the nights of Psalm 91

If on an evening, just before the turn of the year, you feel anxious about the future, even terrified of going to bed in an hour because of the mind monsters that whisper horrible truths out of the darkness...

Just let it be. Accept that these are the evenings that must happen to you, as they happen to everybody else. Let the whispers slide past you and away into the walls. Their truth is not the whole truth because you are not alone and someone is fighting for you. If it becomes too much to bear, get up and make yourself some hot chocolate and read a book that makes you smile in the middle of the night. It's OK. You will lose some sleep, but there will be other, better nights.

You don't always have to be the hero who slays the monsters. It's OK to be weak tonight. Just trust, and rest, and know that you are loved and that morning is on its way.

covered

Waking up, well rested. Knowing it's late in the morning by the muted grey light. There won't be any real daylight today - the ever-present blanket of clouds is thicker and darker than usual.

Forcing myself out on a run, the first in a long time. The rain starts falling - it's unusually warm for December - but as soon as I come home, exhausted, wet and with freezing toes, the rain is turning into snow.

I had been planning to go into town. But it's becoming clear to me that I don't want to go shopping, don't even want to see friends. I want to stay in my warm flat, light the candles, make some vanilla coffee, watch the snow fall over the bay as the darkness grows thicker.

I want woollen socks and dreams of the future.

christmas in the rain

It's that time of the year, according to Facebook:

Pictures of babies in Santa hats. "Standing in the queue at the fish seller's for some X-mas delicacies." Blurry, proud snapshots of Christmas trees or homemade chocolates. "Traditional pies now in the oven, holidays can start!"

My friends and peers are all busy cooking for in-laws, wrapping presents and decking the halls. I cleaned my flat, put up one string of fairy lights and brought out more candles. Tried some Christmas music but couldn't stand it and went back to One Republic. Maybe I'll take a stroll around town, avoid all queues and instead sit in the coffee shop and watch the seasonal stress around me. And alone at home, sipping mulled wine and reading a novel, I wouldn't wish for anything else.

Except you to share it with me, and a puppy playing at our feet.

coffee and zoology

Bookshop staff are interesting people. Where else do seemingly normal, non-academic people have conversations like this around the coffee table:

Staff member #1: "The Latin name of the lynx is Lynx Lynx."
Staff member #2: "And the common crane is Grus Grus."
Staff member #3: "And magpie is Pica Pica."

the restaurant at the trend of the universe

My workmate Butterfly and I have found a new favourite place for lunch.

The kind that does a nice salad ( chèvre with pomegranate, anyone? ), tasty soups with lots of black bread, and a complimentary homemade cookie with the coffee. The kind that is slightly overpriced for slightly too small servings. The kind whose clientele are the successful, the trendy and the ones who like to hang around the successful and trendy (I and Butterfly fall into the third category ). The kind with beautiful décor and original art by a local artist on the walls. The kind where you have to squeeze yourself in at a far too small table and sit in your neighbour's personal space. And, fascinatingly, the kind where the staff seems to consist entirely of male models.

It is also the kind of place where a gang of musicians can be overheard discussing their next tour, a student is talking to a friend on Skype, office workers are divulging details about their businesses and a man in a Gant sweater is asking his adult daughter whether she needs money ( she doesn't ). It IS difficult not to eavesdrop when you're sipping your soup in their personal space, after all.

Butterfly and I usually eat without talking to each other much. There are far more interesting discussions going on around us. People say things like "That's a Burberry over there" and "She thought I was crazy when I suggested a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan". And then there are other distractions - did I mention the staff?

open your mouth and change a country

"It's not fair, how is anyone supposed to resist chocolate?"

Three strangers, all women, bond over the chocolate bars on sale at the grocery store check-out - in two different languages. I feel strangely elated when I walk out of there ( yes, with chocolate ). I like laughing with strangers.

I'm going to talk to people more. Strangers in the grocery store, the people at the next table in the café, my neighbours. It is not often done in this silent country of reserved Finns, but I'll do what I can to change that. And become more like my father in the process. He was a shy Finn who dared to overcome his nature and bond with strangers. Over chocolate, if nothing else was available.

days of malady and menace

Sore throat, headache and a stubborn fever. A small price to pay when I get to stay home for days and do the following:

* Eat tons of Dennis the Menace icecream ( good for the throat )
* Watch everything good, and not so good, that's been made for television ... White Collar, House, Arrow, Hotel Hell, The Nobel Prize Banquet, Solsidan ... and some daytime Finnish television I could have done without
* Overdose on tea with honey
* Grow pleasantly forgetful
* Instead of staring at a computer screen, study the brief December daylight play across the ice on the bay
* Stare at a computer screen anyway but for good reasons, like Pinterest
* Make myself a finger food plate of avocado, cucumber and cheese - options are limited when the shop is an exhausting 300 meters walk away
* Text with friends and bask in their sympathy for my condition
* Cry with laughter while watching old episodes of QI. ( Not sure how beneficial such laughter is to my recovery. )
* Have a man bring me pizza
* Follow, at a safe distance, various workplace crises by occasionally checking email - and not worry about them
* Snooze under a blanket while a winter storm is howling outside
* Feel sorry for myself
* Feel extremely privileged

pieces

I see so many lost souls when I look around. Wounded people desperate for a father or a mother, or both. Where did all the fathers and mothers go? Or was it the children who ran away and now bitterly regret it?

My heart aches for them. All these strong and capable souls, the crying and pitiful ones, and the hard-hearted and ruined ones. All broken-hearted.

And I'm helpless to help them. I, the strongest, most pitiful and ruined one, the soul of a thousand broken shards.

feeling more blue than white

Day of Independence, and Finns bravely try to celebrate.

Try to have solemn parades, try to honour war veterans, try to light the blue-white candles in their windows, try to throw parties. The tradition that actually seems best suited to the season is snuggling up on the sofa and watching TV - the endlessly long, black-and-white film classic The Unknown Soldier and the annual President's Ball ( for celebrity spotting and outfit mocking ).

Because snow is falling and the cold and darkness press heavily on everybody today. The 6th of December is exactly at the junction between autumn storms and the first winter freeze.

I firmly believe that the somber Finns, well-known for secretly being proud of our country but always bad-mouthing it in public, would be a happier people if we could celebrate our country on a sunny summer's day. Having picnics, boat trips, outdoor concerts and barbecues with cold beer, instead of trying to survive its birthday at a time when sunshine is banished and said country seems determined to kill us.

I'm on my way out - to a warm house to bake gingerbread cookies and sip mulled wine. Maybe I will survive after all.

life lessons in black fur

I had a  poodle,  once.

We were babies together, clumsily toddling around a little garden, me squealing joyfully as I grabbed his curly puppy fur. We grew up together and I took him for many a walk, annoyed with his constant tugging on the leash. He also took many unauthorised walks on his own around the neighbourhood whenever he managed to find a way out of the house - this poodle loved his freedom.

Then I had a Labrador.  I was thirteen, a lonely, skinny teenage girl, and he was a stout puppy who grew at an alarming rate and turned into a bulky, headstrong dog. Before long, he almost weighed more than I did. This proved to be a challenge when we were out and he frequently decided to take off - at a run - in a different direction than the one I wanted. I developed some amazing muscles for a teenage girl, along with a strong determination that has taken me far later in life. I trained him myself. We had quite a few battle of wills but in the end, he turned out a very good dog, loyal and loving. And I, the lonely teenager, discovered that I was neither alone nor weak and useless.

And then, I had a  collie.  Technically, she was not mine. I lived in staff accommodation at a hotel where I worked and she turned up out of the blue, a runaway sheepdog. She loved everyone, and everyone in the staff house loved her back, so she moved in. Attempts to find her owner, or a new owner to give her a real home, all failed. She was a great companion on long walks in the wilderness around the hotel, except for the time we were caught in a thunderstorm and she was so scared she tried to walk between my legs all the way home. She was also the centre of conflict, great drama and a few conspiracy theories, as she had to be hidden away from the hotel boss who hated her and more than once tried to get rid of her. He finally succeeded and we never saw her again.

