chemicals, violence and a governor

A day spent trawling through the legislation of Finland for no good reason. Everything from corporate law to the latest additions to the forbidden chemicals list, the construction of air-raid shelters and what happens to your maternity benefit if you die.

Now, after subtitling a TV interview on domestic violence, I'm going to visit the governor's residence.

This is not exactly how I imagined life as a translator but I'm not complaining.

I am a Tuesday 2 a.m.

“I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2 a.m., I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologize for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that didn’t happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don’t see the lightning, but you hear the echoes.”

(Anna Peters)

the Irish saga: the call of the wild

The air is different in Ireland.

It's not just the softness of a mild, humid climate. It's the attitude. I'm not a great believer in supernatural things but suddenly I'm prepared to believe in fairies dancing in the misty fields and meddling in people business.

Strange things happen in Ireland. There are inclines where things roll uphill, not downhill. There is a church ruin where an entire stone wall has mysteriously jumped three feet. There are plaques commemorating the fact that nothing happened. There are strange sounds, optical illusions and people believing in all kinds of mystical things. And I feel a new wildness growing inside me. I'm turning into someone a little more carefree, reckless, impulsive. I don't drink as much as the people around me but at times I wonder if their intoxication is an airborne contagion.

Maybe it's just the freedom of being a thousand miles away from anyone that knows me.

My new friends, a party-spirited, loose gang of mostly Spaniards, Swedes and Canadians, put drinks in my hand. "You are too mellow for this gang," they tease me. "You drink less than my baby sister!" someone complains, almost angrily.

I'm grateful for being included in the "in" crowd so easily and fascinated by the carefree attitude, so far from the sobriety and intellectualism of my university friends. I'm also dismayed by the way they slander people behind their backs and constantly complain about the job. We spend long evenings in the bar or partying with kalimotxo, chorizo snacks and bottles of Jameson in the staff house. There is plenty of dancing, singing, kissing, hugging and punching. The Spanish boys get louder the more they drink and are prone to impromptu stripteases. The Irish demand everyone's attention and then sing a melancholy song about injustices suffered under the hands of the Brits. Scandinavians and Canadians throw themselves joyfully into the festive mood. Belorussians and Romanians take one look at the party and withdraw to their rooms to watch TV.

There are fights, love affairs, weed and broken bottles. Hotel staff love to party hard.

Late at night I'm often exhausted by the rowdy atmosphere and the cigarette smoke and sneak out without telling anyone - I learn the fine art of the "Irish goodbye" long before I realise it's a thing. Then I go for a walk in the dark. Through the thousand-year-old cemetery, straight out of a horror movie, if I'm feeling brave. Along the winding mountain road if not. Away from the inn, the quiet of the wilderness surrounds me like a warm blanket.

But the magic does its work on me and it's not long before I'm dancing with strangers and throwing rocks at someone's window. I still take my midnight walks but sometimes I bring a boy to kiss and sometimes I need to be alone to scream out a rage I've never, ever felt before.

art and strangely alive

Wandering through a few artists' studios on a rainy day.

There is a vague smell of mould, paint and rain. People look through art prints for sale, mumbling to each other and leaving wet footprints. I huddle on a chair in a dark room next to the studios, half-interestedly watching weird movies. I'm feeling vaguely sick today, nothing serious, just one of those days, and it is making me feel strangely alive and aware of everything around me. As if life has slowed down.

I hear my friends discuss bird photography with one of the artist as I curl into my Nepalese hoodie and space out a bit.

We go for coffee and cake in a bright café afterwards. The caffeine and sugar restores my strength as if by a miracle.

the year of seeking help

This is my year of seeking help.

Today I sought the help of a physical therapist for my obstinate back. With godlike hands, he pummeled out the kinks and I went home feeling as if I'd had a divine healing. Next time, he's going to sort out my weak knee. After that, my soul perhaps?

So many times I had to seek help this year, and I don't regret a single one.

Other things I'm presently receiving help for: my weak core, my inability to understand major seventh chords, my helplessness in doing the rumba.

the echoes of swans and other wonderful things

At the cottage between the forest and the sea, it's a cold night. I untangle myself reluctantly from my nest of warm blankets to go outside and pee.

In the dark night, all the stars are out. The moon is painting a silvery streak across the bay with a bright light that forms sharp shadows around me. The whooping swans are shouting at each other somewhere further down the coast and the echoes bounce back from the forest line. I shiver with cold in flannel pyjamas and thick sweater but it's hard to tear myself away from all this beauty.

At the cottage between the forest and the sea, the cold night melts into a balmy day with only a hint of crispness. I sit outside with my laptop and stare at the quiet sea. The neighbour comes over to share a catch of perch, not five minutes out of the water, and my mother fries the fish in plenty of butter. There is golden sunshine and fresh raspberries and mugs of steaming coffee.

The day softens into a long sunset and a chilly evening. I haul wood from the shed to take me through another icy night and can hardly believe how lucky I am to have an evening of reading by the fire.

I know there are dark days ahead but they can't defeat me when there are days like these even further ahead.

digging up my soul, going down, excavation

Twice every month or so, this past spring, I went to an ugly building in town to talk to a wise woman. I left home in good time and walked there slowly, along quiet backstreets, so I could think long and hard about the meeting ahead.

