end it with a dash

I sit on a wealth of knowledge - the Norstedts Swedish-English Dictionary - and have a glass of red wine. A handcrafted candle - Christmas present from my niece - is spreading (probably) toxic paint fumes in the room. I have Christmas flowers - hyacinths and hippeastrums. I have contributed to Wikipedia today - only with knowledge. I wish I had the answer to a mystery and was the only one on earth to know - I would write it in my diary just in case I was hit by a snow plough on my way home from work. I would end the entry with a dash like this - so that people would think I had something else to say but it is now lost forever -

here's everything I know about winter

Winter -

twinkling lights, frozen fingers scraping ice off a windscreen, fake fur, darkness and twilight and the wonderful surprise of an occasional sunny day, sleepless nights and drowsy days, hot and spicy tea, the dread of Christmas, cold air, darkness, darkness and more darkness - and then, at last: snow!

sick day note

While on my lonely couch I lie,
I seldom feel myself alone,
For fancy fills my dreaming eye
With scenes and pleasures of its own.
(Anna Brontë)

look at your man, Annie

Many a sad life story is to be heard among the customers at the Little Shop of Harmony. Many a sigh have I sent up to God as I see refugees struggling to make a life for themselves, alcoholics struggling to find something to live for. And above all, as I see the aching loneliness of those not loved by anyone.

And then I go back to my own life and whine over the lack of a decent cup of coffee and the cost of hair dye.

Today, an old man wandered in to buy a present to bring to some celebration he obviously had been invited to. He asked for directions to the gift book shelf but politely declined offers of help to choose, as if not wanting to trouble anyone. After looking around a bit at random, he chose the first suitable and not too expensive book he found. I took his money and idly reflected over the fact that such an independent man still could seem so lost in the world. But after all, lone male shoppers tend to seem out of place in our small shop - it's usually the women who buy gifts.

As if in explanation, he suddenly remarked as I handed him his change: "My wife, Annie, she used to buy the presents. But she is gone now."

I mumbled something inane and then he left. But despite all the sad stories I have heard, this one gave me a sharp stab of pain on the inside. In fact, I cried. Over the loneliness, the helpless despair, and the incredible courage of people who make their lives go on even though the bottom of their world has fallen out.

I hope Annie in her heaven is smiling down at him through tears of pride and love.

more tips from the coach

Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don't skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!

from Ecclesiastes 9, The Message Bible

seven questions and one answer

Coffee, bleak sunshine, a favourite book (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell), online praise music. Walking around the flat, sighing in front of the computer, translating animal rights activists and steering documents of vocational education. Am I good enough? Will I ever be happier than I am now? What will I have for a late lunch and why is cooking so boring? What is the meaning of life? How long is the season of unrequited love? What would you name a self-help group for people who talk too much?

Answer to the last question: On and On Anon.

girl talk

My 9-year old niece, already an expert on romantic relationships (recently broke up with a boyfriend as she felt he was not committed enough), sneers at me when I suggest I too might know a thing or two about men. "Really?" she says sceptically and proceeds to test me:

Niece: So, what do all men have that women don't, in the front?
Me: Eh... a... (feebly trying to avoid the obvious answer and wildly think of another possible one) ... an adam's apple!
Niece (in triumph): So you don't know!
Me (defensively): It's the correct answer!
Niece (in a patronizing voice): No. The correct answer is: Chest hair!

not so hopeless

Dreamed that I had a dream. Woke up and felt hope - the hope to acquire a dream again. It's a start.

Yesterday I sat on a beach as darkness slowly fell. Smoked a cigarette (I'm cutting down on my one-a-year habit), listened to the quiet of the autumn evening and tried to think, and believe: I am loved.

not so hopeful

The elk hunt has started and a man I admire is going to raise his rifle. I should be resting but is torn between work and moral obligations and almost in tears. I am proud of my skills and worried about my knees. I face the winter of my discontent.

my life in a Dalí painting

On the steps of the gazebo I sat crying and the actor had to go somewhere else to rehearse his monologue. I read poems to the blind man and whispered to his guide dog. With aching knees I bought three odd-shaped lightbulbs.

Drifting again and my life seems too surreal to me. I'm taking out my cigarrettes; I still have a packet from last year.

what is the distance between two friendships?

