Bullet straight road through the coastal meadow

I cycled to Kallahdenniemi beach at the end of June 29.6.2020 at noon and I left the bike in the rack. I went for a walk towards the tip of the peninsula. My intention was to do some sensory exercise, and for that I wanted to find a suitable place where I could be at ease. There were few sunbathers everywhere and I continued walking. I came to a dirt road. A slightly monotonous looking bullet straight road split the coastal meadow. Next to the road was a sign stating that the area was a nature reserve. I only had limited time, so I ordered myself to do the exercise right away, limited in time and space. I decided in my mind about something like this: Walk to the other end of the road and at the same time touch the things you encounter along the way.

I set off. I wanted to touch the big pine with my palm. Ants were lined up on the trunk. I thought I'd shoot ants on my cell phone camera when I get back. I wanted to focus on the exercise without interrupting it with filming. I passed an alder, called a tick tree in my childhood. 

Huge variety of hay along the road. I let my hand wipe the hay from above, and they feel very soft. The flower I don't recognize grows everywhere. Whether it's in the nubble stage or if it's open like that nubble, I don't know. Wonderful different scents. A four-person, loud, German-speaking family will meet. We pass each other with a smile. I'm at the other end of the road. It has a large pine with strong branches at low. The branches seem to be quite smooth in the palm of your hand, they must have hung and climbed a lot. I also hang, and the branch a little flexible.

I go back to the beginning of the road and to the ants, but to my surprise I can't find them. I suspect I'm at the wrong pine, and I'm looking for another pine. They have disappeared. I didn't know they were changing routes so fast. They must have the ability to organize very quickly and efficiently.

Later, I will remember walking the straight road. The road provided sensory experiences all the way that I couldn't wait for. They all became relevant in their own way. Touching the surface of a pine tree, for example, later helped me understand a text in which an expert explained how the thick and compartmentalized shell of a pine trunk helps a pine to cope with the challenges facing the environment. An unknown flower made me search the web to introduce flower species. After a little searching to my delight, I found a flower. It was sea buckthorn, Silene uniflora. It grows on the west coast of Finland from Hanko to the back of the North Sea to Oulu. 

Wiping long hay from above makes me still wonder how soft the hay can be. Hanging on a pine branch and flexing the branch made me understand what it means when a big, strong tree bends but doesn't break.

Nature serves as an example, illustrator and guide. It provides experiences, topics for reflection, and memories. It makes me remember that I am a part of nature. What about the performance? The straight road and walking from start to finish and touching different things in different ways formed a small-scale performance in its own way. The performers were all the things I noticed besides myself. Audience? I involved myself as an audience. The performance turned out to be a journey I personally experienced. Someone else in the same situation and with the same assignment would have encountered different things and received different memories and different things to think about.