Tuesday, January 28, 2020

2019: the year of the twinge and the north wind

* New Year: Pink bubbly in a storm, friends and deep talk.
* Got better at planning my days - or not? ("World dominion, then food.")
* Prison visit - shuddered in a solitary confinement cell. News station visit - stood quiet as a mouse in a studio broadcasting live.
* Reread my journals from 35 years. Lessons learned(?): Personal development comes from seeking help and daring to show weakness. I have a life-long longing for creativity. Drive is important - happiness comes from working towards improvement and being kind to myself. Other people cause me to change. And I forget a lot.
* A twinge in my back: No volleyball for seven months and a gorgeous physiotherapist.
* Brought a borrowed bichon frisé to the office for a day.
* Threw a party for an 85-year-old. It didn't stop until a few days later.
* Epic, half-year-long fight among my closest friends. Is one of them is a psychopath?
* Wrote 40 pages of fiction.
* Birthday with road trip, mango cake, Cava and an espresso maker.
* Days in Prague: Good beer hunting, Mozart dinner, reunion with old friends, the castle in pouring rain, Jewish quarter, private guided tour and a zombie.
* Found Cloud Lake, a soul-healing place.
* Road trip with volleyballers, with discussions on whether Jesus ever took the tram.
* Climbed an old attic to look for treasure and feasted on perch toast and kids' pancakes.
* Summery brunch with the non-skiing Ski Club.
* Whirlwind business trip to sunny Uppsala, Sweden. Clothes, outdoor lunch inspired by Linnaeus, a forest fire.
* Second-hand shopping day in Jakobstad with expert.
* North wind and moth summer, and wonderful days alone in the wilderness (with DVDs).
* Ranch visit and Agda the people-loving sheep.
* My first single-handed major renovation project, undertaken very reluctantly and with lots of whining.
* Road trip with mother to Nedervetil, Kaustby, Terjärv, Evijärvi, Kortesjärvi, Komossa. YWAM nostalgia. Open fields, silent forests, hidden lakes, cottages, family history.
* Wrote a professional, official statement regarding ugly guys, for a court case.
* Watched heavy rain approach, feeling exhilarated. Went berry picking (with a scarf on my head, very old-fashioned and appropriate look).
* Goal: find divine love.
* Jyväskylä weekend: Airbnb luxury apartment, beachvolley and flamenco dancers. Home with a detour via Death (the village).
* Chased geese dressed in Armani.
* End-of-summer celebration, wonderful and melancholic as always.
* Translated God's own words to me, half-deaf.
* Saw a play: Fiddler on the Roof.
* Dug out old family treasures and arranged a good old-fashioned, analogue slide show.
* Attended a vernissage where the artwork had lava and gold in it, and made sure to drink enough champagne to get me through a game of volleyball after.
* Halloween weekend in Tampere and the surrounding lake district: ancient ruins in rain, good and bad music, boots shopping, thriller writing, a medieval castle.
* Discovered the farmers market and started handing over cash for suspicious carrot bags out of someone's car boot in a pitch-black parking lot.
* Sent my phone to an unknown fate in Lithuania and got a new one in return. There went my 440-day streak on DuoLingo.
* Six concerts in as  many weeks (I never go to concerts, really.) Mozart, KAJ, lots of gospel and Christmas music.
* Became a grandfather's sister and all my nieces and nephews are now officially adults. And I still wear a teenager's beanie.
* Asked the janitor to move in with me since he was here all the time anyway to fix stuff.
* Traditional Christmas lunch with important people that I didn't know how to talk to.
* Christmas celebrations: the simple version and the expensive version. It took nine hours this year too.
* New Year's Eve with someone I didn't really know. Deep talk, great salmon pizza and blueberry bubbly.

Other noteworthy things during the year: Delicious brunches, a webinar, a traditional midsummer party with traditional emergencies, a poodle week, ruffs, beach wrestling, picnics and my fairytale world, loneliness, helping mother, a far-travelled oak leaf, a phone smelling of male sweat, tofu, Netflix.

Work-related stuff: Investigated how to break a pair of trousers, chased lost underwear (from a distance), translated a speech by the president of South Sudan, pretended I knew Norwegian.

Hair colour melange: ivory-cream-chestnut-chocolate-anthracite.

New phenomena: Started dreaming more (at night), taking my coffee black and sitting in cafés again.

Quote of the year: "Farewell, beautiful thighs. I would like to have knees also in the future."

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

twenty twenty vision

The year 2020 will be an anniversary - of the year I graduated and stormed wildly into the world, of the year I lost my father.

It has started with storms and rain, a trip to the big city, a new laptop and the demonic whisperings of January.

New Year's Eve was deliciously spent in the company of a minister, luxury pizza in a hot basement, old movies from the last Twenties in a hipster bar, blueberry champagne and fireworks.

The trip to the big city included fire and lights, the science museum with a planetarium, simulators and VR and basketball-playing rats, breakfast with Russians, English books, too much walking, a singing blackbird, the best library I've ever seen and a lovely quilt.

The new laptop means that I can see no happiness in life until I have successfully installed the most uninstallable but necessary software.

The demonic whisperings of January means the normal demonic whisperings of the month of darkness. The sun, energy and meaning do not exist right now. Nothing to do about it except take vitamins and walks and binge on Netflix.

Better times are coming.