I don’t consider myself patriotic, but there are a lot of things about Finland that feel very sacred and important to me. I grew up in a small town and my childhood home was located literally in the middle of the forest. Nature has always been a big part of my life. What’s funny though is that I didn’t realise the importance of nature until I lived in the city. I will never take nature for granted again! I think Finnish nature is really calming and at it’s best it is healing. I think experiencing summer night swimming in the sea and going to the sauna is one of the greatest privileges you can have in your life. The quietness, only hearing the sounds of nature is magical to me. Writing this post I begin to miss it already because Finnish summer just came to the end.
One of the things I love about Finland is how safe it is to live here. As I mentioned before, I grew up in a small town. I am so grateful that I got to have a really free and safe childhood. I could go for a walk in the middle of the night wherever I wanted and not feel scared. As I grew older I realised how rare that is. Feeling safe is something I wouldn’t give up very easily even though I would want to live in many different countries.
We are not known for diverse and flavourful food culture, but there are still many foods that I couldn’t live without. Salmiakki, ”mokkapalat”, blueberry pie with vanilla sauce, rye bread and Finnish salmon soup. A lot of greatest memories with my family has to do something with eating. Picking our own apples from our garden, making juice, jam and pie out of them. In my family we used to bake a lot and sometimes we made our own Karelian pies.
So, those were a few things about what finnishness means to me. I attached one photo, which is a view from my childhood home’s garden. The photo captures many things I love about Finland. The winters are so beautiful and I really love the way the snow sticks to the trees.
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