It’s not often you feel sentimental about a dental surgery, but my eyes are repeatedly drawn to my old dental surgery with a rather surprising sense of longing, and loss.
The building is wooden, painted yellow with red details, picturesque window frames and interesting sloping rooves. Built in the 1920s as a house for the priest, it designates his high status in the early society of the new built town. In the time I have lived here, half of it has been occupied by my dental surgery. Which has been a charming place for a rather unenjoyable activity.
One winter I had a 6.30 morning appointment, on one of the coldest, snowiest, darkest days of the year. I took my kick sled and pushed it through thick mounds of light snow for the 15 minute walk. Ice crystals sparkled in the air. My route passed the church and it’s grounds, and I walked through them rather than on the road, feeling the tent-like architecture of the church fitted well in the morning’s sense of magic. I was in a fairy tale, on my way to the fairy dentist, to have, well ok, an oral hygiene appointment, but apart from that it was a magical feeling.
So back to the building, as charming as ever. Only now it stands alone, in a war-torn landscape. The buildings around have all been pulled down, so now there is just rubble, fencing, and keep out signs. In the distance a three storey block is having it’s outer wall knocked out. Large skips stand ready to take waste. The dental surgery stands tall above the flattened streets, once a smaller feature on the skyline but now towering above the debris, like a single tooth left standing in a gappy old mouth.
Around this building has been significant reconstruction. The old town’s roots have been anaethetised, and removed, bit by bit. It’s been a painful process, but now we’re at the stage when we feel almost nothing, just an overwhelming sense of loss. It’s the gaps we notice.
Advances in technology mean that a building can be moved and implanted elsewhere, with entirely new roots. Near to the dental surgery, Kiruna’s church is currently being prepared to be moved to the new town (a few kilometres away), and to move it requires foundation work to widen the route, and the building of a brand new bridge.
The dental surgery’s destiny is also magic sleigh ride to the new town – it’s life has also been spared. It stands blinking into the sunlight, waiting to be rescued. No-one has said where exactly it’s new home will be, but any place will do, so long as it gets out of this battleground. Implanted there it will sparkle among the concrete buildings of the new town of Kiruna, like Madonna’s gold grille.
