dawn darkest

Winter solstice and I am watching the dawn. Half past nine and we are only halfway to daylight. I wonder what they call this shade of blue?

All I want to do today is plant myself in a coffee shop and watch the Christmas shoppers.

good enough to smile at

Lambrusco and after-swim calm, Dido on the CD player and darkness outside. Persistent hunger and guilt. A candle and a few sparse Christmas decorations, an SMS from a friend. I should do laundry, wrap Christmas presents and get a good job. I want someone to love and that thrilling feeling inside. My money disappears and I can't stand any more good advice. I will take time to think. I pour another glass of wine and tell myself that life is here and now and it's good enough for now, good enough to smile at.

As soon as a good song comes on, I will make a dance floor out of my living room and forget the worries queuing outside my door. Because what more do I need?

I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea
to travel the world alone and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
cos there's really nothing left here to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
well I deserve nothing more than I get
cos nothing I have is truly mine

(Dido)

laughing and killing in the Now

My adorable little nephew and my painfully cute little niece are trying to scratch each other's eyes out. I'm trying to keep them as far apart as possible but no distance is too great for sibling ire.

Still, how can anyone not love this little angels, however avenging they are? Children amaze me - they are always so in the Now. Everything is vitally important: a toy, a loose tooth, a best friend in kindergarten, the painful and exuberant waiting for Santa Claus - in this moment, this is all that exists in the entire universe. Every joy is without limits and every betrayal a mortal wound. There is no perspective- if your brother gets a slightly larger piece of the chocolate cake you wail over the injustice of the universe because you cannot understand that the next time the larger piece will be yours, or you will grow up and earn a larger salary than him so it all evens out in the end... The pain of childhood: you fight for your happiness at every moment and if you fail there is no consolation.

As an adult, I find myself for the first time thankful that I know not only the highs but the lows. By now, I know that what feels like the end of the world is not necessary that. I know that this too will pass.

I only wish it wouldn't apply the other way: I'm too well aware of the fact that the present joy will fade or be crushed. I have decided to fight this - my moments of joy and happiness I will savour as if it was my last day on earth. Because one hour of joy compensates for a day of sorrow.

I think my niece and nephew would agree, but they are busy killing each other right Now.

stormgazer, elf and other career options

Stormgazer. That's what I'm going to be when I've tired of being a candlestick maker. I'm practicing right now, in the comfort of my own armchair, while an autumn storm is hurling rain and rattling the windows. I don't recognise this December. Where is the snow? The cold? The glitter of Christmas Future? This is November still, outstaying its welcome, suffocating the season's cheer in its all consuming darkness.

I have been buried under a pile of work and existential angst. The smiles of some people helped me crawl out again - while the smiles of others, uncomprehending, only heaped more weights onto my burden.

But I am standing up again. Determined to be strong, true, beautiful, wise.

Stormgazer, yes. Or maybe I could be an angel. I have more career ideas now than when I was trying to make my choice on education and profession. If I could find a cheap flight to Middle Earth I would go there and become an Elf and talk to the trees. I stood in the forest one day not long ago and listened to the silence and actually hugged a tree (after carefully checking that I was alone). A strong, silent, comforting tree.

How I wished I could hear its song.

sad and weary satellite

One more time, a "no". Bizarre how such a small word can completely drain you of all energy.

So I keep wandering around the dark periphery, fighting the demons of bitterness and self-pity, enviously circling the glittering people who know how to smile and give and feel hope. They reach out to me, sometimes. But they don't know darkness and can never reach far enough. I can't blame them - who would want to risk leaving the bright centre to face the terrors here?

When I turn away from the brightness I notice that there are others out here. Lost souls with despair in their eyes, some even further out in the wilderness than I. Sometimes - just sometimes, when I can find the strength - I manage to clasp the hand of one of them, and we share our pitiful warmth for a while. If I could pull one of them just a little bit closer to the light, maybe it's all worth it.

dissenters welcome

Annoyed.

Some bloggers write interesting, provoking entries that beg for comments and differing opinions... and then they don't allow comments on their blogs except for those of their "team members" (a chosen few who they can trust to agree with everything).

That is like stating your controversial opinion and then covering your ears. "Lalala, I'm not listening!"

Cowards.

Anyone don't agree with this, feel absolutely free to comment!

a tale from the quest for China

One of my first friends ever was a little boy, full of energy and action and wicked little ideas.

He got it into his head that we would dig a hole in the ground in the backyard of his house. If we dug far enough, he convinced me, we would eventually emerge on the other side of the earth, which is China. "Really?" said I, eyes wide.

We had to be very careful though, because the devil lives underground, and he might find his way out through our hole. If he did, we would be in a lot of trouble.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this at all," I said in a slightly trembling voice.

"Don't worry," my friend reassured me and handed me an old ice hockey helmet. "If you wear this, he can't hurt you."

I fastened the helmet carefully, and as a typical representative of the weaker sex watched in awe as he enthusiastically worked the frozen ground with his little spade. His own helmet he carelessly left lying on the ground beside him. I admired his courage.

Ever since I was five years old I have  believed everything men tell me.  Lately, I have experienced doubt. But I still admire their courage.


Epilogue: We never reached China. Fortunately, we saw no sign of the devil either. My friend tired of the digging after a while and we went indoors to ask his mother for hot chocolate.

breathe just one more time

How astonishing it seems to me. That so many people survive an ordinary day. Survive disease, accidents, natural disasters, the evil of other people, the evil all around us, the dreariness of our little lives, the destructive obsessions of our own minds, the failure of our pathetically beating heart in the darkest hour of the night.

That even in the devil's bedroom we find a thing of beauty, something to laugh at through our tears, a human being to give a scrap of love.

That even in the hour of our death we fight with with teeth and claws and scream our last breath in a desperate will to live.

What an overwhelmingly powerful life source there must be somewhere.


"God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life."
"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me."

ode to Father Jack

I used to be a friend of the drunks. A random collection of red-nosed, old and middle-aged men who every day came to prop up the bar at the little Irish hotel where I worked. Some arrived as soon as the bar opened in the morning. They came to chat to each other, to watch a rugby game on the sports channel, to sit alone in a corner brooding, but most of all to drink. A few of them were drunk enough to fall off their bar stool by mid-afternoon but few of them did. Irish men have drinking stamina. Still, many of them had to be carried home when the bar closed.

At first, I carefully avoided them. I had experience of Finnish men who had attained the same state of drunkenness, their tendency to drape themselves over any female in a rather demanding way and whispering things to you that you'd rather not hear. But the Irish alcoholics were different. Their flattering comments to the young, female receptionist were suggestive but with an undertone of genuine admiration and it was difficult to take offense. Equally irresistible was their undisguised joy whenever somebody stopped to exchange a few friendly words with them.

Before long, I had made friends with all of them. On my way through the bar I usually stopped to say hello and ask them how they were. If I came in there on my day off, one or two of them would always buy me a drink and we would chat about anything and everything - if they were still sober enough for coherent speech and thought. My prejudice against the typical drunk disintegrated after a few of these chats and I was astonished at the things I discovered. These alcoholics had nothing in common with each other apart from the fact that they happened to live in the same village, but they all seemed to be poets, musicians, successful businessmen, skilled craftsmen, philosophers - nothing they usually boasted about, just a fact that emerged during the course of our occasional chats. Sometimes I thought that I had discovered a normal, archetypal drunk with a boring job and the usual, boring life details, just to discover that he knew more about the symbolism in Hamlet or some detail in my own country's history than I did. They were always interested in what I had to say, asked about my family, lent a sympathetic ear whenever I had boyfriend trouble.

I forget - they did have one more thing in common. A storm that had crushed them at some point in their life, an impossible obstacle that had stopped them in their tracks. Or just a debilitating feeling of loneliness. Whether it was really a dead end they had encountered or just a minor problem they hadn't dared to face, to me it seemed a terrible tragedy. Such talented people, hiding from life in the smoky darkness of a country pub.

I like my friends sober. But great wisdom and great mysteries have been whispered to me by the people nobody listens to anymore, through a cloud of alcohol fumes.

twilight and sleep

Twilight refuses to yield to daylight today. I don't want to get out of bed. Not lazy, just deep-down, body-and-soul weary. There is winter inside me and like the daylight that never came, the life inside me cannot be woken today. It's time to hibernate.

But beneath the greyness, the sea takes on a surprisingly turquoise-green hue.

the party-pooper's daydream

Fog is good. It blurs the edges and protects you from the harsh reality. There is an empty world outside my window, comforting as a wool blanket.

Going to a party tonight. One of those safe, alcohol-free birthday bashes with cake and tea, mounds of chocolate sweets, cheerful people who all know each other. Nothing wrong with it. But I feel a familiar antipathy rising within me. I will arrive and feel as if I'm a decade older and wiser than anybody else (not true at all but facts have nothing to do with it) and sit in a corner and be bored and wish for lightning to strike.

