asking questions, breaking pencils

Two years of slow studying have come to an end. 

Yesterday we gathered around snacks, a strawberry champagne bottle, speeches, roses, choked laughter.

The Fellowship of the Nine has walked through self-doubt, attitude changes, insights, breathing exercises, goal orientation exercises, concentration exercises, speaking exercises, stress and fears and phobias, giggled stories, tears, a lot of theory, even a spot of quantum physics. And questions, questions, questions, asked and answered. Problems solved and problems brought to the surface. 

The slow studying wasn't very slow after all. I have filled hundreds of pages with notes, typed the same notes into my laptop, read and reread books, and coached clients - real people with real and complicated needs.

I have learned that horizontal breathing is vital, stress is fear, behaviour springs from needs, my need is to be seen and heard, to coach is to ask questions - and that I can break a pencil using only one finger.

These two years are over - and every single one of us seemed ready to howl with grief.

my mother's last day on the beach

In August I took my mother on her last trip ever to the summer cottage. 

She is 91 years old, with grave dementia and various other ailments that have now confined her to a wheelchair most of the time. Despite some help, I have almost run myself into the ground trying to take care of her during the last couple of years. 

We had coffee on the beach, watched the birds, enjoyed the sun. She insisted on taking off her shoes and socks - loving the barefoot feeling, just like me. She was happy.

Pushing the wheelchair over the uneven lawn and helping her get to the outdoor toilet completely wore me out. I held back my tears until I was alone. 

So I decided this was my mother's last time at her beloved cottage, where she has spent so many happy summers. She won't miss it - she doesn't remember it when she's not there, and she was content to go home. 

But I grieve for her. She is slowly leaving me.

odd name for a boy and a wine

In my local off-licence I found a Riesling with the same name as the first friend I ever had.

The name is rather odd, for a boy and for a wine.

I'm drinking it with morbid curiosity and find myself missing him. I think I was seven years old the last time I spoke to him. I attended his funeral about ten years ago.

the scrawny teenager that always cried

Living in a community, with idealists. It was autumn in Sweden. 

I was nineteen and on the way to discovering what was perhaps my life calling - comforting, encouraging, praying - and at the same time feeling vulnerable and naive like a child. I discovered playfulness, unexpected physical strength, the importance of letting myself get close to others - physically, mentally, spiritually. I cried like I'd never cried before and realised how little I knew myself. 

I had just left my childhood home, thinking I was independent and grown-up. But I was a bambi-eyed, scrawny teenager, weak and unaware of how much others protected me, even as I gradually learned how to look after myself. Perhaps it's the same for everyone at that age.

I grew like a flower during that chilly autumn, safe among people who loved genuinely and warmly. It was an environment I craved - and crave still, perhaps. Later I would realise how isolation and too much indepence always make me sink into apathy and despair.

It was a community of Christian missionaries, and some of the things we talked about seem odd now - not dangerously so, just odd. Like the sinfulness of pride, confessing sins to each other, dealing with the devil, prophesying. But I learned to be open and loving, accept differences, overcome brokenness, speak English, and let myself be loved by others when I least expect it.

Even with the cynicism that has come with the years, I can't seem to lose my faith in God, genuine love, hope.

the house of the thirteen clocks

The apartment building is surrounded by other identical apartment buildings, fairly new and proper. The area is quietly pleasant and has absolutely nothing interesting to look at. It was built for people to grow old in, snug and warm and alone in front of the telly. 

My mother's flat is nice, clean, with a wide collection of pretty trinkets. My father liked clocks. During his time there were 26 of them in the flat, 13 of which were ticking ones. 

I lived there for a while, years ago, unemployed, unhappy, falling to pieces. I also stayed there during that awful week after my father died. I greeted a steady stream of visitors bringing my mother flowers, lay sleepless at night, listened to the ticking of those thirteen clocks. 

But I also spent many cosy Christmas nights in the flat, with books, chocolates and that old Christmas record I always wanted to play, warmed by candles and a mother's love. 

Still, I never left the flat without taking a deep breath of relief. Not because I wanted to leave my mother. I just wanted to escape the atmosphere of boredom and decay in that building.

The ticking of those thirteen clocks has nearly stopped. My mother will soon leave the building, to move into a home for the elderly. I cannot yet deal with my feelings about her aging and the prospect of sorting through all her belongings, which go back generations. 

