throwing caution

With blue fairylights and a broken TV I'm saying goodbye to 2014.

My New Year's Eve celebrations have usually included good food, tea-drinking friends, profound wisdom. This year, I was invited to a singles party of the "bring your own bottle" kind where I know exactly one person. Throwing caution and introversion to the wind, I thought "what the hell" and accepted the invitation.

I will get slightly drunk, watch other people get very drunk, answer weird questions, and if there is dancing I will dance.

disease-ridden notes

Sick, day five.

Can't venture out to the grocery shop because rough winds do shake this sickly body of mine and it ain't no fun.

So I survive on chocolate and flu meds, and study the wintry landscape through my window.

* Note to ornithologists: the thrushes have not yet migrated south for the winter. I hope they are good with minus 10 degrees Celsius.
* Note to meteorologists: the wind has turned from winter's usual northwest to southwest, and the sun has been shining more than usual although it barely rises above the horizon.
* Note to the rescue services: too many fools are venturing out on the thin ice on the bay.
* Note to self: get a dog.

my life had the goodness of blue waters

A look back at 2014... because looking  back is what I do well. Please note that I am completely ignoring all the boring stuff that happened between these carefully edited highlights.


Most useful thing learned? It took me one day to learn how to download and use subtitling software - and suddenly I had a new vocation, job title and dream.


Proudest achievement? It was a nightmare, it wasn't voluntary, but I'm kind of proud I did it - changing jobs, again.

This year's mode of transport? The thrice-cursed little French car, surprisingly cooperative most of the year. Except in cold weather and when it decided it was time to disconnect all the lights.

Journeys taken? A whirlwind trip to amazing Helsinki. A few spring days in Frankfurt, Germany, with a friend, wine and easy living. A summery day in Sweden after chugging across the pond on an ancient ferry. A November weekend in Tampere, Finland, with more laughter than should be physically possible.

This year's inspiration? Pinterest and White Collar, all the free spirits out there living in freedom and cool clothes.

Best thing that happened? Could have been the scary-looking biker dude who said, "Want a job?" or the friend who said, "Let's buy a flight ticket out of here". Or the long, hot, lazy summer on the beach.

Most significant insight?

chaos, leave me never.

keep me wild

and keep me free

so that my brokenness will be,

the only beauty

the world will see.

(r.m. drake)

Best study achievement? I finally realized that Excel can be used in practice, not theory. Learned a lot of Finnish. And took a course in InDesign, already forgotten.

Favourite item of clothing? The black boots. Or the cheap grey fleece sweater. Or the little black skirt I wore with absolutely everything.

Favourite icecream? Do you have to ask? Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough.

Favourite quote? 

I want raging nights

dark and wild

Lit only by the city,

bonfires, and cigarettes

I want sun-kissed mornings

breezy and free

interrupted only by the voices 

of lovers and friends

(unknown) 

New interests? My Viking heritage, smoothies and subtitles.

Most unexpected thing seen from the window? A shark (of the inflatable toy kind) sailing past the beach in the middle of a thunderstorm, fighter aircraft in formation, fire swingers, a snowstorm with thunder and lightning.

Favourite song? Ed Sheeran: I See Fire or John Legend: All Of Me or Jenni Vartiainen: Suru on kunniavieras or the Script: Superheroes or...

Who would you like to thank? Everyone who loves me despite my moody silences and false cheerfulness. God for everything else.


(Title from Gary Barlow's song Open Road)

fluff

What you really need when you're dying of the flu (at Christmas!) is an adorable poodle with fluffy fur to randomly hug for comfort.

My sister was kind enough to lend me hers. She will get it back with lots of flu germs in that lovely fur.

meet Robinson and Friday

Another random picture from the ancient archives:

We made landfall on a deserted island one autumn afternoon, my friend and I. At least we thought it was deserted. Two sheep showed up and tried to force themselves aboard as we were setting out again.

Some Islanders take herds of sheep out to small islets over the summer to let them roam free. These two had apparently been left behind when the rest were collected in the autumn and were feeling rather put out. We informed the sheepfarmer about this. So I can kind of take the credit for saving two lives that grey afternoon.

I'm not happy yet no sorrow shakes me

My job today consists of listening to a well-known Finnish singer, Vesa-Matti Loiri, croon old songs at me from a 1970s recording while I'm adding subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Apparently even the deaf enjoy Loiri's singing.

He's singing songs by the poet Eino Leino. This is serious business: longing, nostalgia, despair. It never would have crossed my mind to listen to this type of music but I'm glad I did. There is a dark beauty in the Finnish folk soul.

For a hefty dose of melancholia, the mood most often associated with the Finns, look no further.

English translation by Aina Swan Cutler:

I hear the evening cornbird calling.

Moonlight floods the fields of tasseled grain.

Wood smoke, drifting veils the distant valleys.

Summer evening's joy is here for me.

I'm not happy yet no sorrow shakes me,

but the dark woods stillness I would welcome.

Rosy clouds through which the day is falling,

sleepy breezes from the blue gray mountains,

shodows on the water, meadow flowers...

out of these my heart's own song I'll make!

I will sing it, summer hay-sweet maiden,

sing to you my deep serenity,

my own faith that sounds a swelling music,

oak-leaf garland ever fresh and green.

I'll no longer chase the will-o-wisp.

Happiness is here in my own keeping.

Day by day, life's circle narrows, closes.

Time stands still now ... weather cocks all sleeping.

Here before me lies a shadowy way

leading to a strange, an unknown place.

what cannot wait

I crave:

a caress,
the sun,
olive meatballs and garlic mushrooms,
another season of White Collar,
divine peace,
a dog,
an apartment in Manhattan.

And it's urgent.

seeing the light

Winter game: Pick a random picture from years ago and explain it:

In the back seat of a car, waiting to drive aboard the ferry to Sweden. Having a bout of despair because my parents were in the front seat and I suddenly felt stuck in childhood. Saved from insanity by my niece who sat next to me and invented a hilarious game that involved taking random pictures like this one.

what friends said this week

"I handed in four rifles to the police."
"I'll be working part-time as a circus manager."
"You need to assess the marathon man."
"My therapist said I should go to trauma counselling. I dream of classrooms at night."
"I forgot that I was once a devil."
"I send emails to myself and intentionally add spelling errors."
"I'm in breach of contract."
"I never look at the price tag."
"Have you ever considered a push-up bra?"
"Cow."

My interesting friends keep adding spice to conversations.

socializing in the dark

The weekend:

Gingerbread cookie baking,  darkness,  candles in the windows, vegetarian food, indoor beachvolley, sleep, the president's ball on TV, tea for two,  an interpretation gig,  a victory and a defeat, cake with Mum, shopping for someone else, not enough solitude.

teenagers, bacon and drills

Perils of living in an apartment building:

* You wake up before dawn because the neighbours' teenager is having a screaming fit and slamming doors.

* A seductive smell of fried bacon spreads throughout the building just as you're planning to get some more work done before stopping for lunch.

* Another neighbour decided to do a bit of DIY, involving drilling, just as your head hits the pillow.

dawn will break - next March

Finland is shrouded in eternal darkness.

We crawl into our hide-outs, light fires and candles.
Eat hot food and mulled wine. Amuse ourselves with stories.
Party a little too hard to show we are not afraid.
Sleep and dream of summer and eternal sunshine.

Manchester of Finland

If you dream of living in one of those old industrial buildings that have been converted into fabulous lofts, full of exposed brick, light and air, and overlooking the water, you should probably go to Tampere, Finland.

Its raw charm is irresistible. This is not a town for sissies. It's where Lenin and Stalin met for the first time - in a building which is now one of the few surviving Lenin museums in the world.

Tampere also has an Ikea store and a fabulous Spanish restaurant. What more do you need?

freedom's midnight hour

If the most glorious moment of freelance work came that June morning when I sat on the balcony, summer breeze in my hair and sun on my rosy cheeks, barefoot and happy, gloating over all the poor bastards who have to work in offices and factories and shops...

...then the hour of the wolf arrived a pitch-black night in November when I struggled through an endless project at four in the morning, aching with cold and lack of sleep, anxiously doubting myself and knowing that anxiety would still be there in the morning, as it had for weeks.

that funky Jesus music

I was going through my old CDs to decide which ones to keep. Found an old gospel one that I probably hadn't played since the 1990s so I put it on, just to confirm my suspicions that it was good for the 'reject' pile.

To my surprise, I enjoyed it enough to decide to keep it. I was especially moved by a Whitney Houston song, "I Love The Lord" (and Whitney Houston songs have failed to move me since I ran out of teenage hormones).

