birdsong and deception

May, and the world races towards summer. Colour bursts and evenings in the sun, millions of birds, the smell of earth and life, the first sensation of bare feet in cold grass - and then it's over.

A warm May is like first love. A cold May is like being deceived by your first love.

zombies and nuns in the capital of Bohemia

A zombie appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals as we strolled lazily across the famous Charles Bridge in Prague.

You know the type: white face, wild hair, weird eyes, threatening air. We avoided eye contact and nervously hurried onwards and lost it among the tourist crowds. A minute later, there it was again. Blocking our path, staring hungrily. We decided we had had enough of Charles Bridge and escaped into the narrow streets of Mala Strana.

Apart from this, Prague was all good. Well, except for the pouring rain as we explored the castle. It put a damper on our mood as we ran shivering between the cathedral, the White Tower and Golden Lane. But the lazy hour we spent in a warm, cozy café afterwards was worth it. We felt that we had earned our lemon tarte and excellent coffee.

Memorable moments included:

* drinking Staropramen on the roof terrace of a dancing house
* asking a stranger in the street for directions and discovering that he was able to sing our own national anthem to us - in Finnish
* discussing whether a horse can be painted, in the Old Town square
* gawking at all the impossibly beautiful buildings all over town
* having serious trouble finding dark beer in the capital of beer
* realising that the Astronomical Clock isn't a good meeting place at the strike of the hour
* listening to a sermon in Czech, only understanding the words for "truth" and "love" - but what else do you need from a sermon?
* pretending to be Czech as we travelled back and forth on trams and subway trains
* taking the wrong tram and deciding to stay on it and see what happened, in the company of a crowd of nuns
* being struck dumb with horror and awe in the Jewish Quarter, where Hitler had intended to create "a museum of an extinct race"
* being struck dumb with delight and awe at a Mozart dinner opera, where we drank Czech pinot noir and fell in love with classical music (and the baritone)
* getting a private guided tour which included a tame duck, many insults, political debate and shouting of the word "absinthe!"
* finding a lunch place far from the tourist streets, complete with surly waiters, incomprehensible menus and excellent bramboracky that cost next to nothing
* giggling over sweet American cocktails after an exhausting day

Sometimes I long to travel in luxury - being whisked from my grandiose hotel in an expensive car to an exclusive restaurant. Not having to do all the hard work of budget travelling.

But I have now decided that I much prefer travelling like I always do - walking for hours on aching feet, eating strange meals in local pubs, staying in tiny back street hotels, squeezing into trams filled to bursting with tired commuters, their dogs and their dripping umbrellas.

How else would you discover the hidden treasures of a city in the real world?

cloud lake found

Walking in the forest - tiny emeralds on every branch, birdsong, the soothing whisper of ancient trees. I'm breathing in silver air.

The lake, pale and smooth, has clouds in it and above it. I have found it, after half a lifetime. I sit down, hug my knees and stare into the past and the future. The haunting call of a loon echoes between tree-lined shores. A boy is fishing and a man has lit a fire on the shore. Woodsmoke, a hint of summer parties to come. Dogs are playing, people are smiling at strangers. But I could walk in this forest for hours and be all alone, all at peace.

Paths are promises of adventures. I will return to breathe more silver air.

Prague and the long-lost friends

I went to Prague for the first time in my life.

The sun shone bleakly on the famous astronomical clock, where a crowd of chattering tourists waited for the hourly chime. The cool April air shimmered with spring promise. I stood underneath the fifteenth-century clock and waited for a friend I had not seen for twelve years, the girl who taught me to play chess in Cambridge. I was nervous. Seeing a close friend for the first time in twelve years is scary. Would I even recognize her?

She suddenly stood before me. I recognized her immediately and hugged her tight as the clock chimed the hour and all the apostles looked down on us. We went to an obscure pub where nobody spoke a word of English but where they set cheap, delicious potato cakes and dark beer in front of us with typical Czech matter-of-factnesss. We discussed life for hours. Then we parted ways again. Not knowing if the next time we see each other is in twelve years or never.

