go help your brothers

Once, on a flight, I ended up sitting next to a guy I knew but hadn't spoken to after he hit his girlfriend and I let her stay at my place and harboured very murderous thoughts towards him. Seeing as I next to never harbour murderous thoughts at all, this was significant. We spent the time on the flight talking about the incident and when we landed I had not forgiven him but had to admit to myself that people make mistakes and should at least be given a chance to redeem themselves.

A few years later, I heard that my best friend in school (whom I later got out of touch with) had gone through a very dramatic break-up with her husband. Rumour had it the police had to rescue her from him, a rather reliable source later told me a court had found the husband guilty of prolonged physical and mental abuse. Again, murderous thoughts. I contacted my former best friend to show my support, we exchanged a few private messages and what she told me seemed to confirm most of the rumours.

Around the same time, the husband started to hang out with some other friends of mine and I ran into him now and then. I'm not the confrontational type. Actually, I'm rather the people-pleasing, compulsively smiling type. The fact that I was chilly toward him and avoided his company spoke volumes about how much I hated his guts.

The problem was, as he was hanging out with my friends, I couldn't completely avoid him. The other problem was that, a few months after his divorce, he seemed to be working through his issues and becoming a very harmonious, stable, likeable person. He started going out with one of my friends. When my father suddenly died, the two of them showed me unwavering support and sympathy, and even though I never sought it from them specifically - I actually tried to avoid them both - it came to mean a lot.

In short, after a year or so, it had become impossible not to like the man even though I resisted valiantly. He was kind, compassionate, humble, supportive. One of the few who saw how lonely I was and tried to help me through it. I still didn't understand why he had apparently abused his first wife, and how he could live with it. I probably never will. For a while, I worried that his new girlfriend might be in danger but now I'm convinced she never will be. When his suspended prison sentence officially ended, I celebrated it together with him and a group of friends. Now, a few years later, this man is settled and happy, as far as I can tell, and has helped other men who are going through life crises of various kinds.

The other day, another friend of mine called me in deep, heartfelt despair. He had been arrested, thrown in jail, then transferred to a psychiatric hospital after literally beating his head bloody against the walls of his cell. The reason? He had been in a violent, physical fight with his girlfriend. This time, I held back my murderous thoughts and went to visit him in the hospital. I might put him in touch with my other, former wife-beating friend. He is now in the perfect position to help someone else and I know he is willing.

I still reserve the right to harbour murderous thoughts on this issue. But I know now that there is nobody who can't be redeemed. And once you are redeemed, go help your brothers.

getting ready to exist

"I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist."

(Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet)

passionate, weird

"I just want to have a completely adventurous, passionate, weird life."

(Jeff Buckley, on moving to New York)

I have a long way to go still. But this week I saw a silver fox on a leash, asked around for a man who could deal with demons, and loaded a wheelbarrow full of hay before putting a live poodle on top. Sometimes my life qualifies for the "weird" category. 

it takes more than bread

"It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God's mouth."

I think of this as I make myself another sandwich. It's been too long since I listened to the voice of God.


(Quote from The Message Bible, Matt. 4:4)

scent here to remind you

Carried a potted plant home in the dark but warm September night. The scent of its flowers seemed incongruent with autumn.

I thought: Summer is over but life is not.

you will never solve the Irish

"Your reason for being in Ireland?" The inspector licked his pencil and indelibled his pad.
"Reason has nothing to do with it," I blurted.
His pencil stayed, while his gaze lifted.
"That's a grand start, but what does it mean?"
"Madness."
He leaned forward, pleased, as if a riot had surfed at his feet.
"What kind would that be?" he asked politely.
"Two kinds. Literary and psychological. I am here to flense and render down the White Whale."
"Flense." He scribbled. "Render down. White Whale. That would be Moby Dick, then?"

Some time after I came back to my home country after four years in the enchanted land called the Emerald Isle, I picked up a little book by Ray Bradbury (famous of course for, among others, Fahrenheit 451). It wasn't a novel, strictly speaking, more of a memoir of a certain time in the writer's life, but the magic in it made it seem like part fiction, part dream.

It was called Green Shadows, White Whale and described Bradbury's adventures in Ireland in the Fifties when he was there to write a screenplay. Bradbury discovered the same thing about the country as I did: there is magic in it, obvious even to a person who doesn't believe in that sort of thing. Ireland in the Fifties was very different than the Ireland I knew but my heart jumped in joyful recognition.

