Swedish Archipelago & Utö
We see the world through different eyes, the enthusiast for the concrete world and the lover of all things wild. And yet we learn to look at both and in time an expanding awareness grows in our minds and in the whole beauty can be found.
The silence of night was gradually replaced by stirrings in the city. As the golden sun inched over the treetops and painted the facades of Stockholm, noisy corvids conferenced on chimney tops and herring gulls screamed from the sea. The rumbling of automobiles amplified and early risers rushed to work. Gold light dimmed to lemon and then was replaced by blue as we put the city in our rearview mirror and set sail for other shores. From the urban realms we fled, as weekenders oft will do, to rounded rocky islets where tiny red cottages or more elegant yellow homes sat amidst stands of verdant pines. Signs of fall snatched at our awareness. Smatterings of gold could be seen in the still green leaves of the birch. Shocking reds had already taken hold of the maple trees. Pale gray cygnets foraged with their parents in calm waters close to shore while steps away in busy channels gigantic ferries passed each other by. We preferred the path less travelled and stayed to the narrower channels for all the morning long.
Choices are always hard to make but once the decision was made, no one could say they had regrets for each option had its own rewards. Kayaks battled with stiffening breezes on the shores of tiny Utö while Zodiacs wound between the off-shore islets. The flowers of fall were a riotous lot. Meadows of red, white and blue sparkled in a moment of sunlight while the purple haze of heather nestled in carpets of pale green reindeer lichen. Snowberries clustered on fragile branches like balls of cold wet snow and within the woods bracken fern turned from green to amber. Those from the western world find time here hard to comprehend for back home one-hundred years seems to be a long time ago. Here, deep quarries, straight-sided and water-filled were not excavated in the now but more than eight-hundred years have flown past. Iron was the treasure then and prized for generations more for tools and weaponry. Above us loomed a windmill, its sails naked and quiet for now grain can be ground by more efficient means. Many feet had preceded us to this land and many more will come to savor the sounds of surf on the rocks or wind in the trees or maybe to sip lattes in a busy café. But whether a city mouse or a country mouse rewards can be found wherever we choose to look.
