stay in the cold world

A friend tells me - with an indulgent grin - that I am considered a Nerd because I have actually read something by the new Nobel Prize winner in literature.

I stick my nose up in the air, proudly. Then so be it, I am a Nerd. I analysed a short story by Doris Lessing for a literature class at university years ago. (For truth to be told, the choice of author was not mine... and I did not particularly like the story.) I can hardly remember the story now and have to look it up on the Internet. It is called "To Room Nineteen" and tells about a woman who realises life did not turn out the way it was supposed to do, and now she feels stuck in a role that is not her genuine self. She secretly withdraws to a room in a little hotel - the only place nobody can find or disturb her, the only place she can be herself - only for a few hours at a time, and becomes increasingly addicted to these moments of solitude.

I seem to remember it was not a particularly pleasant story, witnessing the woman withdrawing gradually from reality until the only option is suicide. At the time, hungry for life, I shrugged it off. But now, years later, I suddenly understand how she felt.

The pleasure of escaping from the too harsh reality into a place of quiet solitude where nobody can make any demands on you. Necessary at times, but if you make this place your home you are in danger. Instead of gaining strength from it to go back out there, you stay back in a dreamy state and gradually lose interest in everything the outside world has to offer. And gradually, the anguish creeps up on you. When it becomes too heavy to bear, you have already cut too many ties to the real world to be able to make your way back, or even ask for help.

So I will force myself to go back out there. I will call a friend even when I am tired. I will say yes when someone challenges me. I will put down my book and attend volleyball training even when I have to walk through a snow storm to get there. I will keep drinking my coffee on the balcony, shivering in the cold but with the sun on my face.

coffee break therapy

Today I will not write about God although as the Good Book (almost) says, the keyboard speaks what the heart is full of.

I am in a new-old state of semi-unemployment as my season in Heartburn Hotel is over. But I am slowly learning to live one day at a time. How difficult it is! How afraid of boredom I am! What is so scary about silence and doing nothing at all, letting my own thoughts and state of mind creep up on me?

Pouring my second cup of coffee, I force myself not to take it back with me to the computer but instead venture out on the balcony. In the October chill, I shiver with my cup under a blanket and stare out towards the bay and the fantastic colours surrounding it. If I concentrate, I can hear the birds.

Surprisingly, what comes out of my subconsciousness is not the usual vague anguish but hope, some contentment, even a faint shiver of... joy.

holiday beneath a McDonald's sign

Autumn at 63 degrees north with explosive colours, bleak sunshine, fog, a cold that surprisingly bites your fingers.

I have searched the entire Internet for a trip southwards. Something simple. A flight out of our local airport, a hotel someone else has chosen, a destination not too far away, with a little sun and interesting things to see. But above all, not too many tourists. And therein lies the difficulty. Why can nobody on the entire Internet understand that I do not want to spend my hard-earned holiday surrounded by drunk tourists from my own country, loud music and McDonald's signs?

I go bleary-eyed looking for a holiday and my neck muscles are stiff. I need... a holiday.

there is comfort in the world

New sense of freedom and the sun shining on glittering sea when I woke. The daylight seemed a bit gentler than usual, with a hope for the future or was it perhaps the mercies of the past, like the voice of a lover whispering in my ear. I dug out an old skirt from the closet to wear with suede boots. Beauty makes the world beautiful and sometimes it's an act of will.

Sometimes I am too weak to be an adult. I want someone to take care of me, do the difficult things. Never seem to find the balance between making my own life and allowing God to lead me in ways of adventure I could never have found on my own. But then, that's life. The search, the struggle, the confusion and the comfort of not being alone with it all. And the sudden joys that shouldn't be there, logically.

I read stories on the Internet while drinking bitter coffee, I dream of a library full of books with more stories and I want to walk through the city and look at people in admiration or maybe buy something that makes me look different. Maybe I lack a purpose but if I bury myself in the details I don't have to look at the bigger picture and feel the anguish.

The hotel calls. On my first day of freedom, they want me back to do the bad shift. To hell with the money that will pay my bills this winter. I say, deliberately, no. Freedom is to be treasured, not thrown away.

The world is screaming "you are ugly, disgusting, worthless" and keeps whipping me with its impossible demands. Or is it inside me? Sometimes those gentler voices reach me and I drop out of the rat race, sobbing, and are laid to rest on a bed of clouds - where I could spend much more of my time if I only learned to listen to the right voices.

When we know so much better, why do we keep believing the lies? I can't answer that but I will think of it today as I wander through the city in my suede boots and remind myself that everyone is worth loving and that there is a good book in the library and a friend waiting for my company tonight.

last days of key management

The autumn sun shining brilliantly and I can't decide whether I'm tired or impatient to start the day.