Your view of friendship is too mechanical if you call your nine-months-pregnant friend and are surprised to hear that she has been missing your phone calls. You should not automatically put yourself at an emotional distance just because you are at a geographical one and fear that you will lose that friendship.

On the other hand, sometimes it is good to end a friendship, at least unofficially. Then it comes as a pleasant surprise when one's newly-wed friend explores the possibilities for an evening at the pool-table with you, or sends you a text message from Mongolia to tell you that he has found Orlando Bloom's Mongolian doppelgänger.

sulking and a smile

Rough winds do shake my balcony windows in September. I sulk. I do not need another winter right now!

In the shop, dry leaves blow in through the open door until the rain starts. A case of swine flu announces itself in a phone call. Still, happy expectancy in my smile whenever someone walks in...

turn left at the savannah

Travelling with family. A hot car, an excited little dog, kids asking when is the next icecream stop. A savannah littered with windmills, beautiful beaches, algae-smelly sea, jungle-like forests, poppies in fields, cute villages. Strong emotions. Drove me crazy. Drove me wild with joy too. I have visited yet another island... Öland, Sweden.

the decline and fall of a once-magnificent house

Found my old dollhouse and had a laugh. My niece and nephews have turned it into what appears to be a crack house. Wonder if the Extreme Makeover Home Edition team are up for a challenge?

the four elements in one picture

The wallpaper is garish in seventies' style and whispers "home". Cigarrette smoke stings my lungs and hisses "freedom". I lean back against a crowded book shelf that murmurs "wisdom". Under my fingers play the keys of the piano, singing "joy".

dinner for old enemies

Class reunion and the chance to see some much-hated people.

How strange to find that they are capable of a polite chat, but even more bizarre to note that I myself can act with self-confidence, even charm. Many years have mellowed my eyes and monsters have turned into human beings. Not likely to become friends but that is mostly due to the fact that we have little to talk about, not aversion.

And I thank the heavens for forgiveness. That I was able to make that choice years ago. If not, I would not have felt the freedom of chatting amiably and knowing that nothing they did has ever held me back. That I, in fact, have soared in a sky they can only dream of.

me and the seagull days

Seagulls screaming at each other. Wake me up too early. Blame myself, balcony door left open overnight but what else to do in summer? Plug my ears and fall asleep again whispering "summer".

Walk to work, tired. Empty streets, a few exceptions: cars on the road to the hospital; flower shop lady setting up her fragrant merchandize on the sidewalk display; lady with golden retriever meets lady with shetland sheepdog; insurance company staff hiding in their poorly lit rooms; a pair of swallows swooshing past my head, so close that I duck. The quiet of a small town a summer morning. Half of the town out of town, half the country out in the country, fishing and sunbathing and barbecuing at primitive or not so primitive summer cottages.

In the bookstore, people wandering in and out wearing skirts and shorts and short sleeves, commenting the heat, commenting summer showers, wondering when the heat will return. No stress. Suntanned faces. Smiles.

Walk home, tired feet. Stop for a takeaway pizza from Turkish place, wait with a tabloid before me, scan the headlines: hermit OAP starved to death, B-list actor slapped a fan, suspect financing of political party. Home, seagulls no longer screaming, draw the curtains against the garish sunlight.

Dream of weekend when I too head for the seaside where I will survive without electricity and running water and the internet. Just the simple cottage, the sea and the forest, the family and the birds and the sun and the gorgeous, lovely Finnish summer.

The sun will not set tonight either, or maybe just for a minute if he is tired.

the sinner, the saint and the scholar

A nice girl raised in a church pew.
A tough one in red leather swearing out loud and knocking back vodka.
A bookworm with a degree in literature.
A hotel worker not afraid of bar fights.
A shy one who hesitates to open her mouth.
A flirty one who kisses men without teeth and boys with pierced tongues and everyone in between.
A hopeless dreamer.
A jaded cynic.
A depressed loser.
A life-lover whose dreams have come true.

All of the above came together once ... and this woman here came into existence.

the hero of all the stories

Behind the counter in the bookshop. An elderly gentleman - straight back and clear eyes - hands me a book he has found. It's about the fire that destroyed our city in the 19th century. Before I even have time to say hello, he tells me an amusing anecdote about the same fire.

