mOOOminland

One of the greatest things about having small children is:

On the other side of the lamp someone had dug herself a cozy hole, someone who lay looking up at the serene winter sky and whistling very softly to herself.

“What song is that?” asked Moomintroll.

“It's a song of myself,” someone answered from the pit. “A song of Too-Ticky, who built a snow lantern, but the refrain is wholly about other things.”

“I see,” said Moomintroll, and seated himself in the snow.

“No, you don't,” replied Too-Ticky genially and rose up enough to show her red-and-white sweater.

“Because the refrain is about the things one can't understand. I'm thinking about the aurora borealis. You can't tell if it really does exist or if it just looks like existing. All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured.”

She lay down in the snow again and continued looking up at the sky. It was quite black by now.

Moomintroll put up his nose and looked at the sparkling northern lights that probably no Moomin before him had ever seen. They were white and blue and a little green, and they draped the sky in long, fluttering curtains.

“I think it exists,” he said.

Too-Ticky did not reply.

--Tove Jansson

I think perhaps this is one of the greatest things I ever read.