Heightened senses and the unrelenting perfection of nature

Warm days in passing sunshine have given way to consistently cold nights. Being woken up in the middle of the night to pounding rain on the metal roof or strong winds blowing through the birch forests, rolling over and feeling my cold nose and toes is quintessentially this cabin for me. Isn’t it just the ultimate cosiness to feel that cold and curl up harder, pulling the blanket right up to your face and tucking it under your feet at the other end?

Mornings begin in that uncomfortable minute between coming out from the covers in my pyjamas to sitting in front of the lighted wood stove downstairs. Coffee and home baked cinnamon rolls follow.

Late evening walks and floats on the lake, both by paddle and gas motor, have showcased nature in truly special ways. The smells of the forests here are something that can never ever, ever fully be understood and appreciated without being experienced. It is truly divine.

So while I still strongly crave those endless hours of sleep, this is the beginning that I very much needed.

Perfect afternoon fika

Slowing down, sleepless nights, and a meaningful miracle at the end of a few thousand kilometres

A hyggelig day

The day before I would drive several thousand kilometres, I spent hours outside in a misty day, brushing against wet leaves feeling water droplets run down my hands, slowly picking berries from bushes. I don’t know what can be a more perfect fall day feeling. It was sleepy, quiet, but conscious and appreciating. My love of the warm oven and cosy smells all day, the fresh berries, the mess of dishes and doughs, the lighted candlesticks inside, has never been more. It’s hard to imagine it more perfect in some ways.

Vetebullar

Fyriskaka

The nights before a some 2,500 kilometre drive should have been all early bedtimes and long, sound sleeps.
I really tried to let it be so, but those nights were about the total opposite. My drive was slow, interrupted often for wildlife, photography, fika, an emergency deodorant run, and naps in the back of the car - all what a road trip should be.

The little heart cloud preceding an incredible thunder and lightning storm was somehow real, and deeply appreciated <3

For now, I hide away at a quiet cabin hundreds of kilometres further away still, endlessly craving infinite hours of sleep, but I see you again soon.

Coffee and crowberries

The wind today howled. The type of gusts that make you wish to spread your arms and just let it carry you half a step backward while the trees of the forest around give some loud creaking noises.

It was the most perfect afternoon to sit quietly with a warm coffee, pick at small bushes of ripening crowberries and watch the wind whip up water across a small lake.

That was needed

Yesterday was like waking up in a totally different season. The air was cool, the sun is staying lower in the sky, and these kinds of clouds always make me think of the fall, especially those few sunny days we get through October.

It felt like just the perfect day to bundle up a little bit and take a cosy coffee out with me to the water. All of the colours of nature now are so beautiful and the smells of the forest are so strong, pure and sweet.

Another lynx moving through the forest from some distance away.

A magic lurking within

I always thought there is no way to capture that majesty that is so strong within a forest, like you just want to bottle up the lush stillness to keep forever. It is perfect. There is something about just one small few metres of an entire shoreline that draws you in and almost grabs you to keep you near, and then the light hits it just right and it’s as close to keeping something tangible from it as I’ve found, but still a long way from those real moments.

This sunset gave chills to my arms. Almost a carbon copy of summer skies from cottage country in Ontario. Sure, some mosquitos and flies, but nothing a short bath in repellant can’t help to fix. Really though, this overwhelming stillness and softness in the sky - pastel colours, a storm threatening on one side and this surreal sunset on the other, actually warm air - really - I think we had 27°C today, and total quiet.

What a beautiful life to worry not of the time, if it’s 9pm or 1am. It doesn’t matter. The world around just becomes more quiet and more beautiful, the sky ever changing.

In previous years, I always feel ready for the dark nights to return and for winter to come back but, and despite being just over summer solstice, it’s different this year. I really wish this never ends.