odd name for a boy and a wine

In my local off-licence I found a Riesling with the same name as the first friend I ever had.

The name is rather odd, for a boy and for a wine.

I'm drinking it with morbid curiosity and find myself missing him. I think I was seven years old the last time I spoke to him. I attended his funeral about ten years ago.

oh, happy day on a winter night

Hot, spicy coffee from a flask. I set down the lantern I'm carrying and someone puts a sticky-sweet piece of carrot cake in my mittened hands. 

We're having a surprise birthday party on the porch, in the illumination of a dozen lanterns. The snow is thick under our boots, the forest cold and silent around the little house. The darkness of a winter night can't daunt the cheerful chattering around the cake. It is so cold that my toes are going numb but I ignore it - because birthday party in a blizzard! With pandemic and social distancing, you have to get creative. 

We sing "Oh, Happy Day" and among the half-strangers around me I suddenly recognise voices from my favourite choir, thirty years ago. I have known the birthday boy just as long, and his smile warms my heart like it has for decades. 

I hope the roads won't have snowed in before it's time to leave.

gravel, sun and a red skirt

I don't remember how it actually happened. The tall, lanky man was sitting on a chair outside an Irish cottage, on a sunny summer's day. I think he pulled me down to sit on his lap, or maybe it was my idea. We probably kissed. In any case, the chair tipped over and we both fell on the gravel, which hurt him more than me because I mostly landed on him.

I remember I was wearing my blood red wrap skirt, because in that moment it opened and showed more than was completely decent. He teased me about my "wardrobe malfunction". I laughed wildly, still lying in his arms, on the gravel under a warm summer sun.

Later, he texted me: "I  have a bruise on my arm where a girl fell on me. Not that she was heavy, mind."

I remember the day I met this man - I was in high heels and walked with him into a kitchen. I turned around and smiled at him and knew that I liked him.

I also remember the last time I saw him. It was just a glimpse of his anguished face because he refused to look at me. I turned my own face away because I knew I had destroyed him.

But that day with the gravel, the sun and the red skirt is my strongest - and fondest - memory of a man I once loved.

true colors shining through

One summer's day, many years ago, I threw the first draft of my Master's thesis out through the open window from the seventh floor - a crumpled sheet of paper. It fell on the busiest street in the city and I never saw it again. Not that I missed it much.

That summer I suddenly transformed from a lazy, shy and somewhat lonely dreamer into a restless, confident life-lover. My days started with lunch at the student cafeteria with friends, then we drifted through a city that sparkled with life. We hade icecream on the river bank, listened to live music in the park. There were fizzy drinks in dark student pubs, hamburger meals, hot chocolate at outdoor cafés in the cool evening air. On rainy days we went through an impressive amount of films on video or in the cinema. There were choir rehearsals and Sunday services in the church where all the interesting people went. There was the occasional, dutiful visit to the university where I was supposed to be working on my thesis - usually just to look for fun stuff on the internet. There were excursions to the archipelago and to ancient cities, there were picnics beneath the old oak tree.

I suddenly found myself surrounded by interesting people who wanted to hang out with me. With me! I was enchanted.

My most faithful companion was the boy I was in love with. I had never met anyone who was willing to spend entire days with me before. When our friends went home, we had sandwiches and long talks in my flat. Too wired for sleep, we went for walks or bike rides in the white nights of summer,  along the slowly flowing river, all the way to the mysterious, brooding castle. We climbed the highest hill to watch the sunrise in a happy daze of sleep deprivation. We danced all night, wildly, on a ship in a storm where the dancefloor heaved beneath our feet and martini and love warmed our blood - waltz and foxtrot and tango. I teased him and tricked him into eating the bitter rowan berries as summer was turning into autumn and he tried, unsuccessfully, to throw me into the sea.

There was also jealousy, despair and many tears. It's just, ah, a little crush ... But when he left, I felt strong and brave. I sat down and wrote my thesis.

A man can't change you. Daring to finally be yourself can.

one of the many that got away

I showed my friends a picture of the guy I was desperately in love with when I was sixteen.

They said, "He doesn't look like he can deal with your madness."

I'm glad I didn't end up with that guy. I'm glad I have friends like that.

a woman like me, but stronger

There is a woman, like me but stronger, that lives in a tiny flat in a big city, with a handsome man and a scruffy mongrel.

Each day, the man and the woman take their weapon of choice and go out to fight the good fight together. They save people and make them courageous. The dog usually gets to come along. The woman comes home to write about what she has seen and send the words across continents. The man cooks mushroom pies that smells deliciously of garlic and sings old jazz tunes.

