glass doors in the store, I see the cows that my mum takes care of everyday on her job at the farm nearby. 

I remember a discussion I once had with my mum where she told me that she chooses to slaughter animals, because if she can’t be there to witness or do it herself then she has no right to eat meat. I know that my father has the same view, and it’s something very conscious about it. They care for the animals, and it is important for them that the animals should live a good life. They have made the decision to eat meat, something they stand behind and stick to and they do so by facing the consequence of it. They experience the slaughter; they encounter the moment between living and dead. 

So, I went home to Sweden in September, drove past the sign saying that this is the place I come to, when I come home. And my goal was to visit the things I was surrounded by before moving away. Things that I never reflected on because it was such a huge part of my everyday life.   

So, on my visit, for the first time I watched a rooster-slaughter. I experienced and documented it. 

The ritual began with sharpening of the axe. It must go quickly; we must not have a blunt blade. In the dark, mother snuck in among the sleeping roosters and hens. It is important not to wake the others, they should not be stressed. Taking them when they are asleep means they don’t have time to stress themselves or each other out. 

Then the whole thing went quickly, on routine. Everything was prepared and when mom came out with the first rooster, dad was ready and waiting. Between two nails on the large log, the rooster’s head was placed. This is so that the rooster cannot move his head at the last second. Nothing must go wrong; it is important that all measures are taken so that the roosters do not suffer in any way. The head is quickly separated from the body which is then twitching as the blood pours out from it. The neighbor’s cat sneaks up on us out of curiosity. Dad shoos it away and it hides under the wolkswagen standing a few meters away, but it stays watching. The roosters are placed in a large bag, all seven of them, and then it’s done. That went fast. The log is put away, the ax is washed. Mother picks an apple from the tree and eats it in silence while the water from the hose washes the blood off the axe. And I notice that it is otherwise very quiet. The hen house is still sleeping. The fact that lives have been taken is there, in the air, and we talk about it. Mom takes another bite and then we go inside. 

We go to the backyard where the meat will now be taken care of. Dad drinks a sip of a beer and exhales. Mom let the dogs out for the evening break. They can sense the smell of blood, I can tell.

Now things are calmer. We don’t have anything more that needs to go on in the same kind of routine. Now I can ask questions I have and I don´t have to think about if I’m in the way. The fillets are cut out and placed on the tray beside my father. Another sip of beer. 

The evening after, dinner is prepared. Dad is cooking a wok, cracking an egg that was just picked from the hens house. Grandma and grandpa comes down to share the meal with us. The fillets that were prepared here yesterday is being put on the heat, another egg is cracked and potatoes from our field is boiling on the stove. Greta is sitting on a sofa and is playing a game on her phone. She hasn’t fully left home yet so she doesn’t see what I see.