What's more, it made me long for a good, old gospel concert of the kind I used to go to in the 1990s. The kind I haven't felt any need for since the 1990s. As it happened, such a concert was being arranged in my town that same week (and they are usually very few and far between) so on an impulse I asked a friend to go with me. When the day arrived, I nearly changed my mind - there is a reason you should not revisit your teenage years - but my friend convinced me to go anyway.

The concert was packed with old acquaintances - on the stage as well as in the audience - and was really good. World-class good. All my doubts and fears vanished and I let myself be carried away by the wonderful music.

And then they played "I Love The Lord". If that wasn't a sign, I don't know what is.

chased by the Pac-Man monster

How to grow up before the internet:

Eighties, in primary school: first encounter ever with a computer when we were offered computer classes. Which meant learning simple programming, like If-Then-Else. Never got much further than that. Pac-Man was fun, though.

A boy in school had a computer at home. A Commodore 64. He was considered the nerdiest of the nerds because of this.

Nineties, starting university: we were offered our own email accounts on the university server. This was something we had never heard about. You weren't supposed to apply for one unless you needed it for your studies but we all applied anyway, out of curiosity. Email became wildly popular for writing silly messages to your friends. Nobody owned a computer yet but you could log in on any of the terminals scattered throughout campus.

Then everything started to happen. Windows came, meaning that using a computer was actually easy and not only something for programming geeks. No longer did we have to know commands by heart or get stuck in WordPerfect when we forgot which function key to use. The mouse was invented and now it was all point-and-click. The internet and the romantically named World Wide Web arrived - there wasn't much on it at first, but information about anything and everything soon started to flood it. We took the few basic computer classes available and learned the rest from friends and through trial and error. More computer labs opened on campus and we were encouraged to use them instead of writing our essays with the help of a pencil or a typewriter.

I was given someone's old computer, then somebody else's slightly newer one and used them to write my essays, but they were slow and prone to crashing and there were always compatibility problems when I saved my work on a floppy disk and brought it to campus to use the printer there. Being online at home wasn't really something to consider - modems were excruciatingly slow and you were billed by the minute. But you could always play Solitaire, Tetris or maybe even Need For Speed.

The 21st century, once we survived the dreaded Y2K bug: by the time we left university we had got ourselves hotmail addresses that we could access anywhere, not just on the campus computers, and knew the basics of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The internet was by now stuffed with both useful and entertaining information. Most businesses were getting computerized and the really cool people had their own laptop or Nokia Communicator.

The rest of us used computer rooms in the public library, or the internet cafés that started popping up everywhere. I could spend hours in them on my days off - emailing, reading fanfiction, looking for jobs. There was great coffee to be had, lots of other cool people around and the wonderful feeling of having the entire world at your fingertips.

Now, with a laptop and a smartphone, I never really get over that feeling of having conquered a world nobody expected me to manage. Neither the slight insecurity nor the triumph. I was on Facebook just a couple of months after it opened to the general public and signed onto a number of other social media - just because I have to prove to myself that I'm still on top of this computer thing.

nation of sorrow and strength

I'm studying the language, culture and mindset of my own country.

It's not easy growing up in a language minority with its own culture and way of thinking, its own tight-knit community. The longer I live in this country, the more I realise that I hardly know it. The language has always been a struggle to me, the culture has run a closely parallel and only vaguely known course to my own, and my neighbours think a bit differently than I do.

No matter how much I dream of foreign shores - before I go anywhere, I will know this people and understand how they think. No matter how much work it takes to delve into the complicated grammar of this Finnish language, read up on popular culture that should already be familiar to me, and try to understand the mind of a people that is not my own. And yet somehow is.

One of the most beautiful Finnish songs of all time:


- Itkuja varten on ihmisen silmät, vieriköön kyyneleet. 
Tuleehan tuolta se toinen päivä, kun on kepeät askeleet. -

November, the bad boy I always fall for

Even when there is no fog, November in Finland feels like fog.

We trundle along in grey dampness, sometimes on dry streets, sometimes with wet slush under our feet. Always cold. Now we pay the price for our glorious, paradisiacal midnight-sun summers.

November is darkness that infinitesimally brightens to a doubtful twilight in the hours around noon.

The darkness brings a gloom even in the mood of the people. A constant tiredness, sometimes a severe depression.

The miracle occurs when the temperature drops below zero. Although there is the added irritation of icy roads, snow that blocks the way and frozen fingers, the cold often brings out the sun, not seen for weeks, and suddenly people are involuntarily smiling again.

December is technically colder and darker than November. But December usually means snow that stays on the ground, reflecting light and brightening the daylight. And, of course, Christmas decorations and parties, reflecting hope and brightening moods.

On the darkest days of November I have to take up arms against the weariness, the sugar cravings, the urge to stay in bed and dwell on dark matters. I drag myself out on a walk along cold streets in the evening. I look at the lights in all windows. Candles, fairy-lights, the flicker of a flat-screen television, the warm glow of a kitchen lamp.

People are cooking pasta for their kids, walking over-enthusiastic dogs, packing their gym bags. The shop assistant in the grocery store on the corner still has the energy to smile at me. In the pub, someone is pouring a comforting pint. Someone else has lit a fire in the fireplace - I can smell wood smoke.

And the sea and the sky, despite the oppressive grey fog, take on a shade of breathtaking beauty that I never saw in summer.

A glass of wine never tastes as good as when you're dry and warm and happy - in horrible November.

raw food and a dog tail

The icy clarity of a day with sub-zero temperatures that always, after the choking grey dampness of slightly warmer but more hopeless days, brings relief and almost euphoria.

A raw food café in the trendy part of town, a Chinese friend, and the delicious feeling of whiling away hours on a Saturday over good food.

A stranger's dog that wagged his tail at me as if I was a long-lost friend.

A long walk, slow thoughts.

And when darkness descends, candlelight.

walking wounded

A terrible need for someone else to take charge for a while. I will survive, as I always do. But what to do with this gaping wound inside?

in the presence of Lincoln

Dressed in velvet and boots, surrounded by books. This feels right.

I'm in the library, hiding in the local history section with my laptop. A bust of Lincoln is watching over me. He freed the slaves and I'm feeling pretty free at the moment so it's fitting. I love this library: full of nooks and crannies and chairs to sink down into and lose yourself in a book. Every section looks different and unexpected treasures await everywhere.

There is a comforting movement of people around me but nothing that really disturbs the peace.

Googling Lincoln, I come across an appropriate quote by him: "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." I include this in my blog entry. My smugness is then ruined when I find that other famous quote: 

"The problem with internet quotes is that you can't always depend on their accuracy." (Abraham Lincoln, 1864)

my spectacular aura

I drove home in the dark and decided to make the most of my migraine.

I marvelled at the way objects disappeared, reappeared and rearranged themselves around me every few seconds. I made note of the lightning flashing at the edge of my vision, the silent aurora borealis burning across the sky and visible only to me. A light show, a kaleidoscope, a galaxy of swirling fires.

And a storm is assaulting my house. I'm safe, but I feel threatened. I won't be sleeping tonight.

wrong side of the earth

I listen as someone explains to foreign students, newly arrived in Finland, what to expect from the next few months: that it will be cold, dark, next to unbearable, dangerous to their physical and mental health.

Once again, a feel a cold shiver of disbelief. How did I end up here? Why am I, again, facing a long and terrible winter?

international talks on earrings

An evening in a church basement. Tealights on tables attempt to cheer up the unatmospheric room. Less than 30 people present, nobody very interesting-looking to my jaded eyes.

Cynical and introverted as usual, I choose a seat at a distance from everybody else and prepare to just observe for a while and then go home  -

- but a guy from Honduras gives me a kind smile and I take a deep breath and start a conversation. From there on, I talk about gyms and prisons and Irish valleys with the pastor, laugh with some Ghanaian girls about their terrible teacher who happens to be my brother-in-law, try on somebody else's earrings, and discover that in this nondescript Finnish town there is a girl from St. Louis, Missouri, who wants to discuss linguistics.

At the end of the evening, instead of being long gone, I help clear away the burnt-out tealights.

darling books: better than Potter

  Books.
  With no windows to let in the sunlight, the stacks were utterly dark except for the gentle light of my candle. Stretching away into the darkness were shelf on shelf of books. More books than I could look at if I took a whole day. More books than I could read in a lifetime.

My favourite fantasy writer is Patrick Rothfuss and the story that begins with The Name of the Wind. It's the tale of the fearless Kvothe - orphan, university student, musician, magician and adventurer. There is a mysterious, beautiful woman who likes strawberry wine, a library with a locked door and even a magic creature or two. What more do you need?

art without innuendo

I knew, when I agreed to come, what kind of party this would be.

