walking on broken glass

I walked on a path of crystal shards through the forest, with a warm sun in my face, and sang "feels just like I'm walking on broken glass". 

These are the days of that particular February phenomenon. The temperature is still around zero but the air can hit you with shocking mildness when you leave the house, making you reel for a moment as if you had just walked into the loveliest of June mornings. The sun is warm, birds are tuning up their first song of the year. 

But everything is still frozen. So you can walk through swampy forests, on rivers, on the sea itself. These are the days of exploring unreachable woods, seeing the city from the sea, walking out to deserted islands ...

I bring my shades and an oatmeal chocolate cookie, lace up boots made for walking on ice, and set out to discover the world.

oh, happy day on a winter night

Hot, spicy coffee from a flask. I set down the lantern I'm carrying and someone puts a sticky-sweet piece of carrot cake in my mittened hands. 

We're having a surprise birthday party on the porch, in the illumination of a dozen lanterns. The snow is thick under our boots, the forest cold and silent around the little house. The darkness of a winter night can't daunt the cheerful chattering around the cake. It is so cold that my toes are going numb but I ignore it - because birthday party in a blizzard! With pandemic and social distancing, you have to get creative. 

We sing "Oh, Happy Day" and among the half-strangers around me I suddenly recognise voices from my favourite choir, thirty years ago. I have known the birthday boy just as long, and his smile warms my heart like it has for decades. 

I hope the roads won't have snowed in before it's time to leave.

hazy at the edges

Butterscotch, caramel and vanilla is the colour of my hair these days. The world is too dry and hazy at the edges. How did it become so small? Are there still foreign and wonderful things out there, beyond my horizon of snowy fir trees and winter clouds?

I want to stay in bed, reading books.

frosty urban art

Art exhibitions usually do not touch me. 

Unless they immerse me completely in the atmosphere of an unknown world. Like an urban art exhibition in an abandoned, dilapidated  amusement park, in the heart of an arctic winter.

Lights flicker as I stumble through concrete tunnels, shivering with cold. Behind spotlights illuminating the splashy colours of graffiti all over crumbling walls, I glimpse sagging roof beams and broken electrical wiring. Cheerful, rusting signposts still advertise amusement rides. Over the dusty shelves of an old shooting gallery, an artist has made a statement by hanging toy bunnies by their necks from the ceiling. 

There are mouse droppings, broken glass and snow that has drifted in. And unexpectedly, small rooms full of pink fluff and fairy lights.

In the Haunted House, everything gleams under black light in the winding tunnels - stars and planets, skeleton hands and spiders, Oriental art and wrinkled posters shouting "Cancel Commercial Christmas".

Outside, narrow paths wind through thick snow from one building to another, every wall covered in exuberant graffiti artwork. An icy wind whistles between creaking doors and broken windows, the midwinter sunset twisting shadows. 

It is minus ten degrees Celsius and my fingers go numb when I take off my mittens to take pictures. It is glorious.

comfort songs, part two

Little bit of love
When you're down and out, your heart is breaking
Little bit of love
And with every single smile you're faking it
Little bit of love

I got a little bit of love

(JP Cooper: Little Bit Of Love) 

comfort songs

Then you came my way on a winter's day
Shouted loudly come out and play
Can't you tell I've got news for you
Sun is shining and so are you

And we're gonna be alright, dry your tears and hold tight

(Axwell & Ingrosso: Sun Is Shining)

2021: the year of seven red stars on the horizon

 * New Year in a quiet, pandemic-strangled world. Good company, fortune-telling, sparklers and home-brewed strawberry wine.

* New Year resolution: read more non-fiction books on history, science and psychology. (Failed.)

* Study circle on theology, society, politics, cultural movements and general trends through history, in a chilly church attic.

* "If your car was human it would be in a psychiatric hospital by now," said the guy who tried to fix it. He fixed it in the end, without quite knowing how. (Possibly through reverse psychology.)

* Exploration of the family tree together with a third cousin once removed ... or something (a.k.a. the friend who's always sworn we're not related despite sharing a surname).