The woman sat down and listened intently. Her warm eyes seemed to warm my cold and terrified soul. I spoke with a desperate determination to take every aspect of my life that seemed messed up, offer it up to this kind stranger and not leave or back down until it was sorted out. Things I thought I would bury forever. She listened and asked a few probing questions.

For a person who didn't say much, the woman taught me many secrets. After an hour with her, I felt as if I had been seen as the troubled person I am, and accepted anyway. Strong and capable not despite, but because of, my problems. More at home in my own skin, vulnerable and resilient at the same time.

I'm glad a life crisis forced me to do this. To dig out the old ghosts and let them see light. The ones that still exist don't seem that dangerous anymore. I think that woman saved my sanity.

(Title borrowed from U2: "Elevation")

not every day has a bonfire

A bonfire in August darkness, fireworks and a million lights around the bay. Small cabins glowing with candlelight, filled with people who are feasting on snacks and laughing at bad jokes. All around, the peace of forest and sea.

Every day should be like this.

there's poetry and there's porridge

Still don't want to leave my tiny room in the summer paradise that is now yielding to autumn weather. I huddle by the fireplace, listen to my favourite music and stare out over a grey sea and a few rain-pelted birch and alder trees.

Two of the islands I can see from here are poetically called (translated from the local language) Isle of Shadows and Isle of Grey Souls. The third one is named Porridge Island. What happened there?

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)

soul landscape

I'm surrounded by dark skies, sea and candles, a soul landscape of rest.

I will light a fire and go to sleep with a dog next to me, and I will delay autumn for a little while still.

pilates and a vanilla quilt

A quilted blanket is hung up to dry in the cramped confines of my flat, near a scented candle so it will smell of vanilla.

Songs from my past are playing on my phone while I cut tomatoes and goat's cheese. I'm making pie and find the heat of the oven comforting, like a hearth fire. I seldom make real food but as summer darkens toward autumn I will light this hearthfire more often.

This autumn I will be doing pilates and foam rolling, stretching my body and getting to know it. There will be piano music again. And when body and soul are tired, I will lie down under a vanilla-scented quilt and rest.

eating cake in bed

"I am made up of bad habits. Consistent in how
I love boys who will never love me back.
Letting the phone go to voicemail when my
mother calls. Biting my nails bloody.
Wearing dresses when I should wear jeans.
Making my body small. Forgetting names
but not asking for them again. Maybe I should
have called. Maybe you should stop calling.
Maybe I should have remembered how you
take your coffee, your favorite band,
that you smoke a pack a day. Maybe I should
have apologized. If it’s any consolation,
my next birthday will be me eating cake in bed
and licking the icing off of my fingers alone."

(Kristina Haynes: "Bad Habits")

current inventory

There are invisible Pokémons all around my house and a cigarette stub in an empty flower pot. There is a finance minister in town and a frustration inside.

All my newfound energy is about to go into overdrive, nosedive and a crash.

peace in cheap rooms

“Cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
The less I needed,
the better I
felt.”

(Charles Bukowski: "Let It Enfold You")

the Irish saga: an academic enters the maze

The fairytale inn, a little Irish hotel in a hidden valley, is bursting with people on the evening I arrive.

I'm exhausted and shaking with adrenaline as I walk into my new life with no idea what to expect. Darkness has fallen on the May night outside but the inn is as merry as one would expect of a fairytale - lights, laughter and clinking glasses. The geography is confusing - I wander winding corridors with slanting floors before I find the hotel reception.

I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman who just days ago completed the last assignment for my Master's degree in English as a foreign language, back home in Finland. I have no experience whatsoever of hotels, unless you count a few unmemorable nights in cheap chain hotels during my travels. Nevertheless, here I am in an Irish hotel, hoping the job offer sent to me in an informal email is still valid. Hoping that my father's irate prediction, that I will end up chained to a brothel bed in a foreign country, is NOT valid.

I'm two days into my new freedom after a completed university education. My official graduation "ceremony" is still months away and will consist of me opening a boring envelope with my diploma inside, sent to me care of the hotel. I'm dizzy from the sudden transition from university life to working life - over a thousand miles and a lifestyle shift away.

I'm fresh off the plane and the bus, so exhausted that I'm leaning against my heavy suitcase. But it will be three hours before I get to fall into bed in my temporary staff accommodation. In that time, I will have experienced my first hour behind the reception desk, found my first friend - the chatty Canadian receptionist who will later lead me into so much trouble - and fallen in love with the red-haired chef who put together a simple spaghetti supper for me.

Before I fall asleep I look out from the window of my tiny room, somewhere deep inside the maze of corridors. A cobblestoned courtyard, the bright windows of a bar, a merry party. So this is Ireland?

like yellow paint, like dark-roast coffee

This summer is grey, like the clouds hiding the sun, like the cold sea.

It is yellow, like the paint shining in the can, spattering my fingers and my legs and the Nokia rubber boots that I inherited from my father.

It is red like the raspberries and wild strawberries I pick in the jungle in the bottom of the garden.

This summer smells like a thousand flowers and dark-roast coffee. It sounds like birds and silence.

This summer is cold but soothing.

the Irish saga: the white bus of a saint

My first sight of the country, coming in on the plane from Helsinki, is a patchwork of fields, one greener than the other. No trees, only hedges. It seems foreign and fantastical, like something out of the Enid Blyton books I read as a child.

