When winter hits you hard, the Wandering Writer can still dream

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You don't know what it means winter blues if you don't live above the 60th parallel north. You might not really grasp the feeling of seeing the length of the day reduced to a max of five hours with an almost constant cloud curtain to prevent any sunshine.

Usually, this would be the time when I pack my summer clothes and plan my escape route to the southern hemisphere. Now, with the pandemic hitting its third wave, I don't even have any idea when it will be possible, and the feeling is that of being trapped into an eternal night.

According to the calendar, there should still be three months to the time when the day's length will reach a reasonable length of 9-10 hours from dawn to dusk.

To make things worst, it seems like also for this year we won't have any snow to brighten up the days. Even in the most northern part of Lapland, the snow has hardly made a consistent layer (at most 5cm in the northernmost part of Lapland).

If we can call this a consolation, there won't be any disappointed tourist coming to our country to enjoy the beauty of a white wilderness. Still,  having no tourists means a big loss for regions that live almost exclusively on that income.

Yes, we won't be happy enough the day when a vaccine will be delivered among the population, and whenever it will be available also for me, you can bet your ass, I will be the one in the first line.

What will I do once I have the vaccine? Legit question, I will immediately book a flight to Italy and a couple of holidays for the darkest periods of the year. The Wandering Writer can't really wait to be on the road again.

Because of this pandemic, we've lost the chance for our last holiday last March, and this year I also avoided taking any holiday from my job. For some reason, I preferred to remain at work rather than stay at home doing nothing. I only took one week to finish my novel, and maybe I'm considering taking another one to finalize the next one and get even with all the marketing for the Christmas period.

Initially, exploring the rest of the country I’m living in seemed the best idea until I realized that the reason why I used to travel abroad was the need for sunlight. At this point, going to Lapland for a holiday, knowing that there I will find even more darkness, doesn’t really appeal to me.

It has been a blessing that none of my family or even at the workplace had been hit by the virus, but the world is big, and unfortunately, the casualties have been far too many. Mine are certainly small troubles compared to those who have lost their beloved ones. So, please, keep yourself and your beloved ones safe.

Night fell on Earth

It's nine o'clock in the morning, the sun hasn't yet risen. It's the darkest month of the year here in Finland.
Even though Helsinki is located in the south of the country, there is just a small chance to even see the sun. This because at half-past two in the afternoon the sun will start to set, giving space to a long night.

For an outsider, this might seem like something cool, but I can assure you that there is nothing cool once you start living here, and northern winter starts to be your normality.
To begin with, the simple biology that we need sunlight to live should tell you that surviving in a place where for a long period you won't see the sun, is strongly affecting your mood.
People in winter are less talkative, feel depressed, and constantly tired.
At the moment, we have five hours of light, and no snow to give any sort of joy to our souls. Nature is just dark, damp, and cold.
The sky is covered by a thick curtain of clouds, and it really doesn't make any difference whether it is completely dark or just dark grey.

 

Nevertheless, if you move to the city center, particularly now that we are reaching the Christmas period, the lights and the decorations for the incoming festivity, give a good reason to feel hopeful and improve the general mood.

We are just missing the snow...

Well, the recent years have brought a slight change in the seasonal plan of the Finns, living in Helsinki, and we are not having a decent amount of snow until the second week of January. This means that we need to clench our teeth, brace ourselves, hold onto each other for another month before having two main important things: more light, and more snow.

One important happening, people still follow, is the crowning of Lucy.

One week before the winter solstice, in Finland, there one event historically tied to Swedish culture: the day of St. Lucy. 

St. Lucy is celebrated as a “beacon of brightness” in the darkest time of the year. The first records of St. Lucy's celebrations in Finland are from 1898, and the first large celebrations came in 1930, a couple of years after its popularization in Sweden. Every year, in the Helsinki Cathedral, a girl is going to be crowned.

She bears a crown of candles to fight the darkness, and will walk as a bearer of the light for the streets of Helsinki:

 

She comes to remind us that within one week the days will start once again to get longer, and this means walking toward the spring. You might consider this a bit funny, but in this period, every second added to the length of the day is a great step toward the season when the sun will shine for most of the time.

With my heart full of hope, but still tired as hell, and slightly moody, I wish you all a fantastic weekend!

It's a magical world!

Today I am going to tell you about one of my passions besides writing: photography.

I believe there is a very close connection between all forms of art. In my case, the three things that go hand in hand are writing, traveling, and photography.

How do they relate to each other? Well, writing needs inspiration right? What better inspiration than visiting new places, experiencing cultures, meeting people, reading other countries' newspapers.

Photography offers inspiration. This one helps me to think outside the box, see the world from different perspectives, and clear my mind whenever I feel stuck with a page or chapter.

Here, the weather started to be quite unstable. It began with a chilling period, when we had the first snow, to the time we are now with temperatures that raised far above the seasonal average.

Despite this, during this winter, I was lucky enough to have a camera with me right when I needed it and could get some interesting shots that helped me going through the last few weeks.

Due to stress at work, I couldn't proceed with my writing, so I just got out and took a walk in the forest.

What I found was really stunning, and I spent most of the time taking shots of those crystals. 

The perfect harmony between the white of the snow, ice, and the blue of the sky (believe me, it's quite rare) was extremely inspiring. I could have spent the whole day there.

 And that was exactly what I did. Not caring about the temperature, I stayed the whole day out, to take pictures, and admire the sceneries.

I also got the chance to take a shot of a hawk, who was taking a rest on a tree, checking the food situation on his territory.

Undeniably, days and walks like this give a lot of inspiration, besides offering the chance to unwind from the stress of everyday life. 

With those images, I greet you for this weekend and wish you a great day.