* Cold, sunny February days with sunbathing and coffee on the balcony, bread-baking over open fire in a silent forest, walking for miles on frozen seas.

* Office news: an office puppy and a new desk overlooking a forest that has wolves and deer in it.

* Another lockdown, meaning lots of take-away lunches and squeezing in only six participants at my mother's birthday party. 

 * Colour Conference live online, with participants from 111 nations. I think I saw God.

* Weekend in Tampere with vintage cognac and a lovely motorcycle trip around icy lakes.

* Expert knowledge diploma in personal protective equipment.

* Hike around Kyrkösjärvi lake, feasting on cold pizza and hot coffee at a swampy lake with the sun and the birds.

* Three-day birthday celebration: hotdogs over open fire in a chilly sunset with friends, chocolate meatballs with other friends and a unicorn, luxury chocolate cake with family.

* "Vappen" spring celebration with mojito and a friend - in sun and snow, hence with sunglasses and woollen mitts.

* Barbecue in a fire pit under a mild May sun. Came home with two gargoyles.

* Loss of a warden tree (the linden outside my window). Instead, seven new red stars were lit on the horizon seen from my summer place (wind turbines).

* Boat trip halfway across the sea to Sweden on the first day of summer. Exploring a sun-kissed island, the sea smooth as a mirror, and felt that life couldn't possibly be any better.

* Hikes in the woods of Vörå and Pensala, getting hopelessly lost among the mosquitos and pondering the cruelties of war.

* Midsummer with the Midsummer People, barbecue, strawberries, croquet, deep talks and planting a clematis.

* Boat trip to the nearest island. Hot sun, dark-roast coffee and chocolate, swimming among a million tiny flowers.

* Summer with rosé wine in gardens, pizza and travel plans, grilled perch on sunny patios, ice-cold Russian winter movies in bed when it's too hot to sleep.

* Holiday in one of my favourite cities, reveling in good memories and walking too much.

* Summer morning cycling, excellent new habit that couldn't last.

* Alternative and delicious lunch break: greasy burgers among ancient ruins, then a museum and coffee.

* American visitors and fascinating cultural discussions on a sunset beach.

* Road trip to Kalajoki, Raahe, Kajaani, Iisalmi with friend. We sang our way through a landscape dotted with wind turbines, watched a beachvolley tournament among hot sand dunes, chatted to Germans, found an unexpected piece of Russia.

* One-day road trip to Bergö with mother, a ferry ride and homemade icecream.

* Motorcycle gang invasion in my quiet summer paradise. I treated them to tacos and a game of volleyball.

* Walk along an endless beach to an island but didn't find the ancient labyrinth I was promised.

* Motorcycle ride with hundreds of others, just to have a coffee.

* Park bench moment with another misfit, singing hymns out loud.

* Memorable evening in the wilderness with my sister, a movie and a starry sky.

* End of my fifteen-year-long mission as interpretation coordinator in church.

* Trip to Tampere again, with hardships when the car broke down. City life, MacGyver, a church service and a lovely garden with free apples.

* The year's only journey abroad: to the Swedish coast by ferry, in a storm. We looked at the foreign country through the rain-lashed windows as we feasted on seafood.

* Walk across a swamp. Happened upon a childhood friend not seen for years, then experimented with driving a quad bike.

* Weekend in Helsinki with second-hand shopping, Sherlock Holmes on stage, sightseeing by tram.

* The theatre again, for the second time in a week since I was feeling pandemic-deprived. Exquisite monologue by a young girl.

* Poodle-sitting weekend. Poodle getting old and deaf.

* Hair colour adjustment towards the colour of autumn fields.

* Stamp collection analysis. (Embarrassed to admit I have a stamp collection.).

* Three concerts in three December weeks, starved for music and old songs in Latin. With covid certificates and face masks.

* Christmas party with gourmet food, a wine glass that never ran dry and discussions about the possible advantages of gold teeth.

* Candle-making with office people and a cute collie.

* Adventurous Christmas in a blizzard of epic proportions, seriously doubting I would ever make it to Christmas dinner.

