Renewal of Aitta #1 (The Importance of Staying)
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Philajakosken sää tänään : High of 9. Low of 4.
My relatives came to Canada less then 100 years ago from Northern Europe. They found their peace on the west coast of the country, settling on Vancouver Island and eventually Haida Gwaii. I have moved 3 times in my life. The first house I lived in was white and had vinyl siding and a beige carpet inside. There was a quaint backyard where we had a swing set and chickens under the balcony. I used to throw the eggs at our dog. I was no more then 4 years old back then, but I still recall understanding the importance of home. My parents knew how to make anywhere feel special, and we lived our little lives there to the fullest.
The first time we moved I was 6 and very excited, not realizing what moving actually meant. I sat in the front seat of the packing truck with my dad as we traveled less then a kilometer away. Supposedly my brother chose the new house (something I've never gotten over haha..) But after we settled in, it took a little longer to feel like home. I believe as we grow older we develop a stronger attatchment to our things, but mostly our memories.
Soon enough I forgot the old white home and welcomed in the new one. It was a big brown house with lots of windows, nooks and crannies. There was a greenhouse in the front yard where my mother planted cucumbers and tomatillos. I remember running around the entire area with my brother and sister as we disovered that there were 8 tree swings across the yard.
We had everything we ever wished for.. The ocean as our front window, and a sheltered forest lay behind us.
My father built a chiken coop and my mother made stack-wall garden beds. We took pleasure in the softness of new grass in spring, the hot cement driveway in summer, and the bump of lawn we sled past on the rare days the snow stuck. It was the closest I had ever felt to having a home, to this day. It matured into our own kin. And not what we would have called temporary at the time, but that was what it became. An old lovely worn down, but never forgotten memory. We moved away from that special place the year after my mum planted the first blueberries. I don't think she has glanced at that old house ever since.
Painting created by: Judy Hilgemann. judyhilgemann.com
Photo taken by: Benson Hilgemann https://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonhp/
The next place we arrived to was a modern neat and tidy house, with lots of walls to walk into, and a lawn that turned brown in summer.
My families intentions to move were filled with only love, and I tried to do so as well. But I never called that place my place.
By that time, being a young stubborn teenager, I denied the truth that we had really left at all. I covered the rooms walls in old pictures and artwork until the day I decided to travel.
It was 5 years after leaving our old home until I discovered a new one. It was upon a tall-ship where I worked as deckhand along the west coast of Europe. I lived for four months below the hatch, breathed in the ships salty 100-year-old wood, ate from her lee-side, and slept in the fo'sc'le. And when it was time to say farewell to her company, it felt like I was leaving the first place I had ever lived independantly, which it had became.
After that, my new home became my tent and hiking shoes, whom are still a dear companions to this day.
We live in such a world now where we feel the continous desire for exterior sensations, or big moves to change our lives, and that the majority of us end up leaving yet another place. It is more common to leave then stay for most.
But Teemu's family never did that. They built log cabins with the intention of it lasting. They have seen the same snowflakes over a thousand times. They knew their neighbours even if they were miles away. They have carved holes in the same birch trees for mahla (birch water in Finnish.) Teemu climbed the apple tree his grandfather planted years and years before. Their connection with this land is something I had never experienced in my own life.
Photo taken by: Benson Hilgemann https://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonhp/
It wasn't that I wished for a different experience, or that we had never moved away. In Canada, that is what we do. My own family traveled from Norway, Sweden, England, Scotland, and Germany to North America, and elsewhere.
What I am learning is that not everyone has a similar way of living. But if one wants to change their lives, (which is quite common) maybe moving places doesn't always have to be the answer. Maybe staying somewhere for a long period of time isn't so tiring after all.
In the 8th principle of Permaculture Design by David Holgrem he states: "Integrate Rather Than Segregate – “Many hands make light work.” We have to stop waiting for that perfect piece of land to show up to start our projects.
Watch what your garden could become if you have the choice to stay. :) Study what given area or space you do have. And if you can't create somewhere to live permeantly, permaculture can be created within our homes. Upon our windowsills and within our kitchens.
It was new for me. But at the same time, I had grown up understanding that the First Nations of Canada, had lived in the same settlements for hundreds upon hundreds of years. They renewed what was old. They only took what they needed. They valued the diversity of native plants, and the influence of seasonal changes.
Maybe Permaculture isn't so comtemporary after all..
And the longer I spend living among this wooded land, just like my families old houses, the tall-ship and tent, this place here is now becoming a home. We are building somewhere to spend the habitable months in Finland, just like Teemu's ancestors did.
