summer of 2026: santa claus, lizards and princesses

This summer saw me walking around in jeans and a hoodie, tired and looking for the sun.

I pondered the fact that not only my job, but my entire profession, might soon be gone - and I was too tired to worry.

I bought an electrical hotplate and a new phone, frightened a lizard, captured a snake in a bucket, played with a solar eclipse and smiled at a princess.

I attended garden parties with lots of elderly people and sang old songs under apple trees.

Road trip to a village in the middle of nowhere, for a funeral. Explored back roads, a poet's spring, a robber's den, family history and the Finnish summer together with my sister.

Quiet midsummer celebration with only my sister in our favourite place.

Start of annual vacation: celebrating the day of Duncker with a deafening cannon salute and pouring rain.

Exploring Nykarleby, Vexala, Jakobstad, Karleby, Hästöskatan and Kimo, with family members and alone. 

Road trip to the Torne Valley, and Lapland. Santa Claus Village and the Arctic Circle feel very strange in a heatwave of 30 degrees Celsius.

Renovation project: steaming wallpaper and painting a room, totally overthinking the whole thing.

Summer dinner with my coaching classmates, missing them madly just a few weeks after graduation.

18th century market at the starting point of the Cudgel War.

Beachvolley weekend in Tampere with my beachvolley friends, sushi and red wine.

Coffee with my first best friend, rarely seen in the last 25 years. None of us had changed.

End of summer celebration, for the first time ever alone. A rainy evening, grilling vegetarian sausages on the stove in a cabin, with cookies and sangria and a peaceful feeling.

dream/plan/reality

Slow mornings, with birds following my walk to the bus stop.

Giving my attention to the world, not the screen. 

Booking a trip, walking a dog, living in love and trust.

teenager with labrador

Old diaries are usually cringe-inducing. At least if they were written by an introspective, verbiose teenage girl who needed to write down all the things she never voiced among others. Especially if she was in love and the object didn't know and didn't care.

But this time I'm rereading my past with gentler eyes. Instead of a downtrodden, cowardly girl I see a thirteen-year-old who refused to back down in the face of bullies. She chose integrity, kindness and truth even when it cost her dearly. She took her stance in silence when she didn't dare to speak up. She was naive, sometimes judgmental and didn't always know how to treat her friends well, but she mostly tried to do the right thing.

She was also a joyful, playful soul who wanted to make people laugh.

She asked God to make her strong, and God - or her parents - gave her a labrador retriever. The puppy grew into a wild and headstrong dog. Learning how to handle him, the girl grew muscles and willpower - and self-confidence.

so many emotions in a summer

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.

final report of spring 2026

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.

asking questions, breaking pencils

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.

she walks ancient paths

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)