I think it's safe to say I would not be who I am without these dogs. Three great loves, three heartbreaks when I lost them.

hibernation contemplation

Back to my winter existence of huddling under a blanket, hugging my laptop, burning candles, sipping something, watching storms go by, wondering why I'm so tired.

we left our secrets by the Eiffel Tower

Once upon a time, a Finn, a Mexican-American and a Korean drifted around  the streets of Paris ...

They had spent the last few weeks drifting around a tiny French village, working and trying to learn French, watching TV and playing ping-pong in an attic room, eating fruit straight off the trees in the garden, feeding stray cats and taking long walks along the narrow country lanes between wheat fields and hamlets. There had been adventures as well: entering a field guarded by a hostile stallion, hiding in a ditch one dark night and spying on a crazy stranger, hitch-hiking to the next village which was rumoured to have a crêperie.

These were lazy summer days when the definition of happiness was to find a good plum tree, sit underneath it and eat its fruit while discussing typical dog names in different cultures. The Korean was in love with the Finn, the Finn was in love with life, the Mexican was in love with God.

And then, there was Paris, and their last days together. 

It was miles and miles of walking, giggling in the Louvre, having a picnic by Pont Neuf, trying on the most expensive perfumes on Champs d'Elysées, napping on the lawn at Versailles one hot afternoon, making new friends at the youth hostel, sneaking into government buildings just because they looked like palaces, discussing God at the altar of Sacré-Coeur, listening to jazz in Montmartre ...

The last night, a balmy August midnight, they sat in the darkness underneath the Eiffel tower. "Let's tell each other our darkest secrets," the Mexican said. "Because we will never see each other again."

So they did.

in the hall of comfort and joy

A cave of warmth and sugar, the Kauppahalli  - market hall. My refuge on tired winter days when I need to escape the office for a while.

A good place to eat a tasty salad and people-watch, maybe stroll past a few of the stalls. As market halls go, it's tiny, but there are interesting things to see. Weird creatures of the sea in the fish-seller's display. Every kind of cheese known to man in the cheese stall - cranberry camembert, anyone? And oh, the temptation of Belgian truffel chocolates and dried strawberries!

If you venture past the food section, you can find boho clothes and healing crystals, but I'm usually content in a nook of the café. People stroll by at a leisurely pace, anyone from actors to old age pensioners. There is always someone you know and someone you wish you knew.

Just looking at the pink and yellow cupcakes under the golden light of the café counter raises my blood sugar to a pleasant level - I don't even have to eat one. The coffee is good and life is peaceful.

waiting for the right kind of pilot

I walk the streets again, in the early twilight of November.

A sprinkling of snow on the pavement, dangerous patches of ice. The barking of two dogs playing in the park, owners trying to untangle their leashes. Windows lit by ugly lamps or pretty Christmas decorations. The cold biting my cheeks.

Around the market square in the town center, neon lights are shining and people are milling about, finishing up their Saturday shopping or getting ready for a night out. Restaurants are opening their doors to early diners and there is a wonderful smell of hot food everywhere.

In the shopping centre, they're playing Savage Garden:

She can't remember a time when she felt needed
If love was red then she was colour blind
All her friends they've been tried for treason
And crimes that were never defined
She's saying, "Love is like a barren place,
And reaching out for human faith is
Is like a journey I just don't have a map for"
So baby's gonna take a dive and
Push the shift to overdrive
Send a signal that she's hanging
All her hopes on the stars
What a pleasant dream 

Walking past the little pizza place where I go for take-out sometimes, I see the Turkish proprietor sweeping the floor. I imagine him wondering about me sometimes - the lonely woman who always orders just one single pizza to take home to an empty apartment on a Sunday afternoon. The sight of him deftly cutting slices off the kebab meat and giving instructions to his only employee, another middle-aged Turkish man, is always a comfort. He has a fatherly air about him, quiet and confident but unassuming, just doing his job and offering a warm smile to go with the pizza.

She's taking her time making up the reasons
To justify all the hurt inside
Guess she knows from the smile and the look in their eyes
Everyone's got a theory about the bitter one 

I bypass the pizza this time and instead order spring rolls from a little Vietnamese lady. On my way home I walk extremely slowly, the way I do when I need the world to slow down and give me time to really see it.

And I see so many beautiful things. A dark high-rise building with light in a single window, one on the top floor. Coloured lights. Lovers holding hands over candle-lit dinner tables. So much hope, and a life worth living.

dancing away the oxygen

This year, I have learned to do  zumba  and I love it.

But there comes a moment towards the end of every zumba class when I'm really enjoying myself, life is beautiful and fun and filled with good music, and the zumba instructor puts on a slower song for the stretching session. Around that point in time, the poorly ventilated gym hall runs out of oxygen.

I struggle to do the stretching while battling nausea and dizziness. The song that plays at that moment? Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", of course: Every day is so wonderful, then suddenly it's hard to breathe...

lunch with the bee-eater

"Bet you don't know the Latin name of the bee-eater."

There is a challenge in my brother-in-law's voice. My sister and I, both language experts, grin at each other. We are having a laugh, making up names for a bird we've never heard of. My nephews roll their eyes and the dog puts his head on my lap as I absently stroke his whiskers. My mother smiles at us all, indulgently.
 
Sunday lunch with family. It wears me out, and it's the best thing that ever happens to me.

should not be forgotten years

The hardest years, the darkest years
The roarin' years, the fallen years
These should not be forgotten years
The hardest years the wildest years
The desperate and divided years ...
Forsaking aching breaking years
The time 'n' tested heartbreak years
These should not be forgotten years 

( Midnight Oil: Forgotten Years )

a sleep so sound

Spent the whole night chasing a song in my dreams.

When I woke up, it was gone. There was only a tired buzz in my ears from having to get up to a grey November morning.

"Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, 
and in the night his song shall be with me, 
and my prayer unto the God of my life."

(The Bible, Psalm 42:8)

writing between the lines, when you don't know how

Apparently, I'm  a writer of magic books.

These books, a.k.a. my old diaries, are for the most part horrendous and cringe-inducing and the utmost pinnacle of naiveté. But I have faithfully recorded my journey so far - which is lucky, as I seem to have forgotten most of it already ( and I'm not even that old ) - and when I pick up one of these diaries and read it, I am sometimes struck speechless.

I'm not sure if it's disbelief in how much I've forgotten of my adventures or doubts as to whether I've actually done those things or just made them up.

Did I actually, really, find a shop in Paris that sold live peacocks and skunks? Or see all the bicycles from the Tour de France pass by on a lorry? How did I forget these things?

And there is the case of the mysterious village ... I once lived in England for a while. I had ended up living in a particular village, tiny and largely unknown, completely by coincidence and had no recollection of ever having heard of its existence beforehand. Much later, I found that I had mentioned that village in my diaries. Not only once, but twice. Years before I went there. Creepy, yes?

I also seem to have a talent for writing very clearly about things to which I'm completely oblivious. Like the year I was frequently hanging out with an ex-boyfriend and feeling melancholic because I still had a thing for him but kept it to myself because he was not interested. That this was the factual state of affairs, I had no doubt at the time. Yet, in my old diary, where I wrote "he doesn't love me" and wrote about the way he looked at me and talked to me ... now I read the truth more clearly than that faded ink. The truth that he was desperately in love with me. Sad, yes?

No, I'm no writer of magic after all. But I see this as proof that there is more to life than just coincidence and randomness. A beautiful symmetry, the Creator's plan. And yes, it was in that plan that I not end up with that boy - this it also clear to me now.

However, if I read this in five or ten years, a completely different truth may be screaming at me from behind these words.

weekend of the dead

Followed the old Finnish All Saints' Day tradition of lighting candles on family graves. At dusk, the cemetery was an entire universe of burning lights and peace of mind.