Treading my way uncertainly through the airport, someone hands me a clementine and a smile.

I walk through sunny Dublin streets, hating the heavy suitcase I'm dragging after me. I find a beautiful park near the bus stop - the bus isn't due for several hours yet. This park has duck ponds, hedges and fragrant spring flowers. I stretch out on the grass with relief and stay there, half asleep, until the bus arrives. My longing to explore the strange city has been subdued by my tiredness, the suitcase and my anxiety for what lies ahead - a job I've never done before, an employer I've never met, a new life in a foreign country.

The bus doesn't look like the other city buses. It is completely white, with a graceful script adorning the side - the name of a saint. It is packed with both tourists and local commuters. It winds its way slowly through town, through leafy suburbs and into the countryside - climbing into the hills on narrow roads, past tiny villages and fields filled with sheep and cows. The road gets narrower, the landscape rougher and wilder. Hills turn into mountains.

I eavesdrop on a conversation in the bus. "You know, he always loved you," says a man to a woman. This fact seems a surprise to her - something she never knew, but wishes she knew. I marvel at the intimacy and gravity of this conversation, the first one I hear in Ireland. I don't think I would ever hear something like this on a bus at home.

Twilight in the mountains, and we arrive at last in the valley that is my destination. Shadows play with the last rays of the sun, the road dips sharply. Through the wild hawthorn hedges I glimpse a real mountain - steep, dangerous, beautifully offset against the evening sky. It takes my breath away. There are no mountains where I'm from. The bus comes to a final stop in a wooded valley, dark but with glittering lights from the windows of a fairytale inn.

I don't feel as if I'm in a foreign country. I'm in an alien world, an alternate universe. I gasp at the sensation of a free fall. Ireland, I'm in Ireland. God help me.

darling books: the only hotel you need in Dublin

"The walk to Room 105 was all too short. They reached it in seconds. Silently, Karl Brown took her key-card from Detta and opened the door. The room spread before them, dim and seductive in pale mushroomy light. Its red and black carpet was thick and soft, and its enormous bed, shaped like a medieval longship, beckoned them to its fluffy bosom. 'Try me!' called the sirens of the bed.

Detta turned a deaf ear to them, and so did he."

The two novels Finbar's Hotel and Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel (written by several authors, edited by D. Bolger) found me in Ireland and followed me home. These two books speak of heroes and villains and some very curious characters in a Dublin hotel. It doesn't get more Irish than this. Wonderful.

shakshuka and a Finnish summer

The weekend was spent at the summer cottage in the eclectic company of an 83-year-old woman, a 20-year-old boy and a poodle.

It involved a village party with a vintage boat race and salmon soup under the hot sun, poodle games, wild strawberries, evenings with everyone curled up in a corner of the same room with a book, and me improvising a shakshuka.

down in seagull town

Noodles at a café table in the market square. I'm sitting outdoors on a cloudy day and it's too chilly for summer but I love the market square. It has cobblestones. I love cobblestones - terrible for bicycle wheels and high heels but great for a sense of ancient European town.

I can smell the strawberries for sale at a market stand nearby. Seagulls are screeching and swarming around a homeless man who shares his sausage roll with them. Annoyed glances are thrown his way from shoppers and café patrons but the sight of the gulls is hilarious, lining up in a squabbling but dedicated semi-circle around the man.

Seagulls, strawberry sellers and not-great weather. My city in a nutshell, really.

howling

The eerie, ululating calls of a fox woke me last night.

I ponder Maslow's hierarchy of needs. My basic need for safety is not being met and it has nothing to do with spending my summer among foxes.

Inside, I'm howling too.

tools for a rainy day

Scratchy old blankets in Sixties' colours, scratched Gilmore Girls DVDs on the laptop, a packet of crisps and cheap wine.

between novels and eagles

Four days into my long summer holiday.

Four hundred pages into my eight-hundred-page fantasy novel that is guaranteed to sink me into blissful holiday mood.

Halfway through my first-week-of holiday restlessness.

The sun is undecidedly weaving in and out of clouds. Mornings are chilly dew, fragrance of clover, chittering wagtails. Afternoons are bare feet and coconut sunscreen. Evenings are huddling in a sweater in front of a fire, telling tall tales to family.

I have watered an oak, screamed "eagle!" and crawled on my stomach.

Further adventures await.

lions in her heart, a fire in her soul

Anxiety attacks - when you feel as if you're literally dying or going mad, or both, for no good reason. You can't breathe, can't think, and your heart is about to explode. I had attacks like these for a while last winter. Next to the death of my father, they were by far the worst experience I've ever had.

The strange thing about this crisis is that it brought a lot of things to my life, all of them good. I eat healthier food, exercise more, try to avoid stress, allow myself good things. But of all these necessary life changes, two stand out as by far the most effective:

1. I'm more open towards my friends. I ask for their help instead of stubbornly try to cope on my own. I share my weaknesses and get involved in their lives. I also went to therapy sessions with a professional. As a result, when I'm cold and lonely and panic is pressing in, the support of others is like a warm blanket to wrap myself in.

2. I realised, with the help of my therapist, that I set impossibly high standards for myself. This makes me harsh and judgemental towards myself, which creates stress that brought on the anxiety. I'm learning to be merciful. To change my negative self-talk to encouragement and kindness. To allow myself rest and recreation when I need it. To not conquer all the world in one week.