The following evening, I crammed myself into an overcrowded tram in lashing rain and tried to interpret the tram map while not falling into a stranger's arms. In a dark restaurant by the river I was greeted by a man with wild, greying hair and beard. Another friend not seen for fifteen years, the last time in an Irish pub where he mocked me relentlessly and forced me to grow intellectually in order to keep up with him.

He told me his dark secrets and then showed me the secrets of Prague. As he kissed me goodbye, he looked as sad as I felt. Fifteen years or how long? Or never again?

April shimmers with promise of new adventures and is a good time to travel. To find long-lost friends. To lose them again.

burned sugar day

A red balloon drifted by my window.

Exhausted by my latest foreign adventure I decided that the world could celebrate May Day without me.

Someone pulled me out into the cold wind anyway. We had Mexican food and traditional Finnish mead, and admired vintage cars. The town smelled of exhaust fumes and burned sugar.

first fiction, then mämmi

I'm sitting here with a red sun, white birds and brownish-black traditional mämmi with cream.

I'm celebrating spring and the red sun, the eve of my birthday, a new router that I managed to install, an upcoming Czech adventure and the fact that I have written seven pages of fiction.

you need to wander

You need to wander the streets when they are warmed by the sun.

Because in a garden somewhere a robin is singing. You might meet a dog that looks at you and smiles. There is a strange house that you have walked past many times and never seen before.

An idea that will change your life will unexpectedly land at your feet. You will feel God walk beside you and say, "Look what I made for you".

The wind will tickle your face with a spicy scent and a knowing. You will turn around on a whim and meet the eyes of the one you have been longing for.

when birds and people sing

April is the month when birds and people start to sing.

The month when I don't have time for the million things that have to be done at this time of the year. Because I have to travel abroad, sit on the balcony, eat cake, smell of sunscreen, have a dizzy feeling, listen to birds and people singing.

true colors shining through

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

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

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

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

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

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

dust, dirt and did you hear that?

March is intense brightness and sunglasses. Melting snow, dust clouds.

It is the first seagull shrieking somewhere high in the sky, people saying "Did you hear that?"

It is dirty windows, awakenings, people with surprised and hopeful looks on their winter-pale faces.

that dark roast feeling

Sometimes I like to sit with my laptop in a coffee house that has an international, trendy look to it. With hipsters, teenagers, young professionals that mutter into smartphones. Ambient house music from the loudspeakers, heavy but soft and seeping into my soul. Coppery yellow lighting. The smell of sugar and dark roast coffee and the feeling that I could be anywhere.

That coffee house has finally arrived in town.

life like melting snow

Urban wellies, grey corduroy, shiny padded jacket. Nerdy-cool librarian glasses, beanie. Confidence.

A walk through wet streets, chanterelle soup in the fragrance-coloured market hall, a dreaming browse in the second-hand shops. Fabrics, letters and glitter passing through my hands. Chocolate cake and life watching. Back-ache. Hope.

Air that looks and feels like melting snow. Sparrows chirping. The last month before the earth wakes up.

I'm thinking back to more exciting days when I laughed in foreign languages. But it is here, in my uneventful town of  melting snow, that I walk the streets in peace and confidence.

one of the many that got away

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

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

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

drop a hornet on my head

It was a day of bright sunshine on snow, a day when I donned my thickest coat and warmest mittens to survive the heart-stopping cold.

The whole city gathered cheerfully to watch a large military parade. Everyone was down at the seafront, many ventured out on the ice. Children were throwing snowballs. People stomped their feet to keep warm, smiled with frost-bitten faces.

Then, time for what everyone was waiting for: The air show performed by a daring pilot in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet. The aircraft thundered in. It danced above our heads for ten minutes or more, in and out of loops and dangerous-looking maneuvres. At times, it pointed its nose down and dived straight towards us with a threatening roar, then pulled up and showed us glowing jet exhausts, the noise increasing to a deafening thunder that had us covering our ears. Sometimes it blew past at an impossible speed, sometimes turned or rose so steeply that it seemed to almost come to a stop.