A woman sees a dog toy lying on the floor and stage-whispers to the host, "why did you leave your bedroom toys lying around?"

Cue hysterical giggle from everyone.

Bailey's and wine from a box, heavy innuendo in every joke, sexting with somebody else's boyfriend, poking fun at someone's religious views. The men are middle-aged bachelors or divorcées, nice and mellow gentlemen who observe with bemused amusement and quietly drink their beer. The women are wasted, forcing the men to dance on the livingroom floor, squeezing each others private parts just for fun, falling over. They are not old but not young either, just the right age to question their life path and feel their age and compensate for their anguish with wildness. And make the most of the night.

A bit like me. The only way to survive and enjoy a party like this is to get drunk. But I'm driving, so I can't.

This is not my scene. So why did I come here?

Because it's been too long since a party like this. Because I needed to get my cool boots on and leave the house and be swept into the unknown, losing control. Because I want to experience something different, want to hear crazy things said in complete seriousness, like "nullification is a blemish" and "I need to write my will NOW!" Because there are people here that can tell me things I never knew before.

Because the host, not very drunk at all, shows me his marvellous art collection. No innuendo here at all.

darling books: the violin by nightfall

  "How long is this going to take?" he snapped at Harry, who was reading the form upside down and making helpful suggestions.
  "In a hurry, huh, Murph?" He raised his eyebrows and winked. "She must really be somethin'."
  "How long does it take?"
  "Most ladies like the long-type ceremony."
  "You got a short one?"
  "Sure. We can do short. As short as you like."
  "How's thirty seconds?"
  "It'll cost you extra."
  "You're charging me five hundred as it is, you little crook!" Murphy reached across the counter and pulled Harry up on his toes by his polka-dot tie.
  "That's because you want the passport tomorrow!" Harry wailed. "Nobody gets a passport in one day."
  "For five hundred? Bah!" Murphy's eyes were bleary from lack of sleep. "I want a quick passport and a quick wedding ceremony!" He shoved Harry back.
  Harry looked at Murphy sideways. Love had definitely had a bad effect on him. "Sure, Murph." He sounded hurt. He smoothed his tie and thought for a minute. "And I'll even throw in a cigar."
  "I'm not having a baby," Murphy scowled.
  "Oh. I thought maybe - " Harry stopped short when Murphy looked daggers at him.
  "And I don't smoke." He shoved the forms over to Harry. "And for five hundred smackers, you can fill these out."
  "But I don't know any of the information!" His voice trailed off; he looked past Murphy as the door behind him opened and Elisa came in. "Well, helllooo!" He gave a low whistle, then whispered, "No wonder you're in such a hurry, pal."
  Murphy did not hear him. He turned to look at Elisa and for an instant he thought his heart was going to stop. She looked like something off the cover of a magazine. A picture from Fifth Avenue in New York. He had seen the Garbo movie Ecstasy three times, but Garbo was never so beautiful as Elisa Linder in the royal blue suit.

I don't like novels set in war-time Europe. Yet I have reread the Zion Covenant series, and many other series by Bodie and Brock Thoene, countless times.

This first book in the series, Vienna Prelude, contains the haunting sound of a Guarnerius violin, fairytale snow in Vienna, candles lit on a horrible night in Dachau, and the American journalist Murphy who gives his beloved bride a cigar band for a wedding ring.

The rest, as they say, is history.

meanwhile, in the clothing industry

The boss looked a bit surprised to find me eating lunch with coworkers at the table in the middle of the office. Could have had something to do with the fact that he fired me eighth months ago.

But it was a nice lunch and no hard feelings at all.

not very original fiction

Wrote my first piece of fanfiction ever.

I love reading fanfiction about my favourite TV shows - a lot of it is bad or mediocre but you can find real gems that blow your mind. Writing it feels like a waste of time. Because it's not your own, original fiction, only people who are really into that same show ever read it, and you can't do anything with it.

For some reason, though, I managed to put together a story when I had nothing better to do. And maybe it wasn't a waste of time because I haven't written any kind of story in years.

It won't make much sense unless you like White Collar, but if you want to witness this historic event, the link is here.

far from Montmartre

Today's translation challenge: find lyrics to three obscure French songs when you don't know title or artist and just get to hear a short clip of each.

Done! Thank you again, Google. And thank you Jean-Philippe, my white-haired French teacher who forced me to sit through hours of listening comprehension with everything from Georges Brassens to Celine Dion, not to mention a very poetic rendition of La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jéhanne de France.

"Dis Blaise, sommes-nous bien loin de Montmartre?"

Yes, I am very far from Montmartre - where I went only once and came back with a beautiful yarn decoration braided into my hair - but I'm not helpless. I have come very far.

loads of loads - the path to freedom

I'm having to download strange software just to download other strange software. I'm no computer genius. I click on "Download Now"-buttons with a trembling finger.

Why does work have to be so high-tech? I studied foreign language grammar, literature, culture and social structures for years and years to become a translator. Nobody ever told me I would encounter so many "Download Now"-buttons.

How many computer programs have I had to learn from scratch? Once I manage to learn all the features and commands of one, a new employer wants me to use another one that does the same job but looks as if it was created on a different planet. Sometimes I get hurried, incomplete instructions by a coworker, sometimes I have to figure out the basics of a complex new program with the help of Google.

Here I am today, downloading again. A new program, the third one in six months, for the same kind of job. Probably not the last one. Anxiously going through pages and pages of instructions in two foreign languages, sending off emails to the new employer with weird questions like "Is the .890 format necessary?" and knowing I will literally cry if the computer says "installation failed". And this is just the download stage.

At one point, I leave it all for a while and go off to first tidy up my flat, then put on some makeup. If I and my world look good, I feel more powerful and secure. I go to my window to stare at the horizon and tell myself: This is the beginning of the good life. I will accomplish this and then I will be free to travel the world with my laptop and do my job sitting on beaches, in cafés, in exotic places.

The road to freedom is littered with boulders, software glitches and "Download Now"-buttons.

make sense of this

Today's translation challenge:

"Seventh-Day holy rollers snake-bitin' church".

Seriously, what did translators do before  Google  existed? You wouldn't exactly find this in the dictionary.

coffee in the funeral home

In a quiet pub in the ancient town of Kilkenny, Ireland, a few years ago now. We are playing pool in the back room.

"I want that picture with the horse," says the French girl, who is drunk. I persuade her to leave the picture on the wall. She and the Australian girl smuggle a couple of pint glasses into her bag instead. This is actually good because when we come back to the hostel late at night after our pub crawl and want to continue drinking, we can't find any other glasses.

The Australian boy, who is young and adorable, hangs out the window into the mild Irish night. "I want to call my girlfriend," he says longingly, not caring that three girls are teasing him for always saying this. And he does. We giggle in the background while he is trying to tell her how much he misses her. She seems mostly annoyed at the other end, far away in Sydney.

The next day we walk through Kilkenny castle. I dream of a long-lost world and stroke the rough stone walls. The sun is shining over the impossibly green lawn in front of the castle. We sit on the grass and have a picnic. I ask the Australians about a word they used that I didn't understand. I'm determined to learn all the English in the world. They giggle, the word turns out to be one you shouldn't really use in civilized company and not of much use to me anyway since it's Aussie slang. I'll remember it forever now.

Driving home in the French girl's tiny Renault we get lost again. It's impossible not to get lost on Irish roads. The lane is winding through fields and hills and cow herds. We swerve to avoid running over a cat.

In late afternoon, still on the road, everything seems quiet and hazy. Weariness settles over me like fog. I fight a sudden feeling of melancholia and request a stop for coffee. We pull up in Carlow, almost a ghost town. We manage to find a place that is open and it turns out to be a pub combined with a funeral home. We discuss this interesting fact at length over coffee.

"I'm glad we got lost," someone says. "Otherwise we wouldn't have seen that cat."

We all agree that the cat was an important element of our trip to Kilkenny.

back to bed then

Injured, can't leave home and drink too much wild berry herbal tea.

Like Quasimodo I hobble around and look at the world through the windows. Time seems to stop. I can't walk but it feels like a vacation and I don't want it to end.

sing joy to the world

Maybe that is what I was meant to do. Sing joy to the world.

Maybe that is why I have melancholy as my bonemarrow.

I have realised something: 

If there is a higher purpose in your life, something that you can do better than anybody else for the benefit of the world, there is also an opposite force (Christians call it the devil) that will do its utmost to annihilate that purpose. Some of its most effective strategies is to keep you in the dark regarding your purpose, to distract you from it with a thousand little things, or to make you feel discouraged, cynical or indifferent.

