I am sitting in one of the most beautiful flats I have ever been. I look out of the window behind this laptop screen: the cool wind of this ‘blueskysunnydaywinds’, the branches of a small tree moving softly, the green field where hay is waiting to be cut and stored for the winter time, the large trees of the forest one km from here (much larger pine trees than in Finland), the valley of Lausanne and far away, almost as giving the last brush of color to this painting, the lake of Geneva.
The flat is derived in an old restored farm house. Has wooden floor and ceiling, space, light, and a nice home atmosphere. This is a home. Our friends Britta and Iker have made it their home. In a way I feel it a bit like my home. It is because of the place, the colors, the time, mood and the my and ours memories on the walls. Britta (I think) has put many pictures on the wall of the friends yearly gatherings we used to have until some years ago before Katja and I started to live in Asia. They then became more sporadic. I walked around the flat, looked at the picture on the kitchen wall: the new year we spent in the Finnish mökki, the summer we met near Tampere, their visit to Cambodia. In the living room great pictures of mountaineering excursion which B&I are very fond of. Then pictures of their son Emil. Another where Olga and Venla are also in. Pictures before and after having children. The life then and today seem to linked to each other. A natural and logical sequence of life events and moments that bring the past into the present and do not make the past to distant.
I am reading this book of Ryszard Kapuscinski, Travel with Erodotus. At one point noting how Erodotus in his journeys had to rely so much on his memory to write his travel stories, Kapuscinski realized that memories bring the past into the present and make it real once again. Whether this is transferred also to the reader and how it is another matter. Surfing the pictures on these walls I have in away travelled in time. Been back into the Finnish winter of some years ago, the early afternoon sunsets, the clear air, the warm under the jumper and cross-country ski jacket and the ice cold cheeks, the warm dining room of the cottage, the sauna, the laughing and talking.
And not only memories of us friends together, but also memories of living in Finland, of Olga touching for the first time the snow, the first time we slid down the hill on a sledge, and so on.
We all live in different countries, have our lives and live our days in our own way. But it is really a kind of magic moment meeting again after many months if not years and on the basis of those common memories talk together about our present lives, our doubts, our dreams, our plans and our children. I am really glad I came here.