Books about another era than my own usually fail to engage me - I can't seem to relate to anything outside my own time - but this strange little book is still one of my favourites. 

"...you will never probe, find, discover or in any way solve the Irish. We are not so much a race as a weather. X-ray us, yank our skeletons out by the roots, and by morn we've regrown the lot. You're right, with all you've said!"
"Am I?" I said, astonished.
The inspector drew up his own list behind his eyelids:
"Coffee? We do not roast the bean - we set fire to it! Economics? Music? They go together here. For there are beggars playing unstrung banjos on O'Connell Bridge; beggars trudging Pianolas about St. Stephen's Green, sounding like cement mixers full of razor blades. Irish women? All three feet high, with runty legs and pig noses. Lean on them, sure, use them for cover against the rain, but you wouldn't seriously chase them through the bog. And Ireland itself? Is the largest open-air penal colony in history ... a great racetrack where the priests lay odds, take bets, and pay off on Doomsday. Go home, lad. You'll dislike the lot of us!"

thx 4

Sleep, morning contemplation on the balcony with bare feet and sleepy eyes, work that finally seems to be taking off.

My new laptop that mostly works, my old laptop that always works, discount coupons to the lunch café with the lovely, lovely sallad buffet.

A new novel by Tana French, a few hours spent working under the watchful eye of Abraham Lincoln, a latte in the sun because summer is not quite over yet.

Business plans, the fact that I don't hate the gym anymore, all the friends that stay in touch.

Strength of body, integrity of mind, love of God.

pale stars rising

"Understand, I’ll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks. I’ll pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilit meadows, with only this one dream: You come too."

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

book clubs of my life

The university one:
The Fairytale Club. Adult women studying ethnology, theology, languages and political science, among other things, gathered to read classic children's stories out loud and knit. (I refused to knit.) It was The Wind in the Willows, the wonderful Moomin books and other educational ones.

The Irish one:
The "Book" Club (sarcasm audible in the name). Each member wandered down to the pub to have a quiet drink while reading their book in peaceful solitude. Inevitably, we ran into each other and discussed the state of the world while spilling drinks on our unopened books.

The yet-to-be-defined one:
The Book Opinionateds (strange ungrammatical name intentional and supposedly witty). A bunch of elderly ladies, a few young women with a Master's in literature, and two men - of which one is a Mexican bohemian. I joined the club today and was thrown into the middle of a heated debate about an Icelandic novel I hadn't read (and by the sound of it, wouldn't want to read). A horse-breeding lady claimed that the characters strongly reminded her of her Icelandic ponies. My music teacher in primary school (now retired) loved the book (I remember her having a strange taste in music, too). One of the literature grads was opinionated indeed and kept throwing in references to literary theory to remind us amateurs of her expertise. (Next time I'll show her she's not the only Finn who can quote Paradise Lost.) (I might have to brush up on some quotes first, though.) The non-Mexican, non-bohemian man wanted us to read poetry later in the autumn, and my inward groan was almost audible.

I loved it. Whyever did I allow years to go by without the pleasure of a real book club? Afterwards, I laid in a straight course for the library.

top 5 today

Mexican restaurants
Book clubs
Scented candles
Laptops
Friends who come bearing wine bottles

sometimes I'm terrified

"Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts."

(Edgar Allan Poe)

bicycles and the human race

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."

(H.G. Wells)

Every time I see a flat tire on my bicycle, I despair.
(me)

what september is

September is twilight on a balcony overlooking the bay, a warming drink and sweater, and a laptop on my lap.

It is the joy of Indian summer days and the fear of a long winter ahead. It is melancholy and eagerness.

It is people.

It is small lights in darkness.

It is a chill creeping up, and leg warmers.

on a slow boat to paradise

After a cold summer, this was my reward:

Smooth, sun-heated stone, the peaceful silence of nature void of humans, a sea like glass. An archipelago where few humans ever set foot (the benefits of living in a sparsely populated country). We came, we swam, we swooned with happiness.

Maybe the best part was that my sister and I recognized the place from another family boat trip in the early 80s, when we were very young. It was paradise, and it was still untouched. We had a history there, so it felt like ours.

thank the wagtail

If you sit for a while in a place where there is wind in the trees, and birds and butterflies around, you can hear and breathe life.

I think I had forgotten it for a while, that the planet itself is alive. Too much winter, too much city. I really need to feel this life that is not human. It comforts me when I'm sick of people.

This summer, I was reminded of this again. Thank you wagtails, inchworms, squirrels and a thousand others I could mention.