Only a few more days at Heartburn Hotel and I might be missing it later but not now. I seem to spend all my workdays cleaning the kitchen and I'm sick of the smell of disinfectant and the rumble of the dishwasher. The hotel magic is evaporating.

I'm sure I will miss some of the people. The ex-football star and our philosophical discussions on the meaning of suffering. The blind Jehovah's Witness who seemed to be lost, too far from home. The mystery man wandering around in the middle of the night. Santa Claus silently staring into the fireplace. The international backpackers with their aroma of adventure, who make me want to pack my toothbrush, passport and diary and head south, east or west.

This summer may have been tough, tiresome and sometimes depressing, but I learnt. And I saw. I got to handle keys again.

resolve under a full moon

Full moon and I didn't sleep very well and wake up sneezing. Not the best of days.

I have decided to stop longing for someone to give me directions in life. I'm wise and mature enough to draw my own conclusions from what I have learned and seen with my own eyes. After a year or more of being too weary to try, I'm getting ready to stand up and take control again.

Maybe.

So I take time to think. I call my friends again. I kick my childish desire for attention in the face. I speak with my own voice. I snarl, threateningly: "Accept me, or else...."

eleven little things to come

I just want laughter, candles, unconditional love, chocolate, adventure, strong arms and a strong heart, whirlwind, a dog, wine, everyone I love, and the ability to experience all of this with fascinated wonder and maybe, sometimes, a little loss of control. That's not too much to ask, is it?

two family affairs

Sunday lunch with my first family who had to chase me through town because I was angry and upset without even realising it. Once seated at the table and dealing with potatoes and ham with Thai sauce, a great Calm descended on my tortured soul. Family hugs, puppy love bites and a stroll in the woods probably helped.

Then get-together with that other family, the church. How ironic, I though bitterly at first, the Lonely of Lonelies. What am I trying to pretend, surrounded by strangers? I could have cried - actually, I think I did.

But my ancient angel hurried up to me afterwards and hugged me while she told me the latest adventures of her bold cat. I had a laugh with the pastor and he offered me help. An African student had an invitation for me. And one of the youngsters walked me home.

Even in the midst of misery, may I have love enough for a kind word to someone else.

And after all of this, I'm not sure I'm in misery anymore.

the Swedish edge

I am starting to realise that I was born on the edge of the world. Not in the centre.

Here is a big country (OK, everything is relative) and its people, a fairly homogeneous crowd who look alike and think alike, watch the same TV programmes and like the same mild coffee, get drunk on Saturday nights and doubt themselves, vow to beat the Swedes at ice hockey and speak a quirky, complex Finnish language that nobody else can understand.

On the very edge of this country the Swedish-speakers, as fiercely Finnish as the rest but forever different thanks to their mother tongue, a little more sociable and outgoing, struggling for their identity, always unsure of what the other Finns really think of them, tending to turn inwards and squabble among themselves regarding the best course for ethnic survival.

The majority Finns feel annoyed by their stubborn insistence to press the Swedish language on everybody else who does not want it, but forget about them the rest of the time - or ignore them just to annoy them back. On holiday trips to the coast they feel it is kind of cute, this chatty language which permeates every aspect of local society and which is as ancient as their own but with an international atmosphere. The world seems to be stretching outwards from the Swedish-speakers' seaside towns.

The trainee in the hotel reception is experiencing this for the first time, newly arrived from her inland Finnish city. More language skills are required of her here and more travellers from all over the world smile at her across the counter. There are traditions she has only heard about and she feels as if she is half-way to Sweden. The locals, as Finnish as herself, address her in that weird language which she has struggled to learn in theory for years.

I, her workmate and shift supervisor, speak to her in a broken Finnish, read a local newspaper in Swedish and seem too sure of my place in the world considering the fact that I struggle with the language of my own country.

And I smile way, way too much.

vasa limbo

My emotions are too abundant and colourful to be contained in written words.
My emotions are, on the other hand, petty and insignificant even to myself.
One minute the world is full of meaning and even a grain of dust carries a story.
The next minute, the world is full of dust and nothing else.

To stop, and stand still, to find out who I am.
Or to go out and make my life?

not in motion

The door opens.
The edges meet.
Step through and you find yourself lost.
Stay where you are and you go nowhere.

Wayfinder Hasturi
a.k.a. The Mad Perseid
AFC 217


I'm going nowhere but I don't see any doors.

midnight in the house of good and evil

I won't deny that I am anxious, doing the night shift all alone in the hotel. The constant noise from the TV, the music channel, my only and not very comforting company - rappers exhorting half-naked girls to shake their booty somehow don't seem to understand my loneliness and weariness.