Now, six months later, I feel OK. I'm still taking the antidepressants a doctor prescribed when I begged for help but I will try weaning myself off them soon. Occasionally, very rarely now, I feel as if another attack might be lurking in the shadows but that I will be able to deal with it.

I know that I'm skirting dangerously close to burnout and exhaustion and that I must be careful not to burn my candle at both ends. I never even realised that this is what I do - I see myself as a laid-back, almost lazy person. But constant, negative self-criticism, fretting about all those dreams not yet fulfilled, and filling my waking time with information overload from social media - this can break me sooner than I thought.

I'm learning to listen to my body and my mind and give them what they need.

taught to be tiny

“As women, we are taught to be tiny. To have small bodies, to never be imposing. The ideal of our gender are thin and childlike, hairless and dainty. We are defined by our bodies; defined by our control over them. We are taught to obsess over our physicality and to be repulsed by our desires and intelligences. We are taught to walk scared late at night. We cradle our keys between our perfectly manicured fingers, walking gracefully like a baby antelope in a herd of lions. That our virginity defines our character. That I am a frigid bitch if I do not fuck him, and a dirty slut if I do.”

(Michelle K.: "The Truth About Growing Up a Woman")

boring day at the office

Meanwhile, in the garment industry, I dug through the office fridge for some butter. Behold my findings:

Ketchup
Antibiotics
Kahlua liqueur
Czech beer
Beets
Kippers
Anchovies
Sardelles
Ginger
Soy sauce
Snuff tobacco
Capers
Pomegranate-flavoured mineral water
Fig jam
Cranberry jam
Cranberry juice
Lactose-free milk
Barbecue sauce
Pickled cornichons
10 small packets of wasabi sauce
Container of something unknown with rice

There was no butter.

study the science of art

“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

(Leonardo da Vinci)

silk and anger

On a hot summer's day, I have brunch in the shade on the balcony, clad in buttercup yellow silk. Staring at the sea, talking to the neighbour's cat who is tight-rope walking between balconies.

I walk to the island of my dreams. Through fragrant woods full of birdsong, past beaches teeming with the playful and the sun-worshippers, along abandoned railroad tracks smelling of hot steel.

There was a lot of anger and bitterness in me. It melts away somewhere among all this.

not finished with you yet

“Every single time my heart beats, and my lungs expand, God is telling me, ‘keep living. I’m not finished with you yet.’”

(consurgo, Tumblr)

lose myself in landscapes

I should get in the car and just drive more often. Turn up the music, stop for coffee at a cute café, explore an old town that I always meant to visit sometime.

I should go back to my old university more often. Visit places where kings ruled and bishops decreed eight hundred years ago, where I had giggly picnics with my friends eighteen years ago, where venerable past and glorious future have always mingled in bubbly hope. Walk the streets where I was once so clueless and worried and excited. Look back with nostalgia and enjoy the confidence I have gained since. Have coffee in ancient, sunlit gardens and wine by the river at twilight.

I should travel by myself more often. Explore endless pathways on foot, linger at the places where my spirit ignites, write in badly lit pubs. Send pictures to friends and caption them "wish you were here", lose myself in landscapes that would seem boring to them. Remember lost friends and be grateful for present ones.

I should ... and I do, sometimes.

silver sequins in a nightless night

Yet another Midsummer was spent in the white kitchen on the Island, celebrating the summer solstice and the season of strawberries, tiny potatoes and the smell of meat sizzling over hot coals.

Friends not seen for a year hugged each other and immediately started sharing: food, ancient memories, roars of laughter, painful tales of death and suffering. This is how friendship always should be. But if I only experience it once a year, under the mild light of the midnight sun, I still count myself lucky.

There was unmerciful teasing about a silver-sequined beanie someone wore with a lacy dress. I choked on my food as someone brought up a story from my indiscriminate youth that involved heated kisses behind a refrigerator. In the middle of the meal, we called the ambulance for a neighbour with a broken leg. The kids, unsupervised, gobbled down corn on the cob and infinite amounts of chocolate while the adults laughed until we cried over stories involving tofu and showers with strangers.

After endless cups of coffee and big bowls of strawberries and icecream, we took a late-night stroll to see the sun glide along the northern horizon. It is easy to be happy in the season of the yötön yö - the nightless night.

passion instead of foolery

“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.”

(Hermann Hesse)

of cakes and castleyards

I had white chocolate cake the other day, in a castleyard that was silent and hot with sunlight. You could say that I drove four hundred miles just to have cake in this castleyard. I had a sudden craving for something sweet and the Middle Ages.

Turku Castle

Where I am from, there is history too. Things like million-year-old meteor craters and Neanderthal caves - but they look just like enormous fields and any old caves. People lived here a thousand years ago and more, but they left no castles behind, just a few mysterious stone labyrinths and the fields they plowed.

When I went to university in a city far, far away, many years ago, I discovered what it was like to walk down the same cobblestoned streets used by monks seven hundred years ago and explore a castle where a king threw his brother in the dungeons. And staying up late, labouring over my books, seemed easier when I knew students around here had done the same for centuries.

After graduation and some exploration of the world and even more ancient history, I eventually returned to my homeland of silent forests, birdsong and diligently plowed fields. I love the pure air, the flowers, the small boats in the archipelago, the earthiness of the people. But I miss the visible history and the atmosphere it brings. That's why I took the car and drove hundreds of miles to the castleyard.

