when I learned to spell Choszczno

Poland, in the '90s.

Summer heat makes the pavement soggy and minds foggy. Fairly clueless foreign teenagers sing in the streets for mildly interested Poles.

I sing my heart out, giggle when people give us money, long for an icecream and drown in the dark eyes of a Polish boy named Robert. New friends try to teach me the language, the icecream costs us thousands of zlotys and nights are spent sleeping on couches and floors.

We rehearse a dance routine by the tall, rundown apartment buildings where we live, while our host family's poodle begs us for snacks. Our hostess cooks us strange food in the tiny, muggy flat with the lace curtains. We take a canoe trip along silent lakes and creeks overgrown with the lushness of high summer and share baskets of cherries. We spend cooler evenings on the basketball and volleyball courts with youngsters from the neighbourhood. I have my heart broken by Robert of the dark eyes but I have friends who hug me, tease me and make me laugh with their weird plans of touring in a Fiat Polski. I realise that the strange people of Eastern Europe are fun, warm-hearted, wise and do know how to do a decent volleyball spike.

sewage and sugar rush

How much greyer could it get? You walk shivering through a city of bare concrete walls and wet asphalt, it's November with a lame excuse for a daylight, and you are forced to squeeze past a sewage truck pumping something smelly out of a building, hoping the hose won't burst just as you are delicately stepping over it in your best boots.

So you really, really deserve that delicious, colourful, supersweet and ultra-creamy cupcake that is fragrantly crooning at you from the pastry shelf of a cosy café.

These are the three things that I think about: writing, a prince, and cupcakes.

the day of nothing better

A cup of not-great coffee, sleepy remnants of a dream featuring the man of my dreams, vague anxiety. And the rest of the world is probably extremely happy.

decide to decide

"An entire planet of music is spinning past me, and I'm trapped here in a shrine to my stupid sadness. Time to join the party." *

There comes a point when pain and grief is ready to let go of you, if you let go of it. It just takes a decision. I think.

I will wait one more week. Then I will make that decision. I need to prepare myself.

* R.M. Goldsby: Rhythm

darling books: one I'm falling for

"I don't know."
We pass through the rear courtyard of the art museum, the one separating it from Dod. There are footprints here, back and forth in zigzags.
"You know what Charlie told me?" he says, staring at the marks in the snow. 
"What?"
"If you fire a gun, the bullet falls as fast as if you'd dropped it."
This sounds like something I learned in introductory physics.
"You can never outrun gravity," Paul says. "No matter how fast you go, you're still falling like a rock. It makes you wonder if horizontal motion is an illusion. If we move just to convince ourselves we're not falling."

One of my favourite novels, for its combination of ancient mysteries, life-loving university atmosphere and something else: The Rule of Four by Caldwell & Thomason. Makes me want to go to Princeton, stay up all night studying and fall in love.

the Himalayas and me

I have three problems:

I am lonely.
I hate cooking.
I am extremely poor.

And interestingly, for one of these I have some hope for a change even though there is no sign of it yet. Yes, the last one.

Meaning I don't believe in love and I don't believe I can change, but apparently I do believe the world will eventually come to its senses and offer me a decent job.

 

helmet vs. vegetable

Dilemma as I cycle around town: wear a helmet and feel ugly and ridiculous, or not wear a helmet and feel fantastic and alive? I don't fear hitting my head and dying. I fear hitting my head and spending a long life as a vegetable.

That was today's middle-aged moment. Now I will take my vitamin supplement and go do something slightly less pathetic. Count my pension savings perhaps?

I was born to dance on a mountain

I remember the days when I lived deeply and lived lightly.

I used to wake up in a big bed in a friend's house, comfortable under the duvet even though the room was slightly chilly. I would stretch and yawn and then decide that although it would be nice to sleep a bit longer, instead I would get up and make the most of this day. I read a few pages from a book left lying on the nightstand, a little pretty book* that said things like "When I loved myself enough, I started taking the gift of life seriously and gratefully" and I felt seriously grateful for little things, like the grey winter daylight and the cats that came in to investigate when I opened the bedroom door.

