WINTER IN FINLAND

by

Danielle LaVaque-Manty
 

The Best Weather for Sleeping

It's ten degrees Fahrenheit today. Tuija says she'll put the baby outside for his nap. I laugh: these Finns, always joking! Tuija gives me a look on her way out: that American, always laughing at nothing.

© 2002 by Mika LaVaque-Manty

Game Warden

We stop at the neighbors' for mulled wine, but Tepe gets called away. Someone has hit a moose. At least it's so cold that Tepe can just drag it into the woods, and badgers will eat it before it rots. If this were summer, he'd have to bring it home and skin it in his shed.

Tracks

I have yet to see a live one, though I trail them through suburban Finland: reindeer hides, reindeer pâté, reindeer jerky. Smoked reindeer-flavored cheese.

Sauna

Drops trickle down our backs faster than the snow falls past the window. Who knew we'd have to come all the way to Finland to get warm this winter?





Danielle LaVaque-Manty lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her Finnish husband and two American cats. She works at a research institute on the University of Michigan campus. Her stories have appeared in Bold Type, Zoetrope's All-Story Extra and In Posse Review's Multiethnic Anthology.

Reach her at dlavaque@umich.edu.