Suomi-Finland
A special kind of butterfly flutters in your tummy when going to the country that is really yours, the one that bore you, bred you and indelibly left its mark on you. Memories surface, long forgotten, as buildings and people and stretches of scenes come alive with bygone years. A bus terminal reminds you of those exiting evenings standing in the lamplight in a blizzard, holding mothers hand, waiting for the bus to take you somewhere. It could be anywhere, your eyes dancing with the snowflakes…
The last week was partly spent at my cousin’s summer cabin that lies close to the Russian border. The lake Saimaa is huge with myriads of peninsulas and bays and islands, some skirted with summer cabins and saunas, like “Tuparanta” Brita’s father had built after the war.
From here are memories as cherished and delightful as the strawberries and blueberries we picked as children, strung on grass stems and eaten with reverence; My auntie washing her rugs in the lake almost naked, my uncle smoking his pipe like a gangster on the balcony in the twilight, us sisters jumping into the lake after sauna and trying to talk under water, all of us sleeping in a row on the floor of the attic. I slept this time in the new guest hut, rebuilt from the playhouse it once was, and could see and hear the lake at my feet, its waters gently lapping along the shore, beckoning for a swim.
A slow re-stitching of time.
The last week was partly spent at my cousin’s summer cabin that lies close to the Russian border. The lake Saimaa is huge with myriads of peninsulas and bays and islands, some skirted with summer cabins and saunas, like “Tuparanta” Brita’s father had built after the war.
From here are memories as cherished and delightful as the strawberries and blueberries we picked as children, strung on grass stems and eaten with reverence; My auntie washing her rugs in the lake almost naked, my uncle smoking his pipe like a gangster on the balcony in the twilight, us sisters jumping into the lake after sauna and trying to talk under water, all of us sleeping in a row on the floor of the attic. I slept this time in the new guest hut, rebuilt from the playhouse it once was, and could see and hear the lake at my feet, its waters gently lapping along the shore, beckoning for a swim.
A slow re-stitching of time.