no Soviet bones

I was digging through my old papers and found, among other treasures,

a cinema ticket from Thailand in the 90s (Death becomes Her),

a yellowed poster I stared at as a child so long that it still fills me with a deep silence inside,

and a traveller entry form for a brief visit in Moscow, where I state that I own no "Soviet government bones or loterry tickets", only 30 dollars and 250 baht. Moscow let me in.

stories of my life

I began to study English as my third language - but it is now my second - as an eleven-year-old.

I was born a story-writer and had not learned many words of this exciting new language before I tried to put them into sentences and sometimes include them in my cartoons. Here is some of my early work:

 A nine-word story with a sense of doom:
"I will never see you again."
"Why me?"
"Because."

"Look at this star, Mummy!" Pissed-off-looking star sitting on a hill.

And my favourite, very philosophical one: "I am not at all of course BAD."

drawing up kingdoms

I remember that a lot of my childhood was spent reading. I had almost forgotten that so much of it was spent drawing.

I drew wildly, in a frenzy. Rushed caricatures and calligraphy of made-up names, cartoons and elaborate maps of hidden lairs and fantasy kingdoms.

And wrote. A thousand stories begun and abandoned, sometimes in the middle of a word.

This is apparently what the Summer Olympics of 1988 looked like.

can't be silenced

The peace and quiet of the neighbourhood (see previous post) was shattered by shouting so loud that it echoed between buildings and could be heard in my flat. The inmates of the prison next door were apparently locked in their cells and someone was feeling talkative.

Inmate #1 (shouting through the barred, opened window): Juuso! Juuso!
Inmate #2 (a.k.a. Juuso): Shut up!
Inmate #1: I can shout if I want to! It's a free world!
Inmate #2: Shut the f**k up! I'm on the can!

on earthquake street

On the footpath leading down to the waterfront sits an empty fridge.

This abnormal feature is normal here on my street. This is a cobblestone street which is so quiet that every movement seems endowed with a certain meaning.

The few cars that venture down this street go either very slow or very fast. If a lorry shows up, it's lost, gets stuck and mangles cars in its way, or make the buildings vibrate. This is a street where a man can stop his car to get out and shout at another driver, like they do in France. It's a place for the Ghostbusters' car (painted pitch black) to pull up for a recreational break.

The people who walk past are also strange. Youngsters of nationalities not normally seen here. Romani women in skirts too heavy for them, waiting outside closed doors. People walking dogs that seem to belong to somebody else - like the cool dude with a dorky chihuahua, the guy who gets pulled into the hedge by a small spaniel, the man too old to walk at all who shuffles around with a rollator and a patient terrier. People who shout at prisoners, people who rent rooms in prisons, prisoners out on work release.

For this is a quiet, lovely back street in a small city, with a seaview, and a prison. Some of the passers-by are girls in impossibly high heels and low cleavages, going to visiting hours on Sunday afternoons. Odd assortments of other visitors pretending not to see each other as they wait for the gate to open. Lawyers adjusting their ties as they park outside the gate. Conservatively dressed outreach teams carrying guitars. Police vans. And on the other side of the wall, men in grey looking bored and not looking up at us who are looking down at them from apartment buildings next door.

This is a street where you get to know the crows in the lime tree. Where hares come into the front yard in the evenings. Where you can watch large birds of prey and feel the full force of the west wind. Where the Pizza King lived and an earthquake once struck.

Once a year this slow back street fills to bursting with people for approximately half an hour, around midnight on New Year's Eve. The street is gridlocked and people are moving in cheerful crowds to find the best place to watch the fireworks. Around the bay are thousands of lights, thousands of laughs. People get drunk, eat hot dogs, set off their own fireworks in the crowd, kiss, shout, hope.