Instead, I write about the relief of never having to go near that apartment building again.

before, but decades ago

Arctic winter, so cold that cars and buses stop running even in hardy Finland. 

An old lady is sent home from hospital and I try to arrange for diapers, grab handles, nursing homes and everybody's peace of mind.

I have a week off from work but not much rest. Except some precious, quiet mornings on the couch with a brilliant, icy sun, the Farseer trilogy and the last remnants of Christmas magic.

I join a new choir and practise the alto parts.

I feel I have done much of this before, but decades ago.

midsummer: boredom wanted

Midsummer - the fragrance of a thousand flowers, blackbirds and chaffinches and everybody else singing for me. The world's greatest show, pulling out all the stops whether anyone is watching or not. I never want to lose this sense of wonder. I never want to miss this feeling of grace.

Midsummer week had it all. I watched two elks swim across the sea and climb wearily out of the water. I called excavators to dig up a leaking waterpipe. I worried about the sudden revolt in neighbouring Russia. I witnessed death stalk my family and wondered if I would get a call saying someone had been taken. I celebrated Midsummer with old friends - eating grilled chicken, fish and potatoes, strawberries and chocolate, drinking homemade birchleaf mead. The sweetest taste lay in the old memories and undying friendship - and in beating the boys at darts.

Midsummer with extra everything, including mosquitoes. 

Now I've withdrawn to my summer paradise, alone, to see if I can still find the old me somewhere. The one who writes blog entries and feels wonder and feels the heat of summer despite a chill in my heart.

then, a party or two

Expensive champagne, food, a pink hat, lilies that smelled of cinnamon. A roaring toy dinosaur, roses, a big surprise party. Kitsch vases from the secondhand shops, pictures from my childhood, stories from my wild youth, a unicorn, a weird teddybear lamp. Friends who said loving words and laughed at my jokes and knew my passions and quirks.

So much for spending my birthday alone. I have never in my life felt so seen and known and loved.

helsinki magic

Vague sounds of traffic, far-away sirens, voices. Lights from the street projected on the ceiling of a city flat at night. I'm trying to sleep on a makeshift bed, on crisp sheets smelling sweetly of detergent. Listening to the sounds but not disturbed by them. Unfamiliar sounds, a large city living and breathing around this young country girl. Unfamiliar smells of old stone and concrete, fumes, gas stoves, other people's cooking.

Whenever I visit my sister in the big city, my days are spent exploring. Being treated to delicious desserts and cinema evenings. Learning how to travel on the metro, navigate the city, savour ethnic food and appreciate art. Laughing at the sarcastic, hilarious jokes of my sister and her friends in candle-lit cafés at night. Seeing strange things and strange people.

I'm shy, wide-eyed, hopeful that life will always be adventurous like this.

The world is much louder than I knew, I think as the nightly sounds of the city rock me to sleep.

surviving a knife on Halloween

November began in the hospital, a major surgery I wasn't at all sure I'd survive. They said it was routine but I wasn't convinced anyone could cut open my stomach without killing me. And it was Halloween after all, when the veil between living and dead is said to be at its thinnest ...

Surprised, I woke up. My body in chaos, missing a piece. Completely dependent on strangers for my continued survival. It was strange and not typical, the deep trust I felt. 

Pain, sometimes unbearable, came and went. I got used to that little hospital room, impersonal and comforting at the same time. Cared for, and alone, at the same time. I liked the metal rails of the hospital bed, so strong and good to hold on to for support, so cool a relief in pain. I listened to the loud beeping that rang through the ward whenever someone pressed a call button. I felt horribly wounded, and safe. Love poured in through my phone.

I was in the maternity ward, not having a baby but having my womb removed. At the other end of the corridor, tiny babies cried. At my end, an old woman cried.

I had an odd insight - I may have been born in this very same building, on an April evening long ago. My mother happy after a miscarriage the previous year, my father receiving a mischievous wink from me the first time he held me.

This time, grey daylight descended quickly into dark November evenings, like a blanket when you're desperate for sleep. 

At the end of nearly a week, I was discharged and expected to be independent again. My exhausted soul was still dependent. Still aching for the fierce, protective love of a father.

da Vinci, Joan of Arc and the wonderful K

The Loire valley. Too many castles and palaces to count. A royal air. The murky, slow and sensous Loire river. A muggy heat that peaks at 43 degrees Celsius.

