recurring dream #6

I am back in my Magic Valley, setting out to explore its wondrous wilderness again. It is beckoning me with its irresistible siren call, this lush and marvellous fairytale forest with hidden brooks, weaving paths and sunlight playing in yet undiscovered glades.

This time, I'm aiming to go further than ever before, beyond the mountains at its far end. I simply must see what lies behind that horizon. I revel in every step of the journey, joyfully discovering new wonders at every turn.

I never get to the mountains. I get held up on the way every time, sometimes by enervating circumstances. Most often by the knowledge that I have to turn back and leave. Because I'm only visiting this, my former home, my paradise lost.

I have to leave, and it's breaking my heart.

cream buns and candy showers

February is sharp days of ice and white, and soft days of water and grey.

It is a suddenly bright sun shining through dirty window. People slipping on wet ice and breaking wrists. Skiers, snowmobile races, kids with snot on their faces. Cream buns and candy showers, winter weariness and spring excitement.

It smells of ice and wet wool and expectation.

February means no longer rising before the sun.

two nights with the nuns

A desk, a chair, a narrow bed with a simple crucifix on the wall above it. It makes me want to kneel and pray for a long time. That is not something I do very often.

There is something in the air. A blessing, maybe, hovering almost within reach.

In the morning, I sigh with happiness over a simple breakfast while nuns are practicing songs in the next room.

Two nights in a monastery and I'm almost a convert.

new worlds in the oldest city

I go to Finland's oldest city and sleep in a monastery.

I wander slowly through the cathedral that ranks among my favourite buildings in all the world, savour the silence beneath its lofty vaults, light a candle, study the ancient tombs for the hundredth time and never want to leave.

I seek shelter from a snowfall and huddle over coffee in a hot and crowded café on the university campus - a comforting place where I used to hide from the challenges of English linguistics and French literature.

I abandon outdoor exploring when the snowfall turns into freezing rain and instead study 700 year old ruins in detail at the archaeological museum and write over a glass of wine in the museum café.

I stroll along the river in cold morning light and get soaked because I cannot get enough of its beauty. I dry out over a pot of coffee and reindeer pie in a hidden pearl of a café.

I deal with the business part of my trip by getting together with other freelancing translators, laugh with strangers over mulled wine and discover yet another strange new world.

I take the train home, as I did a thousand times before.

my Viking blood, my Svea tribe

I am a Finn, and proud of it, but my genes and language spring from the ancient tribe knows as svear, that is, the Swedes.

I am proud of that too. I blame my Viking blood for my longing for adventure, my eyes that always seek out the horizon, the taste of salt on my tongue, my passionate and restless heart, my undaunted belief in the strength of women, my delight in a good party with wild friends.

Freeze the arrow in the air
Make your mark and leave it hanging there ( - Rasmussen: "Higher Ground")

recurring dream #5

I'm living in a house on a beautiful beach, not far from the waterline. It's heaven - but with a threatening undertone from the dangerous sea.

I think I'm scared of life itself - my beautiful dream life full of adventures.

earth stood hard as iron

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter
Long ago ( - Christina Rossetti)

In Finland today, this was also true. Frosty winds, snow on snow on snow, earth hard and silent and iron. All living things hidden and sleeping or very, very far away.

I struggled through snow drifts with fogged-up glasses and a runny nose, to the shop to buy comfort food. Piles of woollen coats and scarves are now dripping melted snow on my bathroom floor. It's time to hide and sleep while more snow is falling on snow outside.

it's uphill for oddities, the stranger crusaders

Mama said, fulfill the prophecy 
Be something greater, go make a legacy ( - Panic! at the Disco: "High Hopes")

I'm reading my teenage diaries and scaring myself a little. I was so passionate about spreading the love of God and yet so little seemed to be included in that love. I was told that everything would go my way, by a miracle if necessary, and I believed it - which inevitably lead to crushed dreams that would haunt me for decades to come. I was genuinely goodhearted and my dreams went beyond the stars and I was so very, very confused.

But then again, I was a teenager.

So here is one of life's most important lessons: Be compassionate, forgiving, open-minded. Especially towards yourself. Know that you don't know everything and that's OK.