Winter has come and gone this year. It’s on its way again, but slowly and unsteadily. The evenings are dark, and it feels like the days are too, with the sun setting around three o’clock. Just about a week ago, the snowless ground was swallowing up even those few hours of light, engulfing everything in pitch darkness.

Thankfully, the snow came and brightened everything up.

Before the snow arrived at the end of October, we managed to take one more trip to the great fells of Lapland during the season of bare ground, spending a few nights there. Up on the summits, with the wind blowing through our hair, all the world’s troubles, both good and bad, fade away. In that moment, there’s only one small person beneath the vast sky and the endless fell landscape.

I encourage anyone who worries, even a little, about the state of the world to head out into nature. Try to feel what it’s like to truly be present in this very moment. Take a breath and just observe. Stop the endless flood of information in which everything seems to drown constantly—a flood of good and bad news rushing by so fast that no one could ever take it all in. That flood will keep flowing, even if you don’t swim along with it. And you won’t be missing a thing. In the best case, you might even find that it feels better to be on dry land—if only for a while.

Before the snow arrived, we tried to focus on spending as much time outdoors as possible, even when it wasn’t always appealing. After all, just getting outside often feels like the hardest part (even though, in reality, the biggest effort is simply opening the door).

But from inside, looking out through the window, the dark world seems much more beautiful when you’re actually outside. The colors of the sunset are brighter, and the fresh air clears the mind—even if you don’t go farther than your own backyard.

When the snow comes, reindeer are everywhere. Well, they’re around every day of the year, but once snow covers the ground, they even come up to our yard to dig for anything edible. It doesn’t matter whether we planted it there or not.

Our dogs’ main job is to keep them out of the yard, but even so, I sometimes find myself opening the door and letting out a yell—something vaguely resembling a yodeling tune—to try my best at scaring them off.

Usually, they just slowly lift their heads from the garden, maybe shuffle a few steps aside, but they soon go right back to eating. They know we’re no threat to them. At best, the reindeer will eventually saunter off, hooves clicking, toward the forest behind the house. I can sense a quiet muttering in their slow steps, a hint that they’ll be right back in our yard the moment we turn our backs.

During these dark evenings while waiting for snow, I’ve naturally been knitting and baking. Baking sourdough bread has become a weekly routine, and I still enjoy it immensely. I’ve been experimenting with drawing forest patterns on the bread instead of the traditional grain designs, since up here, grains don’t grow—but we have plenty of forest. So maybe I’m trying to start a new tradition for northern sourdough baking. Or perhaps I’m just playing around. Either way, it’s a very enjoyable pastime.

In late October to early November, we also playfully celebrated the old Finnish tradition of Kekri. It’s a Finnish harvest festival that was the highlight of the year before Christianity arrived. At Kekri, tables were laden with food, no one worked, and people simply enjoyed good meals and rested. Many traditions that began with Kekri are still alive today, though they’ve shifted to become part of Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Perhaps, in our modern world, we especially long for a tradition where an entire household stops to enjoy life, takes a break from work, and focuses on rest. In the past, this came more naturally with the darker time of the year, but today, it happens at an alarmingly reduced rate, as electric light and machinery enable constant growth and work. Is that always a good thing? I’m not sure, but at the very least, it does people good to pause and rest now and then.