on the hill of springtime

The intoxication of spring, in Turku.

After the long Finnish winter the evening is glorious in brightness and birdsong. It's chilly still, it always is this time of the year, but we dress in our springtime finest and shiver with cold and delight as we gather in a park on a steep hillside in the middle of the city.

Around us are thousands of people, all lightheaded with the same intoxication. There is the tradition of centuries in the songs being sung to us on that hill. We look around - at the fabulous view over an old city, at the smart and talented people surrounding us, at the dreams and adventures just waiting for us. All the wisdom and ancient history and exquisite culture this beautiful city has to offer and the endless possibilities of the future.

There is nothing that awakens a Finn like springtime. We lift our champagne flutes and toast to our dreams.

( Picture from abounderrattelser.fi )

the end

Tonight I dreamed that the world ended. It was quite spectacular. Afterwards the credits rolled and then there were commercials.

malaria, Ella and the pink moon

By the way, today is Anzac Day, world malaria day, Ella Fitzgerald's birthday and pink moon day with a partial eclipse. In case you thought this was just any old day.

wednesday's child is full of woe

Thai for lunch and Mexican for dinner; work and participation in a music survey - and somewhere in between all this there were three red roses.

The world turns on its axis. I feel the gravity of this ominous shift. But it was a glorious spring day and everybody loves me, so I will dry my tears and with joy on every birthday count my age in friends, not years.

youth is wasted on the young

On the eve of my birthday I watch the April sunset and wonder if I'm happy.

( I don't usually worry about it too much. )

I have another glass of wine and wish for more time to be creative. I feel old and unaccomplished, or is it unloved? Even though I know it to be untrue, I still believe it. At this very moment, somewhere else in the city, friends and family are preparing to celebrate me as if I deserve it.

And all I really want is my father.

say

Say it's all right.
Say I'm loved.
Say I can go to sleep and you'll watch over me.

me pinned down

What I pin on Pinterest:

* Sunlight or city lights illuminating messy beds.
* Lofts with lots of exposed bricks, whitewashed kitchens, studios with enormous plank tables, fireplaces, cosy nooks with fairylights, balconies overlooking Manhattan.
* Women in woollen sweaters and bare legs, coffee mug in hand, staring out of windows ( preferably windows with magnificent views )
* Women in cars or trains.
* Women reading in cafés.
* Women on midnight city streets.
* Couples kissing in tiny kitchens.
* Women wearing any of the following: boots, knee-high socks, lace, skinny jeans, black leather, velvet, oversized knitted sweaters, floaty long layers, silvery grey, boho jewellery, leg warmers, ridiculously flared trousers, an air of independence, a sad expression.
* Anything suggesting road trips, New York fire-escapes, typical American diners, bohemian tents, beach picnics with wine, creativity, freedom .

the lady of the minks

An 82-year-old lady threw her fur coat in my arms dramatically: "Feel that, how heavy it is!"

I did feel it, as I nearly dropped it. She added, "That's real mink, no second-rate stuff! Are you one of those anti-fur people?"

Funny question to ask of someone at the company that is going to store the lady's fur safely for her over the summer. I smiled my "no" but it was not entirely honest. I would prefer it if the minks had got to keep their fur and not suffer through a life in a cage, but too late to save these particular minks now. Anyway, fur wearers in Finland are a dying breed so I'm not worrying about it.

This lady wasn't anywhere near dying though, despite her age. Agile of mind and body, she questioned me on my life story and told me her own, then complimented me to my boss, had my Chinese colleague teach her a phrase in Chinese and finally departed in a whirlwind.

the storyteller of Dublin (or Better than trying to read Joyce)

"I cried when they told me I was made reduntant - cried, I'm telling ya. From relief!"

This taxi driver ticks all the boxes on the  Dublin Taxi Driver Stereotype Sheet  - round-faced, spewing out incredible stories, maniacal in his driving, harbouring a special hatred towards buses, and adorable. He drives around the city centre, trying to make it to the airport bus stops just before the airport bus and pick up customers there. Today, he has got me, a Swiss gentleman and the Swiss gentleman's son, having talked us into a good deal.

"I just couldn't wait to leave that job, and the supervisor. Some people are pure evil, ya know wha' I mean?"

We hurtle down busy Dublin streets, taking corners on two wheels and barely avoid getting hit by one of the hated buses. Strangely, I'm completely calm. Whatever else you want to say about Dublin taxi drivers, they do know how to avoid collisions. I keep up the conversation just for the pleasure of hearing the Dublin accent and all those tall stories. By the time we have cleared the city centre, we have moved on from the driver's riveting life story to a no less entertaining account of how Bruce Springsteen once paid his friend's restaurant bill. The Swiss gentleman listens with an astonished look on his face. His son, who clearly doesn't understand a word, tries to grab attention by eagerly pointing out Croke Park, but the driver is having none of it.

"See that other taxi over in the next lane? That driver won two mill on the Lottery. Believe it or not, he still gets up at seven every morning to drive his taxi for ten hours a day. Just money-mad, if ya ask me! Ya know wha' I mean?"

We cut in front of a bus and screech to a halt at the main entrance of the airport terminal. I feel as if I heard all of Dublin's collected stories in twenty minutes. Light-headed, a little dizzy. There is no better way to leave Ireland.

no hair to braid

I'm one of those seemingly very rare women who don't need, don't want and don't long for children. One of the reasons I feel like an alien sometimes.

But just once in a while, I'd like to have a little girl beside me, hope and dreams shining in her eyes, and I'd like to braid her hair and know she is mine.

(Picture from Black Horse.)

eggless

Woe to me. I am out of creme eggs.

leaving rationality behind - hello Ireland!

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." (Charles Dickens)

And it is a cold, cold March this year. Despite the heat of the midday sun, there is ice in the air. I hurriedly close the balcony door and curl up on the sofa to eat some more Easter chocolates. Surely I deserve it. I have spent the month trying to learn my new job and adjust to my new life, and now, miracle of miracles: I have twelve days off to forget it all and go to Ireland!

Ireland, my second homeland, so well known and so much changed. I will look at it with eyes wide open, buy the Irish Independent and eat Cadbury Creme Eggs and breathe in the smell of turf fires. I will share drinks and stories with some people I love. I will moan about the lateness of spring in a typical Irish manner. And I, a rational person from a rational, logical country where nothing strange ever happens, will fall helplessly under a spell I didn't even believe existed. I will watch with bafflement the weird things that happen and the even weirder things I do myself under this spell.

There is ice also in the Irish air this March, and there is the smell of turf fire and the blaring of a burglary alarm that nobody bothers to turn off, and there is magic.

love is in the aftershave

My honed sense of smell doesn't only register pancakes in the building. I was walking through the supermarket today, tiredly ignoring everyone around me, intent only on stopping briefly at the cheese section and the yogurt section and then making it out of there as soon as possible.

Then it dawned on me that I was feeling loved.  Safe, comforted and happy. It's definitely not an everyday feeling for me. It was so distracting that I stopped in my tracks and couldn't remember where I was going anymore.

What had happened was that I had walked past a man wearing a lot of aftershave. Not only a very nice aftershave, but one that used to be worn by someone who loved me. I can't even recall who. My father? An ex-boyfriend?

Reeling from the experience, I came home with the wrong kind of cheese and entirely too much comfort icecream.

staircase delights

Pancakes! Was the smell in the staircase today.

I love the smell of food drifting out from flats as I climb the stairs ( if you take the lift you miss out ). As a hopeless cook myself, and with nobody who cooks for me either, I sigh with envy. But it's also a lovely, homely sign of human life.

Sometimes it's beef stew or cabbage rolls. I'm very good at identifying the smells. One day it was something with lemongrass in it.

The smell most likely to drift out of my own flat around dinnertime? Something burnt.

pinned down

My days are filled with work - or at least with loitering in the workplace.


