the meaning of winter

Decided to combat my anguished feeling of stress over all the things I need to do by postponing everything and write my Great Novel instead. So now I'm holing up with my laptop and loads of wine and ignoring the phone.

I mean, you are not really expected to do anything useful in winter anyway. Winter is for cuddling up.

freaky deep-freeze dreams

I dream about Labradors being charged for murder in ancient Venice and flocks of Comodors attacking me. I don't even know what Comodors are but my dream tells me this is how it's spelled. Feeling a bit nervous now. I think they can fly and look a bit like seagulls with teeth. Anxiously watching the sky and staying indoors just in case it was a premonition.

Another reason for staying indoors is that the mercury shows -21 degrees Celsius. I braved the weather yesterday and on my way through town felt like a tough chick who is not beaten by silly sub-zero temperatures. On my way back the wind hit me and I felt my body heat being blown out of me. SHIVER. Ran through town without stopping once for a red light - I would rather be run over than turn into an ice statue even though that would be a beautiful death. Had to go into a department store halfway home to thaw out. Ended up buying stuff I don't need - blame it on a frozen brain and misguided survival and hoarding instinct.

Still, the sun is shining low on a clear blue sky and no Comodors in sight yet. Maybe I should just test my toughness one more time and then enjoy a lovely sauna... From -20 to +80 in two minutes. That's a hundred degrees difference. They should give me the Nobel Prize for that. Or an Oscar. Or a beautiful headstone.

absent friends still present

Strange thing, this, friends. Old friends, new friends and friends in between. I try to be myself but my best friend from school who hasn't seen me for years knows me as a different person than the people I am currently trying to get to know, and my confidante during my years in Ireland has seen other sides of me... I function differently depending on whose company I am in. I think differently. It is not pretense. It just works this way. But I'm bound to surprise or even shock all of them sometimes.

But to all my friends out there that I once knew and who are now too far away... I miss you.

from a Manhattan emergency room to Santa Claus Land

Okay people, let's have one of those tacky looking-back-on-the-year-just-passed, melancholy reviews. It just has to be done - we have to analyse what we have learned in order to go on.

Year 2005:

Started off with a week in New York. It's scary the way this city just hits you with its beauty and life-loving dynamics even though you are determined not to be impressed - determined to dislike it, even. There is just no way to avoid a knock-out by New York. I particularly remember a vodka pizza in Little Italy, an argument between an Englishman and a Brooklyner who were both buying me drinks, a freezing train ride to Bronx with a cream cheese bagel clutched in my nervous hands, a long surreal wait in the emergency room of a downtown Manhattan hospital. (No, these events had no connection whatsoever, except they all happened in New York and I was there.)

After that week, a visit in a hidden valley in Ireland, a valley deep in its winter sleep. The complete stillness of the mountains after the buzz of the city was another knockout. Then an international move. It was time to leave dreamy, quirky, snobbish, beautiful Cambridge (England), the town of no winter (Cambridge seems too sophisticated for barbarian things like blizzards and sub-zero temperatures), and the gang of funny and slightly demented hotel people I had been working with. A last coffee in Starbucks and then I saw the blue and white of my homeland again - a sight not seen for more than a year, a sight I would not escape for the rest of the year...

So. The rest of the year uneventful. Struggling to find a job, struggling not to hate Finland, struggling to learn languages, struggling to adapt to being home, struggling not to kill my parents, struggling not to feel lonely. Struggling with the man of my dreams.

Skiing on the mountain with good friends again, being out on the open sea and being thorougly afraid and at the same time happy, sitting in front of the fire during the long, white nights of the summer while sipping wine and writing. Building a huge maze as an art project, laughing over the madness of it with new friends. During a confusing autumn, breaking off with my man and building up a new, independent life that has me thrilled although it's not quite what I had in mind.

I have learned to love pesto and mozzarella cheese and to make a fabulous omelette. To dress warmly enough to enjoy rolling in the snow for hours with kids. I have realised the Finnish people are depressed and that I am very, very different from everybody else in the world. Not a bad thing to realise...

And New Year's Eve was not unusual. I had one of my anti-new-year's-eve-parties reactions of course and sulked for a while. Then I was relieved to find the new year was here and I could finally stop pretending to have fun and just relax.

