last thing I remember I was running for the door

Fell through a trap-door in the universe and find myself working in a hotel again.

If that's what it is. It's a place where the janitor is the boss, the building is a former refugee camp and half the receptionists don't speak decent Finnish. Mysterious Russians are the brains behind it all. It has the run-down look of an old gangster movie about it. And a huge bird, a magpie, has built a nest just outside the reception window. I've only seen one magpie in it yet though there should be two. "One for sorrow, two for joy..."

in the company of the warrior princess

Visited the Island. Xena the Warrior Princess lives there nowadays. At least I think it's her, although she is blonde and wearing wellies instead of sandals.

When I arrive after the long drive through forest and across the shockingly tall bridge, spring has painted the sea in glorious colours. The Warrior Princess is changing the tyres on her car and tells me about her upcoming wedding, the wedding she doesn't have the time to plan because she is (more or less single-handedly) restoring the old cottage where she lives.

"The safe feeling of being loved by someone... that is all I really need." The adventurer who tells me this once travelled alone through the darkest parts of Africa and will let nothing stand between her and her dreams. Against everybody's advice, she has almost torn the cottage apart to restore it to its original, beautiful shape. It's still complete chaos, but this girl can make even chaos look welcoming. There are three beautiful cats in the middle of it. One of them is sitting on the laptop.

The car is left standing with only two tyres attached because Xena has spotted something in the attic of the old barn that she absolutely has to investigate right away. So we climb around the ancient attic where the floor threatens to fall apart beneath our feet at any moment. The interesting object turns out to be half an old table and we haul it downstairs at the peril of our own lives.

An elderly man, a genuine soft-spoken Islander and expert on hand-crafted doors, arrives to look at an old door that Xena has found and wants put into the cottage. These old Islanders must be quite shaken up by this blonde tornado that has swept into their little old-fashioned community. Despite this, I have a feeling they can't help but love her. At least they have something to talk about. She has already engaged dozens of them in helping her repair her boat, give advice on the restoration work and tell her all about the history of the Island.

We snack on sandwiches and cheese crisps among the sawdust in the cottage before Xena gets back to sandpapering the walls and trying to persuade me to buy the cottage next door. The idea is too much for me to contemplate.

Driving back across the bridge to the mainland, I'm exhausted as if I had lived a lifetime in one evening.

a little pale and weary

The little Pleasantville (but in pastel colours) where I am temporarily residing is surrounded by a much more authentic village, old little wooden cottages (most of them beautifully restored and now containing all modern conveniances) interspersed among wide fields.

A chilly wind is still blowing across this brownish-grey landscape but the still-weak April sun is persistent and the colour green will soon be taking over. I try to forget my worries and enjoy the sun on the patio, comforting coffee mug in my hand. One of the cats, tiny Mjau, is chasing the first butterflies around my feet.

I am pale, weary. Not sure if I dare believe in a happy summer. Not convinced life has a meaning. But definitely certain that I will take this bleak day and make the best of it - nothing great, probably nothing much worth remembering, but the best I can do. It is enough.

alien in Pleasantville

To the two sleek, grey cats I was a complete stranger who just walked into their house and took out a tin of cat food. They didn't seem to think anything was amiss, just told me loudly how hungry they were.

To the nice, middle-class neighbours in this nice, middle-class residential area, who all have pastel-coloured houses and 2.4 children playing in cute little gardens, I was definitely a complete stranger. I breezed in with a dodgy car, urban sunglasses and a foreign-looking man in tow for a two-week house-sitting. Instead of bringing two toddlers to the park and having a gossip with other mothers in mud-stained clothes, I stay inside typing on a laptop with manicured nails or take the car into town for a latte.

Staying in someone else's house, someone with a stereotypical family life, and my own, quite boring lifestyle suddenly seems eccentric.

not just a pretty face

After a hard day's work of attacking everything that moved and a few things that didn't, exhaustion finally slowed Demolition Dog down enough for an almost decent portrait.

a terrorist in my home

I have a guest staying over the Easter weekend. He is very charming, extremely sociable and somewhat demanding. This morning, he woke me up at 7 am because he needed to go to the bathroom and didn't want to go alone. He won't let me go alone either.

Attempts to catch him on camera failed miserably as he is extremely fast. He always seems to be "exiting stage left". Or right. Or viciously attacking the camera.

As the pictures show, he is something furry and black who likes to demolish newspapers, towels, human toes and anything else that happens to cross his path.