* First Christmas night and Christmas Day ever in complete solitude.

* Post-Christmas party with old friends and a man I thought I had stopped loving.

* New Year's eve with covid testing and quarantine.

General phenomena: Pandemic restrictions coming and going, face masks and vaccinations, looking after mother, lots of writing and reading and Netflix, tired summer and lazy autumn, middle-aged feelings.

Couldn't do (for at least half of the year): travelling, plays and concerts, church services except online, volleyball and pilates. But during the times that I could: 4 museums, 3 concerts, 2 plays.

New ideas: see all the castles in Finland and beyond, learn to braid my hair properly, learn to cook lentil stew, buy a SUP board.

Weird weather phenomena: ice storm (that I had to drive in, after peeling a thick ice shell off my car), snow storm with pink Sahara sand in it, thunder and lightning in snowy December.

in quarantine with Aslan

New Year's Eve. Last night I shivered uncomfortably in bed, this morning a nurse stuck a cotton swab up my nostril and poked around in my brain. So this New Year's Eve I'm celebrating completely on my own, in quarantine just in case. Not something I usually do.

But I have halloumi pasta, a glass of whiskey and the complete Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan the lion is singing a new world into being as colours rain down and a beeswax candle is dripping.

 

The Lion opened his mouth, but no sound came from it; he was breathing out, a long, warm breath; it seemed to sway all the beasts as the wind sways a line of trees. Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children's bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying:

"Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."

never such a blizzard before

It was like a Christmas movie. The heroine puts her frail, elderly mother in the car together with all the Christmas gifts and takes off for the holiday celebrations with family. Only to be hit by a blizzard, take a turn a little too fast and ending up in a snow drift. Stuck, with spinning wheels.

That was how my Christmas started. I have driven cars in blizzards before and thought I knew how, but this one defeated me. I jumped out of the car in my long skirt and beautiful white coat. The snow was up to my knees and soaked through my boots. People stopped to help. Lots of people. (Faith in human kindness restored right there!) My little car proved exceptionally stubborn, refusing to budge even when large men fearlessly jumped into the snowdrift to shovel snow and push for all they were worth.

Had this actually been a Christmas movie, one of those men would have turned out to be the man I eventually married. Well, no. But we got the car out in the end. 

I drove the rest of the way to my sister's house, only a minute away. There was still zero visibility and I had to guess where the road was. I hit another snowdrift and almost buried the car in it. I managed to get it out with some difficulty. My mother wisely declined to comment, beyond an initial gasp. Then I had to slow down for the turn into my sister's yard. Stuck again. Family members cleared away loose snow to help. I managed the last turn and parked. 

I collected my mother and the Christmas gifts, peeled off wet clothes, asked my sister for a pair of dry socks, brushed icicles out of my hair with as much dignity I could muster. And sat down for a delicious Christmas dinner, smiling.

hyacinths and the not-normal existence

I bought a third hyacinth just to make sure the scent stays in my home over Christmas. The pandemic takes another chokehold on society and sometimes I gasp from lack of air, a little. 

Then I remember that a normal life in a normal society never appealed to me that much anyway. As a kid I made up games in the garden or in the woods, sometimes after dark, where I was an outlaw hiding in the wilderness or a rebel spy on an undercover mission. As an idealistic teenager I believed God wanted to send me on an adventure. So I starved in the jungle, viewed instant noodles as the pinnacle of luxury and slept in the company of cockroaches and water buffalos, in order to help God save souls.

Now I'm a settled citizen, with a regular income. I expect lunch to be more than noodles, a generous Christmas gift from my employer, a heated flat with a view, more than one hyacinth on the coffee table.

But I remember that God, probably while rolling his eyes, helped me through those days of lonely games in the woods and heroical starving among the cockroaches. Even my most cynical self suspects he didn't intend me to grow fat in a flat with a view, surrounded by hyacinths, for the rest of my life. Perhaps the uncertainty and frustration will drag me away from Netflix and remind me that I can't save souls but I could at least pay attention to them. There are good news to go tell.

darkness was upon the face of the deep

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

(Genesis 1)

a month in outer space

December is like outer space: cold enough to freeze your heart in an instant, dark enough to obliterate hope. A billion tiny lights and a lot of emptiness.

