Hi. Can I come stay at your summer cabin? There's no running water. There are walls to paint and weeds to mow and lots of sleep to be had. And this is okay, because now I understand that re-setting is essential.

The general US structure assumes that aestheticism is useless. It believes that workplaces should be little boxes of misery, that workers don't need natural light and open space and creative urging, that putting time, money, or effort into these is a waste. And why would we need a break, then, either?

I didn't have running water, we barely had electricity, and I certainly didn't have internet. I was lucky enough to have some semblance of an outhouse (really just a fancy little wooden hut with a wooden toilet seat built over the ground, with composting birch chips to pour over when you were done). We lived close to a town on the mainland and had a fridge, and a garden with some rhubarb, so this was certainly not an Into the Wild type setting, but it was just enough to force me to remove my normal daily motions. I slipped into a more normal sleeping pattern, growing tired in the early evening, and rising early. There would be conversation when there needed to be and silence when everyone just needed silence. You could slip away to nap or be by yourself, and we decided whenever we grew hungry or tired or too sweaty, soothing our needs with communal meals, saunas, and nighttime conversations next to wood-burning stoves.

I helped scrape the summer house and paint it - that was our big job. One day we took a boat out and explored the river Tornedalen. Many times we spent at the grandparent's house, with a collection of family members and neighbors that would stop by for impromptu coffee, lunch or dinner. We'd watch some World Cup and relish their television for an hour or two. We'd take long saunas and I read more books than I've read combined in the past year.

We let impulse take control. We ate simply when we lacked energy. More often than not we cooked slowly and deliciously, lots of little bites and tastes from leftovers combined with newly cooked dishes. Cloudberry jam, a pink sliver of salmon, half of a tired avocado, grilled halloumi cheese, skewers of vegetables, creamy cooked buckwheat dotted with the purple stains of blueberries, a salty chunk of moose meat on the side of a simple salad. Water tinged with the taste of window-grown mint, or currant leaves.