In the evenings, they climb out on the roof to watch the sunset and drink wine. There are candles and colourful blankets. She teaches him Nordic myths and truths while playing him songs in strange, important languages. He tells her things she's never heard before and reads classic novels aloud.

They travel and love.

There is a piano and they get lost in the music.

the summer of deep-sea monsters, never-ending picnics and plus-ones

July was:

The hottest summer for a hundred years, and an inability to move. A beach picnic with wine, another with cinnamon buns, a third with salmon and luxury beer on the hottest day of the hottest summer. Dozing in city parks on brown grass, on the run from my own home.

Busy work days in air-conditioned offices, lazy vacation days when I never moved from the beach. Floating on the sea, making plans to conquer my anger and frustration. Being surrounded by some of my favourite smells: the sea, a summer garden, garlic in the frying-pan.

A photography exhibition with Nick Brandt's awesome work and a weekend in Helsinki. Never wearing any shoes except sandals, occasionally. Swimming in silky-smooth seas, rescuing an ancient fishing net out of the water and meeting what might have been the Baltic version of the Loch Ness monster.

An expensive work party and lots of fun with the plus one that I should stop bringing with me. A pizza party barefoot on a dark balcony while a cataclysmic thunderstorm raged. A cute mouse carried into the forest in a bucket. Family and weariness and happiness and longing for rain.

his eyes aren't the ocean

"His eyes aren’t the ocean; I’m not going to drown when he tells me he doesn’t love me anymore.
His freckles aren’t really constellations that I can trace my fingers against so I can feel the stars shimmering under his skin,
and his veins are not a map I follow to lead me back to his heart where I belong.
He is honestly just a sleepy eyed boy with dimples and crooked teeth.
But it’s really hard not to see the world in someone when in truth, to you that’s what they are. Your entire fucking world."

(There’s just something about you (H.S), Dumbdaisies, Tumblr)

the five-hour dinner of the Midsummer People

His beard is long and he looks like a hipster, my friend who has decided to leave the field of theology for a possible career in law enforcement.

It's Midsummer's Eve and he is in charge of the barbecue. I'm keeping him company in a drafty barn where we are barely sheltered from the cold rain. I move closer to the heat of the grill. I'm not dressed warmly enough in my jeans and tee but the smell of sizzling meat is delicious.

The air in the barn is dusty and grey, a bumble-bee occasionally buzzes around us. We have not talked like this for years, not since our days of playing pool in a dark basement.

Our friends are already gathered around the table. The cottage in the middle of the woods is warmly lit and nobody cares about the cold rain outside. There are hot steaks, corn and haloumi, homemade birch wine and a runny sorbet. There are more strawberries than we can eat. Someone plays a lullaby on the guitar and someone cries and someone gets their clothes ripped off by kids on a sugar rush.

The meal lasts for five hours, with the usual breaks for naps, rescue missions and disappearances.

a man's neck

“The line of a man’s neck can change your life. The way he digs in his pockets for change can make your heart groan and hands grow cold. How he touches your elbow or the button that is not closed on the cuff of his shirt are demons he’s loosed without ever knowing it. They own us immediately. He was a thoroughly compelling man. I wanted to rise to the occasion of his presence in my life and become something more than I’d previously thought myself capable of.”

(Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky)

best version

“A healthy relationship is one where two independent people just make a deal that they will help make the other person the best version of themselves.”

(unknown)

marry me

"marry me.
let’s spend our week nights eating cereal on the floor
when there is a perfectly fine table behind us.
we can go to the movies and sit in the back row
just to make out like kids falling in love for the first time.

marry me.
we’ll paint the rooms of our house
and get more paint on us than the walls.
we can hold hands and go to parties we end up
ditching to drink wine out of the bottle in the bathtub.

marry me.
and slow dance with me in our bedroom
with an unmade bed and candles on the nightstand.
let me love you forever.
marry me."

(whispering bones, Tumblr)

in a rain of slush, gravel and sparks

Do you remember that March day when we hitched a sleigh to a snowmobile?

You drove, one of my best friends sat behind you, and two of us rode in the sleigh. There wasn't really enough snow left so when we went along the forest road, the snowmobile pelted the sleigh with gravel and slushy snow. My friend and I shrieked and laughed at this torture. The metal runners occasionally hit a gravel patch and sparks flew.

Then we went onto the ice, staying close to the shore just in case. We stopped and had a lovely picnic on a little islet, turning our faces towards the sun. On the way back, there was so much melted water on the surface of the thinning ice that it completely drenched the two of us who sat in the sleigh.