What keeps my heart from freezing: those lights, prayers, sparrows, hyacinths, ancient traditions, the beauty of ice, concerts where choirs sing old songs in Latin.

Also, a daylight lamp, lots and lots of books and the anticipation of a chocolate-covered holiday.

oddly carrying a book

I like walking through town on a winter's night, late, when cars are parked messily because of the piles of snow everywhere and the sidewalk is only a winding path through thick snowdrifts. When all sounds are muted and there is that odd, cold smell of ice, the smell that must have come all across space from the other end of the galaxy. When streetlights illuminate a deserted world. When I'm covered in layers of clothing that hamper my movements and I constantly have to tug my hat further down over my unruly hair to cover freezing ears.

Even better, then, if I in my mitten-covered hand carry a book. I like the feeling of a book in my hand. I like the idea of reading books, sometimes even more than actually reading. Preferably I should be on my way home from a book club, with my head filled with profound thoughts awakened by books and book lovers. I like the feeling of being odd, carrying a real book around - I'm an anachronism and should be dressed in tweed and smoking a pipe. I like the possibility of a stranger looking at me and thinking, "There's another one! I thought I was the only one who still reads."

silk shirts in snow

November is a cemetery full of candles for the dead, one of them mine. A cold mist of weariness, stifling dreams. A creative flow slowing into a muddy, fetid pool. Snow turning to rain, dancing to backache.

It is also a warm bed, peppermint tea and fantasy novels to carry you off into worlds of spices and love. 

It is a burst of fighting spirit, hiking boots and silk shirts.

trams, haunted castles, the world

I travelled through most of Helsinki by tram last weekend. That was a good weekend.

Add to that a good friend, a murder mystery comedy play at the theatre, a cute café on a cold day, large bookstores, people-watching and world-watching and the kind of deliciously outerworldly clothes you only find in big cities. And a glass of wine in a haunted castle, bent over a book on local architecture.

The last time I was in Helsinki was just before the pandemic hit. I spent those days elbowing my way through dense crowds of people, all crammed together to enjoy a light show festival. Today nobody would even think of getting close enough to a stranger to breathe in their personal space. The city seemed a little more subdued. But eager to rise again.

I wore a face mask, and sometimes forgot it. That's the in-between time we live in right now. And I realised how much I have missed travelling, trams, the theatre, haunted castles, the world.

through a storm and almost to Sweden

I have made it something of a life principle. To leave Finland at least once a year for a trip to foreign lands. Sometimes it has been only a quick nip across the border to Stockholm or Tallinn (panicking, in December) or a visit to my second home Ireland which is not really a foreign land, but still.

I boast about doing this for the last thirty years, with an exception for the year I grieved for my father and couldn't seem to make it anywhere.

Last year, the time had come for an epic journey to Italy. Needless to say, the pandemic had other plans. Even this year, it didn't seem wise to do anything more than a couple of staycations. After all, Finland has plenty to see.

But I did get to cross an international border, thanks to my employer who took the work team on a mini-cruise across the pond to the Swedish city of Umeå. We didn't actually go ashore, there wasn't time. But I got to see the Swedish coast, which was being lashed by a heavy storm and icy rain. It felt like a victory after a year and a half of closed borders. 

The ferry is small but brand-new and boasts of being the latest in green technology. It has the most lavish and delicious seafood buffet I have ever experienced. Fortunately, I had worked my way through the caviar, salmon and prawn cakes to the sea buckthorn parfaits and white chocolate mousses of the dessert table before the storm started to toss the boat too seriously. I had also had my fill of letting my hair fly loose in the gales on the "sun" deck and breathing in the cold, salty air, with the exhilaration that only comes in the middle of a storm on the open sea.

I managed to win a quiz despite near-seasickness - my boss and I tied for first place - and then retired to the cozy bar for a white russian and some dozing. So this was my foreign adventure in 2021. Could Italy be much better? I doubt it.

last night, and all the stars are there

Just as it was getting a little too cold for another weekend in the summer cottage, I went back there one more time. 

