Lapland

Presently, the main goal is to type up everything written in my notebooks, since they are an unstructured mess. This entry in the diary was written in Abisko as the trip was winding down. It is interesting that some of these reflections were taken on board, whereas others are yet to be implemented.

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Three months of absent inaction, an overdriven mind and a decisive change of lifestyle are felt in the bones, if not in the heart. Joints creak, stretch and only begrudgingly flex into movement as the mind finally wrests control from the clutches of cold. Splotches of purple have been branded under milky eyes, whose blood seems to have drained into the skin beneath. Yet, the recharging of the body is not the priority. Enough energy is directed to function; the rest is used to explore and understand a life apart from the reaches of civilisation. No wonder or concern for the future gnaws away at the enjoyment of the present.

The bindings of stress, too, have come under a union of directed thought and emotion. Comfort remains unfazed by anxiety. Trivial concerns crawl in the recesses of the subconscious: the haphazard weather, the schedule’s small margin for delay, and paranoia about not finding the connecting train platform – a fear based entirely on an ineptitude for navigation. Even these are repressed by simple logic: though the fate of my plans is dependent upon the train’s punctuality, the train’s punctuality is not dependent upon my plans. Investing emotion is pointless. Secondly, resolutions can always be found to counter an errant train journey. Nothing and everything is under control. Nerves still feel fraught and emotions fickle after months of intensity, yet they continue to mend. The present union of body and mind seems to provide a little respite.

Truly, the suffering of the body is negligible. The demands of travel continue to be met through vigorous application. Recuperation awaits when home, for at home there are no auroras, no Samis, no frozen lakes or waterfalls. This the body bows to with understanding, if not grace. Indeed, there is none in the snow-shoe hiking upon – and, more frequently, through – powder playfully but painfully collapsing into socks and trousers. Metres of snow are pressed and kneaded for all its pleasure and value. Afterwards, legs pulse and quake in their need for a seat. Food is devoured by the bag load as the mind screams for deliverance from its drained state. A desire to rest, though, must yield to a desire for experience.

Senses simmer in the frayed nerves of the skin, a touch or stretch being enough to send the whole network into an electric spasm. From the buffeting humidity and pulsing heat of South America, where it drowns in a cocktail of repellent, sunscreen and sweat, to the numbing freeze of Lapland, where all fluid is teased out by its cold and cracking breath, the skin has endured much. Eventually, it has begun to resemble ice: the blue-white tendrils of snowflakes spread across pallid heels, palms, fingers and toes. Vulnerability is imparted through jittering feet, folded arms and clenched fists, first with their thumbs on the outside, before taking their place in the penguin huddle. Anything to convince the mind of its fleeting control is welcomed; a few moments to be unaware of the body’s needs are a few moments to stave off depravity. Dad and I once agreed that we would prefer very cold temperatures over the simmering; you can always add extra layers. We were wrong. Here, the cold pierces through everything. I await the relief of a temperate home.

Hunger also awaits this relief. Thawed bread and whimpering cornflakes crunch without resistance, the mash of wheat, saliva and soy milk ceasing to satiate a worn appetite. Salami and ham are thinner than the grimace of dissatisfied lips. Complementing such pathetic protein are the weeping tomatoes, whose acidic grazes only freeze in a fungal glacier. Searing tea shears the tongue of taste, yet even this quickly and pitifully abates until lukewarm fluid no longer quenches. Such is the feast of cavemen. In a land demanding warmth and cooked food, I embrace neither. Desires tempt the mind to insanity, wrapping fat, boiled lips around the roasted lambs and steamed rice of Eden or Inferno. Only the beckons of reunion deflect these attacks on the pink and tender underbelly of control.

Yet striding across the lake and ploughing through meals has preserved all balance, and thus all improvement, through acknowledgement of these inadequacies. Tautness ripples in the muscles and joints awakened from seven years of dormancy. Explosions of purpose rattle the sloth from its high perch among the trees. Bubbles of satisfied and realised physicality grow heavy and pop, only to rebuild their worldly spheres when energy returns. The shivers of cold, fatigue and malaise have become the tremors of action soon to be engaged: stimulation where only stagnancy was known. There is no discomfort, only challenge. The process of my lifestyle has realised such potential that I urgently pursue it, and in this urgency find purpose. Future plans and aims are meaningless when compared with present exertions.

I long to master this energy. It is an energy which is intertwined with discipline. Without discipline, exertion existed as a chaotic and aimless struggle, barrelling my will from one hastily-determined judgement to another. Within this realisation lies the faint whisperings of the answers to several questions about life; the abandonment of dreams, passions, friends and responsibilities is most pertinent. Despair pointed to the tower of Babel, its spire towering above the range of my sight, and sneered: Concede, for it is all unattainable. Never was the unity of passion, fulfilment and happiness sought; never could it be, for there was not the realisation that discipline, patience and purpose formed the unifying construct.

That this can be written even in the grip of hungering, fatigued malaise echoes the truth of this. Creativity does not call to me now, its sleep undisturbed by my hand and the pen’s function at only a basic level. The mind narrates only what it knows and not what it imagines. Yet everything turns full circle. In fatigue, we learn the greatest boundaries of our exertion. Creation, perseverance and discipline grapple with tiredness, and are victorious. To hone these skills is a strong objective, for when they can be united with a freshness of mind, body and fervour, then the pursuit of greater ambitions will be made possible.