There. I did it. The Summary Of My Year. Now I can finally go and make an omelette.

my hot Australian beach boy

Have been spending more time than strictly necessary with my ex since we broke up. And I thought things were complicated before. Now this is very platonic. But very nice.

And then I managed to track down the one I once upon a time thought would be the love of my life and whom I lost forever... ok, for 4 years, when he disappeared out into the rest of the world. Thank God for the internet! He seems to be single. He also seems to be living on the other side of the world, literally.

Probably best to have him at a safe distance though. He can stay my little fantasy, the "what would my life have been like if..." when reality just is too much to cope with. Then I will curl up and watch the snow fall while I dream of deep blue waves crashing onto a hot beach in Australia, sand between my toes and a pair of muscular, sun-tanned arms wrapping around me while a throaty voice whispers into my ear, "I love -

holiday feminist

After Christmas with the family I can finally breathe again.

Strange how family life wears you out. Objectively speaking, it went well. No fights, no tears from my brother's kids and the dogs didn't knock over any candles. Santa Claus politely knocked on the door early on Christmas Eve as he is supposed to do, just after dinner, and interrogated the kids about their behaviour before almost falling asleep in a chair while everybody else was handing out presents to each other. Outside, the snow was gently falling and at the end of the evening I had to dig the car out of a snow drift, shivering in my best clothes.

Subjectively, though, I felt a bit like Bridget Jones. No boyfriend this year either and it doesn't matter how many I've had through the year - at Christmas I'm still the unmarried one, the hopeless case. Doesn't matter what I have achieved either. I will count as one of the children until I'm attached to a man.

Enough to make a feminist out of anyone.

Christmas last year I spent far away from all family, in London. I have good memories of sipping wine in a warm hotel lounge, swapping gifts with my friend in our room, laughing over a very different Christmas dinner in a Lebanese fast-food diner. I also recall walking around a completely quiet, shut-down, eerily empty city on Christmas day - I don't think there are many non-Londoners (or Londoners even) who have experienced the city this way, like a ghost town. We walked for hours (since public transport was closed) into the city centre and finally found one restaurant/pub that was open. It was absolutely packed with people and we could not even get a coffee, so we gave up and walked back to the hotel. Now thoroughly fed up. Almost there, we ran into a guy carrying a take-away coffee mug and in our caffeine deficit desperation we pounced on the poor guy to ask him where he had managed to find coffee in this backward town. He pointed out a tiny coffee shop around the corner and the day was saved. Never has a coffee tasted so good.

time for a volcano

I suddenly had an urge to go and see a volcano. Maybe it's a symptom of my rather boring (right now anyway) life on the flats of western Finland. The only mountain around here is a tiny little hill that takes 1.5 minutes to ski down. It's definitely not a volcano. From up there, though, you can see an enormous treeless flat: the crater made by a meteorite that struck sometime in the dawn of time. The reason you can only see it from the hill is the fact that the surrounding area is just as flat (only with more trees), so the crater does not stand out in any way.

Nine years ago on the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii: I remember stumbling across endless fields of old lava after dark to look at a stream of new lava pouring down the hill into the Pacific Ocean, creating an enourmous cloud of glowing steam. Maybe not the most dramatic of volcanic eruptions but Kilauea is (or was) the faithful one - at this time, the eruption had been going on for the last thirteen years (I think it has stopped by now) in a nice, controlled fashion which allowed the tourists really close. I was in awe. To me, it didn't seem particularly nice and controlled. This was nature, wild forces beyond anything I had ever imagined.

We spent a night on a campground on the mountain, not far from the craters. Our sleeping bags on the grass, directly beneath the open sky. And the sky was open - it rained most of the night. Despite this being the summer in Hawaii, we did not realise the nights actually get cold up on a mountain, volcano or no volcano.

But when the rain finally stopped I lay there - too cold to sleep - and saw all the stars in the sky blink into view. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I could hear the volcano rumble in a dark muttering beneath me.

more independent than intended

Day of Independence yesterday - Finland celebrating its 88th birthday. As usual a solemn, sober celebration. Due to poor planning on my part (eh, OK, to tell the truth I had almost forgot about this day) I didn't go out to see any of the parades or rituals in honour of the war veterans.