I giggle at the story - no doubt a true one, down to the last detail - too nervous to remember it afterwards but delighted beyond words. My hero, my ultimate authority on history, the best teacher I ever had, the one who turned boring historical facts into breathtaking stories about adventures, heroes, villains and epic emotions and who made bored teenagers gasp with fascination - he is standing here before me again after all these years, telling me another one of these stories. This one for me exclusively.

This history teacher was also the one who always scared us all out of our wits. So here I stand today, adult and independent, and quake in my boots at a mere look from those sharp eyes. With a desperate longing in me to impress, to connect.

But he responds patiently, graciously, to my nervous attempts at conversation. And suddenly, though I feel so inexplicably young I realise that I must have grown up. I am asking questions and telling stories of my own to this man whom I never dared to speak to before except in reply to questions. I smile, bravely. He smiles back. I may be quaking now but after he is gone I will stand proudly, firmly, on my own two feet. Because some people demand so much of you that you find yourself living up to it - despite your own fears.

God is a DJ

To dance until the world spins around you. To feel the music in your bones and nothing else. To wonder if you are losing your mind and love the feeling. To fly to the moon. To be completely drunk and high and drowned and shaken up by life. To have no tomorrow. To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. To be pulled along with no control. To love. To know you are not who people expect. To meet God among the strobe lights and see him smile at you. To be the music and the motion. To be you.

the tarmac and the temple

The fragrance of the bird cherry blossoms, the first heat of summer, bikinis on the beach. I walk past with sandals and a book bag, drawn by the feeling of strange paths with tarmac heated by the sun. People ignoring me, birds screaming hello. Am I happy or desperate? Try to remember that people are generally nice. That there is kindness. Bare arms no longer chilled by spring winds, sweet whispers of exuberantly green birches. Tempted to buy icecream. I walk past a hotel - the place that showed me I am my own and make my own life. I hide in the peaceful woods - the sacred temple of my childhood. I lift my face to the breeze and look out over the sea - the horizon that tempted me with adventures beyond my wildest dreams.

Returned from my own, from the temple, from the horizon that I crossed more than once, I must now make my home on the wellknown shore once again. And still find the courage to awaken other dreams.

how long does limbo last?

Find myself trying to focus on Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark while wishing I were somewhere else entirely. Eating chocolates and thinking I shouldn't. Hoping and dreading friends will call.

A walk in the woods might set things into perspective. Even though I sometimes run into strange creatures.

vanity and vexation of spirit

Here is everything I know about my life today:

The milk in my coffee had turned. I have been in pain. I have done useful things that were useful only to me so do they count? I have decided to study French and to tell my friends when I feel bad. I hesitate between stepping out into reality and staying in to watch a DVD. The Jehova's Witnesses came by again and were really young and shy. Books do not tempt me today. I fell asleep to the sound of someone digging up my street. I am not good at this life thing. But I will keep doing it. I believe I will die at age 82 and go to heaven.

the night of two musics

Guided by candlelight I find my seat in a dark concert room and let my ears be caressed by the beautiful fragile voice of a female singer-songwriter. Her vulnerability and pain and careful hope floats in the air above me and if I were to laugh it would break.

Touched, I make my way home afterwards and yet there is a relief in leaving this intimate darkness and breathe the fresh nightly air. I can almost see the pain and hope of humankind. The streets are deserted and quiet but music of another kind reaches me from somewhere far away. It is irresistible...

I follow the sound to the International House. Its large windows are thrown open wide to let in the winter wind and spilling out in return is loud music of an oriental kind (I am guessing Turkish) with its distinctive dance across the half and quarter notes. It is shockingly different from the careful, precise music I have just heard. It is boisterous, jubilant, joyful - blaring into the quiet night with no respect for the House's decorous neighbours, and bouncing back as an echo against the sober Orthodox church building opposite. The House itself is almost shaking from many feet dancing on its wooden floorboards. People are hanging out the windows to catch a breath of fresh air before pressing back into the suffocating heat of the dancing crowd, shrieking with laughter. Children who should have been in bed long ago are playing outside without a care in the world.

I walk past twice - no, three times. Joy is swirling through the night and I am incapable of leaving.

this is not a poem because it doesn't rhyme

The ice is gone,
friends threw me a party,
new books are piling up,
spring is in the air and everywhere else.

I have learned a new way to write (this is not it),
I had a wonderful chèvre salad today,
I am learning the meaning of friendship.

