I’m in Kivisalmi, Lappeenranta in my father’s flat now, which is going to be my homebase for the next three weeks.  Unlike in the picture above, the summer house for this holiday will not be in Kyläniemi but in Kattelussaari and it is still under construction. I already painted some boards there today and I’m also planning to spend a few nights all alone in the woods without  civilisatory amenities.

One major task of this trip is to find time for contemplation. Time to think about the future but also time to memorize Nadine and the past. I’m sure that the work at the building site, the silence of the woods, the view over the Great Lake Saimaa and the evenings alone in my father’s flat will allow me to do so. But there will be some socializing too: tomorrow I’m going to visit the local chess club.

Tomorrow I’m going to leave towards Finland for almost four weeks. That’s why I visited Nadine’s resting place two times today: In the morning I followed my usual walking routine and in the evening I went there by car to say goodbye, tell her a few words, sing her a song or two and drop some rose petals there. I’ve never been away from her grave for longer than six days in a row so I’m a bit afraid of what this absence will do to me. I will be back shortly before July 28th, the day it is going to be half a year since she  pased away so untimely. If you stop by her grave until then, please be so kind to water the site.

Before I fly out to Helsinki on Sunday, my first stop will be in Munich on Friday. Together with some friends I’m going to see Thurston Moore perform his new album live. When he released his last one, Nadine and me saw him at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. Back in spring 2015, he opened with a song that contains a message I cannot have repeated often enough:

Nadine always wanted to take nick to the Wilhelma – that’s the name of the zoo in Stuttgart – but it never came to that. For that reason I endowed him a visit for his birthday and we went there today.

He reacted very shy towords the big animals, even though he stated that he wanted to see the hippos, the elephants and the rhinos after studying them in his Wimmel-book prior to our visit . Surprisingly the alligator was an exception. He also liked the penguins, the fishes, the rattlesnakes and the meerkats. Of course, how could you not love the cute meerkats?