I remember being scared that the ice wouldn't hold us. By the way you drove, occasionally changing course to get closer to the shore and making sure to keep up the speed, I could tell that you were worried too. But at that point in my life, I was used to danger. I had learned to let go of my fear, think "when your time is up, it's up" and feel the thrill in my every cell. That's what I did that day, too.

We came back as soaked as if we had actually gone through the ice, and  my toes were frozen. We dried ourselves and changed clothes in an ancient cottage on the Island and you told me the history of the place in a solemn voice. Your life had such a long history. I envied and admired you for that.

But that day, I was back together with friends I had not seen for a long time. There was history in our relationships. There was adventure, too. That was a very good day. I have a picture of us all there on the islet, grinning.

Do you remember it?

my bones are too whole for my heart

A bird is watching me like a hawk from the linden tree. I think it is an actual hawk.

Meanwhile, the weather does that in-between thing with snow, rain, slush, ice and overall greyness. They say the hospital is swamped with people who have slipped on wet ice and broken bones, and people suffering from the winter vomiting bug. I walk down slippery sidewalks with caution, feel the tug of spring in my soul and think of the doctor I'm in love with, the one who pronounced me healthy and strong, the one who probably hasn't thought of me since. He is somewhere out there examining fractures, prescribing x-rays and pain killers, handing out soothing smiles.

I don't know where to find him, not even after haunting hospital corridors, cafeterias and parking lots like a madwoman. I may need to try breaking a bone.

in the valley of the shadow of death

I take walks along the seafront where a cold sun is reflected in ice. Grateful for the light, I pull my scarf tighter against the January wind and listen for birds among the pines.

I huddle in my Nepalese hoodie under a single lamp in my flat, the winter darkness outside vast and eternal. There is comfort in the way my phone sometimes chimes to announce a Messenger message and I scroll down my Facebook news feed way too often. I listen to my neighbours argue, their screaming child, the lift coming and going. I memorize words in foreign languages and play WordFeud.

I try not to worry about the night.

My body feels lethargic and odd, my mind leaps to sudden panic. But when there is not terror, there is gratefulness and deep love.

I fall asleep to midnight TV shows where people talk about sharks and business plans, broken trucks and Chinese factories.

And I think of you, your steady hands and your mild voice.

a week of good and evil

This week has been an other-worldly one.

There has been blueberry soup, midnight phone calls by nurses and suicidal friends, driving cars nearly unconscious, music from my youth, early morning walks in snow, panic and vomit, the glorious feeling of being helplessly in love with a stranger, falling asleep on the bathroom floor to the sound of a scientific podcast on lichen, normal workdays, praying, sending pictures of my cardiogram to people to prove that I have a heart, little sleep and even less food.

I have prepared myself for another desperate trip to the emergency room by picking out clothes warm enough to suppress my uncontrolled shivers but also flattering enough to make me look enchanting to the hot doctor on duty as I expire at his feet.

I have wished for physical pain instead of mental one, while being profoundly grateful for the strength still left in me. I have once again decided not to hide from my friends.

I have cowered in corners and fearlessly plowed straight on. I have driven to the hospital, just to sit in the car outside it for a while before going home again.

I have battled horrifying anxiety by turning it into physical nausea and by falling in love.

love and other panic attacks

Hair dye put me in the emergency room again. I stagger in, not allergic, just hysterical, in a Nepalese hoodie, muddy boots and (beautifully espresso brown) hair on end. It is a dark and stormy night, but not as dark and stormy as my soul.

I don't know what to tell them, the people who ask what is wrong. That I woke up in a panic? That I've eaten too much iron, that I nearly bled dry a week ago, that my back is in a twist, that I'm shaking, that it's not really the psych ward I need, that hair dye nearly made me faint once before, that maybe it's exactly the psych ward I need? That there is a full moon behind the snow clouds and praying didn't help this time? That the hospital has my dead father listed as my next of kin?

I'm scared and alone and maybe that is precisely my problem. But it is my body that tries to bring me to my knees, demanding a ransom that it refuses to specify. Demons are dancing. And the emergency room is staffed by 25-year-olds and I'm not sure I can trust 25-year-olds with exorcism.

But someone strong opens the door, speaks to me with kindness as I stagger in, takes my hand and calms me down. Someone to lean on, at last. I put my shaking life in his hands without a second thought. He carefully checks that I'm not dying, tells me that I'm in fact healthy and strong, then gently asks me if I have ever had a panic attack.

