Week 5: Mikkeli to Savonlinna
June 3, 2003
There was an old graveyard in the forest east of Mikkeli. The spruces were taller and straighter than usual and they stood apart as if in a park. High up, they arched to form a dark vault, blotting out the sky. Sunlight rained through the branches here and there in golden streaks, but the rays never reached the ground. It was as if at dusk.
The yard was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence with no gate. No opening. No way in. The headstones were in granite and chiselled in Russian. Some had lost chunks of stone as if a great monster had taken a bite of them. In the center was a mound of large stones overgrown in low grass. The needles were so thick around the graves I imagined that walking there would be like walking on a sponge. I felt peace there.
I ate my lunch and thought about Nina. A vision of her smile set me to smile and I chuckled to think of the way she laughs after her second whisky. When she tops a mountain she does an odd, celebratory boogie she calls “the city dance”. It never fails to send me into hysterics. The only thing missing from my journey is Nina. In a way, it feels as if I have to reach Nuorgam to get back to her. It feels the same when I consider how to get home to my family and the mountains. They are somehow something to be earned. I walked without my pack to a cliff and watched a lake of blue silk. Woolly clouds floated by.
In Anttola it was the afternoon and I went to a store to buy fuel for my stove. I tripped and stumbled through an explanation of my needs, thouroughly confusing the cashier. A man behind me in line came to my rescue. He was unshaven and had round glasses, like mine and his dark hair was pulled into a short ponytail. He looked incredibly worn out and frustrated, but he spoke softly and told me what to buy. Then he invited me to spend the night at his place. He had been in Mikkeli, doing the “city thing.”
“I’ve had such an awful day, I feel like I should do something nice for someone.” He lived 10km out of my way and so for the first time in over a month I loaded myself in a car.
Jukka Ristolainen and his common-law wife, Saila Reiniö, live in an ancient farm house in Mutasenkylä, miles from anywhere on the shores of Lake Saimaa. They are young, 30 and 24 respectively, and were educated as modern dancers (Jukka had a previous life as a geologist) but they grew tired of the city life. It made them feel exhausted and ill. Jukka’s grandmother came from Mutasenkylä and nearby was a crumbling farmhouse owned by a local farmer. The man, nearly 80, had lived there until he was ten. Then, through some tweak in family alliances his family was forced to leave. He got the house back 5 years ago, scribbled in at the end of an old woman’s will. The house was in terrible condition. As rent, Jukka and Saila agreed to the renovation. They knew nothing of the work.
They lived until mid-October in an unheated cottage while they made the inside habitable. They emptied decades of trash, replaced windows and weather-board, patched fireplaces, installed doors and drove 5km everyday to break the ice over a natural spring and haul water home. They cleaned and repaired the sauna, replacing the shattered kiuas with newer ones they found in a box in the aitta. They ate from the dishes they found in the house and helped the farmer cut and carry the wood needed to heat the house when it fell to -35C for several weeks in January. The day I began walking, running water came to the house for the first time. They had survived the first year but were exhausted. “But for the first time in my life, it was a really satisfying exhaustion.” Saila said. Compared with them, my walk seemed ridiculous and small and I felt a bit ashamed.
Saila seemed bigger than she was. Her hair was short and blond and covered in a scarf. She wore clothes like bags and smiled when she saw me. It was good to have a visitor. “I can do anything.” She said. “I used to feel bad because I never specialized in anything. Now I appreciate that I can do anything.” Saila is beautiful.
The buildings were set in a square. The house dominated but there was a large aitta to the south, a barn on the north side and a garage/woodshed to the east. I sat on a table and watched a flycatcher dart from the barn for his meal. A half dozen house martins darted about and a solitary swallow sat on a wire, telling stories to the acrobats. His red throat shook when he clicked his way to the end, then he flew straight at me, swooped to the left and disappeared into the forest. Then he was on the wire and the game began again.
Jukka and I found that we wanted the same things from life: commitment, generosity, creativity, connection, challenge, nature, place, hard work, rythm, peace, love, community. And we recognized that we weren’t hippies. Drugs and alcohol are boring, we wanted a permanent partner and children, not “free love”. We recognized the value of money and creativity and hard work. One can use what comes from the forest but one can’t survive from it. There was also a political choice attatched to such a move. Jukka felt powerless in the larger world and it frustrated him.
“How do you change the world? You can’t force people to live according to your values, even if that is what the Saddams, Bushes, Bin Laudens, Blairs and Chiracs do. You can only live by example. Live your life and hope you influence others to live the same.”
I agreed, but not totally. “You always have to fight to preserve your right to choose. You have to stay involved in society. If you don’t, a power company will pollute your air, a timber mill will poison your lake…”
“True. Anyways, I’m past philosphy.” He swung his arms as if batting away a fly. “I philosophized all through my 20s. Now it is time to act. Act. Do. Build. Live.” He made a dinner of forest mushrooms, garden potatoes, cabbage, onions and curry. Saila gathered a salad from the forest: dandelions, rasberry leaves, black current leaves and a number of things I didn’t know. We ate it with yogurt and it tasted pure.
The only thing missing was Nina. I felt these people would suit her soul and I told them about her and they insisted that I bring her to visit when my silly walk was done.
After dinner we cleaned together, then Saila and I pulled weeds while Jukka heated the sauna. In the heat they told me of friends who came in February and built a sauna of ice blocks cut from the lake. They built it on the lake and you had to swim under the ice to get in and out. “Alot of work for one night.” They told me of a local man who has walked his whole life. He never travelled any other way and once Saila had seen him walking through the market backwards. He was fit and solid and his beard hung to his navel. Two years ago the community gathered money and bought him a high-tech pair of New Balance walking shoes. Jukka told me that his grandpa never let them out of the sauna without a proper backwashing. Washing each other bound the family and community together. Saila said she wanted to give birth in the sauna.
We drank a tea of heather and nettle and in the tup watched a video of a dance they had performed together in a swimming pool. It was silly and fun and they seemed to enjoy making it.
I slept like the dead and the morning felt like mid-May in Pueblo: warm, humid and bright. But not too much so. When I left them, the sun was hot and the few clouds in the sky were the color of lead. I felt as if I had met two of the most wonderful people in the world.
Posted in Travelogue