Then walked through town and observed the newish, American import tradition of Halloween, which here manifests as people dressing up as monsters or zombies and going to parties. I almost fainted when I encountered a young man drenched in blood. He cheerily wished me a happy Halloween.

Manhattan may be a myth

  'What do I do now?' I asked him, helpless not to turn to the authority before me, the father we dream of in joy and fear.
  'Go back to a city that needs you.'
  'You mean, Manhattan?'
  'No one disputes your place here. You own your apartment outright, don't you? I understand it has a fine view.'
  If I stayed a moment longer Arnheim might describe those birds and that tower, my heart's last sacred quadrant of sky. I fled into the night and snow before I could hear it.

I don't like books that are weird. So I tried to put down Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City. But I couldn't because it mesmerised me. And it is thick and heavy. So now I hobble around with injuries - because I strained my hand and lost my heart.

the seals are waiting

Let's go to the city museum, the one where only tourists go, and learn things we never knew about our city and laugh at taxidermied seals.

Let's go to the flea market and completely lose ourselves among the shelves, see things we never dreamed existed, marvel at the folly of mankind, and find the perfect, perfect knitted sweater.

Let's go to the library and forget time, browsing and drowsy and happy.

Let's go to the animal shelter and take a couple of dogs for a walk, watch them play in the October sun.

Let's go to a café, the one where the vanilla latte is perfect and the barista's smile is joyful, and feel the hot coffee and the sugar rush warm our bodies until our souls find peace.

what he wrote to lillflickan

When I was sorting through my box of old letters, which has been gathering dust under my bed for years, I found letters from my father.

"Hope that 'all that is different' over there in the middle of the Pacific is a positive experience for you, so that it becomes something you remember with joy all the rest of your life. We live with you and remember you in our prayers. 'Rejoice always.' Write often, we are waiting to hear from you!"

I must have known that they were there, among correspondence from half-forgotten lovers, faraway friends and childhood penpals. Yet somehow, in the three years since he died, the thought of digging them out and reading them never once struck me.

It hadn't even occurred to me now. I took out that old box just as a part of my minimalist campaign to get rid of anything unnecessary in my life. And there they were. Written communication with my parents only happened during those summers and years when I was off volunteering and having adventures in foreign countries. Emailing and internet connections were sparse back then so I wrote long letters by hand and sent them home. Every now and then my mother, not much of a writer, would put down a few paragraphs on a piece of paper or a card and then ask my father to finish the letter.

Lovely letters! My mother filled me in on news about their daily life, the dog, projects at our summer cottage, the weather, even church meetings they had attended. A newspaper clipping was occasionally enclosed. My father was entrusted to pay my bills and deal with other issues that arose in my absence and, as usual, handled all such things diligently and efficiently. During that summer when I needed to go apartment-hunting but couldn't because I was away working on a tropical island, he did it for me ( over the phone, as he lived in another city ). He sorted out administrative and bureaucratic issues for me, sent me money, forwarded my mail, took my dog to the vet. And in these letters, he explained all the details that I needed to know and assured me that everything was taken care of.

If there was nothing to report, he wrote things like this:

"Hope you are enjoying the exclusive atmosphere over there, and that you find your job also a positive and informative experience. Take good care of yourself and no surfing the waves! Hugs from mom and dad!"

men who feed birds

I like my men manly.

Yet, I find it irresistible and sexy when a manly man takes on a role or attribute that is ( at least in my world ) more typical for women. Like cooking for me while I'm slouching on the couch. Or loving dogs, or feeding birds, or playing with friends' children whom I only spare a disinterested glance. Writing poetry. Or taking pictures, not to post on Instagram for the entertainment of others but for the purpose of having memories later.

And, of course, cleaning the house.

orphan

I'm hungry.

For purpose, for adventure, for peace of mind. For someone to see me, for unconditional love, but most of all for my father.

just add ice to injury

Ingredients in my recent life:

* A book that injured my hand. It goes on and on, and it's weird, and it weighs a ton and my hand continues to hurt because I can't put it down (Chronic City by J. Lethem).
* Rumours of a fox in the city.
* Skidding on ice with a Citroën that insists all the lights are broken.
* Statistics.
* The two Marias, who converge in a busy urban lunchplace like rarely seen angels and ply me with memories of another life.
* The Pillars of the Earth on DVD - how (not) to build a cathedral, always a good thing to know.
* ( Although I play a lot of volleyball but don't hang out much with volleyball people ) I had a weekend like this: Friday night party with volleyball gang, Saturday night girls' night in with volleyball girls ( and a bizarre combination of strong green booze and non-alcoholic Blue Nun, hard to say which one was worse ), Sunday afternoon drive with volleyball man, Sunday night volleyball game with crowds of volleyball people.
* Exhaustion. I just want to be quiet and alone.

tactile, tangible - and tunics

It started with an ache in my heart.

Something to do with being more real, more me, and feeling and tasting the real world. It continued with mental images of a woman wandering the streets and living intensely. I read a story. And I started to wander the streets and making my fantasies real - with limited success, I must admit, but just the fact that I started to dream again was a mind-boggling step.

My fascination with clothes, and looks, was a help. It's been decades since the first time I looked at a piece of clothing in a shop and saw a whole new life, a much more exciting personality - saw the fantastic woman I might become. But now I started to choose my outfits with even more care, started to feel the texture of the wool in my sleeve and the denim against my knee. I painted my eyes dark and felt exotic.

My change was sealed when I found myself in a new environment. Faced with the terror, very real and far away from my useless dream worlds, of learning a new job among complete strangers who expected me to prove myself useful, I desperately turned to my fantasy world of beautiful, fictional people for inspiration. I forced myself to go against my fearful instinct to blend in. I put on shorter skirts and higher heels and looked people in the eye with a smile. If a fictional character could look gorgeous and get the job done and even slay some dragons in the process, then so could I. No matter that my job, at least in the beginning, involved less dragons and more yawning and watching the clock. Being scared and bored was a challenge that required heroism too, in my opinion. My red tunics and my pretty bracelets were my armour.

Time slowed, that winter-spring when I sat at a desk or cleared out stuff in the storage room, having too much time to think and feel. So I felt my muscles move in my body and watched my polished nails tap on the keyboard. I saw the afternoon light fade outside the window and heard faint music from the radio in the next room. I stroked with fascination the fur sample pieces I was supposed to archive. I listened intentely to everything that was said in the office, even when it was not addressed to me, even when my coworkers were just discussing what they had had for lunch. And I watched how they moved, where they parked their cars, what they wore. I wanted to learn everything about them, besides learning about the job itself - because it was the key to survival.

Dyed fur - from animals who died for you. I don't have to like it in order to like the feel of it.

I did survive, at least the first few months. I still withdraw into my dream world all too often. But now, I see more. I see weeds growing out of the asphalt when I walk the streets. I hear faraway trains. I know more about people than they think I do. I know that you can survive terror or boredom by wearing a red tunic and pretend that there are dragons to slay ( there usually are, in some form ).

And I sometimes have to stop myself from staring at people, or beautiful things. Stop myself from touching them in awe. Because I know there is so much to experience, see, feel, even in a seemingly boring world. Especially in a boring world.

Reach out and touch it.

from the jazz club to the souk

... she checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo, reminds me that there's room to grow ...*

Well, I'm checking out music too. I've just moved on from the Rat Pack to Arabic groove - none of them familiar to me - and I can feel my brainwaves being forced to reroute.

And my diet this year - thanks to a cash flow increase - has moved from sandwiches to salads ( always a favourite ) and also in a distinctly Asian direction. Sushi - yes.

* lyrics from Train: Drops of Jupiter

paralyzer, my arch enemy

Can't decide if I want to:

Roam the streets of the city right now, breathing chilly air and rustling the autumn leaves on the sidewalk. Being intensely there and yet far away in my mind, aching for other cities and another air.

Or forcefully work towards my dream, sit down and study hard.

Or meet a friend and try to connect my dream world to reality. Or hide in delicious solitude and fantasies.

