Summers and solitude, winters and wistfulness. God, Arctic snow and strawberries.
Smiling over cups of sunshine coffee.
Crying over chirping baby birds.
Wrestling with old thundercloud worries.
Suffocating of rage and shame on on hot, sleepless nights.
Falling into the euphoria of a breeze through flower fields.
There are so many emotions in a summer.
A party for a 92-year-old in an old attic, with photos from the 30s and family skeletons dug up (not literally).
An Easter Sunday dentist's appointment, the St John Passion, volunteering at a church youth conference and being ridiculously extrovert. Helsinki weekend with art, natural history museum and a lazy Seurasaari walk.
Poetry night in a wine bar. A loud gospel concert that included "This Little Light Of Mine" (a favourite). Reanimation of our book club, taking apart Gatsby in an Irish pub.
Birthday weekend with naked cake and three parties. 100-year anniversary celebration for a church - a hundred years of music, lovely people and some weird opinions.
Last part of coach training - creating a relaxation program, speed-writing a speech, saying heart-breaking goodbyes. And doing a lot of coaching. Insights: I can do public speaking and may even want to, I crave intellectual challenge, and coaching real people is hard.
The spring ended with almost a crash - stress and exhaustion, grief over my uncle's death, trauma over sudden illness in the family (again).
I've been strong for too long. I stagger into summer, weakly, in tears.
Two years of slow studying have come to an end.
Yesterday we gathered around snacks, a strawberry champagne bottle, speeches, roses, choked laughter.
The Fellowship of the Nine has walked through self-doubt, attitude changes, insights, breathing exercises, goal orientation exercises, concentration exercises, speaking exercises, stress and fears and phobias, giggled stories, tears, a lot of theory, even a spot of quantum physics. And questions, questions, questions, asked and answered. Problems solved and problems brought to the surface.
The slow studying wasn't very slow after all. I have filled hundreds of pages with notes, typed the same notes into my laptop, read and reread books, and coached clients - real people with real and complicated needs.
I have learned that horizontal breathing is vital, stress is fear, behaviour springs from needs, my need is to be seen and heard, to coach is to ask questions - and that I can break a pencil using only one finger.
These two years are over - and every single one of us seemed ready to howl with grief.
A woman sparkles. She's not young, she's gorgeous. She's not lonely, she's praying.
Her past is filled with adventures like novels crammed onto overflowing bookshelves. Her time is spent studying how to grow beauty in a wintry city, like a lantern, like joy in darkened eyes. Her neighbour is the sea, glittering with marvels, and the forest, lush with birch trees and stars and howling wolves. Her nights are dreams, her days are birdsong and tears.
She walks ancient paths towards a garden of delight. When she falls and breaks, she takes the hand that pulls her up. She loses herself in a fantasy where she dances on the edge of the atmosphere, wrapped in soft scarves.
She throws parties with wine and chocolate. She cooks weird dishes from her youth in a tiny kitchen. She overflows. She goes missing. She shows up to help. She asks for help.
She's an explorer, a listener, a story collector and a story.
She rewrites her life with a miraculous, courageous pen. And it's all true, because love has extinguished fear.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)
Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. (Jeremiah 6:16)
Helsinki, a Sunday afternoon. Exhausted after days of sightseeing, shopping, museums and city life in general.
I dose in chilly sunlight on the back porch of my hotel, waiting out the last half hour before I catch the train. I wish I was already on it. I wish I was already home. Staring at a greyish lawn, I'm comforted by the sight of the first spring flowers poking through old grass.
I used to visit my sister in the big city over a weekend. Sunday afternoons were quiet in Helsinki back then. They still are, at least in this residential area far from the bustling city centre. Sunlight over dusty streets, dog walkers, children laughing in the park, the occasional tram rattling past.
I feel the same weariness as back then, when we made our way to the train station where my sister would wave me off. Sundays in Helsinki have always been like this.
Weariness always make me feel lost. As if I don't know my way home. I try to hold on to everything that feels comforting. The thought of those weekends long ago, of my hotel bed last night, of my sister's face, of spring flowers in my mother's garden.
I envy the people walking by, people with dogs and children and homes nearby. I envy myself in the past.
This winter was cold enough to crack the stars, swirl crystal dust all over blue sunsets and plant ice rainbows in the middle of a frozen sea.
My first coaching clients patiently endured my attempts to help. A well-worn copy of Non-Violent Communication turned my worldview upside down. Among my mother's clothes, I found 14 berets. Something pulled me into church on Sundays.
Accordion music reverbated through my senses at a community Christmas party. A trip to Umeå soaked me in rain, greyness, books, deep conversations with my best friend, trendy food, strange art, the Swedish language and an involuntary bus tour through all the suburbs.
I dived desperately into a week's Christmas holiday, celebrated two shining family dinners, had champagne on New Year's Eve. Snow covered the rest of the season. I froze my toes at a graffiti exhibition in an abandoned railway warehouse in the depth of winter. Qvevri wine with a hearty Georgian meal warmed me up, as well as a noisy pub night with friends.
The Olympic Games convinced me that ice-skaters are the most impressive athletes. A rereading of my favourite crime writer got me through February and a consultation with my coaching teacher got me through my own doubts.
I emerge out of another winter, as always bleary-eyed and surprised. The cold melts under a rosy sun.
Cold air creeping closer. Blue shadows stretching across white ice fields. Electricity is very expensive today.
I can't go out because it's minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and I really want to go for a walk.
I wish it were still Christmas, but I look forward to a Shrove Tuesday bun.
My work today included reflective harness design, website spelling mistakes, birth injuries.