Nurmes Dec 7th
When nightfall supersedes daybreak, weeks and months pass under heavy skies
and the sun is away, it's never quite dark here.
On bleak December days like this I make my way to lake Pielinen. As I reach the shore,
the snow-covered surface of the lake illuminates the landscape into an overwhelming glow.
Borders dissolve, the horizon joins the sky. The skyline but a mere trace in the distance,
there seems to be no other side to the white expanse. All I discern is a hint of a small island,
a soft shadow amidst the whiteness.
It's quiet and still. If only I could remember this view the way it is and not the way
it looks in a photograph. Light changes at an indiscernible rate, but as slow as it is,
I can't halt it by any means. I decide to let go of my urge to try to photograph what I see and
recall something I once read: "Life consists of these little touches of solitude."
I want you to know that this landscape reflects nearly every particle of light,
but it absorbs all sounds and echoes no voices.
Nothing moves, yet nothing remains the same. I realize that as still as I try to stand, my experience
is already the past, the past a memory, and even my own memory of the little island's shadow in the
midst of the white expanse won't be spared from change.
As I write this, I am losing focus of what I saw. Letter by letter the image recedes.
And I know that even if I made my way back onto the frozen lake,
the horizon would retreat before me as I'd try to reach it.
Maija
