After the noon news, I lay my brushes and pens, papers and scissors away, hop into my boots and go outside to check if the postman was busy for me today. Yesterday he was, with a book Vieläkö kukkivat omenapuut? (Are the apple trees still blooming?) which cover I illustrated last spring. It is a book about the history of North Ingria by Helena Miettinen. It is filled with images of old houses and people, their memories about leaving home and finding a new one where ever they were allowed to stay. Written in Finnish. Where old homes used to be, there are now dense forests, but there might still be old apple trees, blooming during springs and dropping apples on the ground during autumns.
The sky is the same color as the ground all day long. In the morning dark, during the day white as the snow. Afternoon it turns dark through blue once again.
Walking home and counting. One-thousand-and-fourty-five steps to pass a graveyard. One-thousand-four-hundred-and-twenty-eight a forest. Intermingled amount from the last crossroad to home door (through mail box). Eleven to fetch woolen socks from the entry and nine stretched ones back to the working table. How many steps taken this year and were they all in different places. How many steps it would take to get you all here for a cup of tea and a blueberry cake.
Hello dear Monday,
With fresh snow, silent winds. Clouds hanging above like laundry, not moving, not transparent. With new paths in the snow starts the week. Firewood smelling, smell of home.
The only eraser got lost. A winter pond house was sawed and nailed instead. Eraser was found. Three things started meanwhile. "Oh there you were." Under a pile of paper, a lost friend.
A letter arrived, with a beautiful necklace. Thank you Anna! It reminds of a necklace of childhood, with small glass beads. Jumping on the ground and shining, getting lost and unreachable like real stars. A small cosmos on the floor. But this one will be around my wrist, reminding of the real cosmos and the ones we still don´t know.
Monday mint green tea magic. Frost meadows and mimics of yellow and red chested winter birds
Hearts and cinnamon tastes,
Balcony blooms of frozen flowers, I wish I could pick them up into a vase like in my book Proof of Winter.
P.s. The new address is Palvaanniemenkatu 14 b 5, 33700 Tampere, Finland ♡