Some would call him a puppy, but personally, I'm convinced he is a cross between a crocodile and the Terminator.

the essence of March

It's not a brain.
It's not vomit.
It's not Cookies'n'Cream icecream.
It's a picture of the dreadful month of March at 63 degrees North.

Melting, filthy snow. Thank God that month is over.

Actually, there might be some vomit mixed in there too.

survived the month of murders

March is the last month of sleep for growing things, says my mother. She always buys a sack of good soil in March and replants all her many potted plants. In April, it's too late, because by then the plants have woken from their winter sleep and started their growing season. And they don't like to be disturbed, pulled up by the roots and shoved into a new pot with new soil, once they have started growing. Or so she claims.

March here at 63 degrees North is a grey and wet affair. The crystal beauty of winter ruined, like a wedding dress that's been dragged through mud. Spring still hesitating behind the corner.

Like my mother's plants, I am half asleep, weary after a long winter, too sluggish to hope for the sun. I survive, barely. My history teacher in school once told me that March is the month of murders and I can see why.

It always seems to happen in March. Half dead, I'm pulled up by the roots and shoved into something new, if only a new way of thinking. It always hurts, no matter how absolutely essential it is for my survival. After a desperate struggle to adjust, I slowly start to notice the spring sun, the world turns on its hinges and my growing season has arrived.

I realise it's more or less too late to replant my own potted plants by now. I go out and buy some shockingly yellow daffodils.

not a very pious prayer

God, are you looking this way?

Was it you who woke me up this morning? Did you see me fight my way out of the anguish to get ready for another day? Were you trying to say something when I blocked out the words of everyone? Was it you who dragged me out the door? Did you try to get my attention with a ray of sunshine that made me wince? Were your words whispered in the mumbling of strangers in the street? Were you insistently making my phone ring when I tried to turn it off? Was it you who made me pull out my hair and shed tears of frustrated longing? Were you paying attention when I screamed? Are you the one who walked past me and made eye contact? Did you block my way and force me to look at you?

Are you laughing at me or are you saying my name, over and over again? Am I trying to get your attention or are you seeking mine? Am I cursing your name or desperately scrambling to get close?

I fight you. I cry for you. I hate you. I love you.

You shake me. Shock me. Force me. Deny me. Teach me. Protect me. Die for me. Cherish me. Love me. Love me. Love me.

a planet came looking for me

When I looked out towards the sea this evening there was the crescent moon with Venus again. If that is really Venus, that is - I should find out but my mind is too weary to go look for facts that I should know. Another thing to feel guilty about.

The sky was beautiful, that crescent and planet against the pink-gold sunset, and I was surprised to see it because I didn't deserve it. I have been languishing here in my grey prison for weeks with neither the energy nor the will to break out and I have come to expect nothing more. Sometimes I ask God and all other powers there be to do something, to break down these walls, but in the next moment I accept that he will do nothing of the kind because I can't, won't, help myself. Sunken into a stupor, I have accepted that grey walls are what I will be seeing for the rest of my life.

But then. The gentle light of a crescent moon, a shard of lunar glass. A rich cascade of sunset colours too valuable to waste on someone like me. A planet who has broken orbit and travelled closer to the earth just to show me that there is brilliance in the universe that I have yet to discover. They refuse to be ignored. Jolted out of my private room of misery, I stare in disbelief.

Just for me?

in the valley of the shadow of death

The silence is deeper than ever. Deafening. The dust settles slowly.

Death is still way ahead. I'm only walking in its shadow.

staring too long into the abyss

Staggering at the edge of the abyss, see it staring back at me. Is it reality I'm losing or is reality not real? If I step through the looking-glass, will I be more alive?

This world keeps ignoring me. Fine. See what I care. After a life of frugality, I will throw away my last penny on temporary comforts.

I just want to be alive.

beloved blood of my blood

Family get-together.

Wayward brother smelling of alcohol.
Two grandmothers trying to find common ground, one a globetrotter and wine connoisseur, the other a traditional, stay-at-home teetotaller.
A five-year-old doing his utmost to look under women's skirts.
Everyone embarrassed about what to say to the young cancer victim.
Siblings who never see each other trying to think of something to talk about.
Young cousins breaking each others' toys.

Surprisingly, a warm feeling. Family. Home. I belong. Count your blessings. And for God's sake, distract that five-year-old.

feminist skies tonight

Venus and the crescent Moon together in the sky. Two symbols of womanhood.

Perhaps I have just been reading too much feminist literature. Fretting over the injustices of the world in general towards women. The burden weighing more heavily still on my frail shoulders.