I have found the perfect travel partner in K. Like me, she enters a place of ancient history, sighs with happiness and settles down to read the basic information provided. She then takes all the time she needs to explore every nook and cranny, study the facts in the brochure or "histopad", admire the furniture and the views from the windows, plod up and down steep stairs to towers and dungeons. We have all the time in the world. We are equally awed by standing at Leonardo da Vinci's grave and being in the room where Joan of Arc met the future king of France.

K also understands the importance of putting on mascara in the mornings, in order to be ready to conquer the world, and the pleasure in ordering a glass of wine or a Ricard with the chèvre salad for lunch. 

And she drives the car.

My role in our holiday is to speak French and translate menus, look for cute bed & breakfasts and drink Côtes du Rhône out of the three-liter box hidden somewhere in the car. And admire the views, guess the song playing on the car radio and dream up wonderful places to visit.

The highlight of our days by the Loire: not the royal ramparts of Blois or Amboise, or the free rosé provided by one charming bed & breakfast hostess, or the views from Château de Chinon - but the coolness of the murky waters of the  mysterious Loire on one golden evening when we take off our sandals and wade in the shallows.

no stepping on the ants

I was out walking with my mother, one of the first really warm days of spring. Our walk progressed at glacial speed, because my mother is old and frail. 

Walking extremely slowly gives you a new perspective on things, especially if you're not talking or listening to music. Your mind goes into a dazed slow-motion mode. It was so slow that I started to notice the ants on the path. So slow that I actually started to focus on not stepping on the individual ants on the path. 

That's really slow, in case you're wondering.

"There are ants here," my mother commented after a long, comfortable silence.

And I knew she was trying to avoid stepping on them too. That's the kind of person my mother is - gentle and kind to people and animals, even ants. When I was little, if we found a spider or wasp inside the house, we never killed it - we caught it and carried it out into the garden. Except if the temperature outside was freezing. In that case, the spider was lovingly deposited in the garage where it had a fair chance of surviving.

I'm a bit scared of spiders and wasps but I still can't kill one without literally losing sleep over it.

Animals stir up the tenderness in me more than humans do, generally speaking. That's why, when I had slowed down enough to notice the ants on that path, my subconscious mind registered them almost as individual souls that would suffer if I stepped on them.

At times I have felt vaguely ashamed of such sensitivity. Adult life in a busy world has taught me to stride along with speed and efficiency, not caring how many ants I crush under my shoes. I still carry spiders out into the garden, sighing with relief when they are far away from me, and I'm used to being ridiculed for it.

But then I watch strangers on YouTube rescuing trapped birds, or see my sister carefully carry a ladybird to safety, or realise that my mother is just as aware of the ants under her feet as I am. 

And then I remember that tender hearts will inherit the earth.

oh, happy day on a winter night

Hot, spicy coffee from a flask. I set down the lantern I'm carrying and someone puts a sticky-sweet piece of carrot cake in my mittened hands. 

We're having a surprise birthday party on the porch, in the illumination of a dozen lanterns. The snow is thick under our boots, the forest cold and silent around the little house. The darkness of a winter night can't daunt the cheerful chattering around the cake. It is so cold that my toes are going numb but I ignore it - because birthday party in a blizzard! With pandemic and social distancing, you have to get creative. 

We sing "Oh, Happy Day" and among the half-strangers around me I suddenly recognise voices from my favourite choir, thirty years ago. I have known the birthday boy just as long, and his smile warms my heart like it has for decades. 

I hope the roads won't have snowed in before it's time to leave.

never such a blizzard before

It was like a Christmas movie. The heroine puts her frail, elderly mother in the car together with all the Christmas gifts and takes off for the holiday celebrations with family. Only to be hit by a blizzard, take a turn a little too fast and ending up in a snow drift. Stuck, with spinning wheels.

That was how my Christmas started. I have driven cars in blizzards before and thought I knew how, but this one defeated me. I jumped out of the car in my long skirt and beautiful white coat. The snow was up to my knees and soaked through my boots. People stopped to help. Lots of people. (Faith in human kindness restored right there!) My little car proved exceptionally stubborn, refusing to budge even when large men fearlessly jumped into the snowdrift to shovel snow and push for all they were worth.

Had this actually been a Christmas movie, one of those men would have turned out to be the man I eventually married. Well, no. But we got the car out in the end. 