My favourite Independence Day tradition is getting a few friends together, stocking up on unhealthy food stuff, lighting candles and planting ourselves in front of the TV in the evening to watch the President's Independence Day Ball where all the celebrities and Important People are invited. Traditionally, you have to comment on the women's dresses, compete in how many Important People you can recognize and laugh at people tripping over each other in the crowded ball room of the President's castle. Even if you are too boring to have a good time, you can always exercise yourself intellectually by catching up on who are Important People in the republic of Finland nowadays and why - the ball is broadcast live on two TV channels (one in Finnish, one in Swedish) with a running commentary and interviews.

This year, all my friends seemed to have deserted me for various reasons. How sad. I pride myself on being an independent woman but it seems I need to go out there and get myself some more friends instead. Otherwise Independence Day gets a little too independent. I had no choice but to curl up in front of the TV all by myself. The only ones listening to my witty comments and intelligent remarks were the plants on the window-sill.

decadence, fine wine and jealousy

The ultimate lazy Saturday. I didn't even bother going out, been lying in front of the TV and the computer and only getting up to dig through the fridge for food. Experimented in making a sandwich of mussels and blue cheese - pleasantly surprised at the outcome, delicious with white wine. Watched Star Trek like in the good old days.

Decadence. It's good for me.

Yesterday had a few drinks in an Irish pub with a friend and then decided on a whim to go to a night club. The friend is a minister in the Lutheran Protestant Church where alcohol (not to mention clubbing) is usually frowned upon. Felt like I was doing the ultimate evil thing - leading a man of God astray. But he just smiled, drank his beer and said, "hey, Jesus turned 5000 liters of water into fine wine!"

My ex rang me while I was in the pub. He was going to watch a movie with an ex of his. I stressed the fact that I was out drinking with a guy.

Don't miss next episode of PianoPoet - the Soap Opera.

walking away - see ya

That's it. I've had it. Enough. I give up. No, no, I don't give up, I REBEL!

Sick and cranky and can't get any work done. Taking the rest of the day off. Going for a winter walk.

Working from home can be so nice sometimes, and sometimes just hell. Home-made.

the snow so loud I cannot sleep

Insomnia again.

Early morning delirium, watching the dawn of another monochrome day. Three or four inches of snow on the ground, on bare tree branches, covering and cuddling cars parked in the yard. The noise from the snowploughing tractors haunted my uneasy dreams last night... As soon as there is about an inch of snow, an armada of them goes out, even in the middle of the night.

I'm high on lost sleep. I see the abstract so clearly and reality through a haze.

A pot of orange-flavoured coffee is brewing so all is well in the world.

daylight and day darkness

You know it's November when you have to switch the light on in the morning (if you get up before 9 am it's still pitch black) and keep in on all day. What they call "daylight" is greyish twilight.

My city had it's official Christmas season opening, which is a way of telling people they should get going with their mad Christmas shopping. I went to see the fireworks with a couple of friends and the streets were so crowded and icy that it was hard to walk. There was an old-fashioned market in the town square - "old-fashioned" meaning that some of the vendors had dressed up in big shawls and old woollen trousers/skirts and decorated their stalls with little lanterns. It didn't look very authentic though - was it perhaps the other stalls flashing ads for cotton candy in neon lights?

When I got home I decided to put some of my own (more discreet and beautiful) Christmas lights up in the window. Hey, I know it's early but I blame the darkness. Now I'm only waiting for the snow.

ancient memories of an ex-vagabond

I own seven butter knives in wood but only one dull kitchen knife.
Nine vases but hardly enough plates to invite a couple of friends in for dinner.
A supply of towels and table cloths that would be enough to wrap a small Baltic country in but no machine to wash them in afterwards.
Three complicated mixers and blenders that probably have higher IQ than I have, but no pot to boil water in.
A trendy pasta ladle but no pasta.

The consequences of living as a student, with half the household consisting of borrowed and shared stuff, for years and then a few more years bumming around Ireland and Britain with nothing more than a few clothes, cosmetic essentials and a supply of novels.

Setting up a household again is intriguing. It's been "only" five years since I last had some semblance of a normal life and it's amazing how things have changed since then. Back then I still had a phone that was stuck to the wall and couldn't go anywhere (horror! All the times I couldn't go out because I was waiting for some guy to call - and he never did!). A microwave was something owned only yuppies (the same ones who had mobile phones) or people who also had three kids, big house and estate car. I wrote my Master's thesis on a computer that had to be allowed to rest every now and then, couldn't handle pictures and had only two games - Tetris and Minesweeper (I haven't beaten my personal record since those times).