So I waver, and waive all my choices. Curse my indecision.

Beautiful autumn trees hidden behind prison walls. I think there's a metaphor here somewhere.

où mon coeur me pousse

Je voudrais retrouver mes traces ... Et garder l’or de mon passé, au chaud dans mon jardin secret...

A song is playing on repeat, often on my CD player or my laptop, always in my head. I want to fill a ship with the images and perfumes of my voyages. I want to find the colours in my heart and set sail for the unknown.

Je voudrai partir avec toi
Je voudrai rêver avec toi
Toujours chercher l’inaccessible
Toujours espérer l’impossible
Je voudrais décrocher la lune,
Et pourquoi pas sauver la terre

But above all, I want to find again, inside me, the voices of the ones who taught me that no dream is forbidden. I want to talk to my father.

Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père... 

( Céline Dion: Parler A Mon Père )

a van Gogh view

In my kitchen nook, on the wall, is a postcard with van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhône.

Because, although I don't live by the Rhône but by a little piece of the Baltic Sea, this is more or less what I see when I look out the window at night.

I may not have a good life, or happiness, but I am so blessed. I have beauty.

( Picture from Wikipedia )

a whisper overheard

That feeling when the first snow starts falling and you can hear it hitting the dry autumn leaves in the silence of the dark evening - a strange whisper - and all the wool in the world doesn't seem warm enough, and you get out the candles and the rum and curl up under a blanket to watch The Pillars of the Earth.

And someone is singing outside. The first snow always comes early, it makes you think "oh no, winter already!" and yet, everyone is strangely  exhilarated.

not too late to seek a newer world

Someone once said to me that the true marker of how old you are is the amount of time that has passed since you last did  something you've never done before.

I think of this often. I'm not an adventurous person by nature, yet I take real pleasure in doing things I've never done before (big or small).

And in doing things differently than I'm used to. Creating new routines, or temporarily changing routines.

This year, so far, I've done a few of these things.

Changed jobs. Taken up zumba. Had a hot stone massage. Thrown a big party ( I'm an introvert ). Bought a watch. Stopped going to church. Changed my attitude to a language I previously hated - now studying it with fervour. Taken a more tactile and mindful approach towards life.

And every time you change something, you force your brain to create new pathways, becoming more flexible. Or so they say. Making way for the changes you long for, the ones you never thought possible.

an excellent failure

A day of digging deep into Excel sheets and feeling I've lost my way but that's OK. And there was chocolate cake. All in all, not a bad day.

If you had said to me six months ago that a day involving Excel sheets could be considered "not bad", I would have laughed. ( And then cried. ) I have evolved.

a box and a paradox

A candle, a glass of wine and  a box of old letters.

Darkness falls over the bay as I curl up on my sofa and am reunited with old friends. Many of whom are lost a long time ago, disappeared as the world beckoned us each towards different horizons.

As I read, my phone beeps twice. Text messages from two present friends - one of them a long-standing and long-suffering one who has written a couple of the ancient letters I'm reading. The other one quite new. Imagine that these people stick by me! Me, who take them for granted, who am slow to reply to messages, who disappear into my own world when they need me.

cold with candles

The sun sets behind the tall chimney on the horizon nowadays, as it does in equinox times. I like that half-way mark.

The boats are disappearing from the marina, one by one. Late evenings are dark and some nights surprisingly cold. I don't need the leaves turning red and yellow in the trees to tell me that the  season of ice  is approaching.

It may be the season of being cold and weary but also the season for candles and wool.

let go

 I would like to let him in today.

Because I'm too tired to smile and be perfect. Too tired to fend him off. Too tired to hide my embarrassing flaws and hideous wounds. Too tired to live in constant fear.

I would like to take a little love where I can find it and let it soothe me.

the hero of 2013

Sometimes, ordinary boring days baffle me completely.

Like today: cold rain lashing down, lunch in a little Vietnamese restaurant, and long office hours writing emails in three languages to customers, suppliers and colleagues.

And in the midst of my bored yawns, I marvel over this life.

The unexpected cold after a warm summer - shivering in my too thin layers of cotton, wool and leather wakes me up to the surprising reality of autumn. Diving into the restaurant, greeted by the warmth and my friend's smile and the smell of spices. The lunch hour rush around us - strangers and someone I recognise vaguely and the annoying familiarity of everything and yet, there are  a million new things  to see and learn here. And in the office - I'm in an office, for heaven's sake, moving on to new adventures after years of hotel receptions and shops and lonely rooms, and who would have thought that I would be writing emails in three languages?

Knowing my cautious, anxious nature, it sometimes strikes me as incredible that I have managed to learn things like drive a car or use a computer. Or make friends.

My default settings for what life should look like are apparently stuck in my '80s childhood. When only people much older and smarter than I drove cars, when only the nerdiest of nerds owned a computer, when friends were something that came upon you if you were very, very lucky and Vietnamese food was only found on the other side of the earth. When I was a pitiable creature who needed to be taken care of.

Having survived until 2013, if only to be ordinary, is a marvellous accomplishment.

ain't that a kick in the head

New things attempted today: moon cakes from China and the Rat Pack singing in my car. Both to my liking.

baby, it's cold outside

My small city centre is bleak on a Sunday evening in September. Closed shops and restaurants, only a handful of people around. A chilly wind.

I should be enjoying my aimless stroll while waiting for my two best friends. But I feel my mood sinking. I wander past the market square and see a small gang of hooded teenagers looking bored and two young women with suitcases on their way to the train station. A couple of weary-looking businessmen are exiting a taxi in front of the Radisson Hotel. I spend some time in the DVD rental shop, cheered by its bright lights. There are only two other customers, a young couple picking out a film and buying sweets for a cosy night in.

I feel a dark cloud of loneliness settling over my head.

It lifts when I see my friends. In an almost-empty restaurant, we settle into a dark corner. We eat a delicious, creamy chanterelle soup and brownies with sherbet. I keep my thick, chocolate-coloured sweater on all through dinner - not even the warm lights around us can dispel all the chilliness of this autumn. We talk about death and losing faith.

As I make my way home through abandoned streets, my weariness is heavy. It has been a dark evening. I think of the dreams I had, so long ago. I lost some and found some, now I feel there should be a sense of maturity and calm over my life, a sureness in moving on to the next phase. But I feel lost, and I saw that same confusion in my friends' eyes tonight.

Still, we are there for each other, sharing this like we shared those dreams of our youth. I finally slip my key into the door, arriving in my safe home where a warm bed is welcoming me. Arriving at a conclusion.

It's autumn, and I'm tired and not sure where I'm going, but life is still wonderful.

in the back of the room of knowledge

Today I have been teetering on high heels, leaving work early in order to sit through the public defence of a doctoral thesis, singing old folk songs and eating chocolate cake with friends who whispered furtively about the meaning of words like "epistemology". Like most of my friends there (the respondent not included) I had no idea what the word meant.

But I felt a great joy in being back in the academic atmosphere. Lecture halls have always appealed to me, ideal as they are to someone like me who likes to sit in the back of the room, back to the wall, and see and observe everything, including my fellow students. Doctoral theses are at best difficult to follow, sometimes incomprehensible if you are not familiar with the subject, but this one was actually interesting. I listened and learned a few things about the study of traditional songs ( the meaning of "epistemology" I have yet to learn ).

And I had my best friend at my side. The one whom I was used to having at my side in lecture halls when we were both students - exchanging meaningful glances and passing furtive notes with sarcastic comments about the lecturer's choice of tie, or suggestions about which cafeteria to grace with our presence at lunch. Sometimes whispering with our heads together, blushing when the lecturer gave us a warning look. Raising our eyebrows at the too-ambitous blonde in the front row who always had an intelligent answer to the professor's questions.

It made me almost wish to be back there, on the campus of my past. Taking notes in my bad handwriting, yawning in remembrance of a great night out with friends the evening before, distractedly glancing at a goodlooking guy on my left, dreaming about lunch. Dreaming about a glorious future.