My evenings are filled with a few workout sessions and a lot of Pinterest. I'm inundated with inspiration but it's not much good to me when I can't seem to get offline and actually go do something creative.

on wisdom and nervous breakdowns

I love new places. I love new jobs (and hate them, too). I love having a new life.

Spending 8 hours a day in a new place with new people, learning a trade I know nothing about. Stressful, and exhausting. But I learn something new every time I turn around: through glancing at the file folders I'm asked to archive, through eavesdropping on the boss explaining an invoice to someone on the phone, through listening to my workmates complaining about a difficult customer at the lunch table.

But there is so much more than the business to learn. I try to absorb it all. I learn what the boss is like, just by observing how he interacts with the others. I learn the history of the company by finding in the back of the storage room old products it used to import, rather unsuccessfully.

I have changed jobs quite frequently over the years (staying five years in The Little Shop of Harmony was a personal best). Being  the newbie  in the workplace always makes me feel like an inexperienced, insecure teenager again. But I notice, with joy and pride, that my experience and wisdom are slowly accumulating. I may be a newbie and I may be insecure. But I'm no longer inexperienced.

I learn, and I learn fast.

( And the most useful wisdom I have gathered regarding new jobs: awareness of the emotional dynamics. That the first week is the worst and that it gets better after that, but also that the adrenaline wears off at the same time and I get rather fed up sometime during the second week. It gets better after that, too. And when things finally seem to run smoothly, somewhere around the fifth week, I usually have an unexpected nervous breakdown. )

profane, not profound

Back in the normal world, after a few years in the spiritual and slightly magic air of The Little Shop of Harmony.

It feels like a relief, at the moment. I loved the shop, but I can't take too much spirituality. Right now, I need a workplace where I can hear bland chatter from a mainstream radio station and talk to men in ripped jeans who are not averse to the occasional four-letter word. A place where I'm not seen as a representative of something more lofty or profound and expected to act the part.

I'm not sure what I mean. But I'm enjoying being normal.

at the edge, the cutting one

And so I pack a bag with all the stuff that's been cluttering up my locker, and the little presents received from workmates. Last of all, I throw my own beloved coffee mug into the bag, hand over my keys to my boss and, after a hug and a choked-up "I'll miss you", I leave The Little Shop of Harmony.

I congratulate myself for all the things I leave behind. That smelly customer who always talks a mile a minute (but who is kind of endearing anyway). Always having to smile and be nice to everyone (but what a feeling when a sad face lights up in return). The knowledge that I will never get a raise or a real promotion (but always know that the money feeds a starving child instead).

The evening is cold and clear and there is a beautiful sunset in the western sky. People are heading home after work or hurrying towards the supermarket and I walk quietly among them with my heavy bag. The cold air speaks of winter but the evening light promises springtime. It's already March and today I'm starting a new life. A brand new life. There is so much to look forward to.

But right now, I just want to cry.

page 240 of dullness

At  which point do you give up on a book? One that you read for pleasure?

I usually give it at least a few chapters before I decide to stop reading a novel I find uninspiring. Sometimes I keep going for a while past that point, just to make sure it's not just my restless mind looking for new impulses.

But now I'm on page 240 of a moderately interesting one and my yawns of boredom get increasingly frequent. It seems to me life is too short to spend on the "moderately interesting".

But I only have about 70 pages left to the end. I could skim quickly to the last page. But that seems almost as bad as just leaving it.

What if I reach the last page, number 310, and realize I have wasted many hours with no pleasure and learned nothing? What a dilemma.

walking away from the troubles in my life

There's something about walking home from work on a Saturday afternoon that makes me peaceful inside. Like I'm leaving the world behind.

desk out of service

I dream of having a desk.

My  very own desk,  in an office. With a fancy computer and a large mug of coffee on it, and drawers where I keep my personal stuff like a bar of chocolate, a little notebook for jotting down creative ideas that don't necessarily have anything to do with work, and a novel that I sometimes read on my lunch break.

Around me are fun colleagues whom I sometimes share a joke with, or go for lunch with, but who don't interfere with my work or criticize me if I check Facebook on my break or maybe leave a little early.

A desk that I can leave occasionally to pop out for an errand and a latte or to have delicious sushi at the cute restaurant at the corner.

I see myself sitting there at that desk, wearing high heels because I don't have to run around much and cool, ripped jeans because I don't have to dress up for customers. I'm wearing nail polish in an outrageous colour. No-one can complain if my desk is messy but no-one has the right to mess it up either.

Above all, I can bury myself in my work because no-one can demand that I get up and perform customer service.

love song for Dublin

"I remember that summer in Dublin, 
and the Liffey as it stank like hell..."

I remember other seasons in Dublin  too ( although the river didn't really stink much at all ).

Chilly winter mornings when I came in on the early bus from the countryside and bleary-eyed stumbled down the sidewalk heading for the illustrious Bewley's Cafe for a real breakfast of creamy oatmeal porridge with honey or, more often, the traditional scrambled eggs with toast, fried mushrooms and hashbrowns. Wonderfully fresh, fragrant spring afternoons in the lush St. Stephen's Green park, watching the ducks. Dismal, grey autumn days when I ducked into an old, dark-panelled pub to avoid a surprising rain shower and discovered that a fire was roaring in the fireplace. And yes, hot summer afternoons when I walked for miles along dusty streets, exhausted in my quest for adventure - a good time to seek refuge in the air-conditioned cinema and sink into a comfortable velvet chair with a bag of popcorn.

Dublin is a small city, by comparison, but it has a big-city atmosphere. It has no skyscrapers. Neither is it particularly pretty in the eyes of a foreigner who expects all of Ireland to look like a postcard. It is grey, worn-down in places, eye-poppingly modern in others and sometimes downright ugly ( it does have its picturesque spots, though ). I hated it at first.

But Dublin doesn't allow anyone to hate it. Its raw, abrasive charm got to me pretty fast. Maybe it was the buskers in the streets - incredibly talented musicians, performers, and comedians who had everyone in stitches. Or the mix of trendy coffee shops and ancient pubs. Or it could have been the fact that you can walk into a beautiful old church and discover that it holds the sacred remains of St. Valentine.

What definitely got to me though, were the intense evenings spent with friends over good food in lively restaurants, followed by a jaunt in the  Temple Bar  area filled with pubs, music and chatty people.

As I lived far outside the city, Dublin was for me the place where I came on a day off and spent the entire day before catching the evening bus back home. Arriving early in the morning after a tiring ninety-minute bus ride, breakfast was always the first priority ( and Dublin does do some marvellous breakfasts ). Afterwards, I strolled through the city, taking my time. It was a heaven filled with great bookshops, pretty clothes and some fantastic traditional markets - like Moore Street with its crowd of fruit stalls where Irish matrons call you "love" and some of them still get their wares in using a horse-drawn cart, or the boho chic George's Street Arcade. In the early days, I did a lot of exploring, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. Later on, my idea of a perfect Dublin day would include at least an hour in one of the internet cafés that were all the rage at the time ( this was in the days before everyone got their own laptop, smartphone and/or iPad ). Sitting in front of a computer with a latte, the whole world was at my disposal.

Lunch would preferably be had at the Winding Stair ( what could possibly be better than a bookshop-cum-café with great food? ) and after more leisurely strolling and shopping - don't forget another latte - I often went to the cinema.

Dusk often found me walking back through town, enjoying the lively early-evening bustle as people did their after-work shopping and socializing. There was always a great atmosphere in Grafton street, the main shopping street, and many buskers to be admired. And before you go back to your tiny village, you have to visit a grocery store to stock up on the essentials - chocolate, fresh mushroom salad, a bottle of wine, fruits and cheese, The Irish Independent newspaper. If there was still time, a T.G.I.Friday's with lovely milkshakes - made by a juggling bartender, of course - was conveniently located near the bus stop and I could count on finding friends also waiting for the bus there.