I still can't afford a washing machine, dishwasher, electric kettle, toaster, a good kitchen knife, curtains, a new couch or even decent tagliatelle pasta. But I have a new, shiny microwave that would look good on Star Trek (oh no! Another thing of the past!) and a laptop that can surf the net, play DVDs, write a novel in Greek, sing little happy tunes and probably cook too (if I could afford the ingredients).

And I am a happy woman of the 21st century.

colour scheme disturbances

Time for a new post just to reassure my faithful admirers out there that I haven't self-destructed from a broken heart!

I have, more or less, managed to make a home out of my "new" apartment. The building is a 6-storey house from the fifties and I can hear the neighbour's TV (they're watching "Desperate Housewives"). I turn up the volume on my sound system (my neighbours can now listen to my Sting CD).

I am contemplating my colour scheme. The bedspread on my lovely, lovely bed is blue. My sofa is currently mustard yellow, which doesn't look too good. Forget curtains, I don't want those - let there be light!

My kitchen table has been sitting in the shed the last fifteen years or so and looks the part.

But it's my home!

No time for interiour decorating now or the next couple of weeks. Drowning in work. It's enough to know I have my own piece of the earth at last.

learning the bureaucratic dance

Feel like there's a wall of paper about to collapse on my head... When I was a young, innocent little child I was told that the computer age would get rid of all the paper in the world. Well, I'm still waiting to see that happen.

Spent a whole week filling out forms and trying to get hold of people to sign papers for me. My bureaucratic week. I must have a nightmare kind of life from a bureaucrat's perspective: income somewhat less than steady and from various sources, can't seem to decide what country I want to live in, and having the cheek to ask the government for money.

Ooops - it's beginning to sound like I'm a prostitute... Well, I'm not. Not a drug-dealer either. For your information. I do translations. Work in hotel receptions. Write. Study the world and its wonders over the rim of my coffee mug. And, of course, fill out forms. Can never remember whether to "tick" the box or to mark it with an x.

dying autumn

A walk in crisp snow, cold hurting my skin. Bright sunshine on yellow leaves. Winter and autumn in a crazy mix.

Home again I light candles around my computer like some kind of pagan ritual. The last fly of the autumn is dying on my window sill.

snow more more snow

First snow!

Excited!!

Snow more! More snow!

come on, take a guilt trip with me

The October wind is cold outside my window, here in my concrete suburb. I light a candle, pour myself a glass of wine and channel-hop between "The Two Towers" and the Eurovision Song Contest 50th Anniversary.

(...ooh, they had Riverdance! I know, I know, I'm completely pathetic, but everything Irish makes me teary-eyed...)

And in between all of this, I'm working on my masterpiece, my novel, my baby book.

How much is art worth, by the way?

Not my own tiny effort at writing something that will probably never be published anyway. But a huge thing like the filming of The Lord of the Ring? The Eurovision Song Contest that most Europeans regard with slight disdain but which most of us watch every year anyway? Each of these must cost millions to make, millions that could be used for feeding the poor or finding a cure for cancer. Each of these make millions too. Make millionaires out of a few people. Good for you, Peter Jackson.

I still go to the cinema. I paid the 8 or 10 euros per film to see the LOTR on the big screen. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this trilogy and wouldn't have missed it for the world. But I still can't help feeling guilt. I remember the beggars I passed in the streets every day when I lived in Dublin and Cambridge and Helsinki. Here in my tiny city we don't really have beggars - the desperately poor do exist but they are hidden away somewhere. I still remember them.

This world. Why is is so complicated?

Why do I bring the entire world into my blog anyway? Must be drunk.

to drink with a leprechaun

Feel a bizarre urge to go live in a castle without a roof, wrap myself in woollen blankets and drink whiskey in the company of leprechauns. It doesn't matter if it rains - I will create magical pieces of art and let my hair grow wild and red.

Where can I find a cheap flight to Ireland?

i just saw a spark

How weird. Life is doing its best to break your back but still that little spark inside of you just refuses to go out. After fighting and struggling to get your life into order and survive being close to people you love, something makes you look up through your tears and suddenly notice how beautiful that worn-out tree outside your window really is. After dragging yourself out of bed in the morning, convinced that it will be the last time because it's just too much trouble, that first smell and taste of coffee unexpectedly makes you want to call someone and tell them how much you love them.