Saturday, December 31, 2016

as the sun sets over 2016

New Year's Eve – golden sunset clouds, the bay like a mirror of ice and water, blustery winds. I have felt tired, walked to the duck pond, talked to my mother, eaten Pringles.

I want learning, strength and peace of mind.

Please hear me, Girl:

The world has enough women

who know how to do their hair.

It needs women who know how

to do hard and holy things.
(Ann Voskamp)

Thursday, December 29, 2016

get to heaven and find out

"How disappointing would it be get to heaven and find out God created life to be enjoyed while all we did was worry? "

(Donald Miller)

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

the truth shall set you free

What people have said to me:

"Such a good girl, never any trouble - unlike your sister!"
"You're so tall - is it cold up there?"
"Everyone says you look silly when you blow your hair out of your face."
"God's little princess!"
"Your essays read like a textbook."
"You should study engineering - you are so good at tuning our TV."
"You should be a model."
"Why do you always wear a belt?"
"Those are real piano hands you have."
"You make me so nervous with your midnight walks - there are bad people out there."
"God admires your humility."
"You should be careful what you take in - you watch too much TV."

"I look at you and then I do a double-take: she is actually smiling!"
"You have an animal ministry."
"You were my helper in need - out there in the mountains!"
"So calm and yet full of pranks - it's irresistible!"
"Waiting to buy a copy of your book."
"Calm and cool."
"Let your beautiful voice continue to be heard."
"Destined to do great things! You are really cute and fun to be with!"
"Inner and outer beauty - your writing will enrich the world."

"If you lose any weight, I will come and get you."
"I never knew anyone before who actually howls at the moon."
"You look like the Queen of Sweden."
"If it wasn't for you, I would be mad by now."
"You are the only one allowed to write my diary for me."
"You smell like the forests and lakes of Finland."
"You look like Julia Roberts."
"You are such a talent."
"Nobody sings If You Catch Hell Don't Hold It like you do."
"Someone asked me if you are French."
"I got a tattoo with your initials in it! And a rose."
"Eyes that radiate love and mystery."
"You're completely nuts."
"A sunburn suits you, sister."
"A beautiful smile, a quiet charm and a servant heart."
"You are the belle of the ball. Such a lady, never any fuss."
"You could dress with a bit more style - like my wife."
"That's a soul voice."
"Nobody imitates a snake like you do!"
"Nobody does puppy eyes like you do."
"Black and silver - that is so you."
"Tenor, friend and one of God's wonderful creations!"
"Your father's manners and your mother's eyes."
"A contagious loveliness, she sees what people need and helps them by just spreading calm..."
"I miss your child-like, clean smile."
"P, notre rocher, une femme droite et juste! And a little savage on the volleyball court."
"Devil woman! Queen of fallen angels!"
"Bonny lass. Tall, leggy brunette... And then she does that thing with her eyebrow!"
"P, you munchkinkufftyhobbler!"

"You don't look Finnish!"
"Such a sweet nature."
"Too mellow."
"Une femme extraordinaire - pas de bruit, toujours calme, gentille..."
"She never panics."
"You single? Well, not for long - just wait til those sheepfarmers get to you."
"Finland must be a cold country."
"Gracious - always walking as if on the catwalk."
"You look like a witch - the hair, I mean."
"You look like Jamie Lee Curtis."
"We don't want foreigners like you here."
"I never knew a girl who shops less than I do."
"You truly are a saint and I just want to kill you."
"What a phone sex voice! It drives me mad!"
"Fucking bitch!"
"You come in here with those legs - please, it's hot enough in here already!"
"Will you marry me?"
"You always read, read, read - you will get sick in the head, it's unnatural."
"Fucking eejit!"
"Can you not eat without a book?"
"Are you sure you are not a lesbian?"
"You get that fighter look on the badminton court."
"Why you not drink? You never let loose!"
"You have the most popular leg in Ireland."
"You heathen, why do you wear a cross?"
"Are you Portuguese?"
"Are you Dutch?"
"That's a lovely South African accent you have."
"Nice to speak to a genuine Irishwoman."
"I always thought you were Canadian!"
"Beloved heathen!"
"So professional. So calm. I would have given her one. Lovely air about her."
"Deals with pressure with tremendous ease. Takes pride in her work. Great leader and well-liked by everyone."
"Your work is just not good enough."
"Don't keep all emotions pent up inside you."