If I'm lucky I will find a fascinating person to whisper secrets to. Alternatively, I will be seized by recklessness caused by boredom and spend the evening scattering witty or absurd remarks around me, making people helpless with laughter. This behaviour is completely uncharacteristic for me but my longing for excitement sometimes backfires on me and acts like a powerful intoxicating drug. A cheap high.

Why do we always go to parties expecting a personal reward? Can I not go there with the objective to give? My idealism fights against my cynicism.

a candlestick maker with all the spices

I have decided I want to be a candlestick maker. I like the way it sounds - artistic, bohemian but safe.

I am a person who falls in love with words. I got tired of the taste of vanilla latte a long time ago but I still order it in my local coffee shop. Hopelessly addicted to the word 'vanilla'.

I can't eat very spicy food but I enjoy the taste of the spice names on my tongue. Just muttering "cinnamon, basil, pepper, nutmeg, saffron, rosemary..." to myself improves my mood considerably.

so close, so very invisible

I wish God would show himself. Apparently it's not his style. Sometimes I get the feeling he is right behind me - but I can't turn around fast enough to catch a glimpse.

another world, where I make stew

To have travelled. That is the greatest blessing and achievement of my life so far. When I think of my adventures in other countries, other life situations, they seem remote and unreal as memories of dreams. As if they happened to me, but another me, in alternate universes.

Intriguing. I sometimes have flashbacks to these alternate universes, unprompted. This morning, as I yawned and tried to talk myself into leaving my lovely, warm bed and get started on today's work, I suddenly saw myself in a large French country-house kitchen.

It's a hot July day, a few years ago, in the district of Champagne, France. Outside, a landscape of rolling fields of corn, wheat and vines, dotted by the occasional oil pump, is dozing in the heat of the sun. Inside the old stone house, it's cool except for the heat radiated by the generously sized oven where lunch for a dozen people is cooking. A young me is emerging from the narrow stairs leading up from the basement - a cellar where the damp is dripping off stone walls - with a few long baguettes, the genuine, one-and-only French bread clutched in her arms.

The chef, a broad-chested, husky-voiced Frenchwoman, is looking into the oven with a frown on her face. I deposit the bread on the wooden table and come to stand beside her. Together we gaze at the courgette stew in the oven, boiling over and spreading courgette juice laced with white wine all over the oven. I, who don't speak much French, make an effort and manage to put two words together to state the obvious: "Ça coule." It's running over.

"Oui. Ça coule," agrees the chef gravely. Together, we ponder the state of life, universe and the stew for a while.
This is the glimpse of a memory of a dream of another life in another world that I got this morning. I was delighted.

a gift of darkness for my dearest friend

My friend calls me, crying over the phone. I try to console but feel helpless. At least I can offer her my listening, and she thanks me for it.

"Ring me when you are in pain the next time," she urges me. I promise.

The next day, I am in pain and in the deepest darkness of the soul. But I don't call her, even though I know she would listen with sincere sympathy. I lie alone in the dark and cry. I withdraw like a wounded animal. How can I look for consolation from my friends? How would that help? I am scared to let them see me weep.

I must learn to share my pain. I know there is something healing in the process even though I don't understand it yet. A true friend needs to see the real you.

I may not call her next time I cry in the dark. But maybe the day after I will share with her a little piece of what is haunting me. As a start, a genuine offering from my heart. I will give her my most precious possession, the one I guard with my life. My pain and weakness. Because she gave me hers.

the upstairs guitar

One of the neighbours plays the electric guitar. I consider trying to drown the noise in the much more threatening noise of my piano - the guitar is not one of my favourite instruments. But I eventually decide that I like it when people make music.

Maybe I long for proof that I'm not alone in the universe.

having tea with the Africans

Fifteen African students in a city flat. Outside, snow is falling but inside tea is being poured and cake is consumed at an alarming speed. I'm one of the handful of white people present. The Africans are cheerfully complaining of the cold outside. They have met up for a Bible study and express their surprise at the fact that Finnish people live in a Christian country and have all the Christian values but are not remotely interested in God. A song is taken up and echoes throughout the apartment building - I try to push my Finnish "what will the neighbours think?"-reaction out of my mind. Everybody listens quietly and with no visible reaction to the speaker explaining a passage from the Bible, but afterwards, the discussion is intense. Good-natured smiles all around even when opinions differ.

Our host whispers to me that some of the newer students had never seen a white person before they came to this country. Some of the women shyly avoid even looking at the men, much less talk to them. In the beginning, I find it difficult to tell these people apart - somehow all black people look the same - but after a while, I notice significant differences. After all, a Kenyan probably has less in common with a Nigerian than I have with a Portuguese.

I can never really understand why Africans choose to come to Finland to study when they could go to, say, the UK. Finland is cold and dark for a large portion of the year. Nobody knows where Finland is. In Finland, you have to study not only Finnish but also Swedish - two minor languages, completely different. Finnish people are reserved. Finland is expensive.

I get no sensible answers to this question from any of them. Maybe I grasp an understanding anyway: Finland, from everybody's point of view except 5 million Finns, is... kind of... exotic. Precisely because nobody really knows where it is.

a hard day's blog work

There are always little things to be grateful for. A boring job, where you look for any excuse to take a break, with no boss watching over you and nobody else to talk to either, results in a frequently updated blog.

So I keep adding to the endless stream of more or less useful information available online. Stubbornly believing.

they always appear on Monday mornings

Some people are idiots. Idiots! How lucky I am to get one of them as my first Monday morning interaction. A student emails me her 50-page-thesis and asks me to language-check it for tomorrow. Tomorrow. As if my desktop wasn't already full of stuff that is due tomorrow. She mentions in passing that she tried to email it to me weeks ago but I might not have received it as her email program has been acting up. No, really? And she didn't think to check with me?

I take a sinful pleasure in telling her "no way". Not even this week unless I happen to take mercy on her. And I don't feel particularly merciful on a Monday morning.

At least there is lunch with my sister to look forward to.

soaking in beauty

Dazzling glorious morning with sunshine on snow.

Only a Sunday can be this beautiful. Sleep, a lazy look through the paper, cook breakfast, watch people in the harbour taking their boats up for the winter. The beauty of the outside world reflecting in my inner peace.

I never again in my life want to see anything ugly.

the danger of cinnamon buns

My mum and dad always welcome me when I arrive. Their flat is always tidy and cosy. There are always church newsletters on the coffee table and the radio is tuned in on the local, Swedish-speaking station. There is always coffee and a fridge full of food that I (almost shamelessly) take advantage of when I've exceeded my budget. Today, I ate two homemade cinnamon buns and enjoyed the safe feeling of home.

It wasn't always like this. Last year, I lived in that same flat with my parents for months. Sometimes I'm surprised my sanity is still intact. It almost destroyed me. Family can rip you to pieces in its genuine and flawed love.

But time heals, and I'm slowly nearing the point where I can again enjoy the warmth of returning home every now and then and find shelter. I can somehow deal with that love.

But love is like that storm I lived through last night. If you get carried away by it, you can end up in a place you never dreamed of, which makes it all worth while. But it can never be completely controlled.

I will forever be in danger.

even snow can roar

As the storm, a genuine blizzard, finally arrived last night, I curled up on my sofa with a good book and some cheese and wine (to compensate after a tough volleball training session) and lit a candle to increase the coziness factor.

At some point, however, I couldn't resist venturing out on the balcony. It's a glazed balcony but a couple of the glass panes I've never managed to shut properly so wet snow was whirling in and the rest of the panes were rattling in the wind rather threateningly. Freezing cold. Yet, the sight of the snow masses drifting past against the background of the dark sky had me spellbound for a long time. The snowflakes, though wet and heavy, were not falling, they were being carried horisontally by the wind. Meaning there will be snow on the ground tomorrow but not too much. Wonder how many miles inland those snow flakes finally end up?

During the night, in my uneasy sleep, I could feel the building trembling around me.

In the morning, all was quiet and peaceful. A grey light over a landscape covered in white, and a bird singing. We survived and we are calm and humble.

stormgazer

I'm waiting for a storm. They say it's on the way this evening, approaching from the west, the first proper storm of the autumn. Since my flat overlooks the west sea I'm expecting the gale to hurl itself against my balcony windows very soon. I will see it coming.

If only that were the case with all the storms of life.

walk through space, time stands still

I drag myself out for a walk. Past the red-brick prison walls, past the small-boat harbour, on along the seafront. The trees are a silent explosion in yellow and red next to the grey velvet of the water. I hear silly lyrical phrases float up inside my head and try to ignore them.

The sandy beach next to the great hospital complex is empty. I doubt that the nudists still occupy the bath house next to it - they are hardy ladies who have probably just moved on to the private sauna of the ice bathing club at the other main beach, where they fry themselves in the sauna before going for a dip in the sea - the colder, the better. At least they wear their swim suits during the winter. Many of my friends also display a manic love of this extreme behaviour. Now, with the winter approaching fast, the sea will soon freeze and the excited souls will cut up a hole in the ice. In fact, almost half of the country seems to have picked up this strange habit during the years that I was in exile. What happened during that time? Was Finland exposed to radiation from a Russian nuclear disaster or was everybody abducted and replaced by aliens?

