The following entries are blog posts that were created on my photography site, raftography.com, before the creation of raftography-writing, which you are reading on now. Clicking the buttons below will take you to pages of previous works.
Dear Jimbo: November 4th 2022
This blog post came one year after my Dad, Jimbo, passed away from a battle with Dementia with Lewy Bodies. It was my first attempt to share the “Dear Jimbo” series which comes from a process of grief, remembering, anger, and love in written form that almost always starts in my various Journals.
“You died. This strange, lived, accelerated deceleration of time confuses me. A year, really? I have to tell myself the reality of the loss sometimes, as the weird, tragic, unfathomable, delorean stealing, Biffed-up Back to Future side-universe that arose circa 2016 and never went away, coincided with the unthinkable slow to rapid loss of your mind. I kept thinking I would wake up from this awful dream. This country of non-nuanced thought continues its rapid descent into its own dementia even as yours was finally released…”
– Rafael Bergstrom
Jimbo Bergstrom: May 1st 1953 – November 4th 2021
This is the short story of my Dad, written by me just a couple of weeks after he died. It’s a eulogy of sorts. It was a way for me to process who he was right after he left us. I still can’t believe that he is gone. I watched a video of him dancing with my Mom and I remembered him in those moments without the dementia.
“I lost my best friend on November 4th 2021. My Mom lost hers too. The Earth lost a friend and ally. I’ve been in a holding pattern of emotion, wondering what to share, perhaps fearing that sharing would just make it more real. After 3.5 years of diagnosed dementia with Lewy bodies and likely another 4 or 5 years of symptoms unknown to us at the time, my wonderful Dad, James Jim Jimbo Papa Bear Bergstrom passed away in his Portland home with family around him. He was only 68 years old.
My Dad was the kindest man I have ever known…”
– Rafael Bergstrom
I’m Not in Chilean Prison, But I Got Robbed
This Blog post tells the story of my journey to Patagonia and how the trip was interrupted in its early days through an series of unfortunate events.
“Despite this mugshot that I was required to pose against a wall for, I have not been arrested, my face is trying to tell you another story. It’s all gone, my tools for art creation have been robbed from me, a part of my sense of wonderment temporarily stalled and replaced with a feeling of deep violation. My abilities to be a being of calm, rational, and compassionate thought have been pushed to the edge of a ledge with sheer cliffs, where a plunge would be a complete unraveling of emotional rage. In these past few days I’ve teetered on that edge, but have not fallen, thanks to the energy and warmth encapsulated in the balancing nature of love; now I find myself returning towards clarity with an upward swoop of the world’s ability to counteract chaos…”
– Rafael Bergstrom
This story was published in December of 2016
From Fear to Growth, Step & Repeat
This blog post is a bit of my origin story. It’s paying homage to my wonderful parents, who have given me the gift of this life that I get to lead. I wrote this before Jimbo died, and actually before we knew what was wrong with him.
October 24th 2016
“Creating content that you are okay sharing with the world is often times inhibited by the initial leap, that first moment of exposure. I have spent years trying to understand whether or not the world has any interest in what I have to say, if I have content that expands the human experience to a point worthy enough to move from the odd twitches of my own internal dialogue to a coherent narrative that tickles the familiarity of humanness. Fear…”
– Rafael Bergstrom
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