Nordic Summer

Nordic summer is a compensation for the long winter darkness: the sun barely sets at midsummer, producing nearly 24 hours of light that cycles through gold, pink, and pale blue without ever reaching true night. The midsummer festival color palette is not the vivid palette of Mediterranean summer — it is pale, luminous, and delicate. Pale blue sky that doesn't quite darken. Blush and white of birch bark and wildflowers. Soft yellow-green of birch leaves against pale sky.

Midsommar at a Swedish lake house. At midnight the sky is still a pale apricot at the horizon. Someone has put wildflowers in a jar on the table. The wood smoke is faint. It feels like the year's longest exhale.