Still, there were sides of Dublin I didn't like. The fact that I always felt nervous and insecure after dark, the times I chose to stay over with a friend. The cold, restless nights trying to sleep in a poorly heated spare room in some suburb. The absolute madness of the traffic when I made the mistake of driving a car through the city - and I always got lost.

But Dublin is irresistible. Because there is nothing like going to see the magic library of Trinity College, or the zoo, or the fishing village "suburb" of Howth, with the one you love.

( Pictures: bicyclebandit.deviantart.com, visitdublin.ie, dubhliving.com )

fabric and not-quite-a-helicopter

Cut out pieces of fabric and glue them to a paper.

That was the first task given to me. First day on a new job. At least the pieces had pretty names: aubergine, anthracite, chocolate.

I cannot believe I have moved on to yet another trade. I have to abandon the book shop and the charity work and instead learn the clothing business and how to make money.

Is there a more awful day on earth than your first day at a new job? You don't know anything or anybody. Everybody else in the room knows everything and everybody. It doesn't matter if you are smarter and better educated and more skilled than they are - you feel like a ten-year-old and have to prove all of the above.

You have to be charming all day and get to know dozens of people you've never met before. You have to ask all the right questions and pay attention to everything to find answers to even more questions. There are so many unwritten rules in a workplace, obvious to everyone except the new girl, like where to park your car, who makes the coffee, can you use that shelf in the fridge, how long exactly is a coffee break?

I listened, I watched, I asked questions, I was charming. I didn't learn much about the clothing business. But I learned that the company has expensive computers and a messy storage room. And that the sound of an army helicopter about to land just outside the window is just the boss arriving in his monstrous SUV.

with Marc and the Radio Doctor

Listening to: Marc Cohn
Promise of the week: "I'll take you in to town and let you try out an office chair."
Phrase overheard today: "I would stick my finger in my mouth but the  Radio Doctor  said you shouldn't do that."
Thinking about: How to work full time without dropping dead. And what I'll buy for all the money I'll make.
Waiting for: Spring.

yawn and Valentine's Day

Got up at: 8.50 AM
Breakfast: Muesli with yogurt and honey
Weather while walking to work: Overcast, minus 2 degrees Celsius, snow on the ground
Work: Opened the shop. Sold books and second-hand clothes. Spent hours at the computer entering books into the database.
Mood: Cranky (morning), peaceful (afternoon).
Best things today: Chocolate mousse pastry brought by ex-workmate; the simple, pleasant task of monotonous computer work; taking a break to watch the penkkis tradition of students in fancy dress going around town in open lorries, screaming and throwing sweets to spectators.
Evening activities: Fanfiction and Pinterest browsing, a glass of wine.

And the award goes to: Me, for most boring blog entry of the year. Yawn.

a pile of phrases

What I collect:

( Not much. Usually, I try to get rid of stuff as fast as possible. )

* experiences: everything from trying an electric cigarrette to long journeys.
* personal photos and journals.
* quirky / funny things people say. Example: "You look very oriental today. There's something of the Taj Mahal over you."

And now I have unexpectedly gone back to the habit I had in my student days, cutting out words and phrases I like from magazines. I don't quite know what to do with them.

Just now, as I was brewing a cup of tea, I looked at the teabag and then grabbed the scissors and cut out the words "tea blackcurrant" from the label.

Phrase that caught my eye and my heart today: "When I'm feeling weird or sad, the city looks after me."

someone has to stand up to those green pigs

When the going gets tough ... the tough play Angry Birds.

Instant stress relief. Because how can you keep worrying about work, money and love when there are grunting green pigs to blast to pieces?

Angry Birds is the first - the ONLY - game where the sound effects are part of the entertainment. Nowadays, I can't look at the fat sparrows in the tree outside my window without wondering what cute little "Ow!" noises they would make slamming headfirst (willingly, I should add) into a wall, feathers flying everywhere.

in the land of smiles, starvation and sullen elephants

"... never would have thought I would buy an expensive smartphone just to get addicted to it, but this one was worth every cent! I have loads of apps already, just for travelling. Just a few touches and I can read about a city I want to visit, then book a cheap flight there and check in using the phone, as well as look for inexpensive food and accommodation ... Not to mention the currency converter and various dictionaries. Just having Spotify in the phone makes it worth the money." 

Came across the blog of a young Finnish girl, name of Tess, out backpacking alone in Thailand. Funny how it seems so EASY.

I was nineteen when I went to Thailand. It was like going to another planet. But then, that was the '90s ... I went there with a group of friends, and like Tess our plan was to stay a few months and volunteer for a charity organisation. Unlike Tess, I had never even been on a normal two-week vacation in Southeast Asia before - so common among Finns now - so I had no idea what to expect. Unlike Tess, none of us had a smartphone or a phone of any kind, not even a credit card - in order to make travel arrangements to another city, you went to a travel agency and used your traveller's cheques as payment. If you wanted to know something about the places you were visiting, you referred to your friend's dog-eared copy of the Lonely Planet's guidebook and hoped that the information was up to date.

There weren't even any Internet cafés yet, much less any Skype. When a scared and homesick teenager wanted to get in touch with her family, she had to go to one of the little shops that advertised "overseas calls", order a call at the counter and then wait by the phone until it was connected. (Collect call since it was so expensive.) Or she could write an old-fashioned letter and hope it didn't take much more than a week to reach Finland. Whenever one of us received a letter from home, we were so excited that we read it out loud, regardless of the fact that we were from different cities and didn't know each other's families at all. Everybody "oohed" and "aahed" at the news that somebody's little sister had performed in a school play or somebody's dog had got a new toy. We tried to comfort ourselves by listening to an old cassette tape with music from home.

We were all homesick. Thailand was lovely but too overwhelming. It was full of sun, people, strange bugs, an incomprehensible language and weird rules. Just taking a bus was a mystery as we didn't know where it would stop, what the fare was or how to get the driver to drop us off at the right place. Once, we jumped off a moving taxi ( of the open-back pick-up variety ) because the driver got mad and refused to let us off. The few Western food-places in existence were American ( Burger King, Swensen's, Dunkin' Donuts ) and seemed only slightly less alien to us than the hundreds of street stalls selling local fried rice.

We did weird things like talking to prostitutes (who only spoke three words of English), singing Christmas carols in sex bars and hiking for hours in the mountains to reach primitive villages. On these mountain expeditions, which sometimes lasted for three days each, we filled our water bottles in streams and just popped a purification pill in the bottle before drinking. In the same streams, we took our baths ( with our clothes on, out of respect for the local tradition ).

And we alternated between starving and being horribly sick to our stomachs.

And what an adventure it was:
* Sleeping in a huddle on the floor with six other girls to stay warm in a chilly mountain hut, with a water buffalo for a neighbour.
* Going to the toilet in the great outdoors.
* Trying to communicate with people without a common language.
* Riding an sullen elephant. Visiting crocodile farms and snake farms. Chasing cockroaches.
* Walking down dangerous back streets in a city at night.
* Sunbathing on white beaches.
* Singing a lot.
* Meeting a Buddhist monk.
* Seeing the sun rise over the mountains and the coffee plantations while driving down perilous mud paths.
* Eating chicken feet and condensed milk.
* Getting to know my weaknesses and learning to love my friends.
* Driving a motorcycle for the first time on my own. Riding a motorcycle with two other people on it, in the mad Bangkok traffic.
* Witnessing a violent assault on my friend.
* Walking along a beach at midnight, the surf caressing my bare feet, on Christmas Eve with a beautiful man.

Not to mention breaking up a fight between  a dog and a monkey  ( without contracting rabies ). Oh, the things you do for charity. Probably a good thing I didn't have a blog back then, like Tess. My mother would have fainted.