But when you notice these strategies at work in you, they lose most of their power. The power of the purpose inside you is stronger. But you have to consciously choose that purpose every day and stand up against the enemy's strategies.

I'm not very good at it yet. I seem to fall for the distraction trick every time, and the cynicism is a good one, too. But with the power of God, my creator, I can do it.

That was today's little sermon. Now time for a little distraction joyful celebration of all that's good in the world. Like wine.


"My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory ..., for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world." 
(The Message Bible, 1 John 4)

next to not normal

Surreal elements  in my life:

* A single tulip bulb sitting in my kitchen. I'm late for my participation in the International Tulip Guerilla Gardening Day, hoping I still have a few weeks before the soil freezes.

* A friend who has a crush on a friend who has a crush on me. I don't have a crush. This is going to end in tears.

* A freezer filled with Ben & Jerry's icecream. Like an impossible dream, but true. (Will come in handy for the tearful end, see above.) Squeezed in among the icecream is also one entire kilogram of blueberries.

* A great tit staring at me through the window.

* A newly discovered smoothie addiction.

* The supernatural experience of hearing the same Whitney Houston song (one of the more obscure ones) twice in two days, one of which was in a concert. Is it a sign? Of what?

in-love-fallings, part five

When I fell in love with...

* seagulls: as a kid, curling up in a narrow bunk bed in a primitive summer cottage on June nights that never grew dark, listening to the ever-present shrieking of these not-so-loveable birds through the thin walls. This sound means summer, sea and home. Since it is absent during winter, the first cry of a seagull in spring always sends a joyful jolt through my body.
 
* walking for miles in strange cities: sometime just after I learned to walk, probably. My insatiable curiosity and thirst for exploration will never be quenched.

* trains: possibly when I started taking those long trips to Helsinki to visit my sister. Definitely by the time I was a starved student and got on the train some Thursday afternoons for a long weekend in that homeland that seemed so distant and exotic by then. Yes, ten-hour round trips every five weeks or so, for seven years, can really get on your nerves, especially when someone has stolen your seat and someone's toddler is screaming in your ear. But waiting for me at the end of the long journey from the big city were home, peace, Mum's cooking and a wild landscape of snow and wolves (the latter was mostly imaginary). On the way back, I could look forward to my own bed in the fascinating city. Trains, even just the metallic smell of train tracks, symbolize freedom.

* real baths: relatively late in life, coming as I do from a land of wonderfully hot saunas and quick showers. Must have been one of those first, freezing winters in Ireland. The heating system ran out of fuel and my landlord, also my boss at the hotel, took his sweet time getting it refilled. Weeping with rage after another cold, sleepless night I left the room I had been assigned and occupied a much better one, against every staff rule. In the face of my rage, not even my boss dared to object. Unlike the other rooms, it had a bath tub. Shaking with cold, I lit candles, put Bach on the CD player and sank down into the hot water. Needless to say, I never looked at water in the same way since.

alternative life on a rainy Saturday

* Go to a furniture store. Not to buy anything, just to wander around the fake kitchens and hilariously fake living rooms. To pretend you own that shiny kitchen with lovely turquoise cupboards and Smeg fridge and that you are just about to curl up in that sofa that is big enough for ten, raise the footrest with the touch of a button and watch a movie on the home cinema with a glass of red in hand. For a while, you are in another life than your own. If a shop assistant approaches you, just airily wave them away with a "I'm looking for inspiration. I need to just wander around, thank you".

* Visit your mother, eat homemade pie and solve a crossword puzzle as if you had all the time in the world. You do.

* Go grocery shopping in a supermarket (this works better if you normally do your shopping in smaller stores). Wander around in all the departments and look at workout clothes, bed linen, discounted DVDs and even sneak into the men's clothing section because they have really cool hoodies. Think back to a supermarket you visited abroad and then pretend you are there - this is easy, because supermarkets look the same everywhere. In the food section, take your time and buy unusual stuff just to try something new.

* Go home, eat something nice and stay offline for a change. Read a book.

Alternatively, you might want to consider getting a real life. I'm considering it right now. And you may have noted that I didn't manage the last part of that last part.

in-love-fallings, part four

When I first fell in love with...

* seafood: at my first taste of a seafood platter in a candle-lit Irish restaurant.


* the subway: on my first real adventure abroad, when I dove into the cavernous, hot, exciting labyrinth that is the London Underground. Ancient, haunted, and felt like the heart of the world.

* corridors: working in a busy hotel and sometimes escaping the chaos of the reception area to walk the mostly empty, silent corridors upstairs. Hundreds of doors on each side, each leading to a room with its own set of stories. Like the Wood Between The Worlds in C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles. Now I have a recurring dream of corridors like these: wandering them, searching for something, maybe lost but never frightened - instead excited, longing for adventure and love. Sometimes they are twisted, winding corridors in an attic, more like paths in an ancient fairytale forest. Sometimes they are broad, made of concrete and branching off into infinity, with metal doors that slam shut with a heavy, threatening clang behind you, like something you would expect in the dungeons of KGB headquarters in the 1970s. They are always endless.

* birdsong: the first time the world felt awful and the chirping of a little feathery thing in a tree cheered me up. Or when I heard the mighty trumpeting of cranes echo for miles. Or when I was homesick in a foreign country and heard a familiar twitter.

* soundtracks of musicals: when I found that there are songs about other things than love and "I want you baby". As a lover of unusual words, I discovered musicals. Where else can you find strange subjects, humour, deep drama and a wide variety of musical genres, sometimes all in one song? My first find wasn't even a classic one but the animated movie The Lion King. By the time Prince of Egypt came along, I was hooked. For unusual words, see for example the list of ancient Egyptian gods in "You're Playing With The Big Boys Now". I was transfixed by "The Plagues" where Moses is grieving and Pharaoh is being difficult while God, coming to the rescue of his people, is thundering down destruction: "I send my scourge, I send my sword - thus saith the Lord, let my people go".

the doomsday instrument is not a trumpet

Note to self:

If you are dating a cute guitarist, don't confess to him that you don't like guitars. The consequences will be dire.

kick the bully in the teeth

Today, for the first time this autumn, the weather has that  hostile quality. 

An ice-cold wetness that threatens to hurt you and a grey darkness that tries to suffocate you with despair. The triumphant grin of a bully: "You're stuck with me until April."

I guess I could have dressed more appropriately than a thin cardigan and a flimsy skirt. But sometimes the best defense is a defiant demonstration of carefree, joyful summer attitude. It warms me more than a somber, thick coat.

I come home and light a candle. Pour myself a glass of wine. Put on a record by The Fray and realise that piano-driven music really is my thing. And remember that all those dark and cold nights ahead are made for candlelight, wine and for filling my mind with new knowledge and mesmerizing stories.

And in the spring, I will emerge stronger, wiser and loving life.

staring at fish

I sat for an hour by the water, watching tiny fish leap unexpectedly.

The sun warmed by back like a caress. I stared at my black boots, stared at the water, stared at the fish, waiting for answers to come.

All the heavy questions of the world had landed on my shoulders during my walk here and I felt as if I could not leave until I knew how to answer them.

A couple with a baby stroller and two excited dachshunds sat nearby for a while. An old lady cycled past. On the water, boats came and went. I leaned my elbows on my knees and thought about more or less everything in my life.

In the end, I had enough peace of mind to stand up and walk back home. By then, I had decided to stop faking everything. Henceforth, I will be TRUE and HONEST.

the long strange tale of an Irish receptionist

The Magic Valley - the Irish hotel where I worked and lived for a while - seemed to be made up of many worlds. I was in one world in the hotel, in another when I walked the mountain paths nearby, in a completely different one in the village two miles away where I bought groceries, spent an hour in the internet centre, had lunch or a Bailey's coffee in the pub.

The hotel itself consisted of different worlds. There was the summer: chock-full of tourists, seasonal workers, babbling in foreign languages, drama on every level. There was the winter: silence, a sweet smell of turf fires and a certain melancholy, but also the entertaining presence of the locals who - in the longed-for absence of tourists - came out of hiding and gathered in the hotel pub for company and shelter from the cold. There was the brainy reception world, the steamy kitchen world, the cut-throat bar world. And even the bar itself felt different if I was there on or off duty.

