The writer who doesn’t write

Adele Aava
3 min readNov 15, 2024

Episode 1

Image by Henrik Moses

“…Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he

took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to

Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine

Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of

his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it

overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler

to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank

square of canvas.” Steven Pressfield

My earliest childhood memory goes back to when I was probably only a few months — or maybe even weeks — old. My parents lived in a large house with full-height windows and a yard garden. Double-glazed windows weren’t a thing back then, and the bath was placed in the attic, a damp and mildewy space that wasn’t ideal for bathing a baby. That’s exactly why they came up with the idea of placing a large, heavy cooking pot in the middle of the living room to help each other wash me.

I have a faint memory of my mom asking my dad to hold me steady so she could shampoo me, then passing me to him so he could wrap me in a soft towel. I think this was the first time I remember being cared for.

--

--

Adele Aava
Adele Aava

Written by Adele Aava

Author, translator, singer and voice trainer, serving food for thought and desserts for fun.