I walk back home through a part of the city, past the indoor swimming pool and the Greek-Orthodox church, while I plan my simple dinner - cucumber and ready-made pizza. Maybe accompanied by a glass of rosé. I pass ugly 1960s apartment buildings and 19th century former factory buildings, now transformed into enchanting apartments. The traffic is heavy, at least as heavy as it ever gets in this tiny city. The old wooden barracks of what used to be an army base are being done up as well, to equally lovely residences. Top-notch apartments in hundred-year-old buildings are the big thing here.

People are hurrying home from work or university classes, hurrying to the gym or the community college, walking their dogs.

Sometimes I feel at home with this. Sometimes it's all alien.

chat and silence

Finnish women tend to chatter. Not incessantly, like some other nationalities. But chatter nevertheless.

Finnish men are typically men of few words. Nothing unnecessary should be uttered if it can be avoided.

Some people claim men and women are very similar, mentally and socially speaking. Not in Finland. This is my latest observation.

I take courses at the local community college, not having much else to do. Languages, computer skills and such. The latest is a course in volunteer friend activity run by the Red Cross and the participants are, predictably, all female. Most of them have no problem with voicing their opinions in class in front of strangers. I have attended other courses where the majority is male, and these classes tend to be very quiet apart from the lecturer who desperately tries to start up discussions. The women, if in minority, seem to wait for the men to speak (this is interesting, in one of the world's most gender-equal nations). They may be waiting forever.

Me? I'm a female, but the shy type. I usually prefer to listen to others talk and squirm in embarrassing silences. The problem with chatty, all-female classes though is that it's often just that - chat. Not much of all the useful knowledge and skills I'm there to learn seem to get through.

Maybe my thirst for knowledge and cost-effectiveness is male?

what to talk about in October

Subjects discussed with a close friend over a drink:

* Thoughts and feelings of a person buried alive beneath a collapsed skyscraper
* Tobacco-smelling hair
* Drunk brothers
* Life ruled by fear
* Wineglass sizes and alcohol measures
* Madness
* The influence of Mum
* Newly-divorced men and their traumas
* City singles
* The rise and fall of civilisation as we know it
* To care or not to care
* Personality types
* God and mind control
* Fuel miracles

And the wine was good too.

merrily, merrily

Some days I head out to town and then just forget what day it is and what I'm supposed to do. I hang around the library reading or sit in a café wondering about all the people around me. I'm either going prematurely senile or just being distracted by life.

I see it as a good sign. Being able to drift like that means I'm not too hopelessly anchored to time and space and expectations.

First day of winter. Snow on the ground and the air is bright and chilly. I had my breakfast on the balcony, wrapped in blankets and reading Harry Potter.

my ancient Sunday angel

I know an angel. She looks old, really old actually, probably has been around for a few tough millennia. Or maybe it's just her disguise. She lives by herself in an old fisherman's house on the Island, with a little mischievous cat for company, and can be seen slowly limping across the yard on weary old legs to dig up potatoes out of the little garden plot. She has a car which she drives around to visit her friends and to go to church in town every Sunday. The only time she actually misses church is when her cat has run away, because then she is too worried to leave the Island.

Whenever I come to church, she beams her smile at me and scurries over to say hello, leaving the elderly ladies behind. She asks me how I'm doing and holds my hand or strokes my arm affectionately while we chat. No words of deep wisdom are exchanged, just the usual "how are you?" and then I get to hear what her cat has been up to lately. But such a warm, comforting feeling it brings me.

I wonder why she was sent to earth. Maybe it was only for this.

damsel in technological distress

Technology is neither good nor bad, but our thinking makes it so. To paraphrase Shakespeare. Despite being a characteristic female I am able to operate a microwave oven and a car. I can even reboot a computer. Still, the sight of any unfamiliar gadget with more than two buttons makes me shudder.

But this fact has sometimes unpredictable benefits for my social life. Today, I was faced with one of these unfamiliar gadgets with about thirty buttons and fifteen cables plugged into it, and felt myself starting to hyperventilate.

Thirty seconds later, I had not one but two gorgeous-looking men rushing to my assistance. I gave them both my most dazzling smile. One of them found the on/off button and the gadget problem was solved. But at least I got their attention.

whirlwind has got me

I have never been inside a whirlwind but I know what it's like.

It must be like this, the way my emotions are being tossed around. After a long while, exhaustion wins out and my mood is taking a steep dive that knows no bottom.

Three steps to break the fall: 1) eat, 2) eat chocolate, 3) drink - coffee, or if all else fails, wine.

Hate to admit that last bit because it sounds so alcoholic and I really wouldn't recommend it to anybody else but myself. But it's a fact. A glass of white breaks the back of that obsession with being in control and the panic in realising that I'm not.

I just need a break from myself. I would like to leave the world for a while and then come back and start over.

an idealist speaks her mind

According to a certain book on the four personality types I'm an Idealist. Another book I'm reading says relationships are the only thing in life that really matters.

Today the sun is shining but I feel like drinking wine. Alone.

being hunted through dreamland

I have a recurring dream in which I'm in a car (my dad's), trying to manouver it out of a crowded parking lot or the like, trying not to hit any of the cars around it or trying to avoid rolling into a ditch. For some reason, the brakes are always in a terrible condition (strange, since my dad is very caring of his car) and that recurring moment in my dream is the panic I feel when I desperately try to brake and it's not working.

Definitely to be interpreted as my fear of not being in control and of people realising that I'm not in control.

The last time I had that dream, I suddenly had enough of trying to brake and violently stepped on the accelerator instead, and the car bounded right into the ditch and up on the other side. I woke up feeling better about myself.

My other recurring dream is the one where I'm being chased. I keep running, knowing that it is futile, and sooner or later I always fall, or stumble on the edge of a precipice. The strange thing is, the hunter at my heels always catches me just as I'm falling and thereby saves my life. The weird feeling of being caught and being safe, simultaneously.

I always wake up from this dream longing to be loved, stubbornly and unconditionally, by someone who knows even my weaknesses.

evening delights

A teenager is wandering around in the House of Seven Widows. He rang on my door and asked me if I avail myself of cleaning service. I thought he was going to advertise his own services but his next question was whether I suffer from asthma. Turned out he was selling air humidifiers.

The widow next door closed the door in his face before he even made it to the asthma question with her. I wonder how many of the other widows he will survive. They don't take kindly to door-to-door vendors. He's the first I've seen who's even made it to the fourth floor of the building. Must have been his teenage charm.

The weather is rainy and cold, as usual, and I wrap myself in an old sweater. I keep my laptop on my lap because its ineffective fan makes it a nice little heater. I sleep more than I should when the weather is like this. Today I had to get up early for a job interview and was reminded of the scary, unpleasant coldness of the early hour when normal people have to get up. Don't think I miss those times when I had to be up by six to cycle through a deserted city to get to work.

I'm an evening person. The twilight time, the blue hour, when people are taking their early evening strolls, the smell of dinner cooking is wafting through windows and lamps are lit, when dogs are barking and children are out playing, that's my favourite time. I love to watch the sky darken and listen to the sounds of human beings returning home.

writings of a morose, stiff and generally doomed poet

Just read two novels (by Finnish authors, nobody else would think to write about us) which both described the Finnish people as morose, stiff and grudging of others.

Yes, we are. But not all the time, and probably not more so than other people. We have love, joy and fun here in Finland too. The problem is, we tell ourselves over and over that we are morose, stiff and grudging. And we believe it.

I would like some positive thinking, please! And positive writing by Finnish authors. I'm sick of being told I'm morose. Come to think of it, I'm sick of this "realistic" writing style that everybody thinks is the only credible writing out there. It's definitely not realistic, it's pessimistic. If you dare to write that you have hope for the human race, you are sneered at for being naïve. If you dare to include any flight of fancy in your writing, you get stuck in the children's lit or fantasy category.

Conclusion: we must be morose and stiff and generally doomed after all.

undesirable freedom

Strolling aimlessly around the city, envying people the purpose in their stride. I do what I want, but I don't want it anymore. When I sit down to relax I wish to do it because I deserve a rest. Not because there is nothing else to do. Coffee doesn't taste as good when you haven't had to long for it during hours of work. The city and the world is on the move towards the future but I have no part in it.

I merely observe. Maybe some day this will be useful.

one year of piano poet silence

Celebrating one year as a blogger with rowanberry vodka, chocolate and slices of salmon.

Honestly surprised at how in love with blogging I've been this entire time. How many times it has saved me from utter despair this difficult, lonely, slow-moving year.