A Czech woman called me on Skype,
my boss gave me time off,
soul is warming up,
dreams are getting intense.

Come here to me, desired and lovely things.

påsk must

Really must start updating this blog, read other blogs, be in and be out there. But first must wake up, stop bleeding, eat vitamins, set up goals, get a grip, drink more water, eat less sweets, do this do that, quit moping, feel loved.

soul and sea

Dreamed that the sea was free and dark and beautiful. Woke up and looked out the window and the sea was still bound in ice.

Not long now, hopefully. The ice is grey and wet and rotten, and melting away slowly. One good storm is all it takes and then I will see the waves roll in.

Then my soul will be free as well. Linked to the sea, I will defeat the ice of winter. There are forces at work that cannot be stopped.

not a good day for love

Day of ex's wedding. Was theoretically invited but knew I wasn't expected to go and didn't want to either. Drifted around in a shopping centre, lonely as a cloud. Ran into a could-have-been ex, shopping happily with his newly-wed wife.

Self-pity? Rage, more like. I'm sick and tired of everyone else's happily efter after. But most of all, I'm sick and tired of losing friends.

ice queen melting

The bay still under a cover of ice and snow, thick enough to ski on, but in my sheltered spot on a balcony I soak up the spring sun. It warms my cheeks for the first time since September. The Ice Queen is melting just a little, just a softening up of the outer shell while the birds are chattering in the bare lime tree. I lean back. Feelings frozen inside me for months overwhelm me.

may the force be with me

When I slam the volleyball down on the opposite side of the net and I really got it right this time and all my energy erupts in that single moment... I can hear a choir of angels sing. Peace and good will and God's favour.

in this very minute

News in the Sami language on TV, incomprehensible. Old pictures in my photo album, including one showing my smiling friend in front of a docked submarine at Pearl Harbor. I can remember the claustrophobic feeling inside it.

Me, the computer and a thick dictionary. A sudden urge to wear bracelets and I find two on my jewellery tree: a half-broken one with olive-green fake pearls and my most precious one in jasper and silver, made by an artist friend.

I live my life in broken moments like this.

what I give up for Lent: worrying

I need to: Learn more English, learn more French, learn more Finnish. Go over my notes from the course in self-defence. Love my friends better. Go see my parents more often. Write the dream. Get a dog. Stop worrying. Be loved. Eat less bread. Tell my neighbour what she needs to hear. Stop looking for attention. Grab attention. Love myself. Stop obsessing about myself. Eat more fruit. Go to the gym. Laugh. Go for longer walks. Be fascinated by the world. Stop to think. Laugh again. Experience the moment. Watch fewer DVDs. Play the piano and sing. Go to bed earlier. Feel less envy. Listen to more music. Dare to face my repressed dreams, if they are still there somewhere. Water the potted plants. Grin.

coffee and toffee and demons

Tired and lonely.

Beautiful winter, pristine snow, an important task that apparently only I could do, a new sofa, a father who cares, film "Australia" and a sudden urge to read The Songlines, friends that don't forget me, a thermos with coffee in the snow, God. Behold things to remember when despair strikes again as it always seems to do as the month of murder approaches.

Tomorrow I will go to the expensive coffee shop and have a large vanilla latte and a piece of toffee cake. Coffee and toffee, invaluable weapons in the battle against demons.

in a van through winter

Steering an impossible huge and heavy van across the plains of Western Finland, I try to shut out the chatter of my travelling companion and dream of Prince Charming.

Icy roads are okay as long as there is snow on the fields and forests to add a shimmer to an otherwise bleak landscape. I keep an eye out for elk and deer and try to decide on a radio station. The van is loaded with books but smells of apples and winter. My fingers are numb with cold and I turn up the heater a notch.

Sleepy villages and towns pass by with their wooden cottages and ugly '60s blocks. An occasional tractor blocks the road. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, people have chosen to live, even here there are schoolyards with laughing children. Imagine.

There will be no sun today either, and darkness is falling as we head home in the late afternoon. I slow down and turn on the full headlights. My shoulders are aching from the driving and from carrying heavy book cases in the cold but I am served coffee out of a thermos and life seems suddenly quite allright. I am driving through winter and I can smell the sleeping fields and the resin of the woods, and oh how beautiful is this country I am in.

darling books: i'm shack-shocked

When God invites you to spend a weekend at a shack where your daughter was violently killed - will you go? I know I would, after reading The Shack (by W.P.Young). If only to ask him to explain himself. And to watch him cook dinner.