I ate my cake and breathed deeply, and felt better.

wake up and taste the raspberries

I write about the taste of raspberries, fragrances, the heat of the sun on my skin. The comfort of soft wool and a touch that instantly calms me. And yet I seem to be so disconnected from my body.

Every spring, as the outside temperature rises to a level tolerable to bare skin, I awake as from a frozen sleep. It surprises me every spring. And I never feel as alive as on a hot summer's day, straight after a dip in the sea, when I stand half naked on the porch and brush out my wet hair.

This year, my soul woke up with my body. I finally understood this. That I'm not just my head. That the screaming dissonance in my entire existence is my body trying to make itself heard.

I need to learn how to love this body, feel it, be patient with it. I need to really taste the raspberries, not just write about them.

lighthouse lorry

This week, I have rearranged my furniture and my emotions. I have also seen a lorry full of lighthouses drive past my house.

of threes

Summer heat, milky coffee and a Kate Atkinson novel. I should find more work, wash my windows, get my bike fixed up. But I have a slight headache, deep-rooted sorrow and a wonderful life to live.

doodle and dine

1) Eat better. You have a chalkboard; use it. Make menus. Plan meals.
2) Read at least one chapter of a book for fun each day.
3) Go on a drive once a week. Have no particular destination other than a stop for iced tea. Put on music and see where you end up.
4) Listen to a record straight through without doing anything else. Sometimes music needs your full attention.
5) Doodle. Who cares how shitty of an artist you are? Give it a shot. Create.
6) Go to coffee shops. There’s a million in the city. Get out of the house for a while.
7) Ask a friend to go to dinner. Simply as friends and for no particular reason. Pick up the bill.
8) Allow yourself to fall in love. Let things happen. See where it goes. Take the risk.

(Joshua Angell: "Eight Things to Start Doing")

do not deconstruct

“I will teach my daughter not to wear her skin like a drunken apology. I will tell her ‘make a home out of your body, live in yourself, do not let people turn you into a regret, do not justify yourself. If you are a disaster it is not forever, if you are a disaster you are the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Do not deconstruct from the inside out, you belong here, you belong here, not because you are lovely, but because you are more than that.’”

(Azra T.: "Your hands are threads, your body is a canvas")

climbed the highest mountains

I once heard this song referred to, by its singer, as "a gospel song with a restless spirit".

I'm listening to this song while walking through a world slowly turning into the sheer loveliness of spring. I still don't feel well. My mind is weak and under constant siege by nameless fears. I look at the tiny pills I take every night and wonder how I, the strong one, became dependent on these. These pills, people who reply to my anxious text messages on dark nights, and a woman with kind eyes who listens to my deepest secrets twice a month are the only things standing between me and a falling sky. That, and the Word of God.

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes, I'm still running 

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

darling books: the isolated princess

"They are the Shaman, Medicine Man, or Witch Doctor of the tribe, the Prince or Princess in fairy tales, the True Knight or Defender of the Faith, like Don Quixote of Joan of Arc. Isolated by their seclusiveness and infrequency (around one percent of the general population), their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity."

I'm browsing through one of my favourite books again, one of the few non-fiction ones I own. Never have I seen my own personality (and those of all my friends and acquaintances) described in such unerring detail.

The book is Please Understand Me II - Temperament, Character, Intelligence by David Keirsey, who bases his temperament studies on the Myers-Briggs personality categorization. I turn to this book every now and then to learn more about how I and others function as we do, and why, and to console myself that I am not, in fact, "isolated from the rest of humanity" - I am an INFP, briefly outlined above.

The book describes sixteen different personalities in great detail, including such things as their interests, orientation and self-image, as well as how they function individually and together with others in career choices, mating, parenting and leadership. Fascinating! Variations of the personality test and its interpretations can be found online but this book really seems to contain everything you need to know, ever, about yourself and others.

"[Idealists] forget very easily yesterday's negative, disagreeable events and tend to remember the positive and agreeable - they are always the romantic about both the future and the past, and always the cheerful dreamer in the public presentation of self ..."

Welcome to my world.

cupcakes and unexpected hazards

Combined three of my favourite things today:

1. Coffee and a cupcake
2. with my best friend
3. in the library.

Afterwards I went to the gym to work off some remaining aggression and depression. Witnessed a man doing complicated, rotating movements to exercize his neck muscles while standing on his head, not once but many times. It looked impressive and dangerous. I found that it is really hard to avoid staring when you're expecting someone's neck to break at any moment.

bent and broken

"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

(Charles Dickens: Great Expectations)

butterflies, wolves and a few Neanderthals

I'm not a museum person. But I love losing myself in foreign worlds.

I had the afternoon off so I wandered into the Ostrobothnian Museum, where I haven't been for years. I studied the exhibitions in detail. Before long, I was far, far away in the last ice age, in the world of butterflies and wolves, in a cave with a Neanderthal man.

I have seldom pondered the fact that I live so close to a cave where Neanderthals lived. Or that I take walks on the impressive site of a major meteorite impact, or that my summers are spent in an archipelago that has been deemed a world heritage site because of the bizarre effects of the last ice age.