It has taken me somewhere.

how I see Africa

In my dreams, I travel to a safari lodge somewhere deep inside Africa. After a long day of adventures in the jungle or on the savannah (obviously not shooting anything!) where I was almost eaten by a lion, I chill out dressed in silk and chiffon, reclining on a chaise longue with a bottle of white wine and a gorgeous man. The dinner is being sent up to our room which opens onto a terrace where candles flicker in the gathering darkness. A fragrance of musk, of spice, of rain forest flowers. A deliciously cool breeze on bare skin after a hot day. The soundscape of Africa.

I am rich, I am beautiful, I am being taken care of. I have not a care in the world.

saved by a donut

When the day is dreary and I suspect that life has not moved forward since my teenage years, I go to that coffee shop I normally wouldn't give a second glance since I prefer the beautiful, old-fashioned cafés with art on the walls or the gleaming Starbucks-type places with fascinating, exotic coffee. This coffee shop sells donuts and looks more like McDonald's, plastic on plastic, and their coffee is plainly plain and served in disposable paper cups.

But I sink my teeth into a liquorice or toffee-iced donut and is overwhelmed by sugar and syrup and the message they bring: it's ok to do what you really want sometimes instead of sticking to your healthy diet, it's good to be genuine and generous and forgive yourself and others.

Give yourself a break.

The donut shop of my despair. It's followed me through life and saved me many times.

dearly beloved aliens

This little corner of Finland sometimes seems very bleak. People look the same, talk the same, think the same. I know them all without ever having spoken to them. I suppose this is what moving back to your home town means.

Sometimes it's a comfort. Other times, it's just depressing.

But today I was welcomed in the home of a spicy South American family. They gave me coffee and warmth on a chilly autumn evening and took out the guitar. A gang of African students burst in and filled the flat with chatter and sudden laughter. A pale-faced Finn in a corner of the sofa gave me a wry smile - suddenly we were the strangers, quiet and posed and shyly friendly, making conversation in carefully pronounced English, exotic.

Colour, spice, loud joy. Suddenly, in the middle of my quiet town, I was back in the big, scary, fascinating world again. Trying to communicate with weird accents, struggling to understand a thoroughly alien point of view, attempting to assimilate cultural aspects I didn't even know existed. How I have missed this!

Weirdly, for the first time in ages, I felt at home.

time of lonely wandering and warm welcomes

September is the month of joie de vivre, excitement and new beginnings, of wrapping up in silk and wool to have a coffee in chilly sunshine with yellow leaves whirling around you, of leaning over a book and looking up only to wink at a handsome stranger.

This year, it went by so fast. It wasn't like it used to be. I didn't have much motivation to pick up a book or even to wink at strangers. Still, there were good moments. Going for a run along a foggy seashore, seeing windows light up in the autumn twilight. Sleeping in yellowing grass under a blanket, warmed by the sun while the wind roared around me with a warning of approaching storms. Going back to the welcoming warmth of the Irish pub. Placing a candle in my window as a comfort to lonely wanderers.

October, traditionally the Month of the Aching Heart, is now approaching. October is the month when people leave and you never see them again. But I'm not worried. October too will pass.

when a game is no longer a game

The volleyball ladies seem more determined about their play this year. I drop the ball and I feel their disapproving eyes on me. There are some new people here as well, younger than me, better at volleyball. At least that horrible thirteen-year-old future national team player is not here today so I'm spared the humiliation of seeing her smash home a ball that I missed. On the other hand, my pal from last year is not here either. She and I were in the same league and could share the burden of being the worst players on the team.

The hard work, the bruises, the sweat and the fatigue, the adrenaline rushes. All part of a good life. But afterwards, with acheing muscles in the changing room, nobody really looks at me, and I gather my things quickly and leave. There should be laughter, jokes, encouragement, winks. Volleyball should be played.

I blame the all-female team composition. In volleyball, there should always be men. They dare to joke, yell, flirt with female team members in the middle of a game. As a woman in a male team you are admired even though your spikes all go in the net.

Any male team out there that wants me? I can play volleyball. If it's really about playing.

still life

Life seems to be standing still.

It could be a good thing. I need time to think. Not read, or write, just think. Over a coffee, just me.

naïve and scared in a world I have to live in

People of the world, sometimes you really scare me.

Of course the Pope, and everyone else, should be very respectful of other people's beliefs. But if he for once is not very careful with his words, does that entitle other religious leaders to threaten his innocent subjects with death and destruction? No!

Dear everyone, I have the deepest respect for your religion. But when I hear things like this, I find it hard to respect you. I just don't understand.

house of seven widows

My house still sits peacefully between a rock and a hard place - the Pizza King and the prison. I still haven't actually seen the Pizza King but I hear rumours about his existence. He has a new pizza restaurant in town, one with an authentic wood-burning oven that spreads delicious aromas around the market square. He also has an authentic Italian running the place. The King officially denied having anything to do with the restaurant or any stake in it, but the credibility of this statement is somewhat marred by the fact that his name is included in the neon sign of the restaurant.

The people in the Hard Place next door lead quiet, inobtrusive lives. My little apartment building, on the other hand, contains seven widows who keep track of what's going on. They all know that I'm single, work from home, don't own a car, that my landlord hasn't fixed the jammed window on my balcony and that I broke the lift on my first day in the house. I'm sure they have commented on the fact that I'm one of the few in the building who don't have a cute little flowery "welcome" sign on my door, only a severe "no junk mail" warning. The seven widows know my parents and my landlord and my landlord's grandmother.

So I have to plan a careful strategy for the day when I get a dog and start smuggling it in and out of the building to avoid the landlord's pet fine. Until then, I try to be chatty and friendly to stay on good terms with the widows.

The scary question remains though.

What happened to all the husbands?

a scream from behind curtains drawn

The real world. Does it actually exist?

If I curl up in the darkness in the safety of my bed, if the only one I talk to is my computer, if I pretend to work when I'm actually wasting my life trying to think up excuses not to, if I'm not as happy as everyone thinks, if I'm too scared to tell you how I really feel, if I hate myself, if I drink too much, if I can't see a way out, if I'm ugly and old and unlovable... will you still love me?

mood: jet black

Panic, despair.

I need a new job. Immediately.

But I have lost faith. I'm not capable of finding a job, or of persuading an employer to hire me.

I don't even believe myself capable of doing a job anymore.

Rock bottom.

God, help, now.

on blue blood and boredom

The King and Queen of Sweden waved at me (and thousands of other people) yesterday. I have never seen royalty before. I didn't wave back - they are not my king and queen, after all - but I was there to look, curious as everyone else. As not even our own President bothers to travel to this backwater very often, it was a historic occasion.

Wouldn't be much fun to be a king. You have nothing to do but travel around and then don't even get to wander around a strange town and sun-bathe on the beach and buy local fruit and bread for a picnic. You get shown around all the world's boring factories and schools, pose in pictures and have to make speeches without saying anything of importance except how delighted you are to be there.

Even worse to be a queen and be there as the spouse. All you do is follow your husband around and when he's done answering the reporters' questions on what he thinks of the town, you get to reply to questions like "what would you say to all the little girls who dream of being a queen?"

One little girl who was there in the crowd, however, was asked by a reporter whether she would like to be a queen. She hung her head shyly. "No... I would much rather be a human being."

babylon world remembered

I want to be a hotel receptionist again. I want the chaos of a busy Sunday morning, the crazy staff, the coffee spilled over the desk, the alcohol-fumes, the malfunctioning computers, the excitement, the mad laughter.

I miss the feeling of having everything under control, knowing everything, having all the information at my fingertips and managing a thousand loose threads. I miss yawning together with the night manager at seven in the morning when I am barely awake enough to locate the coffee. I miss the tears of weariness and frustration long after midnight when the till won't balance. I miss chatting to exotic strangers, exchanging a knowing glance with a coworker, being flirted with by drunken guests.

I love the feeling of danger when entering a cavernous hotel kitchen where the mad, bad and dangerous chefs are ready to pounce on me from behind enormous simmering pots. The crystal glitter of the restaurant, and the smoky depths of the bar where magical stories are being told and smart cosmopolitans frown at red-nosed regulars. The nerve-centre which is the reception area, where everything happens at once and everything is known.

I remember the smile of a handsome waiter in a waistcoat and the broken English of a foreign kitchen porter in a stained apron. I remember cursing under my breath at a complaining guest while smiling sweetly. I remember hiding from the manager in the back office with a coworker and a stolen piece of chocolate cake, giggling hysterically. I remember being absolutely, explosively, uncompromisingly furious. I remember unexpected, strange gifts and feelings of complete betrayal.

I want all this again. I was alive.

skidding in sideways

Life should not be a journey to the grave
with the intention of arriving safely
in an attractive and well-preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways,
champagne in one hand,
chocolate-covered strawberries in the other,
body thoroughly used up,
totally worn out and screaming
"WOO HOO - what a ride!"


(Sorry, no idea who said this first - the quote exists in many varying forms out there...)

always mention the kinky

Some would say that if you mention kinky sex, people will read your blog. There. I have mentioned kinky sex.