I looked out the window and saw little back yards surrounded by crumbling stone walls, and the rooftops of a little Irish city. When I opened the window, the air was chilly and raw, yet incredibly mild for one who is used to the severe cold of a Nordic winter. There was, as always, the sounds of Ireland (a burglar alarm going off somewhere in the distance) and the smells of Ireland (turf fires). Shivering in the poorly heated house but genuinely joyful, I sensed coffee brewing and went downstairs for a shower and a simple breakfast with one of my best friends in the world. Everything, from the weird start/stop-button in the shower to the breakfast rolls with marmalade, was both foreign and well-known. I was back in my second homeland with an intense, almost physical feeling of belonging.

And everything I did that day, and all the days of my all-too-short Irish visit, I did with mindfulness and concentration and simple enjoyment. It was a series of moments, ordinary but special. It was walks on the beach, talking to stray dogs, exploring the city's bookshops and back streets, food shopping in Tesco's, driving my friend's car (on the left side of the road!), reading papers to catch up on current Irish issues, lazy evenings with my friend, her cats and some wine while laughing at stupid Celebrity Big Brother. I felt at home visiting the dry-cleaner's and walking alone through dark streets to get a bottle from the off-license.

I did not let my awareness of life slip. I spent almost no time reading, playing inane computer games, checking in on FaceBook or worrying/dreaming about the past/future. I was just there, just then, feeling loved and at home and determined not to let an hour go by unexperienced. Determined to live out every positive and negative feeling instead of analysing them too much.

And I went dancing with old friends. And when they dragged me on a midnight drive along dangerous mountain paths to someone's house for yet another party when I wanted nothing more than a long night's sleep, I was able to let go of tiredness and fear and submit to the thrill of letting adventure take me where I'd never been before.

That's the kind of people I want around me: Those who take life lightly and enjoy it. Who accept people as they are. Who don't analyse everything but who can spend a whole day just hanging out together, discussing whatever comes up (whether it's celebrity gossip or deep emotions). Who are themselves without trying to live up to ideals that are beyond them. Who let their personality shine and allow themselves to really feel every feeling. Who can dance.


That's who I am: The person I am in Ireland is ME, the one I was created to be - free, open-minded, ready for adventure, curious, carefree. Now I just have to convince her to come back to Finland with me.

Run to win. Live your life, the world will wonder why. Or like my friend advised me: "Wear high heels while you still can."

* When I Loved Myself Enough by Kim McMillen

the mysteries of trees

Strolling in the romantically named Forest of Court of Appeal, which is growing wild and where you half expect to suddenly find Sleeping Beauty's castle, I came upon this little note lying on the muddy path.

"Maybe the next tree?"

Intriguing. But the next tree gave no further clue.

the November chronicles

In November these things have been known to happen:

* The government tries to drown me in forms and I am in despair (2005)
* I have tea with fifteen Africans and get a guitarist neighbour (2006)
* Game stew is served at the university (2007)
* I explore the mussels of Brussels and run past a "kiss and drive" sign (2008)
* Fancy fills my dreaming eye as I bond with a Brontë (2009)
* I make a comprehensive list of all the despicable people of the world (2010)
* I discover happiness in a virus and walk among ruins (2011)

influenza: the meaning of life

Today I have: a runny nose, a wheezing chest, a scratchy voice and a faint suspicion that I may be dying.

And, even more incomprehensibly than yesterday, I also still have that mysterious joy of life. As I dragged my soon-to-be corpse to work, I felt a spark of elation when I stepped out into the grey morning. That NEVER happens. And I didn't kick my neighbour's bike which is always parked where it blocks my way.

If this is one of the flu symptoms, I never want to get well, ever again.