This trip to Lapland during wintertime was long needed and I am glad I went up north, to not only enjoy the landscape and take a lot of pictures but furthermore to relax, calm down and breathe. After a long period of work and another new journey before me, it sometimes is not so simple to let the mind come at ease and take time for myself to figure out, what my next steps shall be, where my next destination. And even though I'm not quite there yet, I got a little closer. And, more important, I know what I do not want any more.

So, thank you mystical Lapland, thank you mökki (cabin) and thank you frozen lake and frosty trees in the soothing silence and darkness of the polar nights.

Never to be forgotten is the moment of pure bliss and shivers down my spine when one night I was standing on the meter thick ice surrounded by darkness - not pitch black, because snow reflected the light of the moon - and when I looked up, my breathing stopped for an instant while I stared at the clear and sharp night sky with its uncountable stars, seeming to twinkle more, the longer I stared. It was so peaceful and quiet that I held my breath on purpose and I did not move because the crunching of snow and my breathing were the only sound out there and I felt like holding onto this very magical moment in silence forever.

I am grateful that my family built this little getaway cabin in the woods I can always come back to.

Solitude is not loneliness.