I don't think I envy Tess so much after all. With her blog, Skype and all-knowing smartphone, I'm sure she is missing out on that terrifying, dizzying, absolutely exhilarating feeling of being lost on an alien planet.

the art of art

The best film I saw last year was The Intouchables (everyone, see it!). After having laughed and cried my way through, one of the ideas expressed in the film stayed with me.

One of the main characters said that people are interested in art because "it is the only thing one leaves behind".

Not sure I agree completely, but it struck a chord.

I'm obsessed with creating right now.  It's welling up inside me and I don't know how to let it out.

a door opened

And the feeling when, after eight years of ( mostly ) failed job interviews, an email starts with the words "we would like you to come and work for us".

I am an anxious, unambitious worrier who can hesitate endlessly over small decisions. But when the door marked  "Huge Life Change"  suddenly opens I barge straight through it without looking back. My family and friends, unaware of how long I have been brooding in silence next to it, are usually left in shock, coughing in the dust cloud I kicked up.

Gone are the days, though, when I used to pack my bags and go, not just to a new job but to a new country and new friends. This time I cling desperately to my old friends, old home and old habits while going off to face a new job. Because huge life changes get huger the older you get.

let the answer be no, please

Another random question at a job interview:

"Are you extremely religious?"

Even without hearing the tone of voice (carefully neutral), you realize how the interviewer feels about religion, don't you? I tried not to grin, I really did.

from the archives

we'll show the world that they were wrong
and teach them all to sing along
             - Nickelback

rooibos and the enchanted forest

Cosy on my sofa with a cup of steaming rooibos and some melted icecream. A candle nearby. Outside is the black January night - a lot of darkness but with a string of tiny lights around the bay and a special blend of dark beauty.

With me on the sofa are my new friends, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Can't say I really understand these two, they seem rather chaotic. But once I get lost in the jungle of pretty pictures - oh God.

I knew there is a lot of beauty in the world, but all this? Unbelievably incredibly unfathomable incomprehensibly inconceivably unimaginable beauty. All these places I never knew existed! All these wonderful things to experience! I get inspired to travel, eat, create and just generally  love life. I get a little insane.

Just one example:

Source: whatkatieate.blogspot.com via Kristy on Pinterest

my non-disclosure

I just wrote a blog entry called  "What I don't want others to know"  and listed all my secrets.

Then I came to my senses and deleted it. What is with this strange urge to disclose everything, to strangers, on a public blog?

I'm learning to share, with my best friends only, even the things I'm ashamed of. One thing at a time, when I feel safe. Because sharing is how you get closer to your friends and it can also save your mental health.

But in general, a little mystery makes life more interesting.

counterfeiting Pollock

My first week ( unofficially ) in charge of the Little Shop of Harmony.

The highlight? That would be when I ( from the customers' point of view ) literally disappeared from behind the checkout counter by falling flat on my face, quite unexpectedly and spectacularly.

The most impressive side-effect of this was that the shop's expensive laptop, whose cable I tripped over, performed the same disappearing act half a second later. It made a much bigger bang than I did. Now the computer screen resembles a Jackson Pollock painting.

To preserve for posterity this memorable week, I want to include a picture of this hitherto unknown Pollock:

I borrowed it from mischiefmakersmanual.com. It never fails to entertain and amaze me how you can find pictures of anything on the Internet. Somebody out there apparently predicted that somebody out there one day would need an image of a cracked laptop screen.


PS. If a future, prospective employer of mine is reading this ( I might need a future, prospective employer much sooner than I thought ), please be advised that smashing computers is not something I normally do.

a rose by any other name

Last night, I dreamed that I was named Gurt. It's actually not a bad name ( does it exist? ) and would be convenient if people wanted to yell,  "yo, Gurt!".

far from Jerusalem

I want to go to a place where I know God is. A physical place, like the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I want to hide a piece of paper with my prayer on it in the wall, lean my forehead against the sun-warmed stone and feel him close.

But Jerusalem is far, far away. And I am not Jewish.

he took my secrets to his grave

The boy who almost dug up the devil in his backyard is dead. He was my first friend, the one I played with every day between the ages of two and seven. I haven't talked to him since. Going to his  funeral  was like revisiting my earliest childhood. There was the other friend we also hung out with as toddlers, a girl I also haven't talked to since. And there was the lovely old lady who used to look after us all. It was a truly bizarre experience.

( I feel so separated from my childhood self, as if it was someone else. )

And the horror of a young man being suddenly dead. His elderly mother and orphaned daughter crying in the church. It was almost too much to bear, just watching them. And the absence of a father ( my friend's, his daughter's, my own ) was so tangible that it sucked the breath out of me.

I took a close look at a picture of the deceased. Not having seen him for decades, I was surprised to see that he had grown up to be a strong, handsome man. I recognised his small-boy grin and remembered the secrets we shared with nobody else. I knew him so well, once. Today, at the funeral, I talked to some people who also knew him well, but as an adult ( and as such, of course, a complete stranger to me ).

Not a word to each other since we were seven years old. And he still knew things about me that nobody else did. 

come away, o human child

A memory:

Around me twelve mountains, marshland, silence and the rich scent of the wild earth. I stand in the middle of all this, awestruck, and let it all sink into me.

Afterwards, I walk  back to the road. My friends are having a spontaneous, quick picnic. In the car. They have only left it to take a couple of pictures of the magnificent landscape.

I don't understand. Sitting in the car, surrounded by twelve mountains, and you hardly even bother to take a look? We might never, ever come back here.

We are in Connemara, in the west of Ireland, it is July. I am tired but wild with freedom and saturated with beauty.

( Picture from Wikipedia - since I didn't have time to take any. )

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
(W.B.Yeats)

darling books: comfort food at Quentins

  She had just got to telling the twins the bit of her very unhappy life where she hadn't been chosen for the hockey team.
  'It doesn't sound terribly unhappy,' Maud complained.
  'No real, awful things,' Simon added.
  'If you wanted to be on the First Eleven, and should have been, then that's pretty terrible,' Ella protested.
  Her phone rang again. This time it was Nick. She listened and her face got red and then white again. The twins watched her with interest. 'The bastard,' she said eventually. 'The class-A bastard.' She took down a number on the back of her notebook. 'Thanks, Nick, I'll get back to you on this.' Her voice was slightly shaky, but a promise was a promise.
  Those children had got their heads around quadratic equations. Now she had to tell them the story of an unhappy life. 'So the day of the school's hockey final approached...' she began.
  'Could you tell us about the bastard, please?' Maud asked politely. 'It sounds much more interesting.'

Maeve Binchy's novels - my comfort books, feel-good literature. Quentins is one of the best ones. Binchy does a neat story-teller trick in her writing that makes you get to know the characters in a roundabout manner - it's masterly and sometimes very funny. She tells several stories in one novel but it's always engaging and easy to follow. The characters feel like real flesh-and-blood people you might meet while walking down a street in Dublin.

And she makes you feel that if you are a normal, not very remarkable, and maybe very messed-up person, you may not get the happy ending you wish for but in the end, everything will be okay. And that actually, you are somehow very remarkable after all.

Yes, it's feel-good literature but it's anything but shallow. Any writer who makes me suspect that there is still hope and affection in the world gets my vote.

the little blog entry about absolutely everything

I'm nervous because I'm going to zumba class and I don't know zumba and when will I have time to eat before zumba class and there is so much stress at work and I don't have energy for my friends and I may have to go to the dentist because my tooth hurts and it's so expensive and I still don't have those flight tickets for  my holiday and I might run into that terrible person today and somebody might call and offer me a job and ask about my French skills which are pretty much non-existent and what will my current boss say if I actually get that job and I'm getting old and did I forget something and I probably had too much coffee today.

the annual, annoying ice age

Winter is a fight you can't win - except through patience and enough time - but I roll with the punches.

