Thursday, July 31

I got up early and did a lot of work before the others woke. As I moved things around in my writing I was, for some reason, reminded very strongly of Auo, so strongly that I had to stop writing. The process of editing was, in part, a process of internal conversation, and she joined in. Her voice was so clear that I started talking to her about other things and then I was overwhelmed with a sadness that I find difficult to describe.

It isn’t that I miss her, although I do. It isn’t that I think her death is unfair, because I don’t (in that sense) expect the world to be fair. I just feel that I am in the wrong world and that there is another world where I ought to be. I don’t mean “heaven”, I mean that if I step sideways I will be in a parallel universe where things are as they should be.

It was a flashback to a feeling I had all summer before I left England for Finland. For weeks I woke up crying every morning, having been told that this wasn’t my life, but only a shadow version. I remember realising my life was in monochrome and being shown another room, through an open door, which was in full colour; and then being told the door would be locked if I didn’t go through it soon.

This feels the same, although this time I am not being shown any doors.

When Irma got up I was busy writing again, and when we spoke she told me that she had woken up dreaming of Auo. She had been dealing with her when she was older and she was about to phone Auo’s head teacher to tell her about something that was going on when she woke up and realised that she would never need to do it. Ouch.

Now I am looking at the blue ball that Irma has placed on one of the big stones at the bottom of the garden. I can see another world in it.

In the afternoon I will finish painting the porch white, which will take about five hours, while Naa and Irma go to the shop and a huge thunderstorm passes overhead.

Later we will eat some of Åke’s gravadlax with fresh potatoes and salad, and then we will sample some of the cheeses Naa brought back. Later still we will have a stupid and completely unnecessary argument that is almost totally my fault.