This year has been anything but stress-free, let’s say. Finding moments of calm and allowing my mind to rest and find a peace have been… fleeting and exceedingly rare.
But, I’m extremely fortunate to have an amazing partner in life to help distribute the heavy loads and ease those burdens and fears, and who never fails to take my mind off the more weighty issues on any given day and helps me find moments of calm and something to smile or laugh about.
One of the highlights each day centres around our evening strolls. I so welcome these times spent together, exploring wherever we are regardless of scenery or season. And, there is something particularly welcome about strolls in the summer months in Helsinki, when the days are long and the evening light stuns. Each day and each sky offers a slightly different canvas, and one which provides an explosion of colour, a contrast so incredibly stark when compared with the blacks and whites and greys of the longer winter months and absurdly short winter days.
It’s so, so hard to recall what the opposing seasons look like when we are in the middle of one. We far, far prefer summer. Always.
The following three panoramas were taken [on a Nokia G42] on three separate and recent strolls, within the last week or so. Each image was taken from a spot which lies less than a 15-min jaunt from our building. And, we love each one immensely.
One of the things I love about these specific images are reflections of the sky and scenes above that lie on the water. Even with the ripples created by the many ducks who call these areas home, the reflections seem so crisp and so clear.
Most importantly, each time we go out and spend just a few moments during our strolls standing and drinking in these pockets of beauty and incredible views, I can feel the stress of life sloughing off and away.
Come December, these are the images I’ll hold in my mind’s eye and reflect upon, wondering ‘Was it all just a dream?’
Recently, on an evening stroll, I looked down on the path my husband and I traversed to find a single solitary feather, one with polk-a-dots of all things. It honestly took my breath away, stopping me in my tracks. It’s one of the few feathers I’ve ever felt compelled to pick up and bring home.
The feather I found in the woods near our flat, June 2023.
We did not see the specific bird this feather belonged to. But, we’re fairly certain it was once part of a Great Spotted Woodpecker‘s plume, one of many we’ve come to love in the woodlands near our home in Helsinki.
These creatures have visited our balconies for years, and we welcome their high-pitched somewhat annoying songs and signals, delight when we catch them flitting from tree to tree in search of food or finding their way back to their homes to feed their even more annoying fledglings. The trees around us are dotted with various occupied and abandoned holes this time of year. And, the woods are filled with their cries each evening as we wander on our evenings strolls. The only bird which gives me more of a thrill when spotted (no pun intended) is a hummingbird, and those tiny creatures do not venture this far north as far as I know.
But, woodpeckers and these spotted versions with splashes of bright red on their heads (males) and bums (both males and females) are abundant. We love them, affectionately referring to each individual bird as ‘Woodie!’ Yes, we are just that creative with our bird names.
Several years ago, as I sat reading on the balcony of our last flat one afternoon, one of these amazing creatures landed on the balcony railing a metre or so from where I sat, and pecked at some of the seeds we had laid out for them. He then eyed me as I eyed him. I say ‘him’ without really knowing at the time if it was male or female. [Now, I believe it was a male, given the bright red markings on his head and thanks to the various bird books we’ve since acquired and consulted.]
It was an incredible moment, and one which took my breath away just as much as that tiny feather found on the path more recently did. More so, I’d say. Just me and a woodpecker sitting on the balcony looking at one another. No other sounds mattered. Nothing else really mattered in that moment. Just the two of us, bird and human. The entire encounter lasted no longer than a minute, if that. But, the memory of it will last a lifetime. Years later, it thrills me still.
We’ve come to recognise the call of the woodpecker, noting when we hear it for the first time in spring and understanding that spring is near. We also know that when we hear it from our balcony, Woodie is letting us know that we need to put out the bird feeder. We imagine his calls gently letting us know that we’ve neglected our bird-feeding duties.
Catching glimpses of these creatures in the woods provides moments of hope and peace. And, most likely, a quickening of our heart rates. We hear them far more often than we actually see them. But, in the years since we’ve learned their specific calls, we have also identified the high-pitched screeches of their fledglings, awaiting their evening meals. We have caught the shadow of young ones, not quite happy in their holes and not quite ready to venture out. We’ve also spied a juvenile or two, who look as though they are just leaving their nests and venturing a bit further from their homes. Tiny, fat fluffly birds, pecking away at the trees and looking for a tasty morsels to sustain them.
Whichever creature lost its feather, I hope it is thriving, and the loss of that single gorgeous bit of its plume simply reflected a change in the seasons rather than an encounter with a predator. I keep looking up and down now on our evening strolls, not simply hoping to catch a woodpecker in flight from tree top to tree top. I also hope to find another, perhaps larger and more symmetrical polk-a-dot feather.
But, if I never find another feather, at least we have this one. It’s gorgeous. Perhaps even more so, but at least as much as the bird who shed to whom it belonged.
It wasn’t until late in the day that I realised it had been two years to the day that we discovered our beloved feline, Cheeky Che Fufu, the Princess of Darkness, had developed kitty titty cancer. That particular gut punch was vividly relived after stumbling upon an image of her from exactly one year ago when she was still clear-eyed and sassy. It’s been roughly six months since we said our final farewell, a realisation that left me unsettled me and heartbroken all over again. Che Fufu’s been on my mind a lot lately, and her memory has thrown phantom shadows of her around my desk as I’ve worked. Whilst I am enormously grateful to our newest family member, the Tiny Terror that is Squeaky Pollito Pito Frito Fu, and his persistent play and silliness along with kitty hugs the likes of which I’ve never really known, I will forever be a member of #TeamCheFufu.
Simply put, I miss our darling beautiful girl.
With her in my mind and an incredibly heavy heart, my husband and I set off on our evening stroll yesterday evening, me silently shedding tears behind my sunglasses and my husband also lost in his own thoughts and concerns. We decided just after setting off that we wanted to try to get in a good long stroll. I think we both needed it. So, we headed for that tiny uninhabited island not far from our flat, Seurasaari, to see what we could see. Little did we know that Finland had plenty of treats in store for us, perhaps at a moment when we needed them most.
The light. The glass-like water surrounding Seurasaari. The sun gently sliding below the horizon over the water creating a kaleidoscope of colours. The shadows cast against trees at impossible angles, both bending and expanding the light in unexpected ways. And, so many reflections and images in every direction. At times we seemed so far in the woods only to be pulled back into the city as we looked across the bay in the direction of the city centre. The deeper we traversed, however, the more our moods lifted. And, the less our worries, concerns, heartbreak and woes weighed us down.
Thank you, Helsinki. We forget sometimes just how insanely beautiful you are. On days like these, there’s a certain restoration in simply getting out and moving about. Perhaps that was your intention all along.
A Tropical Fish Out of Water 