Home is wherever one is, and if we find comfort in doing what we love where we live, well I believe that's one hint closer to an adequate life.
So for now, Teemu and I are living beside our sauna in a cottage on lake Paijanne. A few months ago we lived in a 300-year-old stone home in Crete. Next week, we hope to spend our summer in an renovated stable. So that is what I am hear to mainly talk about today: Aitta.
Translated to English: "A happy mind and a peaceful home are the best of luck."
Aitta means granary in English. This is a new word for me in both languages! Its incredible how much humility one can possess when we learn a new tongue.
There are four rooms to this 'granary,' and the last was actually filled with only grain. Oats, buckwheat, barely, wheat, flax. It is ironic because Teemu and I don't actually eat grains, but it doesn't mean the old faded smell of barely never leaves our happy noses when we step out. But we have left that particular room alone, for now.
I have been working on cleaning out Teemu's dad's and auntie's childhood summer rooms. As you saw in the previous post, it was a lot of fun and a continuously entertaining project. Here are some more pictures of treasures we found...
Hand-made baby clothes.
Someone's life possesions...
A treasure chest filled with stacks of letters tied together with ribbons, an old Fazer cocoa tin can, and Finnish flax clothing.
I was told this was what the Finnish women were given after being in World War 2.
A pressed butterfly wing perfectly preserved among old valuable flax sheets.
A sewing chest.
Memories...
Teemu and I plan to one day have a tidy room to welcome others into seeing these antique artifacts that we found. It is incredible what these family members of Teemu's had left behind. Endless amounts of carefully opened and thoughfully read letters, scraps of fabric, old medicine tinctures, and books. The reality is that life was simple back in the days. And people weren't that different then we are now. Maybe some of us in this modern way of living save important emails or texts, the way these people once kept every letter. We save photos on phones and hard drives now, back then, people valued their film. A lot has changed in the past century, but what a humans joy is not so altered.
After storing the majority of the old objects in the barn, and the special treasures inside Räntmaki, we were ready to clean.
But even after repeatidly sweeping as much dust and dirt that we could out of the rooms, it still felt 'dirty.' I mean not the dirt one can eat off their freshly uprooted carrots, but the dirt that made one feel, unsettled. So our next step was to give the dark rooms some valo. (light in Finnish.)
The aitta was never orginally built for weirdos like us to live in during summer, it was meant for storage. No light. And in summers, Teemu's family slept in these rooms because they were pitch black. Always. But we are humans and we need our light, just like everything else does. Teemu grabbed the saw and away we went.
And for the very first time, sunlight stirred up the darkness and drove it completely away. It was the greatest of all treasures to have seen the walls with natural valo that day. The wood was solid, and healthy. No mold. We could easily see the pencil writing on the walls telling the month and year this building was built. We noticed things that even the most of quality head lamp couldn't spot. And the light cleaned away the feeling of hesitation left on the walls.
This aitta was built above the ground to reduce moisture build-up, and obviously it worked. Still standing over 100 years!
We were grateful to be given an old summer cottage window from Teemu's father, which was much, much newer then this building. The result:
Not too shabby...
The next step was to pressure clean the rooms. We wouldn't have gone to the trouble of energy to find one, but luckily we already had a pressure cleaner and spent the first real day of summer soaking wet, and spraying the grey walls back to their natural red colour. It was like painting with water. The color that makes trees appear alive was still there, after a century of it resting.
Glowing in the sun...
The sun snooped down on us. Our hands hurt from pressure hose. We had specks of dirt and I don't want to think any deeper as to what else was on our faces, but we were happy. We had acheived something.
Each day as I worked away on cleaning this aitta, I stopped having to wear as much accessories. I finished using my eye goggles after clearing out the biggest furniture covered in dust. I stopped having to breathe through my mask after dusting the years out of the granary. I threw my coveralls off as the rooms became flawless.
Soon to be outdoor kitchen...
Bedroom is still dark enough to sleep through mid-summer.
Creations in general will always outlast the creater, so we are merely the tidiers. The caregivers of this building. We won't be able to live here in winter time so once again, this place will enjoy its usual routine of sitting in peace and quiet. It feels almost holy to be living somewhere that was left for someone else to enjoy once again.
Soon we hope to move into this old granary. To be closer to our animals and gardens and spring pond and nature.
It is now 3:00 in the morning, and I am not sure here in the north if the sun is still setting, or rising right now, I will say take care but will now leave you with a glorious quote from the one and only...
“However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring. Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Thank you for listening, Haawa, and Kiitos :)