I brush the snow off my car once again, scrape ice off the windshield, shiver while waiting for the heater to get going, and nervously wonder whether the car will handle the extreme cold or if the engine will stall the first time I stop at a red light.
I dig out woollen socks and thick sweaters to wear in my drafty flat.
I accept the fact that walking to work takes an extra ten minutes when a spell of milder weather has turned all the snow into slush and water, creating impassable lakes on street corners.
I sigh and walk with care the following day when all the lakes have frozen into icy patches.
I become an expert in driving on ice and in thick, mushy snow, and in avoiding the use of windshield wipers because they have frozen into place.
I take detours to avoid tall buildings where tons of snow and ice threaten to slide off the roof and kill an unsuspecting passer-by.
I wonder how many days or weeks it will be before the sun makes a brief appearance, hanging low in the southern sky.
I want to close my eyes when I travel on the main roads where salt has turned all the white snow into brownish-grey mush that makes the whole world look like a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape.
I light candles to fight off the darkness that descends around 4 pm.

I also sigh with wonder at the beauty of the ever-changing white-grey landscape of the frozen sea and of bare tree branches glinting with frost or weighed down with snow.
I marvel at the fact that, even though many birds have moved south, rare birds of prey come out of the forests to look for food.
I even find entertainment in watching how deftly snowplows, tractors and lorries clear snow off the streets and sidewalks, easily moving around parked cars and signposts.
I watch the stars on clear nights, and sometimes the aurora borealis.

And sometimes, I walk out into the vast expanse of the frozen sea where there is only silence and wilderness, and I'm cold but I survive it and I love it.

Everything is asleep but maybe that is what we need for now.

adventures in fog-walking

The  Cliffs of Moher,  on Ireland's west coast. A beautiful spot where tourists gather to view steep cliffs, unusual marine birds, and the waves of the unruly Atlantic crashing onto the rocks far, far below.

When I arrived there, all I saw was fog. And tourists. Disappointed tourists.

( I seem to attract fog, especially when I go to places of great natural beauty - see this post. )

I and my friends set out on a leisurely walk along a path. Away from the other tourists, it was lovely. One one side there was only fog. On the other side, you could vaguely see grassy fields and a few cows staring at us from the other side of a fence. The air smelled of grass and flowers and was warm, despite the fog. Larks were singing. I felt the peace of a quiet summer's day settle in me.

There was nothing, really, to indicate that you were near the sea, except a muted sound of waves somewhere. And the flat rocks we were walking on seemed to just end a few metres to our left. I went near the edge and had my friend take a picture of me from some distance.

Not until I actually saw the picture I realised just how steep the Cliffs of Moher are, or that there really was nothing but air beyond that edge.

I came back some time later and saw the cliffs and the sea in all their glory. But in this case, I was more impressed by the fog.

ring a sacred bell

As I was walking to work this clear, frosty morning, a bell was ringing. And not through some automated timer system either, as in most churches these days. As I passed the beautiful Greek Orthodox church, I glimpsed a man in the bell tower.

( Picture from Wikipedia )

It must be a transcendent experience, standing in a bell tower one bright winter morning when the sun is rising, ringing a bell that echoes over a still quiet city. But I hope he was wearing earplugs.

the receptionist who wanted to go home

It's a funny feeling you get when you browse through a bookshop while waiting for a flight at a London airport, pick up a book at random and discover you are mentioned in it (even if not by name).

"A wander past hotel reception offers a reassuring cameo, however, as a woman with a bevy of kids surrounding her is engaged in delicate negotiations with a woman behind the counter who is wishing she could press a button that would instantly sit her in front of the telly with her feet up on the sofa, fag in one hand, foaming pint in the other. She opens her eyes but the woman with the army of kids hanging from her arms, legs and pockets is still giving her a hard time. 'But you must be able to fit us in,' she is saying. 'I know for a fact that John Rooney isn't coming, we can have his room.' The reception looks warily at the children, who seem to be multiplying by the second. 'Yes, but it's only a single room ... it only has a single bed ... for one person,' she adds helpfully. 'So what?' says the woman, 'we'll manage.'"

It happened to me. The book was called In Search of the Craic by Colin Irwin - a fairly entertaining account of "one man's pub crawl through Irish music". The author travelled around Ireland and visited all the well-known traditional music events. As I had been working at a hotel that hosted a big pipe festival I looked up the chapter describing this particular event, and almost choked on my airport latte as I read this short passage.

As the receptionist in question, I can attest to the truth and accuracy of this part of the story. The children were in fact innumerable but I did end up giving them  the single room, with the single bed, for one person,  just so I could finally go home and have that foaming pint.

read my mind

Sometimes I check my own blog and kind of hope that there will be a new exciting blog entry waiting to be read, right there at the top of the page.

Well, I never claimed to be completely normal.

Wouldn't I be surprised if one day there was a new blog entry I didn't remember writing. Posted by my subconscious, maybe. And what if it was really eloquent and profound?

darling books: God on another planet

"He waited, shaking, daring them to speak. 'No questions? No argument? No comfort for the afflicted?' he asked with acrid gaiety. 'I warned you. I told you that you didn't want to know. Now it's in your minds. Now you have to live with knowing. But it was my body. It was my blood,' he said, choking with fury. 'And it was my love.'"

Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow (picture by pauabooks.co.nz).

The books I present as my "darling books" are the special few that stand out in a lifetime of reading. But only a few among these I would define as "books that never let go". This one, and its sequel Children of God, belong in that category. I like books who take on original topics. It doesn't get much more original than this. Jesuit priests ( in love with God ) and agnostic scientists go off to search for intelligent life on another planet? And still, it's all very believable. I bond with almost all the characters. Only one of them returns to earth, the most loveable of them - now broken in body and soul, and accused of terrible crimes which are explained piece by agonizing piece. I'm not a fan of either science fiction or religious mysticism. This is both - and yet I was enchanted.

These novels are extremely well-written. I have seldom read scientific details explained so accessibly to a non-scientist or religiously devout persons made so real, human and likeable to us others. There is a lot of absolutely hilarious dialogue. There are heated debates among the characters on philosophy and religion - the kind of debates I never normally would be interested in, but here they manage to be both profound and refreshingly down-to-earth. There are fascinating descriptions. And above all, the plot is intriguing. After a while, you start to understand the mystery of the terrible tragedies that occur, although you have to keep reading ( which I did happily ) to the very end of the sequel to have some of your most troubling questions answered.

And the story is  utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

"I am in God's hands, I thought. I loved God and I trusted in His love. Amusing, isn't it? I laid down all my defenses. I had nothing between me and what happened but the love of God. And I was raped. I was naked before God and I was raped." 