I drove the rest of the way to my sister's house, only a minute away. There was still zero visibility and I had to guess where the road was. I hit another snowdrift and almost buried the car in it. I managed to get it out with some difficulty. My mother wisely declined to comment, beyond an initial gasp. Then I had to slow down for the turn into my sister's yard. Stuck again. Family members cleared away loose snow to help. I managed the last turn and parked. 

I collected my mother and the Christmas gifts, peeled off wet clothes, asked my sister for a pair of dry socks, brushed icicles out of my hair with as much dignity I could muster. And sat down for a delicious Christmas dinner, smiling.

recurring dream #7

I had that dream again. The one where I go back to work in the Magic Valley, which I sometimes, but not very seriously, daydream about doing. It's almost twenty years since I left now.

The dream is always filled with people, sometimes a few well-known faces but often strangers. I'm usually running around trying to perform a lot of tasks in the lounge/bar and the kitchen, only occasionally going back to my real workplace behind the reception desk.

Sometimes the important people are there as well, the ones I long for and never will see again.

assortment of motorcycle people

Laptop on my lap, rain at my elbow, smudged mascara from last night, woollen socks, a glass of wine on the porch.

Last night, friends who arrived on a swarm of motorcycles: the blonde who quickly jumped off to hug me, the unsmiling physician, the nerdy one with the best jokes, the introvert who walks off in silence, the one who's learning a new life, someone's new girlfriend who seemed superhuman but really nice too, and a small boy who splashed in the water and giggled infectiously. 

Tacos in the evening sun by the sea. At twilight, volleyball and joy.

coltsfoot thoughts

Coltsfoot by the roadside, warm breeze on bare skin. Someone goes by on a bicycle with wheels that do that ticking noise my first real, grown-up bike did when I was eleven and life was glorious. 

My mother, walking very slowly with her walking aid on the first warm day of spring, tells me how her mother wanted her to have an office job but that she would have married a farmer if only he had owned horses.

mud and vintage cognac

Weekend trip in a time of restrictions and partial lockdowns: a trip to another city to hang out in an apartment with friends, play quiz games and drink vintage cognac.

We don't see much of the city this time, just IKEA and the supermarket and the back streets where we fetch a take-away meal. With restaurants and cafés on lockdown, the city has a sad dreariness about it. So we leave its dusty, empty streets and seek out the landscapes around it.

We are in the land of a thousand lakes, good for a hill walk along with lake views and a chilly, exhilarating motorcycle ride. The air still has a bite to it and smells of melting snow. Our walk takes us on paths that are half ice, half mud. The weak warmth of the sun on our pale faces make us giggle like girls and take silly pictures.

There is mud on my boots, a dreaminess in my mind and a slight sense of intoxication. I'm doing what I love best: exploring new landscapes with friends.

colour your world

An online conference, sweeping through the whole world in 24 hours. Starting in Sydney, ending in my lonely living room. 

Women of all ages, beauty and words of comfort. Beautiful daughters, tender and divine and eternal, poets and prophets, radiant ones marked by redeeming grace, warriors. Chatting, singing, praying, loving.

I sink into a world of colour and comfort and find a new spark inside me. God hems me in, behind and before, and lays his hand on me. I can go forward in grace.

spontaneous studies in theology

Social workers, teachers, pastors and me - subtitler and queen of denim - gather twice a month this winter/spring to discuss a book. 

We meet in a drafty church attic and keep safety distances. Most of us didn't know each other before and have never seen each other without a face mask.

In the book, a Swedish theologian analyzes how shopping, cults, nationalism and the new technologies (among other things) try to fill the void that appeared when we abolished God and everything supernatural. When we demystified the world and lost the magic. Because human beings long for something beyond a mechanical, dull universe.

I haven't discussed anything like this since my university days. The group was spontaneously formed and I joined by mistake. But my favourite topic for study is cultural movements, the paradigms that form our society, the major developmental arcs throughout history and especially now. 

We discuss why ultranationalism attracts people, how Google's algorithms affect our minds, the religious fanatics that messed up our youth. Someone cried already in our first meeting, someone else shared a very painful story during the second.

I feel my understanding and knowledge expanding. I discover new aspects of myself, such as the fact that I sometimes feel embarrassed by my own opinions and threatened by criticism of the environment I grew up in, even when I freely criticize it myself.

There is so much to learn.