I gave my friend a meaningful look today. She knew what I meant.

walk my dog down a Manhattan street

I don't really need anything feeding my feverish longing for New York. Or for a dog. But this book is irresistible.

It seemed almost incomprehensible to Everett. He had lived with this dog for five days. In five days, his life had come alive for him. His street was full of people, and his city was full of streets. His park, once nothing more than a grand exercise track, was now a landscape, a lawn, a garden, a thicket, a boulder, a swamp.

(The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine)

a sidewalk moment

September sun, coffee and a cupcake at a sidewalk café table, a friend I just happened to run into.

This was not the plan for this afternoon. As usual, I plan something, and then change my plans on a whim. Or don't plan at all, and just wait and see what happens.

My life may be lonely sometimes, and not quite right. But I am free.

go east, young woman

Every once in a while you need to get perspective.

For example, you can bring your mother and sister and drive through many miles of forest wilderness to reach a few remote villages, connected by narrow gravel roads. Alien territory, to you. There's a tiny cemetery sitting there, with the September sun and a mild breeze slipping through tree branches. It's very peaceful.

You can look up a specific grave - it takes a while, because you haven't been here for ten years - and stand in front of it in silence. Your great-grandparents' grave, Anders and Maria.

In a world where it's so difficult to feel connected, you can feel a bond with these two whom you've never met. You just know that they would smile at you with warmth, if they were here.

wake me up when september ends

Phenomena previously observed in September:

* desperate friends and the King of Sweden (2006)
* edgy Finns and a Sunday angel (2007)
* mind games and an apple fly (2008)
* rough winds and a Mongolian doppelgänger (2009)
* circus dreams and a father's voice (2010)
* mission statements and a metal cuff (2011)
* hi - tech mood swings and a Steinbeck book (2012)

the people of oblivion

The little plastic bag broke, of course, as I was loading it with apples. As it often does, in the little corner shop.

Red apples bounced on the floor and rolled among the feet of two men nearby who were waiting for the cashier to ring up their groceries.

And none of them lifted a finger to help me pick them up.

Yet, I know what it's like. The Finnish sense of independence and self-sufficiency, that strength and pride, is so powerful that the instinct to help doesn't even penetrate it. You see someone have a little mishap - nothing serious, just mildly embarrassing - and your Mind Your Own Business-gene only registers a mild relief that it's not you, and you move on without another thought.

Sometimes I hate my own people.

aux armes, citoyens

In the middle of a work meeting, we stop our discussion of quality control issues in order to listen to La Marseillaise on YouTube and marvel over its blood-and-entrails-heavy lyrics.

That's what you do when your boss' kid is in the office and needs help with his homework.

wish list - and what to do about it

* a dog - bookmark "dogs for adoption" website
* clothes in delicious shades of chocolate, russet and copper - raid second-hand shops (again)
* novels celebrating New York life - check Amazon lists
* downshifting - pray to God for a miracle in boss' attitude
* freedom from my mother's influence - grow up ( but how? )
* perfect boots - keep looking
* White Collar, season 5 - wait. And wait some more.

the happy highways where I went

For four blissful years, I drifted around Ireland.

Well, I worked hard. But work was fun too, more often than not. And when it wasn't, it was still intense, dramatic, volatile. Tempers flared and tears flowed and I seemed to be always madly in love or mad with rage.

No wonder that I was content, during my free time, to have quiet drinks in the pub with friends. Or take leisurely strolls in the beautiful valley. Or hole up in my attic room on wintry nights and watch science fiction on TV. And a boyfriend got me hooked on reading good novels - something not even my years of university studies in literature had managed to do.

Oh, the freedom. To hop on a bus or train ( or even rent a car ) on my days off and take off to the other side of the island with a friend or two. Killarney, or Donegal, or Belfast. Stay overnight in a cosy Bed & Breakfast, or talk our way to a cheap rate at a castle hotel. Do some sightseeing, have a nice dinner, maybe go dancing. Back in time for work on Monday morning. Money never seemed to be a problem those days.

I didn't even have to go far to have a good time. The thing about living in a foreign country is that even your most boring Monday morning at work is spent - in a foreign country. There are strange people, of a strange culture and with strange customs, surrounding your daily life. There is a new horizon behind every corner of the road, and marvellous things to discover even when you are just shopping for groceries in the supermarket. I felt as if I was on a continuous, four-year holiday. When I got tired of the valley, I treated myself to a really good meal at a local restaurant, a cosy picnic all by myself in the mountains, or a whole day exploring Dublin - and coming back always seemed like a fresh start.

Leaving, after those four years, was the most difficult thing to do. It was necessary, because life goes on. But I still hear the siren call of those green hills.

caterpillars, raspberries and other office items

Waiting for emails.

That's what I do at work. In high summer they are few and far between, because our customers in Finland are soaking up the sun on some beach and our suppliers in China are being hospitalized for heatstroke.

In the meantime, I have taken up tea-drinking ( but only in the mornings, afternoons are still dedicated to coffee ), and raspberry-picking behind the office.

Marvels to study in the workplace:
* A customer who has ordered 700 pairs of jeans in a size only a Barbie-lookalike could wear
* My desk neighbour's tales of strange Chinese customs
* A huge caterpillar in the parking lot
* The boss, who sometimes makes phone calls when he's in the toilet. Today I could hear him through the door, calling his teenage daughter to ask: "How much do you weigh?"

Music on the radio, Facebook, green tea with mint, practicing languages, news headlines, speculating what the new season of White Collar might contain, leisurely lunches in the sun, Pinterest, counselling my desk neighbour, online shopping, waiting for 4 pm.

I know what I did last August

Russian smoke and angel dreams (2006)
Endless corridors and meaningful dust (2007)
Black holes and trade secrets (2008)
Old enemies and an even older dollhouse (2009)
Hot players and a sleepy museum (2010)
A cute guitarist and job applications (2011)
White laundry and a blinking cursor (2012)

the no-love curse

I am single and I meet one perfect man after the other.

They are: Single, handsome, strong, smart, funny, caring. Everything that I like. AND then they have some other attribute that I find enchanting - like a talent for music, a love of dogs, the skills to fix anything, a taste for adventure and travel. Some of them even seem to like me.

And then I just, simply, fail to fall in love. Maybe I'm cursed.

on white denim and dead fathers

Things that seemed very significant today:

Being dressed in white lace and white denim, making the most of summer with a trendy terrace lunch on a workday.

Sharing an evening cider with someone who knew exactly what I meant when I said, with tears in my eyes, "there is never a right time for a father to die".

Longing for someone to say, "I'm stronger than you. You can't ruin me."

glittering days

I grumble a lot over my home town. But I must admit, in the summer it has its bright spots. Mainly the  seaside cafés.

You can have a salad lunch by a trendy art museum and follow it up with a pavlova outside the ancient pavilion and a drink on the deck of an old ship. All without ever losing sight of the sunlit sea, the tanned people and the happy smiles.

Your company should be giggling friends or a mysterious man who is telling you his darkest secrets. Everything works when the summer sun is shining over this town.

after all that, I became English

( Another lost tale from my wasted youth coming up. If you can't bear it, go away. But be advised that there may be a mention of Johnny Depp in there somewhere. )

Finally, the relative quiet of a B & B room in Oxford city centre after a very, very long day. A day when I moved from one life into another.

The morning had involved a quiet, chilly walk in the most peaceful of places, the magic valley between the mountains, and saying goodbye - maybe forever - to some of my dearest friends. Two of them took me to the airport and chose the scenic route across the mountains to entice me to come back soon. The rest of the day consisted of sobbing on an awful flight, being nasty to a screaming toddler in the next seat, feeling lost and confused in airports and bus terminals, and lugging around a suitcase as heavy as my heart.

I moved to a foreign country that day ( for the second time ). With no job and nowhere to stay, only the ghost of a promise of a job interview. I got off the bus in the beautiful city of Oxford and dragged myself to the nearest guesthouse I could find.

