Midsummer Nights Dream…..Hmmm?

I have this thing about Midsummer. I think it started with fairies at the bottom of the garden. And I’m going to leave that where it lands. But I look to certain things in our universe to give us a chance to get it right or do things better or just learn to listen. Midsummer, for me, is one of those. The longest day of the year. Before the next day where the sun has started it’s retreat. Shakespeare knew all about it. Naughty Puck, Proud Titania and Noble Oberon to name a few. He had everyone running round in circles. And I know I have written about this before, but there is this scene from Thomas Hardy’s “ The Woodlanders” when the young women of the village go down to the pond on Midsummers Eve and if the moon is shining they will see behind them the face of the one they shall marry. I have made friends come down to the beach in Santa Monica with me and chuck wishes into the waves. I have thrown back garden parties. I have tried to get people who like me to get as excited about Midsummer as I am. And I have failed. So this year I came to the home of a whole nation of people who dress up and dance on this night in June. Bigger than Christmas for them. Well , truly, Christmas is a lot to do with Santa Claus apparently living in Lapland and it being jolly cold.

I wish I could report that there was magical dust in the air and cheeky laughter at every turn. BUT…. I had advance notice that I couldn’t just come and join in. I was told to bypass Norway. Sweden was great in you went to the Dalarna area but it didn’t make sense if you didn’t know people and had somewhere to stay. I landed on Finland , because I came here last year in August and was going to meet up with new-ish friends who had a relative who now lived here and there was a midsummer festival on an island for which she had purchased tickets. I tucked my Peaseblossom spirit inside my belt and got ready to find my tribe.

It is now Midsummers Day. I have spent the day in the city of Helsinki where everybody has left for this special holiday and where EVERYTHING is closed. The museums. The churches. The theatres. The shops. I had a bike. I bicycled around. Up and down empty street. I found a boat of foreigners that took me around the archipelago that surrounds Helsinki and I saw many, many Finnish people on their boats or on little beaches. Fishing, Kayaking. Even swimming in the not warm Baltic Sea….anything to not to have to share their city with losers like me. At this festival, there was meant to be a maypole. I saw a tall pole lying on the ground. I didn’t see any brightly coloured ribbons anywhere and I am not sure it ever left it’s prone position. There was meant to be a bonfire. Very traditional at Midsummer. It was cancelled. Apparently it’s been cancelled for at east the last seven years because of fears that it would start a fire. There was going to be dancing. It ended up with a varied group of about twenty people in national dress carrying Finnish flags and then doing folk dancing of the “ you swing me around and then we cross hands and I swing you” variety.

There was food. Long lines for pancakes with a bucketload of jam and cream on them. Bratwurst in buns. Ice cream and deep-fried tiny baby fish.

There were people with flower crowns in their hair. There were some people playing fiddles. But I have a feeling Titania and Oberon would have had a peek and whistled away sharpish on their fairy wings.

So I am no closer to my long yearned for moment of magical flight. But I continue to believe. And there is always next year.