OF SUMMERS AND SISTERS

At ten o'clock in the evening the trees have darkened a little against the pale sky, the mountain-ash flowers glowing like white bulbs among the somber spruces. The valley is very green and full of flowers, delicate lilies of the valley, which I can smell more than see, humble forget-me-nots, white stars of Stellaria. A light wind from the east sends small even waves in a gentle rhythm against the beach of sand and pebbles and flat rocks, then rustles the slender birch trees before it comes to rest in the dark forest. I carry a bucket of water from the well, and the fragrance and serenity of the early summer night invade my senses with an intensity which is almost painful.

I am on home leave -- I have crossed the Atlantic to touch the green green grass of home again. For a few short summer weeks I will live in the old white house with the green window-frames where once, a long time ago, during an endless row of summer days life seemed to me perfect harmony, the adults going about their tasks without hurry, without conflict, and we, the children, without other worries than where to find the biggest wild strawberries.

When I enter the house, I find that my sisters have made tea. We don't need to turn on the lights but sit at the rickety table by the window sipping our tea and spreading honey on mother's home-baked biscuits, just as we did twenty years ago, thirty years ago, just as we have always done in summer. And because the Nordic summer nights are not meant for sleeping, we talk, and we laugh, and as the twilight deepens a little toward midnight we talk some more, seriously now, and laugh again. New impressions, new insights -- perhaps --, new conflicts and old ones, to share and ponder: We have not seen each other for many a season and the topics come rushing to our minds, faster than we can handle them.

We pour ourselves more tea and spread some honey on our biscuits, and not until dawn breaks and colors red the northeast sky do we let the voluble song-thrushes and finches take over, and go to bed, happy, refreshed.

But I shall not sleep long. In the morning I shall walk slowly through the valley towards the beach, feeling the grass wet from the dew beneath my bare feet and prompting the seagull to take off from her nest among the rocks with an indignant cry. I shall take a dip in the cold water, then sit on the smooth granite boulder, letting the sun warm me, watching the calm blue sea and the green islands, some close, some far away and a little hazy, and somewhere between them a glittering stretch of horizon towards the south, my piece of the Finnish Gulf.

The birds will keep me company, singing their joyful odes to the June morning. And perhaps, if I turn my head, I will see a sister or two dancing down the valley between the white birches, sisters like flowers in their bright robes. And we will start all over again, to share each other's thoughts and feelings.

"Annu en sommar full av doft och sken," in the poet's words, "another summer full of scents and shimmer."

by Gundula Sundgren

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