the numb fingertips of Halloween

It always happens around Halloween, when you're in the middle of your busy, tired autumn and still far away from Christmas.

The first mornings of scraping ice off the car and skidding on frozen puddles. The first lungfuls of air that smells of winter and nothing else whatsoever.

The first sensation of fingertips going numb when you forgot your gloves. The first uncontrollable shivers under a parka not quite thick enough.

The first snow, delightful and shocking with its promise of a new season.
The last week in October - the time when autumn turns from mild to harsh. My fingers are constantly numb with cold but when other Finns moan about the long winter ahead, I only worry about getting the winter tires on my car. Once that is done - always a mad scramble at this time of the year, always a cold, cold task - I settle in to enjoy the challenging, mysterious, exotic, dangerous winter in the North.

the Carrie years, with a happy end

Map of the school where I spent my first teenage years:

It still gives me that haunted feeling. Endless corridors, filled with smirking faces, where I was chased by wild beasts. No place to rest or hide. The nightmarish place where all those corridors converged, a dark place that smelled of burned metal and where a loudspeaker was forever playing Europe.

Carrie, Carrie, things they change my friend ...

Classrooms behind locked doors, dull in appearance and spirit. Prison yards, struggling against graffiti, where my best friends stabbed me in the back. A cafeteria smelling of onions and fear. Nameless horrors everywhere.

Seeing it again makes me jump with joy and walk with a swagger. I survived! I went through hell and grew strong, and I will never, ever, let anyone chase me through a dark corridor again. What is there to fear, after this?

starlings and my lost voice

Starlings in the crabapple trees sing joy into my otherwise quiet world.

I'm looking for my voice. I go walking in woods where I'm sprinkled with gold, every tree a jewel.

The sun is at an angle, always staring me in the face. Storms are pushing wild water up against thresholds. Rustling of leaves, insistent winds. Red sunsets, too early. Crisp dawns with blue skies or dull greyness, later every day.

The cold creeps closer and I'm knitting another scarf. The darkness creeps further into my days and I feast on juicy red apples. I teach myself French, then Russian. I travel by bus and drink wine with my friends. I pray. I dress with care and learn to live my life in months. October smells of wet leaves and pencils.

Almost half a year until spring.

mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

I dreamed of this back then, when I roamed the world and was feeling weary and homesick:

After a successful day at the office, taking an interesting evening class in the community centre in my hometown, the bright and airy building with the wonderful library and the cosy café in it. Being surrounded by people who speak my language, running into people I haven't seen for decades. Having coffee with a friend I've known forever, in that cosy café. Strolling around the library that was my second home as a kid.

Then going to visit my mother who welcomes me with more coffee and sandwiches, which we share with another random visitor, my nephew. Discussing everyday things (unpaid bills) with my mother and lofty things (macroeconomics) with my clever nephew. Feeling connected to past and future.

It's been a while since my world-roaming days and nowadays my dreams are mostly of new adventures. But today, as this particular dream came true, I was quite content with being right here - at home.

Childhood hoods

the good darkness

Cold rain, red and yellow trees, and people who are afraid of the dark. It is the heart of autumn.

I am not afraid of autumn darkness. There are worse darknesses out there, and so much light to create.

holding a man's aorta

For some reason, I'm standing in an autopsy room.

A man who was alive up until a few days ago, is lying naked on a slab with excrement on his inner thighs and his entire torso cut open. The sight is horrifying and utterly sad.

The only sane way to deal with it is to pretend that he is not real, just a very authentic-looking dummy. So that is what we do. The medical examiner and her assistant dig out the important organs one by one, cut and study them, while doing a running commentary to us two outsiders who have no medical experience whatsoever.

At one point, I get to hold the aorta so I can see for myself how calcified and hard it is. It's absurd. I'm holding a man's aorta in my hands.

It is fascinating. I'm thrilled about the experience. Not to mention relieved to find that I can handle the sights and smells without fainting. What a piece of work is man! What an intricate puzzle of complicated pieces that all function seamlessly together - until they don't. (And even then they can usually be fixed, even heal themselves.)

Even more fascinating is the fact that it is so clear, looking at this poor man, that he himself is long gone. Whatever the soul is, it has left the building.

Afterwards I enjoy the sun on my face. I feel happy to be alive, and away from the smell of decay. And I feel sad. We pretended that the man wasn't real and in a way he wasn't - but he used to be.

buses, biogas and kittens

September is the month when I stare sunset in the face, celebrate chocolate harvest festival and become obsessed with beanies and pulse warmers.

This year, it was also the month when I found a kitten on my balcony, looked into a biogas reactor and started travelling by bus.