Happy Midsummer!
Skin hot, slick with sweat, muscles relaxing on to the hard wooden bench. The air filled with steam, searing, hot enough to make your lungs ache as you take a deep breath. Another ladle of water is thrown on to the sauna stones, there’s a hiss and you hold your breath, the new steam too hot to let passed your lips.
Rivulets of water run down you body, sweat exiting your pores, cleansing, washing away the grime and dirt.
You can’t take any more, it’s too hot, the heat oppressive, the sweat rolling, splashing onto the bench beneath.
You rise, pushing your hot, soaked body from the wood, stumbling to the door and open it, falling out in the bright summer night, gasping, drawing the cool air inside, banishing the burning heat. The midnight sun makes you blink in it’s ferocity, the low ball of fire hanging, large and golden in the sky over the lake.
Steam rises from your body, the mosquitoes hovering above it not daring to come loser. You move now, down the wooden sleepers, through the trees to the water sparkling in the sun.
The first step takes y
our breath away, the water is freezing, not yet warmed from the summer sun as it will be in a months time. It laps around your ankles, the gentle waves causing it to splash frozen droplets up your calves. You take a deep breath and plunge on, going further, up to your knees now and then thighs, the skin beneath the water covered in a thousand little bumps.
As each new part of your body gets swallowed up by the water, the heat inside gets quenched a little more, the sweat rolls a little less. You can feel if not hear the hiss as each new area of hot skin gets quenched by the lake water until slowly you lower yourself in, naked, immersed, the sun dancing it’s golden dance in the reflection of the water covering your body.
You lie back staring upwards, your body floating, effortless, light, free, and close your eyes, letting the sun play across your closed lids. The outer edges of the skin tight and cold, tingling in the night air or below the frigid water, the inner edges warm and smooth from the heat of the sauna and the wine. You lie there balanced perfectly between hot and cold, night and day, summer and winter.
For this is the night of summer solstice, the pinnacle of the year.
Happy Juhanas.
Happy midsummer.
I hope yours is as wonderful as mine.
I'm Heather, an ex expat, now back in blighty and living in Lancashire. Which is just like Lapland... only less snowy and stuff.
Ooh, I can hear it sizzling… reminds me of our summer vacations in Sweden when I was a child… Enjoy!
It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Sounds a dream, perfectly therapeutic. And the fact that your steaming bod held off the mosquitoes – now that is amazing!
As happy but I doubt as glamorous!
Well, yours sounds particularly wonderful! In France, we celebrate midsummer with something called 'La Fete de la Musique'. There are concerts everywhere, every bar, restaurant, town, village has concerts going on until quite late in the night. You are allowed to play music where and when you want to, even if you're rubbish at it. Your way sounds a lot more peaceful!
I know, who needs mosquito repellent when you have a sauna eh? could get a
bit tiring after a while though, eh? lol
ah, but it's the happy bit that's the most important
It's interesting, I didn't know France celebrated Midsummer! Is it only the
UK that doesn't? It'a huge thing here in Finland, all the shops close and
everything – a proper holiday. but yes, much more peaceful than yours lol!
although it does sound like fun – as long as it's just the one night a year!
Perfectly described. Hyvää Juhannusta sullekin Ruotsin puolelta!
That is: A happy midsummer from Sweden to you too!
Hyvää Juhanus teille x Sorry, don't know any Swedish! lol
Glad midsommar! (luckily we don't have as many puzzling cases;)
Great post, well written!
Sara
http://www.sarasfightback.blogspot.com
oh now that sounds nice and easy! Why in the hell did I move to Finland and
not Sweden?
thank you very much x
Wow, truly beautiful post. A belated Happy Summer Solstice to you too!
I always thought the Finns were a little insane to splash into the lakes in the dead of winter after sauna. But, having never been in a sauna, I can't really say that I wouldn't. I spent today at the local city pool, 101 degree heat in Texas and I thought I was going to DIE. I look like a lobster. But, it was fun. Happy Midsummer, Heather. My thoughts are in Finland, no doubt about that.
You describe this very well, a modern girl embracing old (and foreign) traditions, but even more–a timeless celebration of midsummer. I love the line: 'balanced perfectly between hot and cold, night and day, summer and winter.'