2012: Cleopatra, a fairytale cottage and freedom fighting

* With much-longed-for solitude, wine and the beginnings of a dream I entered the year of the world's end (according to the Maya calendar). Signed up (on FaceBook) for the Post-Apocalypse Party in December just in case.
* Chased a man all the way into a church.
* Entered the smartphone world and realised my days of texting while driving were over. So were my FaceBook- and Twitter-free vacation days.
* Chinese New Year celebration with vintage Pu'er tea, dumplings and non-Chinese people. Hail the Year of the Dragon!
* A sisterhood founded in the Beach Hut.
* Followed monsters around the Island on Shrove Tuesday and was a little bit scared and very fascinated.
* Almost fell through the ice walking across the bay. Excitement of the year.
* A new boss with digital ideas.
* Once again paralyzed by shyness - in the company of the closest family.
* Finished last in a volleyball tournament with much bloodshed and almost death by laughter.
* CABIN FEVER.
* Lots of coffee dates that never led anywhere.
* Fell in love with the sound effects in Angry Birds.
* Eastern Europe Easter - a dinner mixed with a little African colour and funny YouTube-clips. Our discussion topics: flash mobs, thesis writing, kulich recipes, Bulgarian Idols, man-hunting Chinese girls, Indonesian women who have plastic surgery to look like Korean women.
* A reminder that true friendship includes detailed involvement in somebody else's life, jealousy-free trust and bacon pasta.
* Bought my very first own washing machine. A washing machine is a heavier possession than a car - mentally speaking.
* Spent a morning at the police station and came back with a stolen laptop.
* Two days semi-paralyzed. Questioned the wisdom of getting that tetanus shot, but it turned out to be worth it since I almost lost a finger to the vicious teeth of a mini-turtle some time later.
* Me and my mother discovered  Turkey.  Celebrated my birthday and was thrilled to be brutally/seductively woken in the middle of the night by the call to prayer. Drifted around (lost but always finding a way, and loving it), tried to avoid the flirts, discovered the Turkish language is inundated with French loanwords, felt at peace among the ruins from Cleopatra's time, watched BBC, realised Turkish women sometimes bare their heads and tourists bare almost anything. Saw a camel use the pedestrian crossing, wearing a cowboy hat. And what is that spicy scent that always appears after nightfall around the Mediterranean Sea?
* A couple of clubbing nights with euphoria, beer spray and dancing on shards of glass. Also included a nice chat with my worst enemy ever, until two burly security guards told me enough is enough.
* Language-checked books on farmers and prophets.
* New experience: buying land and watching surveyors do their stuff.
* A summer month in the countryside, living in a fairytale cottage with a sheepdog, getting involved in the village gossip and contributing to it.
* Midsummer on the Island with the Midsummer People. It involved midnight shopping, tobacco flowers bought on credit, cat-and-dog fights (between actual cats and dogs), lots of food and laughs, a lullaby and a spectacular midnight sunset.
* Realised that a five-week summer vacation should always start with pavlova and bubbly.
* Summer weeks at the cotttage: Acted as mediator in dog fights, director of trampoline action movies, rescuer of drowning seagulls, volleyball coach, Twitter addict.
* Squeezed in as much as possible of what I live for, summer's essential activities: beach volley and raft floating. This makes me feel like myself. (And this is what I will be doing in heaven all day long.)
* Family reunion with seldom seen cousins, my hilarious aunts, mixed feelings and a sense of belonging after all.
* Road trip with mother and poodle.
* Proudly discovered that I'm woman enough to change a flat tire by myself, in a mini-skirt on a hot day.
* TV taught me to love my mother.
* Binged on clearing out closets, drawers and even those never-looked-at boxes of stuff in the attic storage space. OCD? Possibly. But such a feeling of  freedom! When the time to fly comes, I will be ready.
* Happiness is a chilly evening playing pretend volleyball in high heels on a muddy lawn, warmed by three glasses of wine and cool people who laugh at  my jokes.
* Impressed my dentist ( one of the few people I managed to impress this year ).
* Witnessed my laptop die and be brought back to life ( speaking a new language ). 
* Got tired of church.
* Found the meaning of life in a great pair of jeans and a great pair of boots. Spent October haunting the city streets and rediscovering autumn leaves.
* Paid my last TV license ever.
* A visit to the maternity ward and plans for the baby's future - these plans included flirts with strangers on a train to Durban, South Africa.
* On the winning team in women's AND men's volleyball - at last!
* Made  my modest contribution (a translation) to the geocaching world.
* Saw fighter aircraft fly in formation past my window and decided I live in a real city after all. Saw a big owl kill a hare outside my window and had to admit I live in the boondocks.
* New experience: push starting a car on my own, on a busy city street. ( Damn French cars in cold weather! )
* Seafood and laughing friends at a semi-oriental wedding.
* Spent the entire year addicted to a TV series I dreamed up as a 5-year-old. Hated Finland and experienced its beauty and quirkiness in intense detail. Trawled YouTube and found fascinating music I never knew existed. Had  a troubled mind.
* And the world did not end. The last evening of 2012 was spent cooking for three hours, but in a very relaxed manner, and resulted in nine courses of real Chinese food, as well as in chocolate cake by the fireside, in the company of friends, when the clock struck midnight.

and they're off! - first day of the year

Darkness and rain outside, endless episodes of Dollhouse inside, not wanting to answer that text message I just received from someone who wants to date me. No plans for 2013 because

"I just want to live now for a little while / and cast my dreams to the wind"

That was the first day of the year.

( Quote from Vonda Shepards song "Maryland" )

the wedding laughers

The couple are saying "I do", and I look down at my high-heeled boots and try not to sneer.

To be precise, I can't decide whether to sneer cynically or allow my eyes to well up from the beauty of a wedding. Weddings are not for me. Will never be for me. I would never do my wedding like this (Plan A: to elope, and later throw a highly informal, fun and boisterous garden/beach party for everyone; Plan B: to just elope). Sometimes I feel bitter about it. Sometimes I sigh with relief that it's not me, standing there at the altar. Sometimes (like now, watching the bride fighting tears) my heart just melts anyway.

This wedding turns out all right. ( My only complaint being that there is no wine and no dancing, but this is not unusual in my circles and I expected this. ) My best friends are there too and at the reception afterwards I get to sit with them at the very back of the room, where I can watch everything but still keep a distance, and we laugh very loudly and the food is excellent. We clandestinely and rebelliously rearranged the seating plan for our table before we sat down, because one of us happened to be seated next to a person she absolutely could not be seated next to, and we get a laugh out of this too. We pay attention to the program at times, and at other times quietly whisper secrets to each other, or coo at a baby, or try to steal each other's complimentary chocolates. As the evening meanders on, things get increasingly laid-back and slightly chaotic, with people slipping off to fetch more food or chat to someone at another table and children playing tag.

I and my like-minded friends constantly balance between  sarcasm  and ... what is its opposite? When a wedding guest's solemn speech veers off in a strange direction, are we allowed to giggle - soundlessly, unnoticed by outsiders but with knowing glances at each other - or should we be generous and kind and smile warmly at the speaker? I want to be generous. I do not want to be rude. But when you don't understand the world and other people and why you are so different from them, it is a comfort and a joy to turn it into a joke and have someone to share it with.

My boots are killing me but I walk home with a smile.

adventure in the aisle

I'm fairly sure that, in the history of mankind, not many people have written an essay on the topic of grocery stores.

I hereby proudly present mine! ( Don't ask me why I have one. )

If you visit a grocery store in a neighbouring country, no matter how closely that country's national character and habits match those of your own, there will be completely different goods on display. There will be the unavoidable Cokes and Heinekens and Rice Krispies on display, of course, but most of the staple foods are indigenous to that country - bread and milk and eggs are of brands that look altogether alien to foreign eyes. Putting them in your shopping basket makes you feel adventurous and you cannot help but think that the milk will have at least a slightly unfamiliar taste to it. You take forever to find the kind of bread that you like and choosing a chocolate bar is a delicious gamble ( at least if you're brave enough to avoid the Snickers and Mars ).

When you live in the same country for a long time, shopping for food gets boring. You pick the same stuff you've always bought, with few variations. In a new country, after the adventure of the first few weeks, you start to hone in on a few items that you've discovered and learnt to love, wonderfully different and delicious as they are, until you've done it for long enough and that country's food gets boring too. Coming back to a well-known country after you've been away for a while is heavenly in its own right, and you revel in buying all the well-known and much-missed food items you see on every shelf.

In  my present hometown, I have three grocery stores that I frequent. One is a supermarket, the one I feel I should go to as it has the lowest prices and I'm on a tight budget - but it's large and I get exhausted wandering around it when I'm already worn out from a day at work. It also has ridiculously long queues at the check-outs. I stand there waiting and remember fondly Tesco's in the UK where queues were simply not allowed to form - but then I find that I have there, in that queue, a rare moment of being able to just "stand and stare". And watch people.

Then there is the smaller grocery store - part of a chain, like all the others - which is quirky because it has all the hustle and bustle of a convenience store attached to a petrol station but is also on a street corner in the middle of the city. Because of its long opening hours, petrol and tiny café it attracts all kinds of people (and I do love places where there are precisely all kinds of people). It's on my way home from work so this is often where I end up buying my bread and eggs and bananas.