Curious about what key words attract readers. Maybe "free money" is the best bet. Or names of famous people, like Paris Hilton or Saddam Hussein or Jesus. I'm a bit nervous about mentioning porn or Al-Qaida and I'm not sure how the latter is spelled anyway. The word "knitting" could attract a lot of Finnish bloggers. To get the Irish in, just talk about the Dublin Port Tunnel or the Taoiseach. Or for those who do word searches on the name of their city, look here everyone from Vaasa, Cambridge or Honolulu!

Now I'm just waiting to see the number of hits on my blog skyrocket.

two degrees and three euros between us

Over a coffee, with a friend. Two people with degrees to their names, hopelessly unemployed despite desperate efforts to find work, counting pennies to see if they can afford another cup of coffee.

The friend is a man who always keeps his cool. Yet I can see the deepening fear in his eyes when he tells me of the countless hours, days, weeks spent writing job applications, of travelling far and wide to interviews, of applying for good jobs, OK jobs, bad jobs, and hearing only the word "no". That word is soon teaming up with another and becomes the dreaded theme song of the unemployed: "no money"...

All painfully familiar to me. I hear that scary tune myself, every day.

We linger over our coffee because none of us can afford cinema, shopping, pubs or clubs. But surprisingly, today it's OK. I've survived today, I will probably survive tomorrow. The day after that - well, something will come up.

And the loneliness can't choke me as long as I have a friend to share this with. I can even see a purpose to the fear and pain of my situation when I see the relief in my friends eyes - when he realises that he is not alone.

a normal, quasi-existential blog entry

After so many weird, angsty, quasi-existential blog entries lately, better clarify what's going on here in PianoPoet world.

I'm looking for the meaning of life.

They say it's all a waste of time. They say nobody has ever found it or even come close. I disagree. I strongly believe it exists and I even believe in a God who is in control and will show it to me if I'm willing to see it.

Of the meaning of my life, he only shows me one day at a time though. Guess he thinks I couldn't handle any more. Guess he's right.

Better clarify one more thing. I am quite sane. No, really! I get up in the mornings, get showered and dressed like normal people, ask my friends how they are, laugh at jokes, eat too many sweets, control my alcohol intake, read good books, frown at the news, sleep at night even though I do dream of angels (and demons) sometimes. I live life, because it's here.

And even in the darkest of dark, I feel a strange joy somewhere deep inside. I cry myself to peace.

See? After so many weird, angsty, quasi-existential blog entries, here's a weird, existential, quasi-angsty one! Told you I'm normal.

on poverty from a distance

Was going to whine here. Almost got moaning about how close I am to poverty.

Thought better of it. Lucky me, sunning myself in a welfare state where I'm not likely to ever get too close to the real thing. Even if I might have to decide on whether to give up my modem or my TV.

Not quite yet, though. Taking all those empty wine bottles to the bottle bank. Swapping alcohol for cyberspace time.

Bermuda love triangle

I want to know where I am and what I will do.
I want to have a deep voice and be loved, and I want to sparkle.
I want the person I admire to phone me and tell me he's been thinking of me all day.
I want to feel as if I'm being carried off by a whirlwind and I want to land in a place where nothing can ever shake me.
I want to love life, deeply and passionately.
I want to see the face of God and live to tell. Or die in its light.

There must be love somewhere in this overcast world. Deep and unconditional and overwhelming. This love that we all look for, which will draw us together, and we all go our separate ways in our desperate quest to find it. I turn my back on someone who loves me while I'm looking elsewhere. When I turn back, I discover I have killed through neglect.

So individual we will kill each other for the perfect, individual love. Discover the truth too late. Heartbroken.

search for love in a dream

Just before I wake up, I dream of an angel.

Blond, blueish-grey eyes, boyish grin, and the warmth of true love in his voice. He looks through me and loves me anyway. I would laugh at the cliché but the truth in it chokes me up.

Against my will, I wake up. The soothing peace of his smile still in the air in my bedroom.

An angel looked at me. I mean something. Somebody spoke in my dream and I hear the echo in my reality.

a savage in a mini-skirt

I look up from my book just long enough to note the smell of smoke in the air. Faint but persistent. Not like something from the neighbour's cottage chimney, more like a mist covering the landscape. They say it's on the wind all the way from Russia and the forest fires there.

It's too hot to wear much more than you can easily shed when it's time for a dip in the sea but I'm trying out all the short skirts I usually never get to wear. Just for a few days, no more pressing problems than which novel to read next. Every third day or so, back to the city briefly, to enjoy civilization in the form of running water, the internet, TV and fresh newspapers. Not to forget real coffee. I might be turning into a savage. I even forget to wear mascara out there in the wilderness, and my hair is a jungle. I eye every approaching human being with suspicion - not that there's many. The family doesn't really count, they are savages too. Most of them have enthusiastically embarked on a project aimed to reshape the shoreline by digging up mud and rocks and moving them around, as usual forgetting they are fighting the land uplift phenomenon - our part of the country is rising like an Atlantis out of the sea at a rate of almost one centimeter per year. Not bad when you have a cottage by the sea and can move your picnic table a bit further out every year. The little nieces and nephews soak me to the bone with their water games but I forgive them eventually when they bring me a peace offering of blueberries from the forest. Ah, family.

But I've been clever. I've taken my holiday late in the summer. The family heads back to the city to return to jobs and schools. Only I will be left with the sun and the sea, my books and my increasingly savage heart.

escape is all I think about

The summer has been one of the warmest and dryest in Finland for a long time. I've spent a lot of time on the beach with all those screaming kids around, and sun-bathing on my balcony while trying to work at the same time. I have spent even more time in front of the computer in a twilit apartment, with the curtains drawn, trying to pretend there is no summer.

Time to forget about work for a while, time to take some real time off. Time to take myself off to the cottage between the forest and the sea again. Time to lie in the grass with a stack of novels, light a fire in the cooling evenings and remind myself that this is where I belong and that life is here and now. Maybe then my writing will take off again, if I'm lucky. Feels like I'm stuck in my worries. Time out!

a few lies and one great truth

Smiling, positive, in harmony. Kind, always ready to help. Accepting. In control. A piano poet. This is me. This is me. Swear to God!

If I can't fool anyone else, at least I can fool myself.

I'm browsing the blog of someone I vaguely know, someone from school who went on to collect a fun job, a beautiful family and friends to die for. She always sounds happy. Well, why wouldn't she? I will not read her blog again, I sternly tell myself. Yet every now and then I return to it, obsessively, to read about her latest fun adventure and look at the pictures of grinning kids. People like that should not be allowed to keep a blog. What do you think you know about life, you who always got what you wanted? Have you ever cried a tear in all your sunny days?

I am not jealous. I have my life, my adventures, my friends, things I've seen that nobody else has seen. No, really. Swear to God.

Lie all you want, PianoPoet, even you will start to question yourself at some point. Look at yourself, with your face green with envy. The bitterness that you swore would never touch your heart, slowly eating your intestines.

Found a church a while ago. I go there, sit at the back and avoid all eye contact, probably radiating anger, resentment, bitterness. The wonder of it: it's OK. People see me, leave me alone if that's the way I want it, but still welcome me back with a smile the following Sunday. I don't have to be happy or successful or Christian. I'm OK, as I am.

Maybe God himself sits down there next to me, not saying anything. Just being there.

"...the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God..."

weird and well-known

In a foreign country, and yet everything is familiar. The road signs are weird but I understand what they mean. I stop at a petrol station and easily find the chocolate that I never tried but know will taste good, and grab a newspaper in a strange language where the news are familiar.

I stutter something in the foreign language to the shop assistant but I feel it's not the first time, I have stuttered things in this language years ago.

Later, I sink back in a café chair and sip my coffee black, with a piece of bitter dark chocolate, the way I never drink coffee at home. Yet my body recognises the flavour. I kick off my shoes and feel the heat of the sun radiate from the pavement, like it never really does at home, and look around at a new environment. And it is all so well known that my heart aches from it.

It is a comfort, to be at home anywhere you go. It is also frightening. Have I seen everything there is to see in the world?

I really don't know how to be surprised anymore. Maybe I just don't dare to.

view from a Paris suburb

Paris, France. Paris for me is hot summer's days strolling around the Champs-Elysées and various jardins, chewing on a baguette or a sweet crêpe, with the glorious freedom of being out there in the world with exciting people. Laughing with new friends as the guards of the Louvre scowled at us, daring each other to share our darkest secrets as we were leaving the magic city in a few days and never would see each other again.

I never did see these friends again but I hear the echo of their voices when I finally return to Paris years later. This time I'm colder, more confident, world-weary but not necessarily wiser. I arrive late with my friend and the taxi driver takes us to the wrong hotel. Many euros later we lay down our weary heads in a cheap hotel room. Outside our window is a roof covered in litter and pee and what is probably discarded syringes and I lock the door carefully. All I see of this sparkling city this time is the grey suburbs and the mad Parisian traffic before heading out towards other horizons. Can't wait to leave. Paris, the delights and the laughter of those long-lost friends are locked inside my memories and should stay there. Magic should not be recycled.

are thunderclouds real?

