When my hand touches the surface of wood, when I gently pass over its resilience or tenderly fumble the rugged knobby bark, then warmth fills me up, overbrims me with sunlight, then all my troubles and fears disappear in a sweet looming, and I got dissolved in a great opalescent shining.

Among my most early reminiscences there's one when dad took me to the mill he worked at. I came into a room which seemed a hall to me, I felt lost among many unknown people and sounds of various machines. And suddenly, amidst this alien uncomfortable world I see a golden stream that noiselessly flows from the hands of a tall gloomy man. Shining splash squirted all around. My head bleared and I stepped into what I thought was a shining light beam. In a few days I recovered in a hospital , my head in bandage - I have thrown myself under a planer blade and got seriously hurt.

I've never had friends, I made friends with the trees. Dwarfs or giants, crooked or svelte, they all understood, loved and protected me. Even a stripped body of the wood doesn't die, a chip and a plank live on until they come back to their bosom, in the orange heat of fire. All my life I've talked to logs and boards, whispered to tiny charcoals. When I was young I found a big sturdy pine box at a damp, and since then I sleep in it for all my life. When it's cold it warms me without any quilt, and soothes me with freshness in a summer heat. When the night closes my eyes, it lullies me and like a merry boat carries me away to heaven flooded with light.