And lastly, there is the other little corner shop, on a different street corner and slightly removed from the city centre, tiny and quiet. I never see anyone I know there. This is my guilty pleasure shop, the place where I go occasionally on rainy days when I sit at home watching DVDs and have a sudden urge for a bag of crisps, chocolate or a can of sweet cider. Then I walk there along the seafront, in old clothes and no make-up to indulge myself. And the girl at the check-out always smiles at me.

( And yes, I know I'm supposed to buy only locally produced, organic and dolphin-friendly food. But the people who tell me so have apparently never had to starve. )

where the lovelight gleams

Yes, family is precious. I am extremely blessed to have yet another Christmas with people who love me and belong to me.

To spend a night and a day with chatter over good food, presents being doled out, smiles (both genuine and strained), glittering tinsel, glossy lives being described to seldom-seen relatives, warm touches you didn't expect, warm feelings among the faked ones, too much chocolate. I have not been looking forward to this but I know I will treasure the memories some day.

But tonight, the relief of being alone with only a borrowed (but well-loved) dog for company, in my own home. Of sitting on my kitchen floor and chewing on a carrot and receiving  wet canine kisses,  and giggling. Merry Christmas, everyone!

christmas, but

Christmas Eve. Twilight is setting in. People are gathering for traditional family Christmas dinners.

I'm painting my nails and having a little wine to postpone the inevitable: dinner with my own family.

Grateful for my family; absolutely. But.

darling books: howling in Montana

  They found the signals right away, clucking clear in the crystal air, and they knew the wolves were very close. In the beam of the flashlight, they found tracks no more than minutes old.
  Helen turned off the light and they stood quite still and listened. The only sound was the soft thud of snow falling, now and then, from a tree.
  'Howl,' she whispered.
  He had heard her do it several times, without success, but had never yet attempted a howl himself. He shook his head.
  'Try,' she said softly.
  'I c-can't. It w-wouldn't...'
  He made a little gesture with his fingers toward his mouth and she realized that he was afraid his voice might not come, that it would betray him, and leave him mute and embarrassed as so often it did.
  'It's only me, Luke.'
  For a long moment he looked at her. And she saw in his sad eyes what she already knew he felt for her. She took off her glove and reached out and touched his cold face and smiled. She felt him tremble a little at her touch. And as she lowered her hand, he put his head back and opened his mouth and howled, long and plaintively, into the night.
  And before the note had time to die, from across the snow-tipped trees of the canyon, the wolves replied.

Nicholas Evans: The Loop (picture from dooyou.co.uk). Wolves, wolf-hating ranchers and a heartbroken biologist in the Montana mountains - can it get any better?

darling books: the one that ruined me

  'Look,' we said, 'what is it that draws two people into closeness and love? Of course there's the mystery of physical attraction, but beyond that, it's the things they share. We both love strawberries and ships and collies and poems and all beauty, and all those things bind us together. Those sharings just happened to be; but what we must do now is share everything. Everything! If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it - and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible - unthinkable - for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else. And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings - a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable.' 

Sheldon Vanauken: A Severe Mercy (picture from eden.co.uk). A lot of interesting things in this little true story: the love of beauty and freedom and literature, C.S.Lewis, finding a faith, Oxford in the fifties.

This is also the book that ruined my love life, possibly. For how could an impressionable teenager read a true story of such an incredible love between two people and ever settle for anything less in her own life?

Even now, as a jaded cynic, re-reading it makes something in my heart tremble. And against all logic, the same resolve re-establishes itself in me: I will not - cannot - settle for anything less.

the pink fairies of poverty

Came home from work with a string of pink fairy lights. Pink. Well, when you buy all your stuff in thrift shops you can't afford to be picky.

A framed print also followed me home. It's of a painting featuring a cow, a sheep, a horse and a rooster. When you buy all your stuff in thrift shops you can afford to bring home and try out something you're not sure about, and then throw out (read: give back to thrift shops) the things you're tired of.

There is  great freedom  in being poor. I say this with no sarcasm whatsoever.

'twas the night before apocalypse when all through the house...

Small. Sad. Lost. Separated from myself.

Out of comfort food (why, oh why did I not pick up Ben & Jerry's on the way home?), shivering with cold, adding to my headache with sour white wine, feeling near death because of a beginning toothache, unable to escape reality but trying desperately, pathetic, indifferent to my friends' attempts to reach out, worrying in advance about the cold weather coming and my car which will refuse to start. Hello, Christmas. How do other people sort out their lives?

Maybe I won't have to, if the world really ends tomorrow. I will be spending the last day of the earth at work, wrapping presents and trying to smile at customers while being annoyed by the fact that the apocalypse will be ruining my holidays. In the evening, the end-of-the-world movie 2012 is on the telly. I will be watching it, or the real thing.

darling books: God made you a painter

  'Gabriel? What troubles you?'
  Gabriel swallowed; his distress was becoming clearer with every passing moment. He spoke to Father Teo. 'Father, I was made for ... for pleasure. You would say for sin. I do not think that God would receive me.' 
  Leonardo let out a single oath; Father Teo raised a hand to silence him. His mouth had hardened into a thin line but Serafina understood that it was not Gabriel he was angry with. 
  He said, 'Gabriel, my son, God does not care what men have made you.' The anger dissolving, he smiled a little and bent over Gabriel to take both his hands up into his own, and examine the thin fingers with the paint stains ingrained around the fingernails. 'God does not care what men have made you,' he repeated, 'for He made you a painter.'
  Serafina saw Gabriel's hands convulsively return the priest's clasp. His eyes widened in sudden wonder. He whispered, 'Truly?'
  'Truly.'

Cherith Baldry: The Reliquary Ring (picture from Amazon). I'm not sure why I love this obscure little fantasy novel about an alternative, medieval Venice where genetically engineered people are held in slavery. It's a bit weird. But it tugs on my heart strings.

I remember reading it in one sitting, the first time. The sitting being on the floor of a train, because I couldn't find a seat, in the draughty little hallway between passenger cars. A long journey from London to Cornwall. I paid no attention to the discomfort or the disappointing fact that I couldn't see the lovely landscapes I was travelling through. I was lost in my book.

impulse and a beanie

I took myself out for a run. I do this very irregularly, acting on a random impulse. Stuffing my cold-sensitive ears with cotton, pulling on a beanie and gloves, I set out along snow-covered back streets. Snow was piled high everywhere, there were Christmas lights in every window, and the lighted path along the shore looked like winter wonderland.

Cold and dark, with enough pretty lights to guide me. And the satisfaction of knowing that soon I will be back home in a cosy chair with a hot cup of tea. I decided to have this random impulse more often in the future.

darling books: wine of a hot bright scent

  But Jay was not listening. He lifted the glass to his face.
  The scent hit him again, the dim cidery scent of Joe's house, with the incense burning and the tomato plants ripening in the kitchen window. For a moment thought he heard something, a clatter and glitzy confusion of glass, like a chandelier falling onto a laid table. He took a mouthful.
  'Cheers.'
  It tasted as dreadful as it did when he was a boy. There was no grape in this brew, simply a sweetish ferment of flavours, like a whiff of garbage. It smelt like the canal in summer and the derelict railway sidings. It had a acrid taste, like smoke and burning rubber, and yet it was evocative, catching at his throat and his memory, drawing out images he thought were lost for ever. He clenched his fists as the images assailed him, feeling suddenly light-headed.
  'Are you OK?' It was Kerry's voice, resonant, as if in a dream. She sounded irritated, though there was an anxious edge to her voice. 'Jay, I told you not to drink that stuff, are you all right?'
  He swallowed with an effort.

