2023 was the year when I abandoned contact lenses, bleeding, zumba, ignorance of current events.
I started out weak from surgery but recovered. My car - my first one ever - was broken for almost four months and I sold it with no regrets the moment it was fixed. I rode the bus and kept two companies afloat single-handedly (or so it sometimes seemed to me) during a crisis year. I read 126 books, drank wine with my friends, went to concerts and the theatre, went to the gym not often enough, joined a church group to find God, joined a choir to defrost my voice. Despite all this, I spent a surprising amount of time alone.
It was a year of special significance. A year when a fantasy novel (one I didn't even enjoy much) taught me that life is what it is, so ditch the shame and resentment and go do what you were created to do. Ditch the self-pity too and go help the people you can.
People around me suffered this year, so I worried, prayed, spent much of the summer alone. A poodle died, an old lady was hospitalized, the autumn was exhausting. But it was also a jubilee year, with a strong new focus and a tender heart.
Highlights:
* New Year with spumante in an island cottage kitchen and debates regarding divinely installed outdoor toilets and the evilness of Putin.
* April picnic with thick snow, warm sun, sausages grilled over a hot fire.
* First draft of my space opera (poor fiction written for my own enjoyment), finished after about three years.
* Celebration month and crafting my own philosophy while walking dusty streets and drinking wine by the sea.
* Helsinki weekend with my sister: the House of Nobility, the theatre, deep talk in vintage bar Kappeli surrounded by the Helsinki nightlife, an art museum, spring flowers and singing blackbirds, silk shirts, café visits just like in the 90s.
* Birthday alone in Helsinki: exploring the Fortress of Finland and reshaping my world on an almost-deserted island, warmed by the infinite horizon, a bleak sun, wine and history.
* A big surprise birthday party, two planned parties, and one balcony party to finish off the cakes.
* A chartreuse-coloured new car.
* Cruising in a convertible, playing "Cha Cha Cha" loudly, with my middle-aged friends, to the ridicule of the neighbourhood teenagers.
* Field trip to a sheep farm to pet the lambs, and to an old mansion to look at half-burned attic rooms and luxury spa areas.
* Meteorite explosion that shook me to the bones, late one night.
* Memorable chat with an AI about explicit phrases, historical novels and Slovenian caves.
* Last(?) zumba class ever, last(?) time bringing my old mother to the cottage by the sea.
* New air-conditioning, new fridge, new stove in my 60s flat.
* The cute town of Kristinestad, explored on a hot day with a funny friend. The cute town of Jakobstad, where further exploration was abandoned when we found the cutest café ever.
* Nightwish's last concert which I eavesdropped on, sitting on a rock in the woods on a warm summer night.
* Midsummer with old and new and marvellous Midsummer People, in the forest by a sea of reeds, with a barbecue and strangely-named cats.
* Volunteer assignment as interpreter at a church conference, where I battled social phobia and other demons and decided I might as well become a full-time warrior while I'm at it.
* Exploration of various forests, marshes and villages, sometimes in sandals and silk shirts where hiking boots and safari gear would have been more appropriate.
* Road trips with an old lady: the pavillion where Jean Sibelius got engaged in secret, an ancient meteorite crater, dark lakes with silky water, bohemian farmhouse cafés, faraway villages where we might have lived our lives had fate not intervened.
* Summer almost alone by the sea, with repetitive strain injury,
occasional visits by the motorcycle club and excavators and swimming elks,
and putting out the bonfire after everyone else had gone home and left
me.
* Music of the exquisite kind - in a church fragrant with incense on a hot, thunderous summer evening, in another church as the autumn darkness crept in and coloured lights twinkled in the churchyard.
* Night of the Arts, when I skipped the arts and holed up in crowded café to plan an Italian journey with my friend.
* Singing in a choir after 25 years of silence. First song: "The Sound of Silence".
* Italy, hot and lovely. Venice - falling into a fairytale and fantasy novel. Florence - crowds and art exhaustion. Cinque Terre - riviera life with beaches and fresa coladas. Pisa - an unexpectedly emotional evening.
* An autumn wedding where I arrived in summery silk, looked after an old lady, talked at length with a father figure from my youth.
* New book club with a minister and a pathologist, Of Mice and Men, Piranesi, and The Call of Cthulhu.
* A week and a weekend with the 16-year-old poodle, nearly blind and deaf and lame. Dark, early mornings dealing with his health issues, knowing it was time to say goodbye.
* Wintry November with snow, theatre, dancing at midnight, fancy restaurants, pub evenings, book club (another kind of pub evening), exhaustion from too much caretaking.
* Mysterious black hole appearing in my car.
* December with concerts, nostalgia and literally sickening amounts of chocolate.
* Warm and fragrant Christmas, plus complicated arrangement to fetch old lady with broken hip from hospital. Chocolates and Love Actually with the best people afterwards. Unexpected bliss.
* New Year's Eve with two people who had never met. And pizza with dark gin. And sadly noting that the days of magnificent fireworks are over. And still hopeful, a little.