Later that mild February evening, a slow walk through the city centre and the lively but intimate atmosphere of a university town - birds singing, a bright evening sky, students cycling past along cobbled streets, normal people shopping at Sainsbury's. Yes, there were some of those "dreaming spires" I had fantasised about, but at this particular moment I was more cheered by the sight of a real Starbucks. Compared to the previous two countries I had lived in, England seemed filled to bursting with cities, roads and people - of so many races and looks and accents.

Buying a few groceries in the nearest store, I was struck by a moment of fear again: What had I done? What if there were no jobs? Shouldn't I really buy a cheaper loaf of bread than the one I had just picked out?

Still, to be HERE. In Oxford, in a new country.  In a new life.  Texting a few friends from the privacy of my room later, I felt comforted.

The next day I breakfasted on cheese and the cheap bread and went out to buy a British SIM card for my phone. My first call a few minutes later, made in the relative quiet of a back alley near the Sheldonian Theatre, went to a local hotel that I had emailed a couple of weeks earlier and which had tentatively offered me a job interview if I ever came to Oxford.

"Well, sure, come and see me", said the assistant manager on the phone. OK, that was vaguely promising at least. When he heard that I was staying at a B & B he offered me a room in staff accommodation for the next night, as his hotel was outside the city, in the picturesque Cotswolds area. So I took my suitcase to a storage facility, packed a smaller bag and headed to the bus stop. The logistics of setting up a new life are very complicated. At the hotel I expected to get my interview but was just shown to a room, and the next day the manager drifted past once and only asked me one question: "Can you start tomorrow?"

Well, the strange and wonderful world of hotel work has never been much bothered with things like employment contracts, salary negotiations or compliance with regulations on working conditions. The general rule is: start working, and you'll find out. ( Sometimes even things like your salary, or your boss' last name. )

So that was the beginning of my stay in a cute Cotswolds town. A place where I used walkie-talkies, was bit by a parrot, took long walks in spooky palace gardens and had the worst ( and almost only ) hangover of my life ( which also unfortunately happened to coincide with a fire drill ). It was also the place where I felt very lonely and spent many, admittedly cosy, evenings in bed in my tiny room with thick English novels and trying out various English delicacies. Haunted all the old-fashioned tea houses in town ( one of them had been an inn ever since the 12th century ). And then finally made many lovely and weird friends.

I lived in an attic room in the hotel - a gorgeous labyrinth of hidden rooms, creaking narrow stairs and forgotten passageways. I became an unlikely expert at beating the receptionists' computer back to life, having whistling competitions with the resident parrot and avoiding the weird manager. I also roamed around Oxford and became an authority on its history and where to find its cutest pubs and most bountiful second-hand bookshops.

My workplace also turned out to be a good place to meet celebrities - if by meeting you mean sorting John Malkovich's laundry or accidentally snarling at Johnny Depp for getting in your way in the hotel lobby. ( And yes, he apologised very politely. After that, I was the envy of every woman in town. )

That turbulent and wonderful spring in a medieval English village ended three months later when I got on a bus again, irresistibly drawn to another new life in another new city. I cried all the way there.

* * *

( PS. For all the weirdoes out there who believe in serendipity - I count myself among them: Much later, reading through old diaries, I surprisingly discovered two earlier mentions of this same little Cotswolds town. On my first and only trip to England, thirteen years before, I had travelled through it and even made a brief stop. And forgotten all about it. And about four years before, when I first started applying for hotel jobs all over Ireland and the UK, I had received three job offers - one was at the Irish hotel where I ended up staying for four years, and one of the others was in the Cotswolds town. I forgot all about that too, but by complete chance I ended up there anyway. Coincidence? )

( Maybe my destiny was to settle down there with the parrot and Johnny Depp? Huh. I blew it. Is it too late now? )

the year I lost control

Flashback to the year 2000: My first days in the  Magic Valley,  a quirky hotel in a historic and intensely beautiful valley in the Irish mountains, surrounded by the sweet fragrance of spring. I'm overwhelmed by the strangeness and intensity of everything. I have never met so many weird people in my entire life. They are so unFinnish: they shout, they laugh loudly, they are openly rude, they are intensely alive.

One of my first days at work, I'm standing next to my coworker in the hotel reception as she is being yelled at by the assistant manager. "Around here, we are not allowed mistakes," is her sarcastic comment to me when he's done. The manager fixes steely eyes on me and says calmly, "Don't make mistakes. Ever."

With this in mind, I take a walk later that evening. A winding path takes me high up on a mountainside, through a fairytale setting of crooked trees, bubbling brooks and wild flowers. Unused to the wilderness, I belatedly realise I really should get back to civilisation before nightfall, and it's already getting dark under the canopy of trees. I stumble back along the uneven path, getting nervous. Looking back along the valley, I see dark clouds rolling towards me, the wind picks up and there is the roar of approaching rain.

Maybe it is in that moment that I understand what a sheltered life I have led so far. As an urban girl, I have never experienced the danger in being out in the wilderness at night, chased by a storm. Raised among the polite and coolly friendly Finns who never raise their voices, I have never been yelled at or threatened during my first week at work (or any other week ).

( Although I did realise later that with the Irish, the bark is worse than the bite and you shouldn't take them too seriously ).

As the storm finally catches up with me there on the path I turn around and face it, heart beating wildly from fear and ... exhilaration? The rain and heavy winds sweep over me and threaten to knock me over. I throw my arms out, breathe in the world. This coolly polite Finn laughs out loud and feels, down to her very bones, threatened and unsafe and gloriously ALIVE.

who can be lonely when you're loved by grass?

To leave this, last Sunday evening, to return to the city and a new work week, felt impossible:

This piece of land is home and I've been coming back every summer since I was born. It consists mainly of a lot of grass, lodged between a dark forest and a quiet, beautiful bay. Two tiny and very primitive cabins, plus the mandatory Finnish sauna, house the family in the summer. It seems to me a miracle that this paradise has not yet been ruined - by pollution or noisy neighbours or, even worse, the vague feeling of unsafety that often disturbs a woman when she is alone in the middle of nowhere.

And I was alone, last Sunday evening. This happens so rarely in this particular place that I expected to feel lonely. Instead, I was wrapped in a feeling of warmth, as if the very air and grass and water were breathing love over me. This is not something a pragmatist like me usually expects. It was enough to make me understand what the Celts mean when they talk about  thin places.

the dragon vs. the silver jeans

I know I'm bored at work when I'm cheered up by the prospect of compiling statistics in a spreadsheet.

But: things are looking up! A coworker has gone on maternity leave, earlier than intended, and her most difficult and complicated project has been dumped on me. As much as I've been dreading this, I feel the same way I used to do when I worked in hotels and for the first time was entrusted to take a shift unsupervised: it's proof that I'm no longer the newbie. That I'm capable of doing the job for real. It's scary but you know that once you've  slain your first dragon,  nothing is really difficult anymore.

So now I'm sitting down to work through a list of all the difficult and complicated details of this project. And I'm wearing silver jeans so nothing can go wrong today.

on the courage of men

I'm fascinated - from a strictly socio-anthropological point of view - with the two men in the office, the boss and his brother. The boss is a macho guy, the Alpha male. He is generally well liked but all the employees cower a little when he walks into the room, just because of his assertive body language and don't-talk-back-to-me voice. His younger brother cowers most of us all because he is at the receiving end of a lot of unfiltered older-brother rudeness. He quietly obeys the bossy instructions, and the rest of us pretend we haven't witnessed his humiliation. Even though it's hard to miss anything that happens in our tiny office.

And yet, I have to conclude that the younger brother is  the braver one  of the two. When I was new in the office, he made an effort. He made small talk, asked about my weekend, tried to get to know me. The macho boss displayed the typical behaviour of a shy man hiding behind a tough facade: avoiding situations where he might have to make small talk to a stranger like me, because he doesn't know what to say.