Joanne Harris: Blackberry Wine (picture from Wikipedia). While Harris' later novels are too dark for me, this one makes me want to buy a derelict house in France, fall in love, make peace with my childhood memories, and yes, drink homemade, magic wine. This book is evocative, like its wine. It has "a breeze of other places - a scent of apples, a lullaby of passing trains and distant machinery and the radio playing."

the classics and the seducers

I'm a book snob. I don't know how people can be bothered to read chick lit, for example. I generally find crime fiction boring. But here's the weirdness: I don't know why people read  the old classics  of literature either. I try, every now and then, and am reminded of what I realised already at university, as I was studying literature:

Most of these classics are great, on a theoretical level. They are fun to analyse because they have so many levels. And I love to be familiar with them because they are an integral part of our culture. But they don't speak to me emotionally. They fail to pull me in, because they were written for people of another time and another mindset. Another generation.

Perhaps I'm unimaginative, dull, even a bit thick in the head, since I can't get into that other mindset and identify with anything that is too far removed from my own time and culture. But I can't get rid of my stupidly romantic notion that reading should be fun AND challenging, a book should sweep me off my feet.

Reading should be like one of those whirlwind romances that leave you flabbergasted, heartbroken and feeling like you have lived an entire lifetime and in three alternate universes at once.

afternoon in the Balkans

Sitting in an unassuming little kebab joint that has rapidly evolved into the city's most popular restaurant. Its recipe for success is lots of kebab for a modest price, served by charming men from the Balkans. As usual on a Sunday afternoon, all the tables are taken and people are queueing for takeout.

I just got out of bed and one of my friends comments on my wild hair. I chew on my pita kebab and listen to the others debating whether schools are taking a lazier path in educating children. "The teacher said, 'what's the point in teaching children how many pups in a guinea pig litter when they can just google the information if they need it?'"

Afterwards, we walk down the street, snow crunching underneath our boots and the cold biting our faces. The sun, pinkish and low in the sky, makes a rare appearance and you can almost see people's spirits soaring. "Time for coffee!" I say, and my friends eagerly agree. And all is well in the world.

a nocturnal warning

Going to a Christmas concert today. Not sure I really want to. But in a dream last night, I had missed the concert and was weeping with rage and disappointment.

Guess I'd better go then.

goats, clouds and the missing view

When you take yourself up onto a tall mountain ridge in Switzerland, you expect a spectacular view. At least I did.

When I arrived at the last stop of the little mountain railway, at an elevation of 3,400 metres in the Jungfraujoch pass, all there was to see was fog. Thick fog, embracing you on every side. The only things visible were the quaint little train station building and various hiking trails leading off in different directions on grassy slopes.

To say I was pissed off is like saying hell's furies are mildly annoyed. I had been in the country for three weeks, volunteering for a nonprofit organisation, and had so far been a bit disappointed by the fact that Switzerland is not all dizzying heights and deep valleys. During my last week, I had been travelling through the country on a railway pass and had finally got to see the Alps. Actually going up to the highest train station in Europe was supposed to be the highlight, satisfying my desire to be IN the mountains, ON the mountains, at the "Top of Europe". Now I was here, and had to go back on the next train down, and could not see a thing.

Dejected, I walked up one of the slopes ( taking care not to lose sight of the trail ) and sat down in the grass. I opened my picnic bag and got started on my sandwiches. And suddenly found myself surrounded by a pack of hungry mountain goats hoping to get a taste of the picnic. As I was shoving one particularly bold billy-goat away, I realised that the fog was actually clouds, shifting and moving, and that a "window" had opened between them. I glimpsed a breathtakingly beautiful, snow-capped mountain through that window.

I was so struck by this sight that I nearly lost my sandwich to the billy-goat.

In a few minutes, more and more "windows" opened and closed, and opened again with a slightly altered perspective. I glimpsed a mountain summit here, part of a valley far, far below there. Twenty minutes later, the clouds had dispersed and the late August sun was shining. All around me were the majestic Alps, except on the side that provided the spectacular view of the valley below.

It was jaw-dropping, especially since it was presented in such tantalising pieces at first. I was almost dancing with joy. The sandwich was forgotten - the goat probably made off with it.

( Picture from Wikipedia. )

from Russia with robots

I was thrilled to notice that my blog seemed to be hugely popular in Russia for a while, judging by the number of hits according to the statistics. My heart swelled with pride, thinking that something in my writings must be speaking directly to the complicated Russian soul.

That is, until I noticed I was being flooded with spam comments.

That will teach me to be polite ( read: a smartass ) and answer back to spammers.

Now I've put in word verification for comments. And I find it absolutely enchanting, the request Blogger has of every potential commentator ( I can safely say I have never been asked to prove my humanity before ): "Please prove that you're not a robot."

how to spend a happy day in Ireland

* Go to a seaside town, preferable one huddled in the  Mourne Mountains.  Make sure you pick a time outside of the tourist season. Bring a friend.
* Walk on the beach in the sunshine.
* Find a pub of the genuine kind, with flagstone floors, a pregnant waitress and a fire roaring in the fireplace.
* Order the seafood platter and be prepared to go to gastronomic heaven.
* Have a nice drink to round it off.
* Walk back along the seafront and gasp at the starry skies stretching from horizon to horizon.
* Crawl under the duvet in a comfortable bed, in your B&B room overlooking the bay and the lighthouse that is lulling you to sleep with its calm, rhythmic pattern of light flashing across the dark sea.

the Irish saga began with a Bulmer's

The first experience of a genuine Irish pub - far out in the Irish countryside, in a valley where the gorse was blooming in shocking yellow and the air smelled of spring leaves and turf fires.

The pub was dark, as it should be, the ancient wooden paneling infused with centuries of smoke and alcohol and human emotions. There were locals there, people who through my foreigner's eyes looked like stereotypical Irish farmers, but my company - and myself - were the new breed of Irish, the immigrants who were flooding Ireland, loving Ireland and becoming a part of it. Young Canadians, Swedes and Spaniards chatted around me, full of plans for adventure in this magical country.

I felt very far from home, surrounded by unfamiliar things. The pub itself - I had never been much of a drinker - the people, the language which was clumsy in my mouth, the smells and sounds. There was a pang of homesickness. There was also that dizzying, exhilarating feeling you get when a rollercoaster is about to go into free fall. It was a chilly May night and my first night in Ireland.

Someone put a pint glass of Bulmer's Irish cider in front of me and I felt my new life beginning.

hell, grasshoppers and Horatio

Lazy autumn Sunday, browzing Wikipedia over a cup of coffee. Random facts learned and reflections made:

* A Pennsylvania town is home to seven gates that lead directly to hell.
* The Beginning of the End could not begin until 200 grasshoppers had been sexed.
* If you have to be killed by a cyclone, wouldn't it be nice if it had an unintentionally poetic name like Tropical Depression Eleven-E?
* Jalan Jerangau Barat, Federal route, is a federal road in Terengganu, Malaysia.
* The male features of high cheekbones, a strong jaw and chin are an attractive physical trait. (Actually, I knew that already.)

In response to all this, I have to quote the Bard again:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Jaw-dropping, the amount of information available on my laptop. When I grew up, an encyclopedia was a huge book that was slightly outdated even when it was new but you never questioned the facts in it.

Nowadays, if you want to quote Shakespeare but can't remember the words, you only have to google "heaven horatio" and the quote pops up in 0.2 seconds.

I have also become an expert on questioning and doubting facts. But I still love Wikipedia.

unauthorized use of the superlative

I like using bizarre words. Not incomprehensible, made-up ones, just unusual ones. ( Like bizarre. )

Perhaps because I have a somewhat weak vocabulary and try to compensate by showing off.

I'm trawling the Internet for an application that picks out the bizarrest words in my blog and lists them.

The language police just informed me that "bizarrest" is not a word. Why couldn't they just let me be happy.

never-ending squabble

I'm thinking: friends or New York.

What is more valuable? Why do I have to choose?

"My heart wants roots
My mind wants wings
I cannot bear
Their bickerings"
(E.Y. Harburg)

I think I'll just settle for a while.