Northern exposure

As in, a week in the life of a southern girl from the north, or, moments of pleasure:

Strawberries straight from the field, blueberries from the forest.

(Speaking of which...a concise yet accurate description of the landscape as seen through the windshield of a car in which said southern girl was trapped for ten hours, and ten more driving home: trees, fields, a lake, a town, trees, fields, a lake, a smaller town, trees, fields, a lake, an even smaller town. Get the picture? So much better experienced up close and personal. Friendly locals with unintelligible dialects, golden dunes of rye and barley, tourmaline cathedrals of pines, birches and spruces, alders and junipers.)

Sprints down the pier, bombs in the lake.

Fresh salmon, herring and "new potatoes," i.e. of the newly harvested early variety.

The balmy heat and steam of a smoke sauna.

"Mom, why do I have a nose?" "Mom, why do men have nipples?" "Mom, why is the sky blue? Or water?"

That hammock big enough for two.

Days without shoes.

And then: a pair of red ones. "Honey, you have shoes." "Not these, I don't."

Muse, live. "Love is our resiiistaance..." Oh yes oh yes oh yes.

The music of Gemma Ray, Imogen Heap and that Kate Bush album I thought I'd lost I found.

A writing problem I solved without actively thinking about it.