Looking out at the rainy skies with a frown. Midsummer's weekend starts tomorrow and we should be heading out into the outer archipelago in a traditional old wooden boat with a full load of potatoes, fresh fish, wine, strawberries and laughing people who flirt madly with each other. Of course the sun should throw glittering reflections in the waves of the Baltic Sea as we approach the tiny hut on an abandoned islet where we will make personal history for the next couple of days.

Except that I have a cold fear in my stomach. I'm scared of the unpredictable waves towering over the little boat, the threatening clouds that could throw a lightning bolt our way, the paranoid feeling of having nowhere to go when the closeness to all those laughing people overwhelms me.

Before waves, lightning and paranoia get to me, though, worry will kill me. I bang my head against the wall. The coward dies a thousand times.

declaration of the reverse

Summer solstice, midsummer, the peak of the year. I hate peaks. From here on, downhill.

But I will reverse the flow of the year, I will fight my way upwards. Why should I be tied helplessly to the course of the winds and the tides of the human soul?

ordinary monday wishlist

A dog, for a companion.
A digital camera, for everyday creativity.
Pretty sandals with glitter and beads, for summer joy.
A new wardrobe, for self-confidence.
A neighbourhood international airport, for cheap flights anywhere.
A real job, for belonging in the world.
All the time in the world, for expressing myself.
Peace of mind.

four wonders of Helsinki

Went to Helsinki, our windy, mixed-up, confident capital. On the west coast, where I'm from, the opinion of Helsinki is that it's "nice enough, but so in the middle of nowhere". In Helsinki, there are:

• A World Trade Center. Not nearly as fancy as the one in New York, which is of course a good thing because nobody would be able to pick it out from an aeroplane. But in the WTC, there are men in suits. The men in my own little city are all of the casual-style, earthy type. When I tire of these, I look for men in suits because they seem to be confident, cool, in control of life. So I bought a mug of Kenyan coffee in the ground floor cafe and sat there watching the men in suits and basked in the illusion that all must be well with the world if these people are running it.
• IKEA. Not one but two enormous megamarkets filled with everything you could possibly need in a home. When you are world-weary and a bit lost, there is a strange comfort in seeing beautiful, gleaming kitchens and alluringly cosy bedrooms - makes you realise that everything you need for happiness is a comfy bed and a kitchen table for your morning coffee. Of course, IKEA would like you to think you also need their quirky bedside lamp and striped table cloth. But I bravely withstood brainwashing and every clever marketing trick, and came home with only a couple of cutlery stands and a bright yellow icecube tray. Plus another feeling that all is well with the world.
• An allotment garden. Ten minutes from the city centre, a huge area of apple trees, roses, little potato plots and tiny cottages. And small creeks with old wooden rowing boats. I got dizzy from the fragrance of the blooming rowan trees and couldn't find my way back to civilisation. Not that I would have minded staying in this place that time forgot.

• Stuff. Stores with shelves upon shelves of fascinating, beautiful, irresistible stuff. I had managed to forget that the world holds things such as bookstores with more than one shelf of English books, clothes that are not from H&M or Anttila, cinemas with surround sound, wok bistros. And people like foreign dignitaries, Russian millionaires, backpackers and hippies.

Now I'm back in the backwater with my yellow icecube tray. And all is well with the world.

sun around the clock

Summer in Finland - today I sipped a latte at a streetside cafe and enjoyed the feel of the hot paving stones beneath my bare feet and the sun burning my shoulders. The men were all baring muscles and the women showing legs while a breeze from the sea softened the heat.

The nights are white. From my window I can watch the sun reluctantly set close to midnight but there is no darkness. The daylight plays across the sky even in the middle of the night.

I grew up in these strange conditions and I sleep well even when the morning sun shines at 3 am. But it still surprises me, every year.

my latest thesis, in its entirety

On men.

There are men who never wait for a sign, a look or a flirty comment, before making a move. Men who don't listen, men like bulldozers.

There are men who wait quietly in the shadows, who let you forget they exist, but who materialise in an instant when you say their name. Men who stay when you leave, men without opinion.

There are men who call and ask if they can come in, who stretch out on your couch with a cup of tea. Men who listen and talk and compliment and complain. Men who bring you icecream when you're ill, who cry at your shoulder, who fix your leaking fridge, who tell you that you're beautiful or that they are going to save the world. Men full of life.

The conclusion? I don't know. I still don't know.

à la recherche d'un pays perdu

It is time for a journey.

One of my favourite quotes is by Marcel Proust, who once said: A true voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. This is a motto to live by. A comfort when you walk down the dreary grey streets of the same old city again - I try to tell myself that there is always something new to discover. Sometimes it even works.

But after a while it stops working altogether and nothing breaks the monotony of your days. You find yourself stuck in the worn-down grooves of your mind. You are unable to see things from the other perspective. You live on long-gone discoveries and suddenly realise you haven't had an original thought in months. Then it is time to seek out those new landscapes. Do something you've never done before. Learn a new skill. Adopt a puppy. Make a new friend. Travel.

I have decided it is time for a journey. If I'm really lucky, it might be a week in France this summer. The mere thought of it makes me delirious. Sweeping hills, baguettes and brie cheese, medieval castles, chilled white wine under the sun, cranky old Frenchmen, le joie de vivre...

La France, si douce. Monsieur Proust, j'arrive tout suite.

thoughts on a soft day

I wrap up in an old shawl, make myself a huge cup of coffee and stare through the window at the rain softening the seascape. Walking to the convenience store on the corner, I cover up in a large coat and enjoy the peace of the empty streets. I stop to talk to a friendly golden retriever outside the store and afterwards my hands bear the familiar smell of wet dog.

Most people here hate rain. Rain makes the winter less of a winter and the summer miserable. But to me, rain on a summer's day is gentle, rain whispers to me of the soft days in Ireland. The days when I would curl up in front of the roaring fire in an old country pub and chat to the locals who walked in with mud-covered wellies and accompanied by smelly, wet dogs. My throat would burn with the taste of a hot whiskey and I would be teased about my habit of reading old copies of the Times.

In the store, I buy honey to cure my cold, and loads of citrus fruit. Today is one of my unemployed days, but I don't mind. I have books to read, books to write, things to learn, people to remember, journeys to dream of. Today, I will not worry. Today, I will only live. I will not forget the music.

after your third place, go back to the first

I have finished my latest work assignment and there is no new one in sight. I have had a glass of wine. I have browsed some interesting blogs. I have contemplated the beauty of the sea from the window. Music is booming in my ears.

Forget my ramblings about the Island, at least forget them temporarily because the Island will never let go of me. But I am leaving town, I am going to Paradise On Earth, a tiny cottage between the sea and the forest, the family's hideaway where memories of all my summers on earth come back to me in sweet-breeze-whispers. I am going to be sunkissed by day and spend the white Nordic nights writing in front of the fire and reaching overwhelming conclusions about Life, Universe and Everything. I am going to read all those books I never read and I am going to be me, be gorgeous and smart and with the charm of an angel and still be completely, thoroughly me.

Last night I had a dream that I was seeing a shrink. No doubt I need it. But if I can see her in my dreams I can save some money at the same time.

Finland rebooted

Shock and euphoria in Finland after the Eurovision Song Contest. All you Europeans out there must know what I'm talking about, and the rest of you don't care... But the entire world view of the average Finn has been turned upside down. We don't know quite what to do with ourselves today. Winning the Eurovision has always been the measure for the ultimately impossible. So what do you do when the impossible happens? Should you make good on the promises you made all those times you said with a sneer: "When Finland wins the Eurovision I'll shave my head/ get a job in the Antarctic/ marry you."

Go the latex monsters! The next few weeks should be very interesting. The natural order of things has been reset to zero.

Hell is now officially frozen over.

visit your third place

Drove across the big bridge into the fairytale world of the Island and left the city behind me in another universe. Here, on the other side of the bridge, are the salty winds of the sea and quirky villagers who live in their hundred-year old cottages with broadband connections. They are sea-faring folk with an uncanny way of looking at me which makes me feel like my cityness is something to be pitied and that I am a lost soul if I can't tell the difference between a catamaran and a catboat. I feel a desperate need to be accepted, to be one of them, although I know it's impossible. I know my hippie ear-rings, my city accent and my uncertain smile stick out a mile.

I am lucky to have friends here though. I sit at an ancient plank table in one of these old cottages with the musty, vague smell of old wood and fish nets around me. There are flowers on the window sill and a white cat carefully inspects my laptop before I’m allowed to turn it on. I get to hear the latest gossip about the villagers and I listen eagerly, as if it’s important that I learn everything about the people in this little community. This time of the year, it’s all about setting the boats out to sea as the ice is finally gone.