It is a fascinating thing, learning about history in one's own home town. I stared at black-and-white photographs from the market square and wondered if the man selling produce from his horse-drawn cart might be my great-grandfather. I recognized streets I last saw in my early childhood but sometimes dream about, irrevocably changed now. I even saw familiar faces on the museum dummies because they were made by friend of mine and and modelled on other friends.

I exit a boring old museum and feel as if I've been on holiday.

Europe's night out

Last Saturday night, I was dipping bread into cheese fondue with friends while watching and heavily criticising the European Song Contest.

Everybody loves and hates the ESC but it is a bonding moment between friends and the 200 million people watching the show. It is always so predictable and so surprising, with the daring dresses, the biased voting, the dancing monkeys, the pyrotechnics, the odd mooning, the false notes, the protests and the oddities never seen before.

Oh Europe, you are so very bizarre and so endearing.

two odd moments

Chilly morning air is streaming in through the open balcony door and I'm scrolling through my Facebook feed lazily while a man in work gear is stretched out on my floor, muttering to himself.

I'm sitting in a chair with blood flowing out of my arm into a little bag, while I'm laughing at a girl practicing Swedish phrases: "Jag ska byta din blöja!" ('I am here to change your diaper!')

a mother's day

What my mother talks about when she calls to chat:

* church services
* walking to the shop
* how hard it is to reverse the car out of the garage without denting it
* what is on her latest bank statement
* what she had for lunch
* when I will come to see her
* what is on TV

My therapist says I should tell my mother more about my own life. So I try. I love my mother, but being an adult daughter is so hard. I love my mother, but. I love my mother.

a curse on my kingdom

Today I borrowed a wifi, had an unhealthy lunch, drove in rush hour traffic with broken brake lights, decided to rearrange my bookshelf for no good reason and abandoned the project halfway through because it turned out it was terrible (books by colour? What an insanely insane idea. I'm staying off Pinterest from now on).

I also managed to do some work, wear new ankle boots, have some negative thoughts and comfort myself with the latest novel by Tana French.

By the way, it snowed. In May. Even in Finland, it should never snow in May.

It may turn out that I am the Ice Queen after all and have put a curse on my kingdom.

detailed life plan

Go to live in my favourite city.

Tools:
* Two books - The Message (Eugene H. Peterson) and The Stylist's Guide to NYC (Sibella Court). Maybe I'll bring a pocket version of Kalevala along for boring subway rides
* A humble heart, lots of love and merciful thinking
* A laptop and an observant mind
* A loyal dog
* The complete DVD set of White Collar
* A black coat, a pair of good jeans, glittery sneakers, a pencil skirt, black boots, a Nepalese hoodie, woollen socks knitted by my mother (for cold nights), a few bohemian tops, a good scarf and a hipster beanie
* Hoop earrings, sky blue nail polish, a bulky silver watch and an alluring scent
* Seven hundred songs + the lullaby my mother used to sing
* A return ticket

a study in freakosemantics

Crunched my blog through Wordtool to see what it thought important back in the day.

The year 2013, a time of zumba, expensive salads and statistics, liked these words:

Life and people, just one more, and summer office facts.

And 2014, the year of subtitles, smoothies and squirrel babies:

Around the world and back again (well, Germany-Sweden-outer mindspace counts, right?), the beautiful feeling of being home for summer, and the fact that something is just about to go places.

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?

came for the book, stayed for the cookies

There are blue cookies served at the book release party.

I clutch my copy of the book in nervous hands and consider bolting. Despite the bohemian lace on my sleeves and the defiant sequins on my sneakers, my confidence is wavering. But the atmosphere at the adult education centre enthralls me - the curiosity and inspiration of people who are there to learn something for the fun of it. The old ladies from my book club are there. And there are blue cookies ...

Before my social awkwardness gets the better of me, an elderly writer whose books I read as a child pulls me into a deep discussion on fiction versus biography. Then I discover that the young woman munching on cookies next to me has a degree in English, like me, and an affinity for genuine Dublin pubs, like me.

Nothing is better than book lovers and blue cookies on a chilly spring night. I hear myself enthusiastically saying things like "When my life is in chaos, I need the feeling of purpose in a fictional story" and "My nail polish was supposed to be golden but as you see it turned out green!" to complete strangers.

pink bottles and the carnival of spring

It is the day when kids buy balloons and the city streets are filled with the thunderous roar of vintage car engines.

People walk through town in white hats with trenchcoats and low-denier tights, fancy dress or wildly coloured student coveralls with beer stains on them.

Icecream stands and summer restaurants throw their doors open and the first outdoor barbecues are attempted despite treacherous weather.

Kids scream with happiness, old couples hold hands, students are delirious and drunk.

I elbow my way out of the crowds angrily. Why does nobody want to hold my hand today? I buy pink bottles and my undeserved loneliness is comforted by blessed solitude.

the roughest winter yet

Things I never thought I would do, that I did during the past winter:

fall in love with a stranger
cut down on coffee and wine and not even miss it much
take anti-depressants
go to bed at 7 pm
see a therapist
ask to join a women's church group
stand in a breadline (for the company, not the food)
love my gym
have panic attacks
lose weight (alas, only temporarily)

receive excerpts from a psychiatric textbook by text message
take up knitting

if you're gonna jump, then jump far

We are losing our volleyball game, even though our team is playing really well.
We seem to be losing more often than ever, even as I feel my own strength growing and my skills improving. My hatred of losing stays the same.