It was unbelievably impressive. And I was paralyzed with fear. This was exactly the nightmare that I often have. In that nightmare, I'm watching an aircraft circle above me, knowing that it will soon crash right where I'm standing, knowing that I have no chance of escape. And here I was, watching that very plane doing impossible maneuvres that surely would make it drop out of the sky. Watching an F/A-18 coming straight at me with terrifying speed. I remembered every video clip I had ever seen of fighter jets plowing straight into the ground, so fast the camera could barely keep up.

Time to face the fear, then. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. But I wrapped my arms around myself, stood still and forced myself to watch. I can't say that I enjoyed it - but the adrenaline flooding my body surely spiced up the whole experience. I won't forget it.

I have not had the nightmare since then.

recurring dream #6

I am back in my Magic Valley, setting out to explore its wondrous wilderness again. It is beckoning me with its irresistible siren call, this lush and marvellous fairytale forest with hidden brooks, weaving paths and sunlight playing in yet undiscovered glades.

This time, I'm aiming to go further than ever before, beyond the mountains at its far end. I simply must see what lies behind that horizon. I revel in every step of the journey, joyfully discovering new wonders at every turn.

I never get to the mountains. I get held up on the way every time, sometimes by enervating circumstances. Most often by the knowledge that I have to turn back and leave. Because I'm only visiting this, my former home, my paradise lost.

I have to leave, and it's breaking my heart.

cream buns and candy showers

February is sharp days of ice and white, and soft days of water and grey.

It is a suddenly bright sun shining through dirty window. People slipping on wet ice and breaking wrists. Skiers, snowmobile races, kids with snot on their faces. Cream buns and candy showers, winter weariness and spring excitement.

It smells of ice and wet wool and expectation.

February means no longer rising before the sun.

two nights with the nuns

A desk, a chair, a narrow bed with a simple crucifix on the wall above it. It makes me want to kneel and pray for a long time. That is not something I do very often.

There is something in the air. A blessing, maybe, hovering almost within reach.

In the morning, I sigh with happiness over a simple breakfast while nuns are practicing songs in the next room.

Two nights in a monastery and I'm almost a convert.

new worlds in the oldest city

I go to Finland's oldest city and sleep in a monastery.

I wander slowly through the cathedral that ranks among my favourite buildings in all the world, savour the silence beneath its lofty vaults, light a candle, study the ancient tombs for the hundredth time and never want to leave.

I seek shelter from a snowfall and huddle over coffee in a hot and crowded café on the university campus - a comforting place where I used to hide from the challenges of English linguistics and French literature.

I abandon outdoor exploring when the snowfall turns into freezing rain and instead study 700 year old ruins in detail at the archaeological museum and write over a glass of wine in the museum café.

I stroll along the river in cold morning light and get soaked because I cannot get enough of its beauty. I dry out over a pot of coffee and reindeer pie in a hidden pearl of a café.

I deal with the business part of my trip by getting together with other freelancing translators, laugh with strangers over mulled wine and discover yet another strange new world.

I take the train home, as I did a thousand times before.

my Viking blood, my Svea tribe

I am a Finn, and proud of it, but my genes and language spring from the ancient tribe knows as svear, that is, the Swedes.

I am proud of that too. I blame my Viking blood for my longing for adventure, my eyes that always seek out the horizon, the taste of salt on my tongue, my passionate and restless heart, my undaunted belief in the strength of women, my delight in a good party with wild friends.

Freeze the arrow in the air
Make your mark and leave it hanging there ( - Rasmussen: "Higher Ground")

recurring dream #5

I'm living in a house on a beautiful beach, not far from the waterline. It's heaven - but with a threatening undertone from the dangerous sea.

I think I'm scared of life itself - my beautiful dream life full of adventures.