remembering Lapland

I go up the hill to see if I can see the sunset.  It must happen somewhere.
But as the sun hits the horizon, it does not sink, yet travels along the horizon for a little while, until moving higher in the sky.  It is mid summer in Lapland.  The fire-weed is growing rampant, as are buttercups and bluebells.

rainbow (nearly double) just past midnight

part of that rainbow is my blogging avatar

 Berries just waiting to bud.  Come later in the summer, the cloudberry will arrive.  A tiny jewel in Lapland. There is a cloudberry liqueur, I can no longer remember its name, fancy that.  It was tasty, but nothing I'd go for again.  I love the words though... cloudberry. Ah, Lakka, I think it was called. And a pretty berry it is, too.


Long winter and snows make for a feast of mosquitoes come summer.  I am usually a magnet for them, but they didn't bother me so much while I was there.  Lucky me.
The sun was strong and it lasted oh so long, forever in fact, and sometimes it got the better of me.  I did have a bit of heat sickness which was very unpleasant.  You just don't realize how long you are staying out in the sun, and I did it from morning till late night, usually.  I would stay on the back deck, reading, and sunning, and contemplating life.

 Later, I would share my time with my companion out there, until quite late.

The best part of Finnish life must be the requisite inclusion of a sauna in the house.  Frequent saunas are wonderfully cleansing for mind body and spirit, I believe.  And afterwards it's not unusual for a Finnish man to want to make love, so that's a plus.

after sauna

I ate reindeer while I was there... somewhat gamier than venison.  It was so so.  Didn't eat bear... I wouldn't have gone for that.

Russia is just an hour or so away from where I was, in Rovaniemi.  Didn't bother going there, though.  Although I wouldn't have minded, just to say I'd been.
When it wasn't raining, which it did a lot, to my delight, the sky would be oh so blue, and dotted with puffy clouds.

  And there were doggies, too, who were the most faithful of companions, I love them so.

70/365 rainbows

When I traveled out west, on a bus, I came across some of the best rainbows I have seen in my life.  A lot of the land is flat, and the sky big.  Double rainbows loomed over corn fields in Kansas, and you could almost hear Dorothy singing.
There was a shop in Woodstock, many years back -- wonder if it's still there.  It was called The Rainbow Shop.  I still have a couple of things I bought there.  A wooden rainbow, which hangs on my bedroom door, and a book all about rainbows and color.  The pages are rainbow colored.
I have seen a few rainbows right here in Brooklyn.  Rainbows brighten any day.
My most magical rainbow sighting has to be the one I saw in Finland, during midsommer.  It was half past midnight, and of course the sun did not fully set.  But seeing a rainbow at midnight is something else.

midnight rainbow



*A free-write is a type of automatic writing, where you just go with your stream of consciousness non-stop. There's no thought to spelling or grammar, and no editing of words. Supposedly this opens the mind up to greater creativity. They can be 5, 10 or 20 minutes long. Suggestions for freewrites are always welcome. Visit Evie, with whom I freewrite, at the space between colors.