I think that is the moment I fall in love. The cardiogram printout shows my heart beating slowly and surely for him.

kiss me in every language

"I’m a writer.
Don’t buy me roses
or fancy things.
Kiss me in every language
and envelop me in
the soft hug of a sentence.
Teach me how to
write without words,
and I will love you
for the rest of my
undocumented existence."

(unknown)

the year I stepped through the looking glass

From my diaries: the year 2000 ...

* The eve of the new millennium: a cold, cold, winter's evening in my home town. Dinner with friends and a church youth event. I wore my first short skirt and was bored. Just before midnight, I was given a candle and told to think deep thoughts for ten minutes. Couldn't. But when the countdown clock to the new millennium hit 00:00:00 I was struck with unexpected euphoria. There was dancing, then I went home and wrote a lousy poem.
* The year took off on a wave of inspiration. I finished my master's thesis on Englishness, fought against Jules Verne in French and hid in a basement at the university. In love with the internet, fanfic and solitude.
* Braved great adversity to get my thesis to the printer's - cycled on icy streets in lashing rain. Who says a university degree is all about mental exertion?
* Played a lot of volleyball, assisted in an Alpha course, had a houseguest for two weeks (wild hippie with blond braids, just returned from Africa).
* Planned my Irish adventure and tried to convince my father that I was NOT going to end up chained to a bed in a brothel.
* Birthday spent planning an international move, attending bible study and having a café night with friends.
* Hectic spring weeks bubbling with university students celebrating spring. Sushi and dancing, the theatre, picnics with beautiful men, country drives and a flight in a small plane.

* Moved all my furniture 400 kilometres, then said goodbye to everyone I knew and moved to Ireland. On arrival, I was greeted with sunshine and a clementine.
* Began my working life in a hotel reception at world's end. My arrival coincided with that of the digital revolution and the big, old hotel ledger was thrown out.
* Fell in love on the first evening, with the red-haired Irish chef who made me a spaghetti dinner.
* Spent the rest of the year intoxicated, wild and in love - with a reserved chef, a cool businessman, a bohemian soulmate and life itself.
* Worked and partied with an international bunch who at first seemed shallow and negative but brought out the wildness and strength in me.
* Learned to drive on the wrong side of the road and collected counties. Kissed the Blarney stone and saw the twelve mountains of Connemara.
* Dated a jockey who stood me up three times out of four, partied in a cemetery, threw stones at a man's window and modelled for a mad Belarussian artist.
* Learned how to be a hotel receptionist and do everything else as well - from babysitting newborns to waitressing, carrying suitcases and handling irate managers.
* Took long walks in a magic valley to get away from fights, drama and burning cars.
* Had a sheepdog that disappeared into thin air.
* What else I learned: how to be loved, how to let loose, how to not take it personally when people scream insults at you, how not to date, how to drink, how to deal with an unfair world, how to be me.
* Went home for Christmas.

a year of cheese and heartbreak

From my diaries: the year 2001 ...

* New Year's Eve - a rare visit in my old university town with an Aussie boyfriend. Church, art and kissing under the fireworks, feeling tense and too nostalgic.
* Beautiful Finnish winter days, showing the Aussie snowy forests, sauna and sledding, onion-domed cathedrals and reindeer kebab.
* Return to a damp and cold Irish valley and learned to sleep with five blankets and a woollen beanie as well as work on my social skills.
* My social life that winter: a roommate issuing death threats and a boyfriend with a broken heart.
* Midnight mountain hike that showed me that deer really freeze when caught in the lights.
* Foot-and-mouth outbreak that closed down most of Ireland and had me watering welcome mats with disinfectant.
* Meltdown with surprising results.
* Birthday with cheesecake, stolen daffodils and dancing to the jukebox.
* Game of pool with a movie star.
* Weekly Dublin days for half of the year, stay-at-home life for the other half.
* Hotel receptionist life: The War of the Boots, invisible weddings, scaring Spaniards shitless, white-hot truths, and the occasional cheese-and-wine picnic by the river with the boyfriend.
* Whispers from God through dreams, mountains and ancient oaks.
* Late summer holiday in Finland with all that's best of summer by the sea, family and friends, exes and future exes.
* Watching 9/11 in an Irish pub, crying.
* World's oldest building and the world's strangest rocks on a tour of Northern Ireland with family.
* Heartbreak autumn with lots of cheese and weddings.
* Accidental live performance by the Chieftains in a back room of the hotel.
* Running away to Kilkenny and finding comfort among strangers.
* Halloween ghost wrapped in toilet paper.
* Badminton and a bike.
* Losing my love on a frosty night.
* Finland Christmas tour of all significant places and people.
* Quiet winter reading Proust.