Our team today is a motley collection of women that I play with every week and women I see twice a year (at these volleyball tournaments). There is a thin teenager who will probably be playing at national level in a few years and middle-aged amateurs like myself. This is what I like about volleyball: there are women who seem to be approaching sixty, and women who are short and fat, and they are still very good at this game that seems to favour the tall and powerful. Better than me. Maybe I can still play when I'm old and fat.

Our team picks up the serve - one of the weaker players fumbles with the ball but somebody else helps and the teenager hammers it over the net.

Some parts of my body are starting to fail. My hitting arm protests with pain and my knees hurt after half a lifetime of jumping. I need to stop playing volleyball and do something about this before my legs refuse to carry me anymore. As I focus on today's game, I know it is my last for a while. I won't really miss these tournaments - I always seem to leave them in a huff after yet another defeat.

The team sets up a beautiful opportunity for a spike. I forget my knees and my shoulder and jump like a cat. My spike is, for once, perfect. Hard enough to crush bones. It bounces off a defender's arms and comes back to me in an ideal arc. I jump again, halfway to heaven, and immediately make the kill. It is lovely. I feel stronger and better than ever.

We are losing the game and I'm sure I will walk away in a huff, on wobbly knees. But at the moment I and my team-mates are having too much fun to care.

from the Penny Diaries

Random facts from my formative years:

* Fastest timed clocked for going around the block on a kicksled: 4 minutes 55 seconds
* First line in first play (cast as Mary in the nativity play), said in a dreamy voice: "It's the angels, Joseph."
* First entry in first diary ever, age eleven: "Today I got to skip first period in school. School started at eight and I stressed so much that I started to feel sick. Later heard the others had had their weight and height measurements taken. (With Elise N., who is the strictest teacher in school.)"

* Favourite TV show: Brødrene Dal (especially when the intrepid Norwegian brothers went looking for the mysterious Professor Drøvel)
* Founding member of: The Secret Spy Club, Spying Club Adventure, Detective Club Adventure (anyone see a pattern here?)
* Genre of poetry I wrote: naïve romanticism
* What I sang for my first (and only) real solo, age six: "Adventstid kom till mitt ensamma hus" (Advent time, come to my lonely house)
* Musical instrument I took lessons in: the piano (for seven horrid years)
* Musical instrument I almost performed with in public once: the glockenspiel (but I was late for school so someone else did)
* Dream job: zoo keeper, cook
* Hobbies I took up: volleyball, writing, church

* What I loved: animals, advent calendars, coloured pens and scented erasers, drawing maps and walking fake dogs, hanging out with my big sister (especially when she took me to look at horses)
* Teacher's assessment after I wrote an essay on arms dealers who became victims of burglary, age twelve: "Your writing is grammatically correct and the subject matter is not the usual - you have your own view of problems."
* How I earned my first own money: babysitting a future pole-vaulting star

having cookies with Wolverine

I had another one of those evenings with Wolverine - I call him that because he is a loner, a bit haunted but powerful and caring.

He came to me on a cold April evening when he needed a break from reality. He brought chocolate cookies. I watched TV and knitted an ugly scarf while he sat  next to me, drinking cider. We talked about sick poodles and flatmates with OCD.

Then he went home.

wild city

I'm awakened in the morning by the screeches of seagulls and oystercatchers, and the first eyes I meet as I go out the door are those of a bold hare. Sometimes it's hard to believe that I live in a city.

where the heat burns your blue sandals off your feet

She wore a white labcoat and a hijab, a black scarf on her hair. Because her face was exposed, he averted his gaze, blushing as he did so. Uncertain where to rest his eyes, he let them fall on the plastic ID tag that hung around her neck; Katya Hijazi, Laboratory Technician. He was surprised to see her first name on the tag - it should have been as private as her hair or the shape of her body - and it made her seem defiant.
  Worried that the older man might think he was staring at her breasts, Nayir dropped his gaze to the floor, catching sight of two shapely feet ensconced in bright blue sandals. He blushed again  and turned away from her, trying not to turn completely but just enough to indicate that he wouldn't look at her.
  The woman's shoulders drooped slightly, which seemed to indicate that she'd noticed Nayir's discomfort and was disappointed by it. Reaching into her pocket, she took out a burqa, draped it over her face, and fastened the Velcro at the back of her head.

I don't like to read books set in a culture I know nothing about. Maybe I don't want to be disturbed in my lazy ignorance. Fortunately, I happened to pick up The Night of the Mi'raj by Zoë Ferraris and was too intrigued to put it down again.

I have seldom read a murder mystery so well written. I was thrown right into daily life in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with its unforgiving heat, ordinary people with ordinary lives and strangely paranoid attitudes towards women. It made me feel almost at home, at the same time as I felt the terrible claustrophobia of being a woman there. Delicately written.

faith, hope and love

Easter Sunday has dawned and God has rescued me.

The war has been won. I am loved. One day I will meet the God who loves me.

good friday on the beach

As we stroll along the seafront, among the pine trees, birds are singing wildly.

I don't know if I can trust this calm inside me but there is no need to know the future. The sun is blinding. It looks like spring but an icy northerly wind is blowing. On the sandy beach we sit down on a fleece while a few stray snowflakes make their way down from heaven. The melting ice makes a whispering sound.

