one year of piano poet silence

Celebrating one year as a blogger with rowanberry vodka, chocolate and slices of salmon.

Honestly surprised at how in love with blogging I've been this entire time. How many times it has saved me from utter despair this difficult, lonely, slow-moving year.

It has taken me somewhere.

how I see Africa

In my dreams, I travel to a safari lodge somewhere deep inside Africa. After a long day of adventures in the jungle or on the savannah (obviously not shooting anything!) where I was almost eaten by a lion, I chill out dressed in silk and chiffon, reclining on a chaise longue with a bottle of white wine and a gorgeous man. The dinner is being sent up to our room which opens onto a terrace where candles flicker in the gathering darkness. A fragrance of musk, of spice, of rain forest flowers. A deliciously cool breeze on bare skin after a hot day. The soundscape of Africa.

I am rich, I am beautiful, I am being taken care of. I have not a care in the world.

saved by a donut

When the day is dreary and I suspect that life has not moved forward since my teenage years, I go to that coffee shop I normally wouldn't give a second glance since I prefer the beautiful, old-fashioned cafés with art on the walls or the gleaming Starbucks-type places with fascinating, exotic coffee. This coffee shop sells donuts and looks more like McDonald's, plastic on plastic, and their coffee is plainly plain and served in disposable paper cups.

But I sink my teeth into a liquorice or toffee-iced donut and is overwhelmed by sugar and syrup and the message they bring: it's ok to do what you really want sometimes instead of sticking to your healthy diet, it's good to be genuine and generous and forgive yourself and others.

Give yourself a break.

The donut shop of my despair. It's followed me through life and saved me many times.

dearly beloved aliens

This little corner of Finland sometimes seems very bleak. People look the same, talk the same, think the same. I know them all without ever having spoken to them. I suppose this is what moving back to your home town means.

Sometimes it's a comfort. Other times, it's just depressing.

But today I was welcomed in the home of a spicy South American family. They gave me coffee and warmth on a chilly autumn evening and took out the guitar. A gang of African students burst in and filled the flat with chatter and sudden laughter. A pale-faced Finn in a corner of the sofa gave me a wry smile - suddenly we were the strangers, quiet and posed and shyly friendly, making conversation in carefully pronounced English, exotic.

Colour, spice, loud joy. Suddenly, in the middle of my quiet town, I was back in the big, scary, fascinating world again. Trying to communicate with weird accents, struggling to understand a thoroughly alien point of view, attempting to assimilate cultural aspects I didn't even know existed. How I have missed this!

Weirdly, for the first time in ages, I felt at home.

time of lonely wandering and warm welcomes

September is the month of joie de vivre, excitement and new beginnings, of wrapping up in silk and wool to have a coffee in chilly sunshine with yellow leaves whirling around you, of leaning over a book and looking up only to wink at a handsome stranger.

This year, it went by so fast. It wasn't like it used to be. I didn't have much motivation to pick up a book or even to wink at strangers. Still, there were good moments. Going for a run along a foggy seashore, seeing windows light up in the autumn twilight. Sleeping in yellowing grass under a blanket, warmed by the sun while the wind roared around me with a warning of approaching storms. Going back to the welcoming warmth of the Irish pub. Placing a candle in my window as a comfort to lonely wanderers.

October, traditionally the Month of the Aching Heart, is now approaching. October is the month when people leave and you never see them again. But I'm not worried. October too will pass.

when a game is no longer a game

The volleyball ladies seem more determined about their play this year. I drop the ball and I feel their disapproving eyes on me. There are some new people here as well, younger than me, better at volleyball. At least that horrible thirteen-year-old future national team player is not here today so I'm spared the humiliation of seeing her smash home a ball that I missed. On the other hand, my pal from last year is not here either. She and I were in the same league and could share the burden of being the worst players on the team.

The hard work, the bruises, the sweat and the fatigue, the adrenaline rushes. All part of a good life. But afterwards, with acheing muscles in the changing room, nobody really looks at me, and I gather my things quickly and leave. There should be laughter, jokes, encouragement, winks. Volleyball should be played.

I blame the all-female team composition. In volleyball, there should always be men. They dare to joke, yell, flirt with female team members in the middle of a game. As a woman in a male team you are admired even though your spikes all go in the net.

Any male team out there that wants me? I can play volleyball. If it's really about playing.

still life

Life seems to be standing still.

It could be a good thing. I need time to think. Not read, or write, just think. Over a coffee, just me.

naïve and scared in a world I have to live in

People of the world, sometimes you really scare me.

Of course the Pope, and everyone else, should be very respectful of other people's beliefs. But if he for once is not very careful with his words, does that entitle other religious leaders to threaten his innocent subjects with death and destruction? No!

Dear everyone, I have the deepest respect for your religion. But when I hear things like this, I find it hard to respect you. I just don't understand.

house of seven widows

My house still sits peacefully between a rock and a hard place - the Pizza King and the prison. I still haven't actually seen the Pizza King but I hear rumours about his existence. He has a new pizza restaurant in town, one with an authentic wood-burning oven that spreads delicious aromas around the market square. He also has an authentic Italian running the place. The King officially denied having anything to do with the restaurant or any stake in it, but the credibility of this statement is somewhat marred by the fact that his name is included in the neon sign of the restaurant.