I enjoyed working in reception. It felt like the nerve centre of the hotel - we kept track of guests, events, the menu in the restaurant, the tills in the bar and the housekeeping schedule, and performed ten different tasks simultaneously. We also took messages for the boss, made business statistics, fixed the computers, received deliveries, helped with the booking of functions, counted money, fetched extra pillows, found out why the damn fire alarm was going off, tried to answer questions from the other staff regarding wages, accommodation, work permits and why some guy was sleeping with some other guy's girlfriend. We dealt with fussy guests, panicked brides, cranky celebrities and flirty drunks, not to mention impossible-to-please bosses and coworkers having nervous breakdowns.

The receptionists were a small bunch of likable people - the job requires a certain amount of people skills and intelligence after all. Still, I envied the other departments sometimes. I loved the kitchen with its constant noise and people running around. The atmosphere was hot, humid and spicy - also because of the chef that everyone was in love with, the tension during peak hours and the cultural clashes. The chefs, mostly male, safe behind the hot plate and counters in their own little kingdom where no one else was allowed to enter, were of a higher caste than the foreign kitchen porters washing dishes, the waitresses running around and the receptionist coming to enquire about today's menu. They levelled their all-knowing eyes on you with a threatening smile and let you know that they knew all the latest gossip about you, really approved of that short receptionist's skirt and that you were at their mercy. It was sexist and insulting  - and made you feel as if you were the most beautiful and desirable woman in the building. It didn't help that the head chef was a man of mystery, rarely seen outside the kitchen - aloof and adorable, a tyrant and an idol and humble at heart, loving and loved and completely unattainable to all the girls who fell in love with him.

Everyone pretended that the surly hotel owner was the sovereign ruler. But everyone also knew that the hotel would fall without its soft-spoken chef. It would also crumble without the tiny little woman who ruled the bar and lounge, the busiest department. When she issued an order, everyone rushed to obey. When she flew into a rage and quit her job, the hotel owner went after her and begged on his knees until she agreed to come back. She could break up a bar fight single-handedly. She was the scariest person in the building, but she was also a mother to those who needed a shoulder to cry on and defended her staff fiercely. The bar staff knew that they were under her protection and took orders from nobody else. A receptionist needing their assistance with something had to ask very humbly and swallow all their not-so-subtle remarks about lazy receptionists sitting on their asses all day. If you worked hard and earned their favour, you were allowed the honour to share a drink with them late at night after the bar was closed.

The housekeeping staff, a.k.a. the foreigners with the lowest English skills who could not be employed in any other department, were mostly ignored by other staff ( except when they were envied for their day-time only working hours ). They formed their own clique in the corridors upstairs, whispering in linen closets. They were impossible to reach by any means, so a receptionist with a question had to prowl the corridors and rooms, looking for invisible housekeepers.

And then there were the restaurant staff, oddly low in the hierarchy - probably because their department was an under-privileged rival to the powerful bar/lounge. And the office staff and souvenir shop staff who kept a distance to the rest of the ( mostly foreign ) staff as they were all Irish and not living in staff accommodation. The managers had their own, complicated pecking order and the angriest one was the one most loved by the staff.

And there was me. The mellow one, sometimes quiet observer of all the drama, sometimes peacemaker, at times loved by everyone, at other times moody and distant. Blending into the grey background, then exploding in a supernova of colour as the queen of all drama and the centre of attention. The Good Girl, then the Meltdown Disaster, then the One Who Stole The Chef's Heart and the one who played a game of pool with Matthew McConaughey.

fearful symmetry

Nine years of blogging and soon nine hundred blog entries.
I like this symmetry.

And I seem to have located the centre alignment button.

better a handful with tranquillity

In the little summer cottage, freezing because summer is gone, I feed the fire with sticks and wrap myself in all the woollen things I can find. I make a mug of instant coffee. Then I power up my laptop and work for a couple of hours. The sea outside the window, the heat of the fire at my back. A job I actually enjoy (so rare in this world).

So I marvel at how lucky I am.

Then I worry a little bit. Because I always worry. But just a little, today.

taverns are no longer illicit, but

Much of this is still true:

"The Finns also have a bent for drink, even though there is no wine here whatsoever, except for illicit tavern keeping, which is harshly suppressed. But, all the way to St. Petersburg, the Finn will drink himself into forgetfulness, lose his money, horse, bridle, and return home poorer than a church rat."

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Life's Little Things
(Saltykov-Shchedrin visited Finland in 1886)

the not very relaxing summer in the spa

"I'm afraid we need you to pay for your room NOW, sir," I said in my coldest voice.

Actually, I didn't say "sir" because we don't do that here in Finland. That was one thing I knew, although the rest of the hotel business in Finland was still all new to me. Despite the fact that I had extensive experience of the hotel business in other countries, I was fairly sure there were things all the other receptionists knew and I was clueless about.

And it wasn't only because I had only ever done this job in English-speaking countries and now had to learn (quickly) to do it in both Finnish and Swedish. Being a hotel receptionist is never easy. For every new workplace, you have to learn how to manage bookings and payments and several different computer systems, know all the rooms, restaurant menus and members of staff, act as private secretary to the boss, and be able to provide information about everything from package deals to local tourist sites to where deliveries should be stored to evacuation plans in case of fire.

All this after just a few days of on-the-job training by other receptionists who are often too busy to show you how things are done properly.

At least boredom is seldom one of the challenges.

Things I was still clueless about in this spa hotel included regulations and laws for this business. In Finland, there are lots of laws about everything. I wouldn't have been surprised to find I was the first employee who had not gone to hotel management school, and sometimes suspected I wasn't really supposed to be behind that reception desk at all. But I had never lied about it, and yet there I was.

There were a number of other things I did not understand either, despite my many years in hotels. Such as why they told me I could leave the desk for my lunch break, but then frowned when I did just that instead of just gulping down a sandwich and a yogurt in the back office like the others did. Or how I was told, the only day I called in sick because I was knocked out cold by the flu, that there was nobody else available so I'd better get my sorry ass in to work anyway. Or how there was never anyone else available to do almost anything at all, meaning that I had to leave the reception desk unattended for ages to go and set up an extra bed in a guest's room.

Or how I wasn't told, until after I started working there, that it wasn't a full-time job but only a few hours a week.

Or why I had to stand on my feet for the entire shift, even if it was the full eight hours.

But one thing I did know was that you don't let a guest check out in the morning with only a vague promise to come back and pay the bill "some time later". That's why I fixed this particular gentleman with a threatening stare. Only when he promised on all that is holy to come back in a couple of hours, and gave me his business card, did I relent.

The other receptionist, who had not witnessed our little altercation, gave a little gasp when she found the card lying around. It was a flashy one, gold-embossed and decorated with a symbol that I later learned has been listed as one of the world's ugliest monuments, a golden horseshoe. It turned out that the man I had more or less accused of trying to skip out without paying was Finland's arguably most successful businessman who almost single-handedly created one of the country's most visited - and weirdest - tourist sites, Tuuri.

A man who also kept his promise and came back an hour later to pay his bill.

I still have his card as a souvenir of that clueless, feet-aching summer in the spa hotel.

tango, a thermos and a yellow card

A cold west wind. Layers of sweaters, leg warmers and mittens required.

"I didn't have time for coffee, so I brought a thermos. Want some? It's with cinnamon."

My sister and I sit in the ancient, rotting bleachers. Around us, a dismally grey neighbourhood where someone is playing Finnish tango music. On the field, a flash of neon pink shoes. Junior girls are playing a game of football.

A goal is disqualified by the referee because the ball slips out through a hole in the net. We sip coffee. Shout encouragement to the girl that plays centre-back, one of us. Say hello to a dog. Note the fact that even innocent-looking 14-year-old girls get yellow cards.

The right team wins and I hug a sweaty teenager. "It was HOPELESS in this wind, the ball went EVERYWHERE."

On Saturdays like these, I remember why I came back to Finland.

to scream behind a wall

Someone in the prison nearby is throwing a tantrum - screams of rage echo between red tile walls.

Sometimes at night I dream of throwing a tantrum.

in-love-fallings, part three

When I first fell in love with...

* kind and intelligent men: Coming to a new school after finally leaving the one where all the boys were evil-eyed bullies with acne, hurtful words and really scary stalking techniques. In the new classroom, the boys said things like "I think you're electrical" and "Then the evil witch took out her chainsaw". Instead of frozen with terror, I was warm with laughter.

* Finland: When I moved to another country. Not until then did I realise that in Finland, things are done well and on time, people are honest, the coffee is strong, equality is not just a word, and when winter arrives you find out if you are a real Viking or not. Finland is EXOTIC.

* autumn: At university, cycling around a beautiful city filled with autumn leaves and rowdy students. I sipped my coffee at a sidewalk café and scribbled in a new notebook, made excursions to the far ends of the city and discovered beautiful, empty beaches, felt in love with all the new things I was going to learn ( this was before the reality of studying crept in ) and tricked a foreign student into eating rowan berries.

