HAPPY MIDSUMMER

MY CHILDHOOD HOME HAS BEEN SOLD

Landscapes nearby my childhood home.

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This Midsummer is very different compared to all previous ones. One era is coming to an end. We found a new owner for my childhood home and the apartment will be available to her in mid-July. I find it strange to think that someone else is going to live in the apartment. In the apartment, which my parents bought back in 1969 when they got married and where they lived together for nearly 50 years, until my father passed away. I too, lived there all my childhood and youth, naturally.

A view from my childhood home apartment.

Views from downtown, close to my childhood home. Fourth image from the left: Oodi Center Library. In the lower left corner is a picture of a bridal window whose wedding dresses I admired as I passed. Something like that I could wear to my own wedding as well.

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I went to clean up the apartment about a week ago and I stayed the night to get more done because so much stuff has accumulated and no one has properly cleaned the apartment for years. I found some old stuff like old essays from high school, drawings, postcards (even my parents wedding cards and baptismal cards for me and my brother), some old magazines; (for example Donald Ducks from the 80’s and 90’s and ”Aisapuu” magazines -an interesting and nostalgic magazine about the area of our cottage town), an old diary and other writings, old letters from those I used to exchange letters with (the web was not yet so used, and correspondence was common) etc… I even found an old sticker book in elementary school and a booklet in which I had written stories as a child. They all reminded me of so many memories…

More views from downtown, close to my childhood home. At the bottom right is the National Museum.

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Despite everything, this is where a whole new time in my life begins. My spouse and I are leaving Helsinki. We are not yet sure where, but some housing options have already been considered. We want to get to a quieter (and more safety) place from here but not too far from my mother who’s here in a nursing home.

I found these chain letters (from my high school time) as I emptied the desk that was once mostly my use.

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The future apartment will be our very own. Until now, we have lived in rentals. We will have a new, certainly better time. The former will disappear, but I’m sure the new time will bring a lot of good!

https://zimg.zentuvo.com/zhome/?project=009b8bdf-24ec-4e19-8bf1-a13970f7b8d4

Apartment sales presentation.

My drawings of youth and graining work (Oak duplicate) from the School of Painting.

”Little” rubbish.

The first picture is a high school West Side Story play project brochure designed by a friend of mine. We were then staging group with a friend. The other pictures are paintings of my childhood home.

HAPPY MIDSUMMER! Let’s enjoy the summer that has finally arrived in Finland also.