"I thought you would only settle for an exciting foreign guy."
"I'm worried that you will lure that boy away from the straight and narrow."
"Mmm, gorgeous!"
"Breakfast on salmon and rocket leaves - you do have style."
"The woman who dumps millionaires and moviestars left and right."
"There is something regal over you, like a queen."
"I talk too much but I'm so nervous, I fell madly in love with you."
"A clear, analytical mind - you see all the craziness and you don't want to be crazy."
"Loveliness and social competence."
"You, princess of the empire!"
"You realise that if you come hiking with us your nail polish might wear off?"
"You are too choosy - you're going to grow old all alone."
"You of all people would never say no to going to the pub."
"Have you ever given a thought to your career?"
"If you are here, then it's not too weird to be here."
"I was counting on you to bring chocolate."
"You are the kind of woman who likes Destiny's Child, aren't you?"
"Faithful - you do a lot of hard work behind the scenes."
"Why do you sound like Pollyanna?"
"You look like the Queen of Sheba walking in here."
"You always have such cool necklaces."
"You can be an honorary member of our Be Nasty Club."
"You have lovely toes."

"You look like your father - especially the smile!"
"Somewhat shy, intelligent, considerate, cheerful and warm."
"Faithfulness and calmness..."
"I see a person who needs to blossom a little."
"She listens quietly to the discussion and when everybody else has spoken their mind, she opens her mouth and says something wise."
"I was wondering to myself, who is this who speaks so well? So eloquent..."
"Such a very fascinate you are...!"
"I had a vision of you in white fur."
"Beautiful and smart woman!"
"A good announcing voice."
"The most beautiful woman in the world."
"The best translator EVER."
"You are so sarcastic but I like you anyway."
"You rock!"
"You like dolphins, yes?"
"You are a like a buttercup in a meadow, like butter melting on newly baked bread."
"Stunning, a bit like Scheherazade."
"Your eyebrows are more protruding than mine."
"You look like Demi Moore."
"If you can look like that, there is hope for all of us."
"You must be a national treasure."

"My life coach!"
"Language genius."
"An eternal capability of normalizing life over a cup of coffee."
"You know how everyone has their own specific smell? Yours is party!"
"Listen to the woman of wisdom."
"Pillow fight seraph."
"Free from prejudice, accepting towards everyone."
"Your medusa hair gets stuck in everything."
"Our Great Mother of original nastiness and everything else."
"Fishnet peddler."
"Speaks up for and shows mercy to the voiceless, vulnerable outsiders. Possesses a hard-to-define wisdom that is quiet but obvious and a softness/sensitivity that she is  not entirely at ease with."
"Diamond Brains!"
"She is like an Irish road: spectacular, ancient, narrow and hard to navigate."

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

working with lava and beautiful corpses

Work topics in the linguistic business:


* cardigans with sleeves of different length
* spherical lava
* macros and how to record them
* Lemminkäinen's temple
* Chinese snake liquor
* Putin and a penis sheath
* a movie-making prince of Jerusalem
* speech karaoke
* atonal symphonies and how to subtitle them for the deaf
* virtual reality pornography
* Finnish swear words and their translation
* high-visibility vests
* Haheoikanalonakeikimaikaponokakainolanai and her sister Pualani
* how to be a beautiful corpse
* oyster opening
* gourmet cooking in a coffee maker
* garment care symbols
* reformed neo-Nazis
* the procreation of woodpeckers
* tomato farmers on epic road trips
* translating Swedish, Finnish, Danish, French, German, Russian and Tamil for TV (even if you don't speak all of these)

As a result, I have a very interesting search history on Google.

Monday, December 26, 2016

where to have dinner in your pyjamas

I stopped by a street kitchen today as I was walking my borrowed poodle.

I rarely eat burgers but options were limited because I had a dog with me. I wouldn't dream of leaving him tied up outside a restaurant or store.

