hello to the howling wind

Say goodbye to the sun for about half a year.

Say hello to the howling wind, the darkness advancing a mile every day, the icy rain. The fairground colours of golden birches and red apples in dewy gardens. The greyness that is the extreme form of grey (if there can be such a thing). Welcome the coldness and the snow that can kill you.

Only the strong of heart survive Finland. The welfare system will probably shelter you from the physical dangers - but the darkness will play tricks on your mind. You are in a film noir, a horror flick, but it's real.

Finland will stun you with its extreme nature, its merciless beauty, its harsh and ugly loveliness that demands to be loved.

This is an adventure. If you survive the winter, you are a hero. Take a deep look at all the beauty around you and enjoy the ride.

with a mother's voice in my ear

I was walking through dark October streets, dry leaves rustling under my feet. An ice-cold rain started to fall. It quickly turn to hail that peppered my cheeks so hard it hurt.

I was talking to my mother on the phone, so I turned up the hood on my padded jacket - a big hood, warm and wide. I kept walking, feeling warm and sheltered and in the company of my mother. It was an extraordinary feeling. I could have walked for hours - and I did.

God and the July sun

It's on the loveliest days of summer that I plan my life.

When my bare skin is heated by a July sun and chilled by blue waters, when the vista around me is sky and sea and forest, when I'm deeply immersed in nature, when I feel safely at home and excited about new adventures at the same time. Then I dream and plan for the year ahead.

This year, my plans were modest and extravagant: I would learn what it is to be loved by God. To really feel it. How free and fearless I would be when that love was literal truth to me!

But in the icy winds of October, I go looking for that love and it's as far away as the July sun.

In theory, I know it's there. Sometimes I feel it - when I allow myself to feel it instead of try to earn it.

But I need to have it deep inside my body, immerse myself in sky and sea and forest.

The world is too cold for that.

I read and I pray, and maybe I'm inching closer, but my skin is still cold to the touch.

ice, darkness, apples

October is colour, ice, darkness, apples, candles, boots, sweaters, jackdaws, rain and the first snow, light boxes, trying to find the right temperature, blankets, heat packs, weariness, sneezing, and a harvest celebration around a chocolate fondue pot.

a metaphor made me write this

Birches are dripping gold, maples are weeping blood.

The forest is silence and the air is ice.

October is a tiger, red-gold and beautiful and silent, stalking at a distance, waiting for its prey to slow down.

myths unfold in the city tonight

There is strangeness in the city.

A prime minister holding court in a tiny café, a tree full of messages, an apartment building on fire, a mysterious man climbing the tallest chimney and refusing to come down. And there was a New Yorker on my bus. Whatever next?

lingonberry jam and death

Lingonberry jam is cooking on my mother's stove. It has a rich, spicy scent and the colour of blood.

Meanwhile, the radio is analysing the latest school shooting.

Today I have discussed kneepads in three languages, googled Hyderabad, watched a steeplechase, dressed in white lace and tea-green lamb's wool and had an odd urge to watch one of those slide shows of old.

I have also wondered how long my mother will live.