* crosswords: In a foreign country, when my Australian boyfriend convinced me that my English was good enough to attempt the ( easier ) crossword in The Times.

* animals: At age 1, when my parents bought a fluffy poodle puppy. All through my childhood, watching my mother rescue wounded birds, lost cats and trapped spiders. When my older sister took me horse riding, mostly to annoy our parents. And at age 11, when I befriended a tiny girl in my class who took me on a spree in the neighbourhood, knocking on doors and asking strangers if we could walk their dogs.

* learning new things: Long after I left university. Probably when things stopped happening to me and I realised I needed to make things happen. Or when I discovered the powerful feeling of knowledge and the joy of not having to downplay my intelligence in order to fit it.

* short skirts: That crazy summer when I felt constantly intoxicated - my friend lent me a green and white skirt, much shorter than any I had previously ever worn, for a party night. Men fell at my feet, figuratively. Or a balmy summer evening in Cambridge, England, when I walked home after a night alone at the cinema - in a dreamy mood and wearing a short denim skirt. Six gorgeous, impressively dressed student boys fell at my feet, literally this time, in the middle of the street and sang me a song. I can't swear that it was the skirt that did it, but I have a weakness for denim skirts ever since.

* cafés: As a teenager, on frequent trips to visit my big sister in the city. We used to "go shopping" but always ended up doing our favourite thing, spending a lazy hour in some place with good coffee, sweet pastries and a good view of interesting people. Hanging out at cafés became my main pastime when I was at university and was supposed to be studying.

* the English language: Probably the first time I heard the word "mesmerized".

on a wintry, post-Soviet beach

At the end of the last millennium:

I'm in a hotel bed, drinking Coke and watching Back to the Future 3, dubbed into Estonian. Not what I expected of a Friday evening.

I was sent to Estonia to help out at an international Methodist conference. A young student of English, I was supposed to interpret the proceedings into Swedish for the benefit of Swedish participants. I wasn't actually a Methodist myself and could not understand why people would come together for something like this.

But, hey, a paid trip to Estonia! Who would say no?

Pärnu  is a famous resort city of Estonia. At the time, it still had a post-Soviet look of dilapidation. I found it desperately romantic, like something out of an old spy movie. Weak street lights, far apart, barely managed to illluminate dark wintry streets and ancient houses falling apart. Very broad streets at that, Soviet-style. A once-grand stadion where I could still, at least in my overactive imagination, see a larger-than-life statue of Lenin. Dreary shops with half-empty shelves. The antique tea rooms of an old hotel where we sipped our strong tea out of delicate china cups. Jungle-like back yards where snarling dobermanns guarded junk like old tractors - and even a real, rust-spotted fighter aircraft. Telephone lines hanging so low you had to duck under them. And, in stark contrast, streets crammed with shiny new BMWs and Mercedes.

Typical Estonia in the 1990s.

I struggled valiantly through the difficult interpretation at the conference and hung out with some new-found friends there, like my fellow Finn whom I followed around loyally since I was too scared to venture far on my own. Luckily, he was of the gentlemanly type who looked after me and made sure I got home safe to my hotel.

The hotel was magnificent - or had been once. When I opened my balcony door, I was right on the mile-long beach, facing the endless horizon of the Gulf of Riga. Since it was February, the beach was completely empty. The Gulf was frozen over and far away I could see people walking on the ice, even driving cars on it.

The winter evenings were quiet, the room chilly. I curled up in the bed, drank my Coke, tried to prepare the following day's interpretation and watched incomprehensible Estonian TV. I felt a bit lost and quite a bit happy.

to boldly go

I have never gotten over the feeling that a trip somewhere, even if it's just to the next city, is an event of immeasurable significance.

Maybe because travelling has always to me seemed like the meaning of life. Even when I spend long months perfectly content in my home town, fondly remembering the complicated, adventurous journeys of my youth and sighing in relief at not having to experience all that uncertainty, discomfort and homesickness right now.

Still, I measure my life in the journeys I've made, and display them as proof to myself that I'm not wasting my years.

And on a trip to a place where I've never been before, I hungrily devour with all my senses the new experiences and new landscapes that open up before me. I don't necessarily need activities. I just need to see, observe, learn about, and be in the new place. To others, I seem a bit obsessed and manic in a foreign city - not conditions people usually associate with me.

Yesterday, I took a day trip across the pond to Sweden, to Umeå city. I spent four hours there, not doing anything terribly exciting. And yet, I know I will count this trip as one of the signifying events of this year.

Maybe I just need to get out more.

But I cherish the ability to marvel. The joy that I felt, being somewhere else.

still ditzy, apparently

Opening my door to a damp September day.

I have already read a Bible verse, some English grammar, the IKEA catalogue and several pages of a thick novel. I have planned an interpreter schedule, doubted myself and eaten a lot of yogurt. I have bookmarked blogs by ditzy literature students who are discovering life in the city where I used to be ditzy and discovering life.

Tonight, a free ticket to the theatre. Tomorrow, a day trip to Sweden.

This picture has no connection to the actual contents of this entry. But it's a picture of a rowan tree and I love rowan trees. The berries are ripe at this time of the year and  I always have the strange compulsion to eat one. The taste is face-twistingly horrible, but it's the taste of September.

spellbound at the bank

Bank tellers are for the most part coolly efficient. This one wasn't.

She took her time telling me that the answer to my question was no, I couldn't do the currency exchange I wanted. Oblivious to my frustration and stress, she then fixed me with a dreaming look and told me of a grandchild who had gone to Norway, and how last month a customer had asked for Scottish pound notes, and how strange it is, this apparently cashfree society we are heading towards.

I had been gathering up my shopping bags to leave quickly in a frustrated huff. But her slow, soft-spoken ramblings were hypnotic. I remained there, staring at her in fascination. Before I knew it, I heard myself talking to her about the peculiarities of my recent travels.

When I left the bank, without the foreign currency I wanted, my frustration and stress had vanished. Who was she? Luna Lovegood in middle age? They should use her as one of those people who talk down terrorists with their finger on the trigger.

commerce under the rowan tree

A friend, and a  pop-up flea-market  in one of the more picturesque parts of town.

I was more fascinated with the architecture and the fact that normally reticent Finns always seem to become so friendly and chatty on occasions like this. But yes, I bought a Russian dictionary and feasted on homemade chocolate cake in the shade of a rowan tree.

There was also time to contemplate life in the company of some excellent spring rolls in a corner of the busy market square.

We sold the Russian dictionary onward ( over the phone ) before we had even paid for it.

Overheard:
"Walk one metre ahead of me at all times! One metre! One metre!"
"Is the dog for sale?"
"You are not allowed to strangle me."
"That is rather manipulative."
"That's some nice crockery you're selling there. - Yes, but I wouldn't buy it myself."

home is in my hair

not something you do every day

Called the janitorial service and told them that my wall is really hot.

inexplicably unfixable stuff and apple sauce

* Dream last night: Was desperately hungry and stole bananas from a closed supermarket. The police came and pointed guns at me.
* Breakfast: = Lunch, because it actually was that time when I got around to thinking about food. Had salad with my sister, and told her I had decided that when I get old I want my wheeled walking aid to be of a cool vintage model, meaning that I should actually buy it now to ensure that it is sufficiently vintage by the time I need it. Received no understanding from her. She laughed.
* Work: Not much done today. Some translation stuff, from some language to some other language, or something.
* Visit to the car repair shop: A bewildered mechanic ( mechanics are always bewildered after being confronted with my fickle French car ) told me one of the indicators was inexplicably unfixable and that he needed to "do some research". I drove home and all indicators worked fine.
* Well-deserved evening rest on the sofa: Interrupted by my mother who needed her window washing equipment that I borrowed three months ago and still have not used. Took the equipment to her house. My reward: I got to help her make apple sauce. I don't even like apple sauce.

in-love-fallings, part two

When I first fell in love with ...
 
* travelling: Probably the first time my parents put me in our little Saab 96 and took me somewhere, like the sweet villages of Sweden and the awe-inspiring fjords of Norway. It was certainly cemented when I got to travel on those huge, exciting ferries to Sweden - I ran around exploring every nook and cranny, except the playroom because there were other kids there.

* books: Probably before I was even born. Can I even imagine a time when I didn't love books? No.

* beautiful rooms: That summer I stayed in a dark room, with a room-mate who sometimes seemed to hate me. I was temporarily accommodated in another room, alone, one where bright daylight fell over a bed with white sheets and made the room glow. I lay on that bed, reading a travel magazine with pictures of luxurious beach villas and safari lodges, and felt myself come alive again.