This is the Islander: tall and proud, standing straight even when the storm sweeps in from the sea, smelling of salt, with bright eyes that see all the way to the horizon, knows that everything he can see is his. Not afraid of the deep of the sea, knows how to fix the engine and gut a fish, looks after his neighbour, talks without hesitation of his roots stretching back generations in this same place. It is the Islander or the Island I fell in love with. Not sure which one.

In comparison I have no roots, I just drift on the surface, envious. If I could choose a home, this would be it. But you can't choose. The Island chooses you.

i.am.on.line

There are no words to describe the feeling of waking up and seeing the little light on my modem shine like a trusted friend just back from a long journey.

My internet connection is working again after two horrible weeks. Got online straight out of my bed, with my hair standing on end, my stomach growling from hunger, my eyes barely managing to stay open and my fingers with blue nail polish eagerly tapping on the computer keyboard. Hello world, hello friends and foes, hello seagulls, I love you all today.

between a rock and a hard place

My new neighbourhood is a special place. My house is a quite ordinary apartment building but next to it sits the private villa of the Pizza King. The PK is an enterprising man. Not only did he introduce the pizza to us suspicious Finns decades ago and convinced us to love it, but he also came up with the idea of unstaffed hotels (ideal for us Finns who hate having to talk to anybody in person if we can manage just as well by flashing a credit card), named the ferry line to Sweden after himself and has a hand in most things that happen in this city.

My neighbour on the other side is the prison, more commonly known as the Strand Hotel. It is a beautiful old red brick building that overlooks the bay. From my fourth floor flat I can conveniently look over its walls, and I wonder if it is not some kind of breach of the prisoners' privacy to have people in the surrounding buildings looking in on them like this. Except for us neigbours, not many people have ever had the chance to peek into the prison and I wonder if I could not make money on this by setting up business as a prison correspondent. Or smuggler - I bet I could throw stuff over the walls. Or spy - take pictures and sell them to the Americans.

On the other hand, nothing really ever happens behind those walls. No riots, no murders, no drug deals. Occasionally I see the prisoners walking around the courtyard. That's about it.

I never see the Pizza King either. Rich and famous as he is, he hides behind walls too.

Strange place, this. I mean, all of this.

not all of this is a dream

I must be dreaming. Must. There is no other explanation. I have moved into another flat, a tiny one where not even half of my book collection can fit in, but behind the large windows is the Sea. I step out onto the balcony and am met by the sun, the salty winds and Jack Bauer with a bottle of champagne. The view is magnificent, even when I tear my stare away from Jack. I sip the bubbly and wait for myself to wake up.

The alarm goes off.

Jack Bauer is gone. Damn. But the sea is still there, the sun, the balcony, even the bottle of champagne. I have a new home. By the seafront. It's not a dream.

the god of spring wants vomit

Finland is gearing up to celebrate Vappu/Wappen (the coming of Spring) this weekend. There will traditionally be lots of offerings to the god of Spring in the form of alcohol-based vomit. We will all be dressing in skimpy clothes and freeze our ***** off while having picnics in the rain. We will feel the heavy pressure of being absolutely obliged to have the Time of our Lives. Hearts will be broken.

Can't wait.

Anyway, it's Veteran Day today. To all of you war veterans out there who do or don't read blogs: Thank you. Without you, I would be scraping a living in a run-down, former Soviet republic. Now I'm scraping a living in a free and prosperous country, but at least it's our country. You are heroes!

intoxicated in Ireland

Editing my journal from my years in Ireland...

By the looks of it, it seems as if my time there was spent dating at least a couple of men simultaneously and flirting madly with men I wasn't dating. Was I really like that? I've certainly not been like that, before or after.

The place was mad. Airborne intoxication. That's the only explanation. I worked more than full-time, attended parties where people showered with their clothes on or set fire to themselves, intervened in domestic violence, had raging fights with my bosses, adopted a dog and had it kidnapped, played pool with a movie star and spent a night in a cemetery under the stars. Got my heart broken and I think I broke someone else's. (I'm sorry.) I was even involved in hiding people from the law.

At least I have something to brag about in my blog when my present life contains no news value whatsoever. But nobody needs to ever find out about that.

finished with the Finnish

I am a foreigner in my own country. I struggle when I speak to my neighbours. Linguistic minority: inferiority complex. Home is not really home. I'm so sick of this.

I am assaulted by the strange and threatening Finnish language wherever I turn but it runs away laughing when I try to make friends with it.

Perkele.

screwdrivers, old ladies and letters from the mafia

Weird things done this week:
Bought a screwdriver (not the cocktail, the tool!).
Received a letter in Russian (which I don't understand) from a stranger.
Got called in for a job interview.
Bought a bag of soil for my (dying) potted plants.
Took a picture of my house.
a) Went out for drinks with 2 men, b) got chatted up by a third, c) accepted a drink from a fourth, d) went home with none (d is not weird in my case, a-c are).
Watched a horror movie (Pitch Black, people say it's scifi, not horror but I was... horrified).
Cyberstalked my old crush again (OK, this does not exactly fit into "weird things" category since it happens regularly).
Argued with old lady over communal washing machine in my building. Old lady won.
Received threatening letters from Social Services.
Became instant Skype-addict.

sunday thought

I want to talk to God. I want to ask him to send more people who smile in my way.

lone wolf in lone wolf country

No gold for Finland these Winter Olympic Games. But...

The nation with most Olympic medals, throughout the history of the Olympic Games, is… Finland! If you count medals per capita, Finland is way, way ahead of any other nation. I read this with delight in Richard D. Lewis’ fascinating book Finland, Cultural Lone Wolf, a much-needed comfort after many Olympic disappointments this year.

This book makes me grow an inch or so as a Finn. The author (who is English) claims Finland ranks among the top few countries for global competitiveness, economic creativity, environmental sustainability, network readiness, water resource management, minimal bureaucracy, and least corruption. So there. (OK, I'm not so sure about the minimal bureacracy part.)

On Finns, he says we are independent, hard working, innovative, ultra-honest, shy and love our own space. We think before we speak and what we say, we mean. Finnish women are among the most highly educated and equal in the world.

Interestingly, the author also claims the Finns have a feeling of being outsiders, on account of our geographical remoteness, weird language and a few other factors.

I am intrigued. Having lived abroad for years and noticed characteristics in me that set me apart from others, I suddenly realise at least some of these can be explaned by the fact that I am a Finn! It's comforting somehow. That feeling of being an outsider has definitely haunted me - on the other hand, it's haunting me still, here in my home country and home town.

Best of all, I just love how this book describes the Finnish female: "strong-willed, adventurous, restless, often fearless, not without charm, and decidedly in love with life." I am guilty as charged. And proud of it.

shame and shamrocks

The Guinness looks the same. Other Irish beers look familiar but have funny names. Are they real? I'm too embarrassed to ask the barman who has had his face painted green. His huge weird hat looks authentic, as if he has come straight from the parade on O'Connell Street, Dublin. But he speaks Finnish and Swedish and some English, and his name is Jarkko. Welcome to St. Patrick's Day! We are in a medium-sized city in Finland.

I don't like beer anyway. I guess I could and would start liking it if I really wanted to, and sometimes I'm tempted to try. But beer is not good for the figure. Neither is cider, or wine, or vodka with a mixer... I give up and order a reassuringly sweetish Finnish cider.

I'm here with a guy who is clearly interested in me but who is trying to not to be obvious about it since he is a bit too shy to tell me so. Why are these things so complicated? He is sweet and I would love to get to know him better... but I'm still hung up on my ex, whom I saw yesterday and shared a lunch, some secrets and quite a few laughs with. How can I trust my shaky life to a stranger like this one?

There are no Irish people - as far as I can tell - in this Irish bar on St. Patrick's day. The closest you get is a few drunk Swedish football supporters who are having no luck trying to chat up some icy Finnish ladies. A band is playing "Dirty Old Town" but I can hardly hear them. I can hardly hear my date's voice when we try to chat. How embarrassing. What a boring evening. I can't even get drunk on the stupid cider. I hate the stupid ugly shamrock decorations on the wall. I want a real Irish bar in a backstreet in Galway or in a sleepy village in Wicklow. The only speck of light is the doorman who hands me back my coat at the end of the failed evening - I have a secret crush on him. I say a hasty farewell to my date and leave before he can get any ideas about kissing me. I'm not ready for this.

I'm not ready for anything. I want an easy life and no male hormones nearby.

God brought breakfast

Oh the bittersweet Longing of my soul. I dream of coercion and care and of what I cannot have. When I wake up I grieve.

I want God to ring my doorbell today. No, not ring the doorbell, he will have his own key and walk right in even though I protest that I'm still in my PJs and my hair is unwashed and the remains of yesterday's dinner still sit on the TV table. He tells me to jump in the shower while he makes my bed and clears away the dishes and puts breakfast on the table: fresh orange juice, coffee, cereals, fruit and croissants that he brought after having had to look for them all over town. When I emerge in my huge bathrobe with wet hair he tells me I'm beautiful as always. We sit down and eat breakfast. He gives me time to enjoy it. He looks at me with all-seeing eyes and asks how I am. He listens. I slowly start to feel better, I bask in the warmth of his unwavering attention. When I'm on my last mug of coffee we start planning my day together. I don't want to, but he is determined. After a while, I see a line of order appear in the chaos of my life - and more importantly, I feel a glimmering of interest.

