I want to live everywhere, see everything, all of the time!
A trip to Finland, an obsession with a webcam, and a relentless curiosity that only seems to grow stronger the older I get.
In November 2023 my wife and daughter and I went to Lapland. We were going for two reasons. First, and most importantly, Santa had invited my seven-year-old daughter to come and visit him and his elves. Secondly, we were going in the hope of seeing the northern lights for the first time. We’d gone all in: the northernmost hotel in Saariselkä, one of Finland’s northernmost ski resorts, deep inside the arctic circle, in a glass-roofed cabin on top of a hill.
The trip was incredible, a three-night whirlwind of tobogganing, sledging, reindeer and husky rides, snowmobiles, and of course, visiting Santa in his cabin, tucked away in the Lapland forest. The snow lay several feet thick on the ground, and the temperature sunk as low as -20ºC (-4ºF). But although we had one clear night, sadly we didn’t see the aurora borealis. Our visit coincided with a full moon, which was always going to diminish our chances. Our one attempt at hunting the aurora at Inari, a town an hour or so north of where we were staying, saw us standing on a frozen lake at 10 o’clock at night, in the dark and drizzle, sipping grog.
I’d never been so far north, and at that time of year, the sun never rises. So for most of the time the world around us was swaddled in deep snow under cover of darkness. But then, around ten in the morning, an eerie light crept up from the east, and then very slowly, this attempt at dawn became an attempt at dusk. In all there were four hours of gloaming; a symphony of fiery oranges and deep indigo hues that felt overworldly. But the views that we had from the top of the nearby Kaunispää peak were something else: a four hour-long sunrise/sunset, across an endless forest wilderness.
One year later, and barely a day goes past when I don’t think back to our trip. On my phone’s web browser I have a tab that has been open since last year, loaded with a webcam showing the view from the restaurant roof at the top of the Kaunispää. It’s one of those webcams that you can take control of, moving around and zooming into and out of the scene. From that webcam I can see the cabin we slept in, and the slopes we tobogganed down. Over the past twelve months I’ve checked in on the webcam regularly. I watched the daylight begin to dominate in the spring, as the snow slowly melted away to reveal a hitherto submerged landscape. In the summer I saw incredible days of everlasting sunshine and blue skies, illuminating the emerald green hills and forests that were entirely hidden to us in November. And then, in recent weeks, I have watched autumn throw squally showers and snow flurries at the lens of the webcam, and the light contract to be replaced once more by the grainy blackness of an Arctic winter. And now the snow is returning, inch by inch, layer upon layer.
What to make of all this, this obsession with a webcam atop a hill in Finland, and my obsession with a three-day trip that took place nearly a year ago? I am very aware of my circadian rhythms, and at this time of year I am deeply affected by seasonal affective disorder. Here in the southeast England, an unusually dull grey November has laid me low. And yet the allure of living in the Arctic Circle is strong. It fascinates me intensely. When we stood upon that frozen lake in Inari, not seeing the northern lights, I looked back to the shoreline, to the cottages and houses clustered there, and thought how wonderful it must be to live in a place like this, to have a view like this for starters, but also to be able to experience six months of light followed by six months of darkness.
The truth is that I crave new experiences, to be able to see and feel and live like others. That’s not because I’m dissatisfied with my own life, but more a sign of an enduring sense of curiosity that, if anything, grows stronger the older I get. There is so much to do, to see, to feel – to celebrate! – in life on this planet. I’d dearly love to live in northern Finland for a year, to properly experience a life lived half in the dark and half in the light. But I’d also quite like to live in Paris, preferably in a fourth-floor apartment on one of Haussmann’s boulevards, with a wrought iron balcony overlooking the Seine, where I could sit in the spring and eat croissants and drink strong coffee.
Come to think of it, I’d also like to live somewhere on the Baltic as well. Copenhagen perhaps, which struck me when I visited a few years back as being a sensible and very pleasant place to live, with those lovely open sandwiches topped with pickled herrings. Edinburgh: I quite like the idea of living in Scotland’s capital, in a redstone apartment, just like I did in Glasgow many years back. I’d also like to live on the coast again, preferably in a modestly sized town in England, with its own vibrant cultural scene. Falmouth in Cornwall again, perhaps, or Totnes or Ilfracroombe in Devon. And given the chance I’d happily live on a diet of olives, feta and baba ganouch on a remote Greek island in the Aegean.
I want to live everywhere, see everything, all of the time!
Some of this may be possible, if only for a week or two here and there, but I very much doubt all of it. And even the small amount that is possible will be contingent on my needing to work, to take my daughter to school, to be ready to help ailing parents.
In the meantime, I won’t close that browser tab with the Saariselkä webcam just yet.
I will continue to dream.
/Mono no aware/ — the pathos of passing moments