* hotels: When I handed in my last essay at university, packed up my stuff and took off for the Emerald Isle. At the end of a winding road, in a hidden valley, I arrived at a messy, weird and wonderful little hotel where strange things always seemed to happen. I realised then that I had always been looking for a world that never sleeps. And this was it. I made my home in an attic room and didn't leave for four years.

* dancing: Long before I discovered the joys of clubbing, as part of an amateur dance troupe trying to change the world. The actual dancing was hard work but the boys in the troupe were beautiful, athletic and loveable creatures who kissed me, threw me over their shoulder, carried my bags. The other girls hugged me and lent me their make-up. We toured in schools, performed to sneering teenagers, stayed in bohemian flats, rehearsed on the sun terrace of a ferry and dressed as clowns on a dusty country road in Estonia. We also had some priceless inside jokes, like the one about dropping God on the floor and making the TV news.

* dancing, again: On dancefloors in rural Ireland, sometimes drunk but mostly too busy dancing to do much drinking. There it was, the dizzy feeling of being free of everything, spinning through outer space, glimpsing the face of God. It was worth the mortal danger of travelling home in a crowded mini-van driven by someone who was probably drunk, at breakneck speed on dark, winding roads. I learned to let go.

rage against the dying of the light

First of September and I had to be dragged kicking and screaming - almost literally - from the summer cottage because it really is a bit too cold and too dark to stay there overnight now and people say I have to work.

Mad with melancholy and there's a long, long, LONG winter ahead.

Bonfire celebration at summer's end

in-love-fallings, part one

When I first fell in love with ...
 
* clothes: When I was in my early twenties - for some reason didn't really care much before then - and found a catalogue with the romantic autumn collection of a certain Danish clothes brand. I had just returned from a summer of adventure in a foreign country and a brown-eyed boy who looked at me as if I was beautiful - and then broke my heart. I sat in a student apartment with my friends, leafed through the catalogue, felt excited about another year at university and more adventures, felt a delicious chill in the air and envisioned a whole new identity for me in those beautiful clothes.

* coffee: That teenage summer when I had my first real summer job, cutting grass in the cemetery. The permanent staff, two middle-aged ladies, asked me the first day if I drink coffee and I didn't dare to say no. So every day for a month, on our twice-daily coffee breaks, I choked down a cup. Strong, black, unsweetened. It almost put hair on my chest and certainly was a very Finnish thing to do. Only later I learned that most people start with lots of milk or cream and sugar in it. If they start at all. But my coffee-loving family seemed so proud of me that I never looked back.

* writing: When I was 11 years old and had two great friends, a new bike, pretend dogs, a real dog and felt as if I owned the world (or at least the neighbourhood). My friends and I decided to write a story. It was a fictional account of three girls with cool bikes and dogs and a neighbourhood just like ours. Names were changed to protect anonymity (mine became Pam, which I felt was the coolest name ever invented). After less than one page, the story was abandoned - by everyone except me, who went home to write a sequel. And another one. And another one.

* TV: Watching Lassie at a tender age, understanding nothing.

the art of rain dressing

I may lament the fact that the  whirlwind bliss  that is the Nordic summer is over already, but I also delight in digging out glitzy leggings, wonderfully soft, long-sleeved henleys and bohemian legwarmers.

Today the rain was lashing down, which is quite rare in these parts. I went to have lunch with friends at a place where all the business people go ( why I and my friends go there is unclear ) and enjoyed the challenge of dressing in a crisp business skirt, grunge-style boots and a rain coat with the National Geographic logo. The overall effect was confusing and wonderful.

The umbrella ( a charity shop find ) withstood the test of the rain and the strong wind but I was soaked from the thighs down. Somewhere along the five-minute walk to the restaurant I managed to step ankle-deep into a puddle. The golden boots did NOT withstand the test.

But the water was not cold. Over lunch, I ogled the handsome business men, laughed with my friends, had a tasty fish fillet with salad, and did not mind in the least that my left foot was soaking wet. Maybe summer is not quite over.

strong true manifesto

What is this nonsense?

I will no longer be sucked down in the bog of my own self-accusations.

I will thank God for the miracle of every new day that I get to see. I will shine because I can. I will lower my voice, be at peace and remember, "wherever you are, be all there". I will plan my days, work on my language skills and my physical strength. I will divulge my dark secrets to my closest friends.

And God is somewhere out there, waiting. How close do I dare to go?

sentenced

I didn't actually buy a rose yesterday. I was going to, but the weight of people's gaze on me as I walked alone down the street made my knees buckle and I went home instead.

It may not have been the people's fault. It may have been the weight of my own unmerciful thoughts.

Why is self-judgment so relentless? Found guilty, lifetime imprisonment, throw away the key?

today's secret ingredient: garlic

* Watched a triathlon
* Got depressed by a long walk
* Was cheered up by a garlic pizza
* Bought a rose

when I was a kama'aina - a child of the land

I'm hitch-hiking with a couple of friends. Nothing to it. People always stop, and usually they have a pickup truck and you get to ride in the back, wind in your hair, beautiful views over lava fields and sea, and a feeling of complete freedom.

Hawaii, I'm 23 and impossibly lucky.  I travel around most of the Big Island. Black lava fields and white beaches, green beaches, black beaches and normal sandy-coloured beaches. The fragrance of the lovely plumeria flower everywhere.

Also some lusher landscapes. The fairytale Waipio valley, with black sand and pretty waterfall, which you can only reach if you have a 4-wheel drive (we don't but hitch-hiking works here too). Sleeping under the stars on an active volcano - half the night it rains and I'm colder than I ever thought possible on a tropical island, but then the stars come out and it's all worth it. Seeing rainforests as well as eerie landscapes of lava-burned forests, lava tunnels, black lava deserts where rotten-smelling sulfur is hissing out of vents in the ground. Visiting a Hilton luxury resort just to pretend we're millionaires and marvel at its own little world with marble halls, dolphin pools and channel boats taking you wherever you want to go.

Spending a quiet weekend at somebody's house in the inland hills, where the nights are cool. It's a welcome respite from the constant summer heat by the coast. We cosy up indoors to watch movies and rest, and I get to ride a very old and charming Arabian thoroughbred horse.

So many new, American things. Breakfast on pancakes with maple syrup. Walking the air-conditioned aisles of Walmart and Costco - as a small-town European girl who has never seen supermarkets the size of cathedrals before. Tacos, and that shop that gives you a free seashell necklace just for walking through their front door. A local rodeo with real cowgirls. Coca-Cola of a dozen different flavours. McDonald's breakfast menu. Voicemail. Tipping, and that weird tax they add to everything. Drive-thrus. Late-night shopping. Frappés and frozen yogurt. The Americans - so sociable, so friendly.

So many Hawaiian things, too. The feeling of being on a tiny island in the vast Pacific. A mongoose crossing the road, a school of manta rays coming up to the surface by the pier. Giant turtles on the beach. A local family coming back from a spear-fishing trip and hauling a big, dead squid up on the beach - they let us have a look and we see it bleeding ink. The Kona Nightingales (a gang of wild donkeys). The sun in zenith. The warning signs for falling coconuts and deadly man-of-war jellyfish. Little girls doing the hula. Red-hot lava flowing into the sea under a full moon. Termites and the fumigation of buildings. Trying boogie-board surfing. The sound of tsunami sirens being tested. Guava nectar and shaved ice. Glorious and incredibly speedy, blink-and-you-miss-it sunsets. The awe-inspiring crater of Kilauea Caldera and the exhilaration of standing on the summit of an active volcano.

And my job in the Financial Services office where I get to introduce myself proudly as "Purchaser at the University of the Nations". I have no head for numbers and am mostly relegated to routine paperwork but I get to know people all over campus. My proudest moment is figuring out that the University had paid twice for the flag of Taiwan.

My hitch-hiking advances to motorcycles and even once a taxi (without paying). There is only one weird moment when a gentleman offers me 40 bucks if he can kiss my feet. I politely decline and get out of the car very fast.



(Pictures: gladtravel.com, aloha-hawaii.com)

stirring the air

I have  not been cold  in five weeks.

That must be some kind of record on this west coast of the North. Where even in the heat of high summer there is usually the occasional chilly evening that makes you sweep wool around your shoulder after an evening swim, or a surprisingly cool breeze from open sea.

But I, the queen of shivering, walk around in eternally bare feet. I cannot remember what wool feels like next to the skin. I sit in the shade, wear as little as possible and take cold showers when I'm too far away from a beach. I gasp for air or bask in the summer heat. I look up recipes for ice tea when a hot cuppa is unbearable.