Be beautiful (read: skinny), be sexy and available and show a lot of skin, be not-too-smart, behave as females have been expected to behave the last couple of millennia. Raise your daughters to be cautious, wary, conformist, insecure, enemies of their own body and feelings. Make sure they feel worthless if they do not conform to all of the above.

On the other hand, the sign in the sky tonight may just be telling me to move to Turkey.

swearing and longing

Up before dark. Strong coffee. Translate political commentaries from the weird language of Finnish to the bizarre language of Swedish. Swear. Email sister in despair. Eat chocolate.

Longing to go to the second-hand book shop. To the jeans shop. To the American-style coffee shop.

Another day is well underway.

Prancer on ice

A day-long hike or a short Sunday stroll. When the ice on the bay is thick enough, people bring their kids, sleighs, skis, dogs, kites and ice-fishing kits and head out, irresistibly drawn to the open vista and the possibility to explore the little islets.

Yesterday was mild and sunny enough even for me to venture out, wrapped up in layers of wool and armed with my sunglasses.

I love people-watching, but even more so, dog-watching. One of the dogs, the largest one, turned out to be one of Santa's reindeer. Posing nonchalantly for a tabloid photographer, he ignored the stares from passers-by. Occasionally he was filled with enthusiasm and trotted away towards the open horizon, his keeper helplessly dragged along by a long leash.

So now we know what Santa's reindeer do the rest of the year. Modelling.

grow up and play

Volleyball. Unimportant, friendly local game. Nerves, nevertheless. Pacing the corridors before the game, worrying about a cramping muscle, checking for the fifteenth time that the water bottle is filled.

She forgets to be her usual fearful, take-no-risks woman and throws herself on the floor and against walls to save the ball.

Normally shy and wary of drawing attention, she nevertheless blocks out the spectators and yells, laughs, and swears under her breath. Not afraid of being the tall one, the dangerous one near the net. Not shy to show off bare legs even though they cannot compete with those of the teenage bambi on the other side of the court.

Open, loud joy when the team succeeds. Makes a face when she completely misses an easy ball but shrugs and concentrates on the next. Graciously accepts good advice from the more experienced. Savours the triumph of getting an applause of her own. Hates the opposing team but forgives them and shakes hands afterwards.

If I learn to laugh and yell out loud, to deal with nerves, to accept criticism and defeat, to make friends, to give everything and in return feel the full force of life here and now... then it doesn't really matter that we lost that game.

the thick ticking of the tin clock stopped

Some days my life is in sepia and cold winter light seeps through the window. I am low. Almost floor level.

Time has stopped. I crave life but it is denied me.

that weird goodness

Contrary to popular belief, good people do exist. I am forced to believe the testimony of my own eyes and ears.

I am an optimist and have always believed that there is goodness in all of us. Experience, on the other hand, has shown me that selfishness or indifference wins the battle in most of us. We are too weak to be good.

Christianity says God can be strong in our weakness. Lovely thought, but reality is different, right? Even an optimist has to be a realist.

But there they are, impossible to ignore. The genuine. People who are not afraid to admit their faults but do not crave sympathy. With my sharp eye for falseness, I pick out their weaknesses and look for any signs of pretense. People who are tired from the daily battles but who push their problems aside for a moment to give full attention to my needs. Who draw on a mysterious strength to give me what I ask for, and sometimes what I am too scared or proud or stupid to ask for. Who knock out my defenses with that smile, the authentic, caring, wise smile.

Even an optimist can be a cynic. That smile will wear itself out, I think, just try to keep it up for a while and see it fade. Only for some people it does not. Day after day, year after year, they keep caring, giving, helping, loving. Sometimes they cry from exhaustion. Sometimes they voice their doubts and despair. But the next day they stand there again, hands outstretched, smiling.

I am speechless with astonishment. It is not possible, not in this world. A mere human cannot do this and I never believed in superhumans.

All of these people that I have dared to ask, say the same thing. God. Not a mysterious force, no rituals, just God as a person, giving freely, just a prayer away. Just demanding your entire life in return. But what a life. What a freedom, being who you really are.

lovely, hateful pride

In my dream, control slips out of my hand. I am humiliated, shamed, before the person I admire the most. Nightmare at its worst.

I wake up shaking in a cold sweat.

Later the same day, I see him, the admirable one, at a distance. Beautiful, confident, but with nothing false about him.

I am proud and willful, a woman with backbone. But to have someone see me as I am and still love me... If it were him, maybe I would dare.