Thirty-nine years ago today, I was in Helsinki with a group of United Methodist college students from the Western North Carolina Conference. We were visiting churches throughout Scandinavia through a bi-annual student exchange. As part of the program, we were put up in people’s homes.
In Helsinki, the young woman who housed me and my roommate met us at the entrance to her ancient-yet-stately apartment building. She explained, apologetically, that she had to be out of town during our stay. Since it was the summer solstice that day and the sun would never fully set, she instructed us how to work the blackout shades on the windows. Her parting words were to remind us of the folktale that if you slept with seven different flowers under your pillow on Midsummer’s night, you would dream of the man you would marry. With that, she handed us the key to her apartment and left.
After getting settled, we rejoined our group at the local Methodist church for an evening’s worth of programming. Although it was late at night when we returned to the apartment, the sky felt magical, still bright with perhaps a trace of dusk. We had pulled the blackout shades in the apartment and gotten ready for bed when I remembered the tale of the seven flowers. Even though we were in our jammies, we got back in the birdcage elevator and went down to the building’s enclosed courtyard so that we could pick seven different types of flowers.
My roommate was a southern Methodist, too religious to believe in such tales. I was a southern Methodist also, too religious not to believe that there is more to this world than can be seen. Fearful for her soul, she quickly stopped picking flowers. Fearful of getting caught, I kept picking flowers anyway and put them carefully under my pillow when we slipped back into our apartment.
I don’t remember what I dreamt that night. I do know that I met Andy less than a week after I got back to the US, and he’s been the man of my dreams ever since. Happy Midsummer’s, everyone, and may you dream sweet dreams tonight!
