wintry

Today is the first day of winter (so I hear). I think one of my winter projects might be to design myself a course in Tove Jansson. I love the Moomins of course (who doesn't) and have read and loved one or two of her other books (The Summer Book is classic and the best-known; I read it this summer, in fact, in Sweden, getting ready to visit the archipelago with my dad - but it would be an excellent thing to read in the mean old winter, too). But now there's a new biography out and a bunch of reissues of her stories and novels, so I think I might dive into that.

This essay is reinforcing my inclination.

Much of both Art in Nature and Travelling Light deals with the problem of art, and more specifically, with the problems of artists. Jansson’s characters are cursed to carry the same two souls within their breasts that she carried within hers: they desperately want to be alone, but equally desperately want to experience human connection. 

I didn't see anyone all weekend and it was great. You can't do that all the time but now and then it's nice to have a few days to tunnel in to whatever it is you want to tunnel into. (Not that I'm pretending to be any kind of artist, I didn't mean it that way; basically I just don't have a job.) I like time alone. I don't get lonely unless there's a specific person I'm lonely about. (And then I see people and realize how much I've missed them and how weird I am in company, suddenly.) Plus I've been reading a lot, several books all at once, and it feels like being wrapped up in blankets of words. Very cozy. The weather is hideous but it's ideal for that.

I'm cat-sitting at a friend's house, which I love to do: you get a lot of the fun of travel without the inconvenience of actually being away from home. It's just a slight displacement, same view different angle. (This friend happens to live in the middle of Portland's Sandwich Heaven, or one of them, so apologies if pictures of food appear here in the future. I'll try not to.) It also always makes me tidy up and rearrange my whole apartment. There. That's better!

Anyway, the thing I like most about Tove Jansson is the glorious rage of her tiniest people, and how she never allows it to be mocked, at least not in a mean way. That - the solemn respect for unnameable, ineffectual, absurdly childish but profoundly real fury - complemented by the supernatural calm and wisdom of the people who are a little more grown, that's what I like best. The territory between Little My and Snufkin is vast, and I'm pretty happy at either end.