Right, let's get started, he announces at last. Remember, I'm here with you. Any problems, just ask. You do your work for today while I work on your future. Short coffee break in two hours. And tonight, we'll rent a movie or something. You'll see, it will be fun.

And it is.

travelling to Andromeda galaxy

Science fiction. Should be watched on DVD in the middle of the night, alone, curled up under a yellow blanket. Sitting on the floor, really close to the TV screen, pretending this is the only thing that exists. A tear should be shed, a thought born in the mind. Sleep fallen into, to the sound of a familiar tune.

movers and shakers of the world

Doing good in the world

bombs, Lesbians and quadruple-dates

Read my old diary and was Shocked and Awed. The things I've managed to forget in only a few years!

Did I really go on a date with four (4) Syrians at once?
Was my house really bomb-threatened and had to be evacuated?
Did I actually play Pictionary with a vague acquintance who is now my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend?
Was I in fact almost run over by a bus?
Did I really once listen to a certain unknown band playing live - The Rasmus, a few years later world-famous?
Is it true that I witnessed a man being stabbed almost to death?
Did the entire crowd in a pub I only went to once actually sing "Happy Birthday" to me?
(Was that why I only went there once?)
Did my lesbian friend really swear she would kill herself if I didn't love her back?

All this in one single year. Jeez. My life today suddenly seems so dull. Oh wait - it is dull.

crying hockey tears

Finns, stand united in sorrow.

But we love you anyway, Leijonat. Nobody plays ice hockey like you do. Not even those who claim to have beaten you.

two souls in orbit

You, who look at me like that
You, who stand on the rock of history and soar across the sea with the wings of the eagle
I, who avoid your gaze
I, whose restless soul roams the earth

I, who desperately look for the sun
I, who howl with wolves in mountain forests
You, who stand strong in a storm
You, who treasure the freedom of sky meeting sea

Here in this world or there in the next
Always coming together

when your joy hurts me

Jealous of people who got it all together.

Don't want to be happy for them. I want to be happy for ME!

Why are some people just happy? Why do they say God fills their lives with joy and peace and why, on top of this, do they have big happy families, good jobs, loads of friends?

When I ask them, they reply that God wants me to have all the good things too. And though they don't mean it like that, to me they are implying that I must be doing something wrong. Can they not understand that there are people who devote their lives to God, do everything right and still suffer? And people like me who are trying to get it right, who muddle along, run off to do the wrong thing occasionally, suffer, but still hang on to God for dear life because He is all they've got?

Feeling lost. But I think God knows where I am.

arrival of asian angel

He is four years old. He has travelled for the first time in his life, travelled for a day and a night from his hot home country to the other side of the world - the cold and Western side. He stumbles out into the airport at the end of the journey and smiles hesitantly as he looks around with wide eyes at all the hurried, pale-faced people around him. He says something in his own language to his new mother who understands only his body language and answers with her own foreign words. But she smiles back at him.

His new sister and brother, a few years older, show him how to put on thick coveralls, a woolly hat and, strangest of all, woolly mittens. He accepts all of it and studies his hands in the mittens with wonder. When they leave the airport building, an icy wind hurls itself against his face. He squeezes his eyes shut against the brightness of the snow. Around the airport there are only fields, vast and empty and snowy fields. It could not be more different from the hot and crowded Asian city he has known all his life.

What is going on in his head? He looks, he smiles at his new parents when they hug him, he finds a toy in the car and starts playing with it.

Welcome to Finland, my new nephew. We all love you already. And listen to your mother when she tells you not to eat the snow.

to put yourself to sleep, read this

No, dear friendly lady from the Unemployment Office, I don't have time to go out and look for a job. Why? Because all my time is spent filling out forms for your office, Social Welfare and the other establishments who might be kind enough to pay for my next meal.

It would be easier if I was a full-time unemployed. Don't take a part-time job if you don't want the Paper Monster to come and get you.

Still. I have seen too many people begging in the gutters of the world and freezing to death while desperately looking for shelter. I have warmth. I have food. I even have wine, blogging, TV. How dare I complain?

You can take a girl out of idealism but you can't take idealism out of the girl. Weird, how it survives disappointment, bitterness and too many punches from the Real World. A little cynic and a little stubborn idealist fight for the space in my confused soul.

Self-analysis completed. God, how boring - can't even be bothered to read through it myself. I need to be funnier. Funny people have all the fun!

the meaning of winter

Decided to combat my anguished feeling of stress over all the things I need to do by postponing everything and write my Great Novel instead. So now I'm holing up with my laptop and loads of wine and ignoring the phone.

I mean, you are not really expected to do anything useful in winter anyway. Winter is for cuddling up.

freaky deep-freeze dreams

I dream about Labradors being charged for murder in ancient Venice and flocks of Comodors attacking me. I don't even know what Comodors are but my dream tells me this is how it's spelled. Feeling a bit nervous now. I think they can fly and look a bit like seagulls with teeth. Anxiously watching the sky and staying indoors just in case it was a premonition.

Another reason for staying indoors is that the mercury shows -21 degrees Celsius. I braved the weather yesterday and on my way through town felt like a tough chick who is not beaten by silly sub-zero temperatures. On my way back the wind hit me and I felt my body heat being blown out of me. SHIVER. Ran through town without stopping once for a red light - I would rather be run over than turn into an ice statue even though that would be a beautiful death. Had to go into a department store halfway home to thaw out. Ended up buying stuff I don't need - blame it on a frozen brain and misguided survival and hoarding instinct.

Still, the sun is shining low on a clear blue sky and no Comodors in sight yet. Maybe I should just test my toughness one more time and then enjoy a lovely sauna... From -20 to +80 in two minutes. That's a hundred degrees difference. They should give me the Nobel Prize for that. Or an Oscar. Or a beautiful headstone.

absent friends still present

Strange thing, this, friends. Old friends, new friends and friends in between. I try to be myself but my best friend from school who hasn't seen me for years knows me as a different person than the people I am currently trying to get to know, and my confidante during my years in Ireland has seen other sides of me... I function differently depending on whose company I am in. I think differently. It is not pretense. It just works this way. But I'm bound to surprise or even shock all of them sometimes.

But to all my friends out there that I once knew and who are now too far away... I miss you.

from a Manhattan emergency room to Santa Claus Land

Okay people, let's have one of those tacky looking-back-on-the-year-just-passed, melancholy reviews. It just has to be done - we have to analyse what we have learned in order to go on.

Year 2005:

Started off with a week in New York. It's scary the way this city just hits you with its beauty and life-loving dynamics even though you are determined not to be impressed - determined to dislike it, even. There is just no way to avoid a knock-out by New York. I particularly remember a vodka pizza in Little Italy, an argument between an Englishman and a Brooklyner who were both buying me drinks, a freezing train ride to Bronx with a cream cheese bagel clutched in my nervous hands, a long surreal wait in the emergency room of a downtown Manhattan hospital. (No, these events had no connection whatsoever, except they all happened in New York and I was there.)

After that week, a visit in a hidden valley in Ireland, a valley deep in its winter sleep. The complete stillness of the mountains after the buzz of the city was another knockout. Then an international move. It was time to leave dreamy, quirky, snobbish, beautiful Cambridge (England), the town of no winter (Cambridge seems too sophisticated for barbarian things like blizzards and sub-zero temperatures), and the gang of funny and slightly demented hotel people I had been working with. A last coffee in Starbucks and then I saw the blue and white of my homeland again - a sight not seen for more than a year, a sight I would not escape for the rest of the year...

So. The rest of the year uneventful. Struggling to find a job, struggling not to hate Finland, struggling to learn languages, struggling to adapt to being home, struggling not to kill my parents, struggling not to feel lonely. Struggling with the man of my dreams.

Skiing on the mountain with good friends again, being out on the open sea and being thorougly afraid and at the same time happy, sitting in front of the fire during the long, white nights of the summer while sipping wine and writing. Building a huge maze as an art project, laughing over the madness of it with new friends. During a confusing autumn, breaking off with my man and building up a new, independent life that has me thrilled although it's not quite what I had in mind.

I have learned to love pesto and mozzarella cheese and to make a fabulous omelette. To dress warmly enough to enjoy rolling in the snow for hours with kids. I have realised the Finnish people are depressed and that I am very, very different from everybody else in the world. Not a bad thing to realise...

And New Year's Eve was not unusual. I had one of my anti-new-year's-eve-parties reactions of course and sulked for a while. Then I was relieved to find the new year was here and I could finally stop pretending to have fun and just relax.

There. I did it. The Summary Of My Year. Now I can finally go and make an omelette.