Mneme

As I wrote earlier, our summer cottage burned down in July as a result of a massive thunderstorm. In my opinion it was nothing more or nothing less than the best place in the world (probably alongside Braemar).  Everything save a few stones, a gas stove and a sauna stove was gone. For decades the cottage had been the dearest summer retreat for my family and some of my best memories are from there. Forty-five years of perfection, that’s what it was.

I don’t easily become attached to material things but significant places tend to be very important to me – I find it both strange and wonderful to stand on a certain spot and recall being at the very same place precisely one year ago. An experience like that gives time a completely new perspective; it includes both permanence and change, both time and timelessness. It is to see something that is the same and yet different but also to be the same and yet different. The feeling is similar to the one I have when looking up to the sky in November and seeing the same constellations that were invisible during the bright summer nights. They’re the same though the time and place of perception are different. That very feeling I also had every time I steered our little boat to the strand and saw our cottage for the first time after winter.

If I had to name a few things I consider the most essential about the cottage I would probably include at least my grandfather’s old fishing hat, the old-fashioned coffee jars and the sauna on the list. Those things among many others made the cottage what it was. However, there is one thing I think I value even more and that is the smell. The cottage was old and its smell was a mixture of humidity and warmth of the burning wood in the sauna. Funnily enough the one thing I consider most important is the one I cannot recall. If I close my eyes I see the cottage and remember exactly what it looked like but of the smell I have no memory. It is such pity for that particular memory I'd love to have and I think memories are an endless source for imagination – why else would one of the three muses be called Mneme?

Normally people attempt to choose pictures that are somehow consistent with the text. In this case, once again, there is no connection. Please don't waste your time trying to find one.

Pointless pondering and a lament for not-yet-fallen snow

For quite a while I’ve been wondering whether I should write in Finnish or in English. Naturally making ridiculous grammatical mistakes is far less likely in my native language but on the other hand I definitely need an excuse to use English more. Do I speak English? Yes. Do I read books in English? Of course. Do I hear it every day? Yes, I do. Do I write in English? Not that much, unfortunately. Most of my courses require reading books and articles in English but all the essays and homework are done in Finnish. Perhaps this is something I should change.

As much as I hate making mistakes I think it’s time to swallow my pride and give it a shot. The good thing is that very few people read my texts which means the chances of misunderstandings are correspondingly few. Generally I suck at mathematics (and when I say I suck it means I suck majorly) but this kind of calculation I can comprehend. However, my main reason to choose English (for now, at least) is that I love it as a language – not just because I find British, especially Scottish, culture extremely fascinating or because some of this world’s greatest blessings (such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen) come from Britain. I love English, the intonation, the rhythm of speech and the phonetics of it in general. My love is so unconditional that I’m willing to ignore even the incomprehensibly haphazard phrasal verbs and other logic-defying structures. All right, slight irony may be included in the last sentence but please keep in mind that it is nothing but a sign of deep affection.

Enough with the metatext.

I saw the sun today. In fact it was out there for at least three hours which is a miracle in December. I wouldn’t mind the darkness and polar night at all if we had some snow (which we should by now). Snow makes everything seem soft, dream-like even, and I love the blueness of moonlit, snowy landscapes. That’s what northern winter is supposed to be like, not just wet and windy as it is now. On the other hand even though I love all our four seasons autumn is the one I love most so I shouldn’t complain.

Metatextual rambling and weather… Well that’s interesting for sure.