A rare day in the lap of luxury: a big boat roaring out towards the outer archipelago, a blue sea still as a sheet of glass.
An almost deserted island with open horizons in every direction, Sweden a hazy mist in the distance, the rest of Finland nearly as far away.
The silence, the smooth rocks warmed by the sun. Strawberries, dark coffee.
I'm back in the city of my wide-eyed youth. On this very path I walked home after my first day at university, thinking I had taken on something impossible. I hid nervously behind my only two friends in the world as a handsome man, an older student, stopped us with a bright smile and suggested we join him and his friends for a beer. We nearly fainted. Many years later, we still laugh at how we stuttered an excuse and ran off like the scared little girls we were.
Right there and then, the whole wide world threw open its portals and let us glimpse a future filled with unknown phenomena and exciting people. Glamour and adventure beckoned alluringly as the cathedral bell tolled the hour above our heads.
So I set off, running across the cobble-stoned streets with never-ending energy, entertaining dreams of interrail in Europe and beautiful men. I was surrounded by people who knew impossible stuff and appreciated ancient books as much as I did. People who were nothing at all like me. And people who were as hellbent on having adventures as I was, but without my fear. Sometimes I was desperate and lost. Then I sneaked into the ancient cathedral to stand beneath vaults as high as the sky and wander around decaying tombstones, to be comforted by the air of centuries past and the quiet of many prayers.
That world pulled me in, molded and strengthened me, then shot me off into the universe.
As I walk the same streets now, I'm there and here simultaneously. That long-lost excitement and hope whisper to me again and yet I've seen so much, good and bad.
Be inspired by the nostalgia or choke on it? I can't decide.
I guess it's called middle age. When you realise you're not where you want to be and don't see a way to get there. That you're mediocre at best, and not the star you dreamed to be. That some very important things can't be fixed. That you'll never reach the mountains and have to make a path through the jungle.
On the other hand, I finally realised what The Divine Comedy is all about.
This is what today was like:
I slept late when I should have been up and working.
I cleaned my house when I should have been in the office.
I wrote emails in an empty office when I should have been buying strawberries.
I bought strawberries and wine for myself when I should have been buying food for my mother.
I rode my bicycle around a rose garden when I should have been lifting weights at the gym.
I wrote my blog when I should have been asleep.
I regret nothing and it's Midsummer.
Stepping with caution in a long, black skirt, up and down winding staircases of stone worn smooth, with walls too close and lintels too low. Breathing in the damp, medieval air and thinking I was made for this. Losing myself in the history of murderous kings and jealous duchesses and servants no-one remembers, feeling their sorrows.
Sitting alone under ancient vaults, centuries groaning beneath my feet as I listen to the silence. Staring up at imposing, thick walls that have stood for seven hundred years and feeling that they are mine. Wandering like a ghost.
I'm finally reunited with my favourite castle, the one that stands by a river that flows backwards. I'm all alone and I'm home.
Midsummer is trying to go to sleep with the sun shining in from the northwest. Waking up to too-loud birdsong and not knowing if it's day or night.
Too warm in silk nightdresses, shivering under sweater and jeans in the afternoon. Facing up to mosquito armies in the woods and icecream queues in the city. Breathing in lilacs and clover. Burning the skin on your nose. Hot sun and cold winds.
Confused and weary, constant light, the intensity of a fleeting summer. Like every flower, I reach out frantically towards a bright sky and explode in bloom.
I read a wonderful book last winter. It has magic doors opening from our world into an underground labyrinth filled with books, candles and wine bottles (what more could you wish for?), mystery, bees, time travel, books where you read about yourself, a sea of honey ... I could go on.
I'll just give you a few excerpts from Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea:
Zachary picks a different hall to wander down, this one has shelves carved into the stone, books piled in irregular cubbies along with teacups and bottles and stray crayons. [...]
There are so many candles that the scent of beeswax permeates everything, soft and sweet mingling with paper and leather and stone with a hint of smoke. Who lights all of these if there's no one else here? Zachary wonders as he passes a candelabra holding more than a dozen smoldering tapers, wax dripping down over the stone that has clearly been dripped on by many, many candles before.
One door opens into a round room with intricately carved walls. A single lamp sits on the floor and as Zachary walks around it the light catches different parts of the carvings, revealing images and text but he cannot read the whole story.
..
Zachary picks up her glass of wine from the table and takes a sip of it. It tastes like winter sun and melting snow, bubbles bright and sharp and bursting.
..
He takes a book from a stack near the wall and puts it down again. He wanders down a hallway lined with curving shelves so the books surround him at all angles, like a tunnel. He cannot tell how the ones above his head manage not to fall.
He tries opening doors. Some are locked but many open, revealing rooms filled with more books, chairs an desks and tables with bottles of ink and bottles of wine and bottles of brandy. The sheer volume of books intimidates him. He does not know how one would choose what to read.
He hears more people than he sees, footsteps and whispers close but unseen. He spots a figure in a white robe lighting candles and a woman so absorbed in the book she is reading that she does not look up as he passes.
He walks through a hall filled with paintings, all images of impossible buildings. Floating castles. Mansions melded together with ships. Cities carved into cliffs. The books around them all seem to be volumes on architecture. A corridor leads him to an amphitheater where actors appear to be rehearsing Shakespeare.