Most women like strong men. I like macho men, but I admire even more the quiet, genuine strength of men who dare to be themselves.

stringing up my Julys

The month of July, as experienced the last few years:

Sipping espresso in French seaside towns and lying to myself (2006)
Smiling at tourists and longing for a blanket in the sun (2007)
Singing bitter songs and fleeing the city (2008)
Strolling on quiet streets and plugging my ears (2009)
Sizzling in the sand and snarling at married people (2010)
Staring at fighter jets and rejecting novels (2011)
Spinning around and running scared (2012)
Seething over snake's beard and living slowly in an office (2013)

poetry in motion (and icecream)

Another slow day in a cool, quiet office...

At the strike of 4 pm I will be out of here. This evening will be spent in the stands watching the beachvolley championships. There will be a hot sun and loud music. There will also be exciting action and some really good icecream.

Not to mention some incredibly beautiful and inspiring people.

self-pity and snake's beard

FaceBook, these days, is chock-full of status updates with exclamation marks. They are all on the same theme:

"Happy days! Four weeks of summer vacation starting now!"
"Last day at work - for the next six weeks, nothing to do except eat strawberries and read novels!"
"An eternal summer holiday ahead!"


A normal Finn gets four weeks of summer holidays, some even more (not to mention my teacher friends, who have something like eight weeks). A normal Finn, having suffered through a freezing winter and a rainy spring, needs every single minute of it, now that glorious, joyful summer has finally arrived.


Choking on rage, I shut down FaceBook and vow to never log in again ( a couple of hours later, I'm back, reading more of the same updates ). Having recently changed jobs, I haven't earned more than one week of holidays, despite having worked as hard as everybody else the entire winter. Even that one week I had to squeeze out of my employer.

And having spent most of that week sniffling from a summer cold and feeling miserable, I feel entitled to more than a little self-pity. I returned to the office this morning, hating everything in sight. Most of my coworkers were on vacation, anyway, so I was free to seethe to my heart's content.

I spent yesterday, the last day of my meagre holiday, dreading the return to work. Went cycling around some back streets near the railroad tracks and found some strange and marvellous things, like a mountain of sand and the place where household appliances come to die.

But my mind finally found rest when I wandered into a garden centre to breathe the scent of flowers and stare at snake's beard and the vivid colours of pygmy paprikas.

I didn't know there existed such things as pygmy paprikas or snake's beard.* So, not an entirely wasted holiday week after all.


* ( Actually, snake's beard doesn't exist, not as a name anyway. Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens is called black lilyturf or black mondo grass. But its Swedish and Finnish names both translate as snake's beard and I like it that way. And I get to decide, since I only got one week of holidays. )

by the seaside with strawberries

Coffee, wild strawberries, waffles with jam and cream, a cheeseburger.

The day in a menu, on  the Island.

The entertainment consisted of a vintage boat race of the type that is popular around here, with traditional old fishing boats being sailed or rowed, the crews dressed in vintage fishing garb. We only witnessed the start of the race, as the finishing line is across the pond, in Sweden.

 But the sight of twenty-odd wooden boats setting sail towards the horizon is awe-inspiring. Even when the day is grey and overcast.

The company consisted of a pathologist who handles corpses for a living ( no pun intended ), a politician on his way to Brussels to do some lobbying in EU headquarters, and true Islanders: chatty, motherly women who always try to feed you and men of the strong and silent type.

secrets and sense-making

Seven years and seven hundred entries in this blog.

I'm celebrating with hot honey water.

You may not know it, but this is  a secret blog.  None of the people I spend my real life with know I even have one. I can't explain why I haven't even told my best friend - I just know that I couldn't write as freely as I do if I knew that she (however unjudgmental and supportive) was reading it.

Why not? Most of the things I write are no secrets to her anyway. And why the need for a public blog, as opposed to keeping a normal diary (which I do too) or letting my writings just sit on my hard drive? I like getting comments from strangers but I write even when I don't get any.

I use this blog to catalogue my life and try to make sense of it. To reassure myself that there are patterns and reasons and meaning in it. To be able to look back and see that interesting and funny things have happened, even though I doubt it sometimes. To remember the days of my life in Finland. To encourage someone. To leave something behind (if the internet doesn't die before I do). To have a creative outlet.

To survive, even.

time for the magnets

You know you're on vacation when you stop to rearrange your fridge magnets.

won't let the sun go down on me

Finland is gearing up for one of its biggest holidays (second only to Christmas) -  Midsummer.  Only a short holiday, really just a three-day weekend, but it encompasses all of the Finnish people's love for summer. A short and sweet summer that has to fulfill all its promises. These days, the sun never goes down, so the Finns don't either.

In the office, people are impatient and restless, sights already set on Thursday afternoon, when the office door will slam shut behind us as we take off. The ritual is the same for most of us: we will be stuffing our cars or boats full of food to be barbecued, alcohol to be drunk, children, spouses, dogs and/or friends, and then leaving the city for summer cottages, beaches and camp grounds.

We ignore the possibility of our barbecues and boat trips being ruined by rain or mosquito invasions. We know that dozens of people will drown or be hit by drunk drivers this weekend, but never believe it will be us. In our plans for the weekend, the sun always shines, children are happy and the steaks are grilled to perfection.

Midsummer madness, this year aggravated by a super moon, here we come.

the lady of the wigs

Today's feature: character out of my past, namely the awe-inspiring  Saga.

Wig-selling lady of a certain age, of a certain wealth. Owned a city-centre flat that I and two friends wanted to rent when we first arrived in the beautiful city of Turku to study at the university. Suspiciously told us she did not approve of renting out to students and that her husband would be very upset if she did. Agreed at last, after having my friend's mother sign a personal guarantee that we wouldn't wreck the flat.

Abandoned her doubts about us after a while, possibly after we sent her flowers for Christmas. Gave us hair products in return. Took us out in her silver BMW to a second-hand furniture store when we told her we wanted to buy a sofa. Firmly disapproved of the sofa we picked out, so we returned empty-handed. Chewed out the building manager on our behalf when he dared to voice a complaint about us.

Gently refused, after three harmonious years as our landlady, to renew our contract when we told her one of us was moving out and someone else was coming instead. Instead, went flat-hunting on our behalf as the remaining two of us were out of town for the summer. Picked out a flat, which we rented without ever having seen. (When rental agency showed unwillingness to take on us students, she threatened to remove her own business from them, and they caved.) Proved to us that we were right to trust her.

Is fondly remembered still, many years later. Possibly still selling wigs in her dusty backstreet shop.

the nights of deliberate living

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately..."
(H.D. Thoreau)

Every night, around midnight, I took my big black Labrador and walked down the well-lit suburban street and turned into an unlit gravel road that led through a patch of woods. It wasn't a long road - you walked past a few stray houses on one side and a couple of minutes later you reached a little grocery shop sitting right next to a busy highway, and the road ended there.

On the side of the road that had no houses there were only trees. A tiny  patch of woods,  and I loved to hide in there. Even though you could see the road on one side, an abandoned saw-mill on the other and a house on the third, when you stood among the tall pine trees you felt secluded and sheltered. I remembered playing there with my best friend as a kid, mostly pretending to be Indians or wild animals in a vast forest wilderness, climbing on fallen tree trunks and large rocks. Even as a grown-up, I could still feel the magic and fantasy shimmering in the air, making me shiver with delight.

My midnight walks were pitch-black and icy in the winter, and I used to lean against a certain old pine tree - my dream tree, because even in the dead of winter there was the warmth of life in its bark and I felt stronger just for touching it. I could see the stars, which in my Star Trek-fueled dreams symbolized the ultimate adventure. If I was lucky, there were even the Northern Lights. And I could watch the highway from a distance - nearly empty at this hour, but every now and then a lorry broke the stillness, thundering past on its way to marvellous cities and countries I would someday get to see.


In the white nights of summer, I would kick off my shoes and climb barefoot onto a big rock, still warm from the sun. The sky was bright but the dreams were no less present.

These were my teenage night walks, where I planned my future adventures and believed absolutely everything.

