and i made me a house next to the sea

[harborshore]

graceoftheworld asked me to talk about the cottage in that interview meme, but I had the feeling it might get longer than a comment, so here it is.



The cottage itself is nothing special, really--it's tiny and red, like Swedish cottages are wont to be (as absenteye calls them, they're "little red cottages of Swedishness"). We have a main cottage and an even tinier guest cottage where me and my siblings usually sleep. Right now, it's basically mine, because none of my siblings are in the country.

What is special is the location. Our land is part of a nature preserves, which means the amount of buildings are limited by law (as are the modifications allowed to be made to existing buildings), the shore can't be built on, and the forests are full of rare flowers and orchids.

Here, have a sunset--the picture isn't mine, I don't have access to the family picture folder while I'm out here (they're on the main computer at home), but yeah, it looks like this. Once, in August, the first summer we had the cottage, I went down to the beach with my sister and a friend of ours from Denmark, and we went skinny-dipping under the full moon. The air was warm, the water was warm enough, and the night looked like this.



It's hard to explain what it means to me that we have this now, that I can come out here. I lived in the archipelago for nine years when I was a kid, and I can't describe how beautiful it is except by saying things like "paradise" and "stunning" and "too beautiful to really exist." And it sounds ridiculous, I know that, it sounds like I'm exaggerating and it sounds dumb, but it's nature that has been preserved, really, it's having the ocean right there, it's the way everything, everything is blooming right now. But it's also the way the wind never stops blowing, the way it gets so dark here in the winter (there are no streetlights), the way the ocean is both beautiful and terrifying.

Sometimes, for instance (a lot of the time), it looks more like this:



And I love that too. You have to wear woolen sweaters, then, if you want to sit on the cliffs and watch the sea. I do, I even walk down there when it's snowy and icy and the island feels both dangerous and unfriendly. The aforementioned lack of streetlights mean that after five, in the winter, you're very lost without a flashlight.

I spent the day planting flowers and digging. I suspect that, too, is part of the appeal, the way I get to move and move and not think, out here. I go biking and jump into the really cold ocean when I get too hot to continue. Or, like this morning, I go biking when it's cold and rainy and get into the water to feel warmer, almost.

So that's it, my little cottage at the end of the world. There's a lot of world still out here, there are kids running around and cats and deer (they eat the flower buds, if you're not careful) and horses, but when it's early enough in the morning, the silence feels light and huge. No traffic, no city, no nothing. It makes me feel like I can hear everything that happens, my mother getting out of bed, the birch tree in the forest bending in the wind, my cat sneaking out to wander around the house. That silence, I think, is what I need the most.

Comments

[liketheroad.livejournal.com]

WHY AM I NOT VISITING YOU THERE RIGHT NOW!

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I DON'T KNOW. GET ON IT, MAN. :D

[wasoncedelight.livejournal.com]

*CHINHANDS*

I love these sort of edge-of-the-earth places that you can run away to when you need an escape. <3

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Isn't it pretteh? *beams*

They're deeply, deeply necessary, methinks.

[wasoncedelight.livejournal.com]

It's gooooooooooorgeous! Why am I not independently wealthy/have a sugar daddy or sugar mama so I can either visit my friends at their getaways, or have one of my own?

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

get on that, bb. i'd like it lots if you came here. ♥

[wasoncedelight.livejournal.com]

I'd like that lots, too. Soon as I've got pennies to start saving, I will. <3

[absenteye.livejournal.com]

Aw, man, I know that feeling of summer morning quiet from the summers I spent in rented houses with my parents, it kinda gives me goosebumps the way you describe it! I love skinny-dipping in the rain the best, although I have this really vivid memory of waking up in one of those kitchen sofa bed thingies bathed in sunshine, one of those rare moments when you're the only one awake and everything is yours alone for a little while.

...HI I NEED A VACATION. I was smiling fondly at the memory of peeing in a bucket (because there was a storm and I couldn't get to the outdoor toilet), what the hell!

IN OTHER NEWS HELLO I LOVE YOU.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Oh man, we rented houses for so long, we lived in a former korvkiosk in Skåne and a converted barn on Västkusten and all sorts of other ridiculous places. And hell yes, skinny-dipping in the rain (it should always be done late-ish, whenever I do it during the day I have misadventures--random canoes and such).

And yes, that, waking up too early but feeling too happy about the sunlight to care that really, you haven't slept enough.

:D! We totally have to pee in a bucket because our mulltoa is kind of dumb. But you should take a vacation and come to ME and we could go out there. I mean, after Singapore. If you come to Sweden this summer (you should email me about that stuff).

I LOVE YOU TOO. OLD NEWS, I KNOW.

[torakowalski.livejournal.com]

Ooh wow, that sounds so amazing.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

It's really ridiculously wonderful. *beams*

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

The Swedish archipelago is, yeah. If you ever get the chance to, definitely do it. I feel stupidly lucky about getting to be here sometimes.

[strange-bt-true.livejournal.com]

SWEDEN. IT IS CLEARLY A PLACE THAT I NEED TO BE.

It's so pretty! *sighs* And it's so different to what I'm used to, everything here is very... hardy. Conditions are favorable for a pretty short window, so the plants and trees we see all year are the rough 'n' ready sort. :D

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

YES PLS. *beams*

Oh man, this is the idyllic time here--the summer, the two months or whatever it ends up being, is the season that enables Swedes to get through the three months of nasty rainy autumn and the four+ months of winter (and darkness). Nothing much grows, then. Is Namibia super-dry?

[strange-bt-true.livejournal.com]

IT IS ON MY LIST. DEAR INTERNET, THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME AWESOME PLACES TO VISIT. AND PEOPLE WHO ARE KICKASS. LOVE, ME.

It is! We have a really brief rainy season (about a month in November? Well, it's meant to be November,t he past couple of years it's rained in January and February) but the rest of the year it's pretty dry. Winters are pretty cold, but also dry. Summers? Hot. HOT. (And dry. I think that a theme is beginning to emerge. :D)

It's not quite desert-dry though. I'm not really describing it properly, I'll post some pictures?

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

:DDDDDDDDD

Wait, so you're telling me it's...hot and dry? Got it. :D Whereas here it's cold and wet most of the time. Like today. A mere three days after 30-degree heat. Oh, Sweden.

You should absolutely post pictures!!!

[strange-bt-true.livejournal.com]

YES. I thought I was being really vague there! *is relieved*

I will! Um, tomorrow, because being sad about Panic has made me very tired. Also, it's like 11. But a Namibia!picspam is coming your way. *nods*

[graceoftheworld.livejournal.com]

But it's also the way the wind never stops blowing, the way it gets so dark here in the winter (there are no streetlights), the way the ocean is both beautiful and terrifying.

reading about how much you love this place makes my heart beat faster. i wish i could see it myself.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

♥ I said it upthread somewhere: I feel stupidly lucky about living here when it's like this, stupidly. And if you ever, ever, ever come to Sweden (long shot, but still) I'll take you there, k?

[extemporally.livejournal.com]

That sounds wonderful, I love that you've got a place like that.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

♥ So very necessary, in so many ways. There's a reason there's a lot of sea and sky in anything I write.