February began with me wearing my Saint James marinière in all Jānis Roze bookshops across Latvia. The bookstore’s monthly leaflet, Ziņnesis, keeps book lovers informed about the latest literary news, and in its February issue, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Latvian poet Inga Pizāne and being a cover girl for the new issue which was available in all bookstores for a month. We talked about the books that have shaped my life, as well as the sea, its magnetism, and the Sea Library. Inga also took portraits of me at the café in the National Library of Latvia, where I work during the day before becoming a sea librarian “at night.”

As a gift, I received a complete set of Ziņnesis issues published since 2004—an incredible archive of books and interviews about books. I’ve begun cataloging them as part of the Sea Library’s collection, discovering that each issue contains at least one book about the sea, filling gaps in my collection by informing what to add. Along the way, the Sea Library surpassed 1,000 titles—a milestone that feels almost like cheating, since not everything in the library is a book. Yet, here I am, curating a Sea Library with more than 1,000 books, magazines, and leaflets, each connected to the sea in its own way. Layer after layer, page after page.

February was a month of snow, ice, letters, moon, and stars. After an unusually warm January, winter returned—the river froze, and the swamp in the nearby forest transformed into a dreamlike skating rink for my boys. Weekend hours were spent deep in the crisp, white wilderness, with the boys playing hockey on the ice while Nemo and I watched swans flying over the treetops, likely heading to the sea to feed. February was full of so much snow.

This cold month was warmed by letters. The Sea Library has become a case study for a PhD student at the University of Southampton. She is writing her thesis about ocean literacy and proposed conducting the study through letters, and this month, I received hers (with a postal stamp I saw for the first time – “arrived in a wet form”, haha!) and typed my reply on my yellow typewriter—one of the first things I owned when starting the Sea Library, a birthday gift from my mum. There’s such a special joy in envelopes, postmarks, and ink on paper. Fiona, the student, also sent me a few black-and-white photos of the sea and birds, developed in an analogue way using a seaweed solution. How cool is that? We will exchange 3-4 letters. I love to be a part of this project.

As I mentioned in my letter to you in January, I’ve been on a hiatus from social media, engaged in my own form of kintsugi—mending the fragmented landscape of information with golden seams. Over time, my mind began to breathe more freely, inhaling and exhaling with relief, and my thoughts took on a new rhythm. I felt my mind expand into a vast and wondrous space—a limitless cosmos dotted with silver stars of slow thoughts and endless possibilities. It was as if I were tuning a radio, gradually refining the frequency until I could hear myself more clearly. Miracles started.

I’ve been working on my memoir for years. I had one agent, and now I have another. I started writing it before the pandemic and am still revising drafts. In between, I wrote another book together with Lewis Buzbee—a fable-like fictional story set in the real Sea Library here in Jūrmala, weaving imagined events with my family and a fictional retired Captain. Then, I returned to my memoir. Lately, though, it has felt like wearing heavy boots—leaving me stuck and worn down. “A book can make it’s own schedule,” Lewis wrote in a recent letter and promised I’ll find dancing shoes soon.

I found the courage to set my memoir aside for a while and took long walks with Nemo through meadows and forests, giving myself space to breathe—both outside and in the vast, undistracted headspace I had been craving. I knew I wanted to write, but for now, something different. I needed to get my dancing shoes back. The very next day, an email arrived from London—an invitation to embark on a new book journey. It came from a publisher specializing in all things librarianship and libraries, and I immediately knew I had an idea worth pursuing. Now, my notebook is filled with fresh scribbles, and I feel grounded and inspired, ready to sit at my desk again, looking out the window with a renewed sense of purpose. Miracles happen.

In February I endeavoured two beautiful books. One is The Last Stardog by E.K. Mosley: it might seem as a book for kids, but I read it together with my teen boys and we all silently glowed.

The Stardog falls from space, leaving her home planet behind, and lands on Earth—a world bursting with diverse flora and fauna. On a quest to heal her loneliness, she searches for another Stardog. But instead, she finds new friends—none quite like her, yet each special in their own way. I believe, my eldest teen especially needed to hear this story. So, my secret plan to restart bedtime readings poured like golden seams mending the cracks in his broken heart. What a wonderful gift books and stories are.

“When the stars come together, they form a crown. And something incredible happens, a stardog is born! They give us life and magic, and in turn we protect them. Together these stars gave me the name, Stardog, keeper of stars and protector of dreams.”

The second book arrived all the way from Hawaii, sent by Claire, who recently moved there from Scotland. On the postcard with a Pacific Green Sea Turtle on it (Honu is a word for turtle in Hawaiian) she writes that she brought with her a woven bookmark—one of the Sailor’s Bookmarks I once made and sold to fund new sea books for young readers. Wanting to contribute to the Sea Library collection, she donated Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me by Lurline Wailana McGregor, a Hawaiian novel deeply rooted in the islands’ culture. The story follows a young woman pursuing a promising career as a museum curator in Los Angeles. However, when her father passes away, she is drawn back to her birthplace in Hawaii, where she seeks to understand the traditions, rites, and worldview her grandmother lived by—exploring the islands’ connection to the ocean, its living beings, and the spirits of ancestors and the land itself. This book is enchanting.

“The shark reached the chanter’s feet underwater and stopped next to her. In her faded mu’umu’u that rose barely above the water, the woman bent down, her gray hair falling around her face, and lovingly stroked the shark’s back.”

In the novel, a shark is her family’s ‘aumakua—a guardian spirit, an ancestor who has passed away and returned in a different form. I loved reading about how deeply mythology is woven into everyday life and how important it is to remember these traditions—like asking the ocean for permission before entering the water.

I can’t help but indulge in a bit of magical thinking myself when I come across unusual things, imagining their symbolic or mythological meanings. This morning I found a perfect paintbrush washed ashore. From a distance, its black handle and gold tip made it look like a magic wand. And in February, it was a whale I read about in the news that stayed with me as a good omen.

On February 26, a young humpback whale became entangled in fishing nets in the Baltic Sea near the Polish coast. Rescuers managed to free the whale and hoped it would find its way back to the Atlantic Ocean. “Initially, the animal was frightened, but after a second attempt, it calmed down and cooperated with rescuers,” I read on the news. In the spring of 2022, a whale’s tail was spotted in the distance, not far from my beach. The thought of seeing a whale—one of my biggest dreams—from my own coast in Jūrmala is incredible. Yet, at the same time, it’s heartbreaking. I hope I will never see a whale in the Baltic Sea, because they do not belong here. And yet to read about this while living in the world of the novel Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me felt mesmerising.

Almost twenty years ago, a humpback whale was discovered in the Gulf of Riga near the Dunte coast. The whale was already dead when it was brought ashore, and its skeleton was preserved as an exhibit. For many years, the skeleton was displayed at the Riga National Zoo, but over time, it darkened and developed an unpleasant smell. Now, between late February and early March, the skeleton was carefully dismantled and transported to the Netherlands, where it will be properly refurbished before returning to the Zoo this summer. My cousin, who works at the Zoo, kept me updated throughout the process, sharing photos and stories. Each bone was numbered and carefully wrapped in white cotton cloth before the entire skeleton was packed into a truck and sent to Inside Out Animals in the Netherlands.

Did the soul of that whale remain in the Baltic Sea? Can the souls of whales linger in such waters where their bodies never belonged? If so, I hope they are here to guard the undersea internet cables, so I could read your letters and you read mine.

Yours,

Anna x