So I'm sitting by this lake near Lahti in Finland. There is smoke from about three or four Jaanipäev fires (or 'Juhannus' fires in Finland) going up around this lake which from where I am sitting is about 3-4km across. A nice size lake. There is dance music coming from somewhere over on the other side of this lake which is killing the serenity. It's not super loud mind you, but the thmp thmp thmp from the dance tracks bass line is like a hung-over pulse in my mind. "This is Finland", I think. Pine and birch trees...drunk twenty somethings littered around the forest...and dance music. Or is it Europe in general? - perfection, and no one really cares. It's hard to tell.There's something that came over me from sitting by a Finnish lake for three days with nothing but nature, three other adults and three grommets to deal with. Reality.
Obviously it was reality because that was where I was at that point in time, but what I'm getting at is for all the noise and chaos that life generates in the cities and lives that we occupy, sometimes it's nice to go to a place like that and do nothing about it and have no way of escaping it. Be captive to peace and quiet.
But the mind wants to revolt, "Oh, I left the oil on the hot-plate and haven't paid three bills...". And that's fine. It takes a while to sedate the mind back to a point where you can say "you know what, I'm insured. Let the place burn down. I'm always on time with the bills. What's one late one going to do?". Besides, the drunk kids in the boat (about 10 of them from where I was sitting) seemed to be trying to make life interesting for themselves as there below-water-level craft navigated its way to another point on the lake to piss off some other neighbor. Hope they make it to tomorrow I thought, otherwise their cares wont matter a whole lot anymore.
*9 people died on Finnish lakes that night. Juhannus is usually the day where most drownings occur due to alcohol related incidents*
So there I was; Coo Coo birds in the distance, lapping water against the rocks of the shoreline, the occasional sssst of a beer can opening and the heat of a long overdue sauna to deal with. Three days of it.
I want to write and tell you all about it, but there's nothing to tell. Vene vidi vici - simple as that. We came, we burnt wood, we walked around, we sat around, we talked, we reflected, we breathed in clean air, we watched rain fronts come in, we watched them go. We ate, we drank, we panicked when one of the kids went missing (he was in a car tuning a radio), we slept, and then, we left.
The only things that spring to mind about our time there was the thoughts I have when I 'time-out' like that; how do I get a slice of this (non)-action? Why isn't there anything like this back in Australia? IS there anything like this back in Australia? No! No, there can't be. Where would you find this much pine and birch in Australia? Silly. Hhhha.....my beer is getting warm.
So it had worked. After three days, my mind was almost mush. I had unwound.