I watch this with a sense of wonder. Half an hour later, the cobblestones are deserted once again for another year. The stars shine over this street.

the girl that gets away

"I’m not the girl your mother warns you about.
I won’t kiss your best friend or break your heart.
I won’t make you choose between what you love to do & me.
I’m not cold. I’m not reckless.
I’m the girl your father mentions when your mom’s not around.
I’m the girl that gets away.
I will love you more than anything.
I will kiss you when you cry.
I will stand by your side until you decide otherwise.
And you’re just like your father, so you will.
You’ll let me go & I won’t look back,
But you will.
I promise you, you will.
I’m that girl."

(caramelcoatedxxxtacy, Tumblr)

not the moon kissing the black sky

"And kid, you’ve got to love yourself. You’ve got wake up at four in the morning, brew black coffee, and stare at the birds drowning in the darkness of the dawn. You’ve got to sit next to the man at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation. You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower. Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store. You’ve got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black sky. You’ve got to compliment someone's crooked brows at an art fair and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid July. You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years. Sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop over-thinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Fuck it. Love yourself, kiddo. You’ve got to love yourself."

(irynka, Tumblr)

the refugees made me do it

Fell in love today.

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than this?

It says "Finland" in Arabic. A forest underneath a starry sky, yes? Or a city skyline, if you prefer.

I had promised myself, after forages into six foreign languages, that I wouldn't try to learn any more new ones (simply out of the fear that my brain will explode). But to everyone's bewilderment, a lot of Arabic is suddenly heard even in the icy streets of this backward Northern European town. I don't really know how to deal with this influx of strangers. Learning a few linguistic basics suddenly seems like a survival strategy.

So, headfirst into madness it is. A nine-hour intensive crash course into a language that wouldn't really be that difficult if not for a rule-loving teacher who refused to let us learn any useful phrases until we mastered the written letters (surely conceived in the brain of a lunatic).

I gave up after one hour or so and let the teacher fill the blackbord with pretty script. I would love to learn it but I had no time or brain capacity at the moment. I tuned back in when we finally got to the useful stuff, like saying hello and asking for food. At that point, the only real challenge was a few sounds that weren't made to be produced by stiff Finnish vocal cords. At the end of the course, a young refugee was assigned to endure my attempts at speaking a few phrases. As if he hadn't suffered enough by almost drowning on his desperate journey to Europe. He patiently listened, corrected and encouraged.

I went home elated. Tomorrow, 99 % of my newly acquired skills will be forgotten. But I have now in my possession the key to not just another language but an entire culture. I have opened a door, and through it I glimpse a marvellous world of Sufis, blue mosaic, dangerous men and hot desert winds.

the extraordinary will take care of itself

"Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself."

(William Martin: “Make the Ordinary Come Alive”)

tulips on every kitchen table

March is

the vague smell of melting snow and awakening soil. Birds chirping madly. Weariness and weak hope. Rain and snow and awful, everlasting mud, a sun that is blinding in brightness but with no heat at all. Tulips on every kitchen table, dirty windows, plans for spring holidays. My mother's birthday: coffee and cake, laughing siblings and in-laws, teenagers rolling their eyes. And then, the feeling when the first sunray with some actual warmth hits your pale cheeks and the wildness starts burning in your blood.

That in-between, dangerous month.

China dust

At the office, I sign for yet another parcel sent from a Chinese factory.

These parcels that have travelled to wintry Finland all the way from southeast China are always covered with thin dust that sticks to my fingers. Road dust from the Silk Road? Smog particles from the marvellous city of Beijing? Atomic dust from North Korea's nuclear tests? Sand that once blew along the silent steppes of Central Asia?

The poetic possibilities are endless. I wash my hands and sigh happily.

weak week

It's winter holiday week. While Facebook is filling up with pictures of sunny ski slopes and hot beaches, I spill coffee in the empty office, lie awake at night, eat salad alone.

Someone is digging ugly ditches all over my summer paradise, family members are falling ill and I need to find the energy to get a company off the ground.

There is always someone to worry about and something to fear.

for your soul to shake

"I will be waiting here. For your silence to break. For your soul to shake. For your love to wake."

Rumi