Two friends, a toddler playing in the sand, and me. We talk about depression and sick children ... oh, yes, and giant wasps. And we pray, right there on the deserted beach.

as the church goes dark

I go to the big church on Maundy Thursday and sit in the back, fidgeting like a teenager.

The liturgy and the voices of old ladies singing hymns seem like history, like years and generations stretching back to ancient times. I think of my forefathers, farmers who left their work to dress up and go to church when bells started tolling. I miss them, the grandmothers I knew and the great-grandmothers I've only heard stories of and whose blankets I wrap around me on cold winter nights. I think of the vast cathedrals I saw on my wanderings further south in Europe, the votive candles and the air thick with prayers that have been said there for centuries. I think of God, who came down to earth to rescue us two thousand years ago and who is still holding the invitation open for a little while longer.

I hold on to all of this on a Maundy Thursday when myself and the world around me are shaking and sick. I fidget like a teenager in the pew and watch with amazement as the candles are extinguished and the church organ goes quiet. In a darkened church, we sing the last hymn a cappella. A crown of thorns is placed on an almost empty altar. Christ is gone to Calvary to take our punishment.

We sit in the dark and wait for our redemption to dawn.

vast and fathomless heart

"There will come a time when you want to cut off all your hair. Do it. Realise that the thing you want rid of doesn’t lie in the long curls that frame your face so perfectly. Live with short hair for a while. It’ll grow.

You won’t always want to talk to people. That’s okay. When it’s late and you hear your friends talking in the next room, you don’t have to join them. You’re allowed your solitude. It makes company sweeter and it teaches you how to survive alone. You will need that skill.

In the winter, you’ll believe that nothing will ever grow again. You’re wrong. Every year, London looks like it’s on its last legs, wheezing through those last cold days in March. Every year, spring comes like an explosion and the city shakes off its sleep.

Mundane problems will get the better of you sometimes. Don’t worry. Try as you might, life cannot be an endless, beautiful, intense moment. Find comfort in money worries and late trains; they’re a welcome rest in between heartbreaks and breakdowns.

People will call you a cynic, a wry smile on their faces. Pay them no mind. You alone know that you are capable of a love greater than anything they can comprehend. You alone know that you are not willing to sell your identity and respect to the first smirking halfwit to pass by. It is not cynicism. It is reverence for your own vast and fathomless heart, and it makes sense only to love someone who understands that and is awed by it.

You will not always get what you want when you want it. Accept it. Your goals are not set in stone and you are not on a fixed trajectory. Sometimes, life will take its time and you will have to play the long, interminable game. Play it well and with as much grace as you can muster. Live at your own pace.

At night, you will occasionally wake up afraid, wanting to die. Don’t give in. Night plays its tricks, but you are not so easily fooled. Your mind will play its tricks, too. It will make you believe that you’re not who you are, but you must not give in. You take a breath and you tell yourself that you are here. That you always were."

(blood-and-magic, Tumblr: "Practical Advice for Difficult Women")

songbirds and the rest

Life is not always easy, but there are always songbirds, volleyball with friends, raspberry water, hand-knitted scarves, new ideas, coffee and the feeling of a long Easter weekend approaching.

sober me up

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”

(F. Scott Fitzgerald)

beauty unfamiliar and perilous

“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.”

(Thomas Mann)

the little yellow book

The written chronicles of my life start with a small, yellow notebook.

It has a picture of a budgie on the cover. It is yellow because that was my favourite colour when I was six years, eleven months and fifteen days old - and still is, in some ways. My sister, then a teenager, bought it and wrote little diary entries in it for my benefit. The first one begins: "Today you went ice-skating with Fritz."

I was apparantly a six-year-old who ate sweets only on Saturdays, loved my trainers because they looked almost the same as my sister's and was too shy to hand over the fare to the bus driver when we went to town. I wanted to sit by the window in the bus. I always sit by the window everywhere.

When I was sick, I got to lie in my parents' bed all day and draw pictures. Summer days were spent playing on the beach with my poodle, on winter evenings I redecorated the dollhouse my grandfather had made. I sang in a children's choir, took piano lessons and attended Sunday school. Sometimes my sister took me pony riding, the most exciting thing I knew.

When I was nine, I found my first BFF and spent most of my free time walking dogs - real and imaginary. I had entire worlds of imaginary adventures, fuelled by explorations of the neighbourhood and all the books I borrowed at the library.

I was shy and sometimes lonely, prayed to God and soared in my endless imagination all the way to distant galaxies. I think I was happy.

with that terrifying sound, an insight

So, this week I have been subtitling a movie from the 1940s, taught myself to knit, finished a project I began twenty years ago (cross-stitching; I'm so not going there again!) and learned something new about myself.

Not a bad week.

A physical therapist told me that he was going to "crack" my back. I was familiar with the concept, in theory, and it sounded scary. Despite my apprehension I leaned into his strong arms, took a breath and relaxed completely.

It surprised me, all of it. The terrifying sound my back made, the fact that it didn't hurt, and the fact that I leaned back to let him do it to me again. Most of all, the feeling of putting myself willingly into the hands of a stranger who could hurt me badly. (He didn't). I suddenly realised that, despite my cynicism, I have a natural capacity for putting trust in people. I never do it blindly - after assessing the risks, I quickly make the decision and act on it with very little hesitation.

It felt like a strength, a courage that I never realised I had. In a life of much weakness and fear, it felt like being handed a gift.