My addiction made me go. Addiction to the silence of the old fir trees, silvery and dripping with cold rain, and to the hooting of swans gathered in the darkening bay.

The grass and the alder trees were going grey, looking weary and old. Birches were turning a cold lemon colour. The sea had the unforgiving shade of chilly steel, making me shiver just to look at it.

I did a bit of work, huddled up under a scratchy blanket with my laptop and feeding firewood into the stove. I pulled on a thick hoodie and cleared away the remnants of the bonfire we had on the beach the weekend before, the end-of-summer weekend. I read a novel, solved a few crosswords, wrote a little fiction, and slept the sleep of the blessed as the night chill crept back into the cottage.

That intense solitude, far from other people, never really feels like loneliness. But there is an aching melancholia in the autumn stillness when birds leave and everything goes to sleep for a long, frozen winter, when all life withdraws into a tiny core that is hard to see or hear. So I was delighted when my sister showed up on the second day.

That night was one of the highlights of the year, better even than the balmy summer evenings we have spent together in the same environment. Perhaps because of the September darkness, which descends so unforgivingly with absolute blackness and turns the cottage into a tiny beacon of light and warmth at the edge of a vast and unknown space.

We pooled our resources of chocolate, crisps, nuts and melon slices, uncorked a large bottle of sparkling lemon water. Then we squeezed into a narrow single bed to watch National Treasure, a favourite movie, on the laptop. Outside, the night was a black abyss but the fire spread a comforting warmth and the dog snored at our feet.

Before retiring to our own beds, we went down to the beach at midnight. We turned off the flashlight and let our bodies adjust to the icy darkness.

All the stars in the universe frolicked around us. The bay had gone still and invisible, ringed by forests. The atonal hooting of the many swans nearby turned into a concert of flutes and oboes and bassoons, its echoes travelling five miles to the opposite shore and returning unhindered, waves upon waves. A goose or two inserted a raspy contribution. Something that went unseen and unheard by us suddenly scared all these large birds and hundreds of them took flight at once. We could see nothing in the darkness and just gasped at the eerie sound of heavy feathers beating the air, as if the timpanist of this odd orchestra had suddenly got into his thunderous solo.

We retired to warm beds and happy dreams. When welcoming the autumn, it's best to do it with a sister.

how open and wide the sky

As a city-dweller I'm always awed when I'm dropped in the middle of the countryside. 

I'm amazed by the forest, the fields, the quiet villages that seem completely deserted even though they are not. Amazed by nature. How immense it is, how silent, how open and wide the sky, how empty and yet teeming with trees and plants of every size and description, bursting with life even when nobody is looking or noticing or benefiting.

How peaceful, how wild, how unstoppable and uncontrollable, how independent of man.

twirling between silver and gold

Chilly rain, lots of work, hair pulled away from the face. 

A taste for sugar, tired mornings, trying to get back on track. 

A motorcycle ride, Matisse and Gauguin, a yard sale with cupcakes.

And a coat in the exact shade between silver and gold, twirling around me like a superhero cape.

summer moments, the good ones

Reveling in summer heat by the glittering sea, sun and salt and blue nailpolish on my bare toes, as my mother naps in the cottage nearby.

Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries with cream and sugar, dark coffee in old mugs, singing "Happy Birthday" and meaning it.

Lighting a candle and watching a film, wrapped in a wool blanket older than me, while the rain pounds on the roof.

Falling asleep in the white nights of June or the pitch-black nights of August, in the peaceful silence of the forest.

Making banana pancakes while kitchen windows steam up from the heat of the frying pan, the smell of fruit and vanilla filling the air.

Making the same lame jokes as we've done for years, around a red table as twilight falls and the dog is trying to sleep.

Staring out to sea and the silhouette of the islands, knowing they are always there for me, holding on to my happy memories and my melancholia.

Walking along a tiny forest road, feeling the weight of the mystery, feeling the peace.