( Picture from scenicreflections .com )

different from you and me

An email informs me that I have been given a pay rise of  1.9 percent. At the same time I overhear my boss, on the phone to someone, saying that his daughter turns eighteen in a few months and that he will give her his Porsche.

I should quote Scott F. Fitzgerald to him: "They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard..."

my need to name and shame

I cannot come up with a name for my new workplace.

I need a moniker for every workplace I have, one to mutter under my breath or to make desperate jokes about, to preserve my mental health balance. Perhaps it's only to make my life seem more dramatic. Consequently, I have worked in places known (at least to myself, and maybe to my blog readers) as The Little Shop of Harmony, Heartburn Hotel, The Supermarket  ( a hotel ),  The Chicken Coop  and  Magic Valley.

But the name of this one eludes me. 

It shouldn't be that difficult, considering it's a tiny office with some interesting characters, such as the alpha male boss who just got a new tattoo ( a massive skull and crossbones ) and the tiny Chinese girl who asks me things like "If you say 'Satan', will something terrible come?" while a frustrated coworker is shouting the name of that particular devil over and over in the next room.

a grey day and treasure

A lazy day, and a very grey day. A slow walk along the seafront.

Everything wrapped in fog, dripping trees, the muted murmur of tiny waves lapping at the shore, in the distance voices of other walkers and joggers. The air was almost warm against my skin. And the fragrance of sea and spring was like a caress.

I even found a shipwreck.

stockholm syndrome

Went to the cottage, my summer paradise. Mostly because my mother forced me to.

It was the first time this year. The family spends most of the summer there but in the winter we never go because there is no heating and no running water, and the roads are usually buried in snow. So in the spring, there is a lot to do: clean out a cottage that's been empty and unused for months, not to mention tidy up the enormous garden. My mother is a firm believer in raking up all the old leaves covering the lawn, preferably every single one.

So I went, grumbling, to rake leaves for more than four hours with my mother ( only half the lawn was done by then, hadn't even started on cleaning the house ). On our way there, I thought of a million things I would rather be doing on my precious day off. Maybe I could buy my mother off with this one day of forced labour, and then not have to come back for another month at least.

When we arrived, we started by stretching out on the sunny porch for a leisurely cup of coffee. It was warm, it was definitely spring, birds were singing, the sea was glittering, peace was everywhere, and dreams of a lovely summer ahead were swirling in the air. After all the raking, I was sitting in the sun again, having a lazy picnic, and I felt my normally busy, stressed-out nerves be hypnotized into a calmness never experienced in the city.

I heard myself saying to my mother: "Let's come here next weekend, finish the cleaning and stay overnight. And then every weekend until September."

widows, babies, students and the mysterious Mr. H

It's been seven years since I moved into the  House of the Seven Widows  (described in this post and this one). Unbelievable.

There are not seven widows anymore, only about four or five. But the lovely one next door still smiles brightly at me over the balcony railing on sunny afternoons, and on cold winter days I sometimes invite myself into her flat for coffee. The other chatty one died tragically after a fall in her flat last year, and I miss having to hold the door for her every time I go through the main entrance. The suspicious-minded one on the second floor is still the busybody of the building. The other day I found her staring in disbelief at the board by the entrance door, where all the residents are listed. Somebody had taken great pains to pick out almost all the letters from the names, leaving only a few random ones. The rest lay in a neat pile on the floor. I found it rather funny, but the widow was trying to decide whether the guilty party was the student boys, a non-resident, or perhaps Mr. H on the second floor. At the last suggestion, the widow was hurriedly shushed by one of the lesser-known widows on the first floor, who had come to see what the fuss was about, but I gathered that all is not quite right with Mr. H. 

There are some new residents as well, and two young couples in the building actually agreed to switch flats. There is a baby one floor down, who has screaming fits at night. A strong-willed two-year-old next door who likes to shout in the stairwell because of the nice echo effect. A female student in the flat below mine with an incredibly shrill giggle on Saturday nights when she has her girlfriends over for drinks. A secondary school principal.

The three male students in one of the big flats are still there, only their faces and the names on the door seem to change every couple of years. They are all tall and athletic, go clubbing on the weekends and probably spend the rest of the week in the gym.

But the soft-spoken divorced man on the top floor is still there and shyly discusses the weather with me whenever we run into each other. And the sweet old couple who  "Sunday mornings go for a ride"  in their car, like in the Beatles' song. The mysterious individual/couple/family who owns a luxurious flat on the third floor but doesn't use it or bother renting it out. The chairman of the residents' association who once suspected me of breaking a window. The bearded bohemian who publishes explicit poetry. And the dentist and his wife who smile at me like we are old friends although we have never spoken.

Funny how you get to know people you never say more than "hello" to.

dachshunds, perch and other wildlife

1st of May, and the almost-traditional hike on the Island.

Meaning bright sunshine and icy winds, and the bliss of finding a picnic spot in a sheltered, sunny spot. Add to that the excitement of going to that little creek to watch the spectacle of spawning perch, and the magnificent views from the lookout tower.

The company: a good friend, a guy who dumped me, his new girlfriend, a pregnant Chinese woman, a couple I have never met before, a slightly mad man, a true Islander (strong, silent) and a fat Dachshund.

on the hill of springtime

The intoxication of spring, in Turku.

After the long Finnish winter the evening is glorious in brightness and birdsong. It's chilly still, it always is this time of the year, but we dress in our springtime finest and shiver with cold and delight as we gather in a park on a steep hillside in the middle of the city.

Around us are thousands of people, all lightheaded with the same intoxication. There is the tradition of centuries in the songs being sung to us on that hill. We look around - at the fabulous view over an old city, at the smart and talented people surrounding us, at the dreams and adventures just waiting for us. All the wisdom and ancient history and exquisite culture this beautiful city has to offer and the endless possibilities of the future.

There is nothing that awakens a Finn like springtime. We lift our champagne flutes and toast to our dreams.

( Picture from abounderrattelser.fi )

the end

Tonight I dreamed that the world ended. It was quite spectacular. Afterwards the credits rolled and then there were commercials.

malaria, Ella and the pink moon

By the way, today is Anzac Day, world malaria day, Ella Fitzgerald's birthday and pink moon day with a partial eclipse. In case you thought this was just any old day.

wednesday's child is full of woe

Thai for lunch and Mexican for dinner; work and participation in a music survey - and somewhere in between all this there were three red roses.

The world turns on its axis. I feel the gravity of this ominous shift. But it was a glorious spring day and everybody loves me, so I will dry my tears and with joy on every birthday count my age in friends, not years.

youth is wasted on the young

On the eve of my birthday I watch the April sunset and wonder if I'm happy.

( I don't usually worry about it too much. )

I have another glass of wine and wish for more time to be creative. I feel old and unaccomplished, or is it unloved? Even though I know it to be untrue, I still believe it. At this very moment, somewhere else in the city, friends and family are preparing to celebrate me as if I deserve it.

And all I really want is my father.

say

Say it's all right.
Say I'm loved.
Say I can go to sleep and you'll watch over me.

me pinned down

What I pin on Pinterest:

* Sunlight or city lights illuminating messy beds.
* Lofts with lots of exposed bricks, whitewashed kitchens, studios with enormous plank tables, fireplaces, cosy nooks with fairylights, balconies overlooking Manhattan.
* Women in woollen sweaters and bare legs, coffee mug in hand, staring out of windows ( preferably windows with magnificent views )
* Women in cars or trains.
* Women reading in cafés.
* Women on midnight city streets.
* Couples kissing in tiny kitchens.
* Women wearing any of the following: boots, knee-high socks, lace, skinny jeans, black leather, velvet, oversized knitted sweaters, floaty long layers, silvery grey, boho jewellery, leg warmers, ridiculously flared trousers, an air of independence, a sad expression.
* Anything suggesting road trips, New York fire-escapes, typical American diners, bohemian tents, beach picnics with wine, creativity, freedom .