I discard the duvet and throw the door wide open to the night air. I turn the air conditioning to full blast in the car, while the tiny fan in my flat is of no use at all. I pin the letter slot in my front door open in a desperate attempt to create a cool draft. I drink gallons of water even when it tastes funny. I sit outside for hours in the white nights of the North.

I am tanned, wild-haired, sweating rivers and - weirdly enough - feeling sexy.

Finland and the Finns are throwing off their coldness and just loving life for a while.

music played out of doors

Some kind of punk rock music is reaching my ears, through my open window, from an outdoor stage not far away. Heavy metal is supposed to follow soon.

I think I'm the only Finn not fond of heavy metal.

Sometimes, when there's not a rock festival in progress, gentler music may reach my ears from some minstrel playing at the seaside café.

Until such a time, I'll take the punk rock. Soon enough, the deep silence of winter will be here. As John Keats said,

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”

storm day

Sometimes you end up holding the baby while his mother goes out to find a chainsaw.

It was in the middle of the most vicious  thunderstorm  I ever saw and a fallen tree was blocking traffic outside. I was wearing a skirt with pictures of fish skeletons and felt vaguely surreal. The heat was like a heavy blanket, making it hard to breathe. Three older kids were asking anxious questions and a little dog was barking excitedly. I fed the baby his bottle. He just looked at me with blue eyes.

from salty sea to city pee

Took a month off in paradise.

Paradise, somewhere on the Baltic Sea, is off the grid. No electricity, no running water. The Internet connection is so slow on my tiny smartphone screen that I avoid it at all costs.

BUT a private beach on a quiet bay, birdsong, a hot sun and cool waters.

So I spent the month wild-haired, tanned and barefoot. Swimming in impossibly clear water, reading thrillers in the shade, going to the local grocery shop to ask nicely if I could refill water canisters. I was slowly weaned off my addiction to social media, hot showers, city streets and any entertainment that wasn't locally sourced (such as squirrel babies and dramatic volleyball with nephews).

The days stretched out into infinity. I lived on sun and beauty.

Yesterday, it was time to return to the city. Time to air out the flat, gasp in horror when I looked in a mirror for the first time in weeks (tan looked nice but WHAT WAS I WEARING and was it time to get reacquainted with mascara perhaps?) and eat some real, processed food instead of pure potatoes and grilled meat.

The first sight that greeted me when I looked out the window was the epitome of Saturday night in the city: a bunch of wasted guys spilling out of a car with beer cans in every hand, staggering around to find a piece of wall to pee against, accompanied by rock music from the car speakers.

Home, sweet city home.

a red sweetness

A sizzling hot July day. A strawberry day:

Negotiating with a lady selling summer berries in the heat-washed market square, my mother taste-testing and the poodle bouncing on the cobblestones, barking excitedly at seagulls.

Sitting in my mother's kitchen, strawberry juice flowing down my arms as I cut up the berries for jam.

Walking through the city parks in the shade of the linden trees, with strawberry stains on my lacy, white dress.

With perfect moments like these I forget that in between, I was annoyed with my mother for wasting my day trying to find the best berries for sale, I found it hard to breathe in the heat, and some of the berries were rotten. My whole body smells of strawberries and I just forget, happily.

on the eve of a long, long summer

Sat on the balcony, balancing a glass of cheap white wine on a wobbly old stool, and tried to plan. Looked at the clouds and got slightly inebriated. Thought about inviting someone to join me, but nobody suitable immediately came to mind. So I was alone, but not entirely lonely.

Rearranged the gauzy white curtains by the window and looked around the tiny flat. The furniture is old and ratty and I can't afford to renew any of it. I am alone and far from where I would really like to be. But I can look out at the sea and I feel so, so lucky to be here. Blessed, even.

Walked three blocks to the corner shop to get icecream. The evening sun was golden and the air was cold, much too cold for June. Walking felt good. I love the city streets in the evening and the comforting presence of strangers, other evening wanderers going who knows where, at the shop.

Came home, planted myself on the sofa and rented a film online. A slow, down-to-earth one that made me think and feel, while I ate icecream and drank pints of spiced tea.

Beauty is everywhere, all around me. I feel I should be old, frustrated, depressed, cynical. But how can I be, when life is drowning me in beauty?

the void beckons

I work so hard, these days.

I dive into endless texts and endless interviews in the morning (well, morning for me) and emerge with completed translations late in the evening when my brain finally shuts down. I have this previously unknown, desperate URGE to get the work done.

I don't recognise myself.

Of course, this is no great, new-found love for the job in itself. I just realised that I long to get it over with so I can get on with being unemployed.

unbought

Found in the Drafts folder on my blog dashboard this entry, in its entirety:

__________
* buy
__________


What might I have been thinking? Did I write it in my sleep? And why did I not post it? The plot thickens.

the croniz

The cronut has landed in this little Finnish town.

Although they call it a croniz. I tried one, purely as scientific research of course - somebody has to analyze the cultural and societal impact of American products introduced into foreign environments, after all.

The amount of sugar in it sent me on a high that will last until Christmas. So yes, I would definitely say there was an impact.

on minimalism, nostalgia and wet wipes

My mother is going through a cupboard with old stuff that nobody ever touches. I am a minimalist who loves, to the point of being obsessive about it, to get rid of stuff. My mother who has lived through some very rough times hardly ever gets rid of anything, ever. In case it comes in handy later.

Mother: "Here are some wet wipes. I'll hang on to them, might come in handy."
Me: "Mum! Those are 10 years old! They'll be all dried out by now, throw them away."
Mother: "Well, if you wet them a little bit, they will still work. I'll keep them."

Ten minutes later:

Mother (brings me a little ugly box that is falling apart at the seams, made out of Sixties' plastic-like material): "My father made me this. Should I keep it or throw it away?"
Me (nostalgia creeping into my hardened heart): "Keep it."

coloured pens and a prince

Ideas born in the quiet of a wilderness cottage,

           a.k.a. ideas that will look ridiculous in the light of day tomorrow:

* buy a deluxe set of felt-tip coloured pens
* drive for an hour to get to that particular treasure trove of a flea market, and not bring any of my friends who would love to go with me
* drift around town with eyes and heart wide open and for once really EXPECT to find the love of my life, for once really BELIEVE that there will be love ever after. And find him.

contrasts on a grand scale

In order to have  a Russian adventure,  you must:

* get on a bus in Finland, as a carefree student, with a girl called Annika who has golden curls and a fluent proficiency in Russian.
* for the next 544 kilometres, ignore the other passengers - mostly middle-aged men going to Russia for the cheap booze and starting to drink as soon as they find a seat in the bus, occasionally trying to chat up the two female students.
* find your hotel room, once you arrive exhausted in St. Petersburg, in a box-shaped, Soviet-era building with about a hundred miles of identical, depressing corridors. Gasp as you see the view over the river Neva.
* travel around the city on the metro, feeling completely useless among all those Cyrillic letters that you can't read. This is why you brought Annika (actually, it was Annika who brought you, but never mind). She can actually read the signs and buy the tickets at a much cheaper price that the other tourists do because she can pass as a Russian and get you places.
* get offered moonshine on the metro and feel sorry for a pet bear outside a museum.
* get exhausted and impressed as you wander through the literally endless Hermitage Museum. How can such a large and baffling place exist? Puts things in perspective, doesn't it, especially as you look at a Rembrandt painting that was once destroyed by someone grieving for a father banished to Siberia. The glory and riches of this place, paired with the tragedies of the past.
* endure while Annika the literature-lover browses Dom Knigi, House of Books, for hours (it doesn't help that you're a literature-lover too if you don't read Russian).
* go to the world-famous Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet, knowing absolutely nothing about ballet and not even recognizing the name of the equally world-famous work Giselle, and be suitably impressed by the glamour (and yes, the performance too).
* look up a night-club that is supposedly the place to be. Find yourself in a dark basement pub where men stare darkly at you. Leave in a hurry and realise you are lost in a very dark and slum-like neighbourhood where someone will surely slit your throat in a minute. Note that you must have exhausted more than your fair share of guardian angels when you finally make it back to civilisation alive.
* comfort yourself with some real Russian pelmeni dumplings and salyanka stew.
* gape at the size and scope of St. Petersburg - its endless (and sometimes eerily empty) avenues of palaces and golden domes, its stark contrasts between rich and poor, old and new, Czar-style and Soviet-style, and its people that are so rude and so fantastically friendly at the same time.
* return home with a ton of delicious chocolates and maybe a bootleg CD.