This book shockingly turned my thinking upside down. With all the books I read, it doesn't often happen.

to the strangers in the church lobby

Faces that are becoming dear to me, sometimes I hate you. Sometimes you annoy me, frustrate me, look right through me when I need you to see me. Don't walk past me! Don't smile politely. I need you to really look at me, to ask me.

Faces of strangers, you are family. We share so much, let's share more. Let's listen. Let's care. When I am lonely, I will look around and see if you need me to ask. When I dry my tears I will say "are you okay?". When I'm exhausted I will reach out a trembling hand to steady you. In my weakness, I will try.

But I need you. To see me, to speak gently to me, to give me a shoulder to lean against for a minute. To love me when I'm not worth it.

Because I love you too, even when I hate you, my family of strangers.

harmonious day

Ordering in CDs by new, unknown artists and helping them spread their message.
Imagining that a book I sell will change someone's life.
Seeing the joy in an old woman's eyes when I get her a book that she has been looking for and never thought she would find.
Playing a beautiful song on the CD-player and seeing stressed-out customers pause to listen.

There is joy in working in a shop sometimes.

sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits

Took a walk by the seafront in the January twilight and counted my blessings. My new golden boots left gold sprinkle in the powdery snow - or so I like to think.

This year has already brought new things. Golden boots. A chocolate tasting party where it took us 2 hours to get through five small pieces of chocolate. A new responsibility. Even a new admirer (though I still wish to be admired by someone else entirely).

And new sports clothes, for that New Year's resolution that I adamantly claim to never have made at all. But here it is: this year, I will be beautiful, rich and happy.

Pause for irony.

OK, OK. Too much, I know. So I will settle for being just beautiful and happy.

2008: the year I became an African

What I Did During the Year 2008: *After the Veuve Clicquot of the New Year celebrations faded out of my system, I had a runny nose and cynical mind. *Borrowed (for a few days) a terrier who hated postmen and barked at ice. *Couldn't hide from the dentist any longer (but 10 years is a personal best!). *Advanced in my digital development. *Had a dream where I found out I'm worth 1300 euro. Everyone was surprised. *Was pictured in the newspaper eating fish soup. *Forced the Little Shop of Harmony into the computer age (with a malfunctioning fax machine as my accomplice). *Worried that my jaw would fall off. It stopped feeling like it would when I stopped worrying. *Had dinner with a Limey. *Tried snowboarding. Only really managed to stay upright while clinging desperately to the gorgeous snowboard instructor. *Danced until midnight at an African wedding and then walked for miles through a wintry night in my party clothes to have a man teach me to play the mandolin. *Tried public speaking in a foreign language in front of hundreds of people. Almost died. Then felt like I'd gone to heaven. *Got my first parking ticket. *Spent a weekend getting foot massage, compliments and Russian poetry. *Limped around the island of Crete and discovered that what I love most of all is limping around foreign islands and really having the time to look. *Baked a cake. *Had the best possible Midsummer, laughing and dozing among friends and not having a care in the world except which man to choose as the most handsome. *Studied macho men at a metalsmithing fair, met real-life villagers at a local craft fair and genuine urbanites at an inter-city beachvolley tournament. *Ended a close friendship, restarted another. *Took on the responsibility of bringing Swedish literature to the Finnish people... at least some of it, to some of them. *Tried to teach a refugee girl not to dye her dog's fur yellow. *Decided to be happy. *Was denied membership in a church and felt more at home than ever. *Was totally culture-shocked, not to say culture-bowled-over at yet another noisy, chaotic African wedding. *Drove a van through the Land of Cool, Sweden, and tried to look cool. *Learned about mussels, black pasta, the EMO look, the life of rich EU brats, modern art that actually managed to move me, Flemish pubs, and how much I love my sister, during an intense Halloween in the capital of Europe. *Suffered defeat, over and over again, with the volleyball team. *Dreaded family Christmas turned out to be surprisingly OK, perhaps due to the presence of seven (7) dogs. *During the last evening of the year, was awarded the title of honorary African. By a non-African. *Made a fool of myself and it didn't matter one bit. And now, over to the next year... Wishing all of my blogging friends all the joy in the world for 2009!