Today it has rained. Inside my grandmother's house, I feel as though I am five years old again. Here, I am sheltered from the rain. Graduating from college is a time of transition, and there is no other place I would rather be than at my grandmother's house.

In this house there are distinct domains, when I am upstairs I am separate from the world beneath. Here, it is bright and airy and I can hear the conversations of my aunt, of my mother and of my grandmother. Their voices are comforting in their ebbs and peaks, spirited and jesting. I am able to watch the cups and plates with familiar designs and stories tied to them serve food and drink, the bumps and ridges of Iittala glass, the curling designs of Arabia dishes. I hear the stories of my ancestors in Duluth and Cromwell, of the family cabin up north. I hear of the many wildflowers and wild strawberries that are picked by little baby hands and mothers’ hands and grandmothers’ hands and great grandmothers’ hands together. Here we would jump into the cold lake in the sun, a world away from this rain and cold. Now, as it rains outside this house of my childhood, I am bundled up by the love that is all around me. Although there are hard pieces, and those whom we have lost, we find peace in our home, insulated from the rain.

My grandmother heard Finnish in her childhood home, but the accents of her parents were not to be asked after. They were of a long and bygone time. Peggy, Delano and Milton were all names given to American children. She never spoke Finn because it was not a source of pride. Her family hid away their Finnishness. But they still celebrated as Finns as a family, they mourned as Finns too, in the sauna. The sauna of her childhood home was built into the hill of Duluth, a basement sauna with access to the outside. I remember this sauna as if in a dream, big looming stairs, cold concrete, soot from the wood stove, the debris from chopped wood sticking to bare feet, too hot to sit on the upper bench. I remember it as dark, but also light.

Last night during the rain we heated up the electric sauna in the basement of my grandmother's house. Venturing outside in the dark rain we plucked young birch boughs from the ends of low hanging branches. Inside, we bound them together with twine and brought them into the basement sauna. Bringing a bit of the living world into this underground darkness to sauna felt meaningful. It is a box of cedar surrounded by the concrete foundation. On the way, we pass by preserved foods, jams, pickled beets, rhubarb from the yard. We nearly stumble over all the holiday decorations, baking dishes that go unused much of the year, commemorative plates and little glass houses. 

The smell of cedar and juhannuskoivu (midsummer birch) mixed with the löyly (sauna steam), overcomes the must and mildew of all things that lie in wait for the time in which they will be needed again. I, together with my partner, went to sauna in silence. Outside, rain came down and brought a chill to the house. As we sweat and threw löyly on the stove, we were warmed. Although our skin was hot to the touch, this warmth was deeper, it was a love of sauna and the peace that sauna can bring. It was an unspoken truce between a world of great complexity, and a silent sauna on a cold rainy night.

— Meade Redwine

meade.redwine@gmail.com

@meade_lumi