Darkness had already fallen as I ordered a juustokas - a local specialty burger - through a window on a corner of the wintry street. An outdoor candle flickered cheerily on the ground near my feet and the smell of meat sizzling on a grill drifted out.

The lady who made my burger gave me a few pieces of sausage for the poodle, as a bonus. I fit right in among the other clientele waiting on the sidewalk, dressed in a bulky winter coat hastily thrown on over my pyjamas - lazy Boxing Day attire.

The juustokas, which I've never tried before, turned out to be a sausage burger with lots of melted cheese. Just right for a lazy Boxing Day. Tomorrow, I'll go back to salads.

Christmas, 2016 edition

* my White Witch coat, a car full of presents and a poodle, dread and hope
* close family members who are only close once a year
* a day holed up with mother, books and chocolate
* traditional walks along seafront and through the weird place called Purola
* more Christmas music than usual (Spotify, nostalgic radio stations, a shaky vinyl from my childhood)
* coming home, pouring a desperately needed glass of wine, singing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" at the top of my voice

God has arrived to save us.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

food levels in December

In the month before Christmas, there is an inexpensive meal of rice pudding and bacon rolls in a crowded church basement where I discuss gospel music with friends.

There is a meal of burgers and beer in a colourful, mock-Australian restaurant with equally colourful volleyball ladies.

There is a loud family party with birthday cake and teenagers who roll their eyes.

And there is a festive business lunch with men in suits and women in heels, with mentions of turnovers and quality control and expensive boats.

There are so many levels in my December life.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

the problem with problems

That feeling when you struggle for hours with a problem, dejected and exhausted, and just want to go home and sleep ...

... and then you solve the problem and could go home and sleep, but instead you want to take on the world and solve every problem therein.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

ugh and ow for Christmas

Christmastime means that life is different for a while.

I get a break from my usual work and instead spend my days subtitling TV programs of a different kind.

Children's programs, which means typing words like 'splat!' and 'ugh!' and 'ow!', sometimes in a foreign language.

Music programs, with hauntingly beautiful and desperately depressing songs.

Films about tomato farmers that go on epic road trips.

Nature documentaries, with birdsong filling my room.

It also means waking up to grey darkness and taking my evening walk in the middle of the afternoon while there is still daylight. Weariness, coloured lights and mood swings.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

kiss me in every language


"I’m a writer.
Don’t buy me roses
or fancy things.
Kiss me in every language
and envelop me in
the soft hug of a sentence.
Teach me how to
write without words,
and I will love you
for the rest of my
undocumented existence."

(unknown)

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

close to wholeness

Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actual existing world and its wholeness.

(Gary Snyder: The Practice of the Wild)

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

make merry

The pub with the worn wooden tables and vintage "Guinness is good for you" posters is where I come to

drink beer with friends
order a cider alone and read the paper
talk to people I haven't seen for decades
stare out at rain-washed streets
elbow my way through a crowd to find a free table
play pool
watch games on the TV screen
scream with laughter over the air hockey table
spend hours on the dance floor
jive around the tables outside the dance floor
listen to my friend's band play covers
get offered elaborate cocktails by secret admirers
discuss God and history and ex-boyfriends

The odd thing is that I actually come here very seldom.

Monday, December 12, 2016

afterlife in the library, over coffee

"You would think that in a group like this, somebody would have had an out-of-body experience," the elderly lady says in a disappointed voice.

The rest of us shake our heads, slightly ashamed. This is a book club, after all. Most of us ladies have plenty to say. One tells us about her newly diagnosed heart problems, another of her reluctance to experience afterlife if it means lots of effort. A younger lady, one of the librarians, mentions time travel. Another has brought a stack of books for reference, a strange combination of The Divine Comedy, Kafka and something by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I sit back and sip my coffee while somebody misquotes Dante and the ladies argue about the shocking amount of violence in today's fiction. In the library, with books and elderly ladies and coffee, is how I would like to spend the afterlife.

Friday, December 09, 2016

burden down

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down.

(William James)

Thursday, December 08, 2016

brown eyes that look away

Somber, brown eyes,
a long back not always up to carrying the weight of life,
strong legs that jump a bit too often,

this is me.

Icy reserve,
eager warmth,
uncertain wisdom.

And yet I cannot love myself.