The people in the Hard Place next door lead quiet, inobtrusive lives. My little apartment building, on the other hand, contains seven widows who keep track of what's going on. They all know that I'm single, work from home, don't own a car, that my landlord hasn't fixed the jammed window on my balcony and that I broke the lift on my first day in the house. I'm sure they have commented on the fact that I'm one of the few in the building who don't have a cute little flowery "welcome" sign on my door, only a severe "no junk mail" warning. The seven widows know my parents and my landlord and my landlord's grandmother.

So I have to plan a careful strategy for the day when I get a dog and start smuggling it in and out of the building to avoid the landlord's pet fine. Until then, I try to be chatty and friendly to stay on good terms with the widows.

The scary question remains though.

What happened to all the husbands?

a scream from behind curtains drawn

The real world. Does it actually exist?

If I curl up in the darkness in the safety of my bed, if the only one I talk to is my computer, if I pretend to work when I'm actually wasting my life trying to think up excuses not to, if I'm not as happy as everyone thinks, if I'm too scared to tell you how I really feel, if I hate myself, if I drink too much, if I can't see a way out, if I'm ugly and old and unlovable... will you still love me?

mood: jet black

Panic, despair.

I need a new job. Immediately.

But I have lost faith. I'm not capable of finding a job, or of persuading an employer to hire me.

I don't even believe myself capable of doing a job anymore.

Rock bottom.

God, help, now.

on blue blood and boredom

The King and Queen of Sweden waved at me (and thousands of other people) yesterday. I have never seen royalty before. I didn't wave back - they are not my king and queen, after all - but I was there to look, curious as everyone else. As not even our own President bothers to travel to this backwater very often, it was a historic occasion.

Wouldn't be much fun to be a king. You have nothing to do but travel around and then don't even get to wander around a strange town and sun-bathe on the beach and buy local fruit and bread for a picnic. You get shown around all the world's boring factories and schools, pose in pictures and have to make speeches without saying anything of importance except how delighted you are to be there.

Even worse to be a queen and be there as the spouse. All you do is follow your husband around and when he's done answering the reporters' questions on what he thinks of the town, you get to reply to questions like "what would you say to all the little girls who dream of being a queen?"

One little girl who was there in the crowd, however, was asked by a reporter whether she would like to be a queen. She hung her head shyly. "No... I would much rather be a human being."

babylon world remembered

I want to be a hotel receptionist again. I want the chaos of a busy Sunday morning, the crazy staff, the coffee spilled over the desk, the alcohol-fumes, the malfunctioning computers, the excitement, the mad laughter.

I miss the feeling of having everything under control, knowing everything, having all the information at my fingertips and managing a thousand loose threads. I miss yawning together with the night manager at seven in the morning when I am barely awake enough to locate the coffee. I miss the tears of weariness and frustration long after midnight when the till won't balance. I miss chatting to exotic strangers, exchanging a knowing glance with a coworker, being flirted with by drunken guests.

I love the feeling of danger when entering a cavernous hotel kitchen where the mad, bad and dangerous chefs are ready to pounce on me from behind enormous simmering pots. The crystal glitter of the restaurant, and the smoky depths of the bar where magical stories are being told and smart cosmopolitans frown at red-nosed regulars. The nerve-centre which is the reception area, where everything happens at once and everything is known.

I remember the smile of a handsome waiter in a waistcoat and the broken English of a foreign kitchen porter in a stained apron. I remember cursing under my breath at a complaining guest while smiling sweetly. I remember hiding from the manager in the back office with a coworker and a stolen piece of chocolate cake, giggling hysterically. I remember being absolutely, explosively, uncompromisingly furious. I remember unexpected, strange gifts and feelings of complete betrayal.

I want all this again. I was alive.

skidding in sideways

Life should not be a journey to the grave
with the intention of arriving safely
in an attractive and well-preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways,
champagne in one hand,
chocolate-covered strawberries in the other,
body thoroughly used up,
totally worn out and screaming
"WOO HOO - what a ride!"


(Sorry, no idea who said this first - the quote exists in many varying forms out there...)

always mention the kinky

Some would say that if you mention kinky sex, people will read your blog. There. I have mentioned kinky sex.

Curious about what key words attract readers. Maybe "free money" is the best bet. Or names of famous people, like Paris Hilton or Saddam Hussein or Jesus. I'm a bit nervous about mentioning porn or Al-Qaida and I'm not sure how the latter is spelled anyway. The word "knitting" could attract a lot of Finnish bloggers. To get the Irish in, just talk about the Dublin Port Tunnel or the Taoiseach. Or for those who do word searches on the name of their city, look here everyone from Vaasa, Cambridge or Honolulu!

Now I'm just waiting to see the number of hits on my blog skyrocket.

two degrees and three euros between us

Over a coffee, with a friend. Two people with degrees to their names, hopelessly unemployed despite desperate efforts to find work, counting pennies to see if they can afford another cup of coffee.

The friend is a man who always keeps his cool. Yet I can see the deepening fear in his eyes when he tells me of the countless hours, days, weeks spent writing job applications, of travelling far and wide to interviews, of applying for good jobs, OK jobs, bad jobs, and hearing only the word "no". That word is soon teaming up with another and becomes the dreaded theme song of the unemployed: "no money"...

All painfully familiar to me. I hear that scary tune myself, every day.

We linger over our coffee because none of us can afford cinema, shopping, pubs or clubs. But surprisingly, today it's OK. I've survived today, I will probably survive tomorrow. The day after that - well, something will come up.

And the loneliness can't choke me as long as I have a friend to share this with. I can even see a purpose to the fear and pain of my situation when I see the relief in my friends eyes - when he realises that he is not alone.