It's not so much that I'm nervous of the dangers of the night or scared of the darkness. OK, maybe a little, but I push that fear aside while walking the endless corridors and venturing into the dark corners when necessary. Even the overgrown jungle that goes by the name of "garden" doesn't get my pulse racing much. The drunken men staggering in after a pub crawl don't worry me either, although I make silent wishes that they won't linger in the hotel bar for a beer but crawl straight to their room and into bed.

Perhaps it's only my weariness, that ancient instinct of seeking the refuge of home when darkness falls. Or the loneliness. Or the heartbreaking fact that I can't seem to make myself love this job either, as I can't love any job no matter how much I try - and the consequence, the depressing realisation that life may always consist of a vague dread of daily life. Or nightly life.

not much of anything

The storm came too soon, before I had time to lay down in the grass. Not even a pretty storm. Just rain, rain, rain. So I sulk indoors.

Even my computer is betraying me. He turns himself off when he feels I've had enough of surfing or DVD-watching.

A man I don't even like much has decided he and I were meant to be together forever. So I keep switching my phone off to avoid calls. While I'm pining for someone I can't have.

Still, the rain has to stop sometime. There is a cup of comfort coffee waiting for me somewhere. And the library is full of books yet to be read.

july is defined by this dream

I want to lie down in sweet-smelling grass and look at the sky above me and not move an inch until the autumn storms sweep in. Then I will roll myself into a blanket and fall asleep in peace.

nerves in an empty city

A lone tourist wanders the streets. All the inhabitants have fled the city. Finns have a strange urge to live close to grass, wind, sun and even rain during the short but intense summer of the North, and so they pack the car full of spouses, kids, dogs, barbecue meat and beer as soon as they can get out of work on Friday afternoon and head out to a humble cottage somewhere along the coast or at a lakeside. Finns have also seen to it that they have the world's longest vacations, so nobody seems to be doing any work from mid-June to the beginning of August.

Except for me of course. Somebody has to be hospitable to the tourists. But I hear that call of the wild too. Today I was restless, sad, anguished even, for no obvious reason. I tried all remedies known to woman: food, chocolate, coffee, shopping, chatting, more coffee. But the only thing that finally helped was the park. Sitting down for fifteen minutes surrounded by grass, trees and sun and all my nerves took a holiday.

pieces of eight or nine

I have been tagged by Prince Kazarelth to list eight things about myself, but found it impossible. So here are nine...

* I have a juvenile mind. Long after my teenage years, like a teenage girl I look for affirmation from someone I admire at a distance - "my whole existence turning around a word, a smile, a touch". I may never grow up.

* I am addicted to chewing gum and get severe withdrawal symptoms.

* I gravitate between a somewhat failed academic career and a much more fun, but doomed non-career in the hotel world. Nobody understands why, or what I really want, least of all myself.

* I am the Ice Queen in a crowd, cheerful among friends and extremely moody in my own company.

* I have received serious death threats.

* I talk to God.

* I once found heaven on earth and then had to leave in order to preserve my sanity.

* In my music library, I mix dance with church hymns but especially love songs that celebrate life and strength of will.

* I cannot live in ugly places.

lux aeterna

No stargazing these days. This is what midnight looks like in the month of June. But to walk through the dew on a summer's night, picking flowers, to the symphony of all the birds... This is what I was made to do.

my bedmate, afternoon sun

Afternoon is the new morning. Just rolled out of bed, was going to make the computer play some pretty music while I hit the shower but here I got stuck reading the blogs of strangers and half-strangers.

Pulling three night shifts in a row and I'm almost not scared at all, alone in the gangster place all night. The shadows in the deserted restaurant deepen around 1 am but then the light gains ground again and I can hear the birds outside. Wondering at the weird people who wander around at 3 am.

This is one long day, lasting from Sunday lunchtime till Wednesday night perhaps, or whenever I manage to go to sleep in darkness again. In the evenings, groggily drinking my wake-up coffee, I feel I missed the transition of one day to another, because sleep is usually the boundary but sleeping in the daytime in a darkened flat only seems like an afternoon nap. Going to work close to midnight I remember that I was there this morning too and my brain fails to cope with this Weirdness.

a few tips from the Coach

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.

You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds."

(Gospel of Matthew, The Message)

the corridor between the worlds

The ugliness of it, and yet the sparkling magic in the air. Which door should I open today?

I know there is an adventure here somewhere...

living in the dark corners of cosmos

The tranquil days at Heartburn Hotel are gone.

The holidaymakers with their kids, dogs and suntans are flooding in. The workers and businessmen who have spent weeks and months in the quiet of the hotel over the winter, smoking and reading the papers and ordering their steak and beer in the evenings, grumbling pack up and leave.

Some of them stay. A few of them I never see but the computer tells me they are there somewhere, in some obscure room in a faraway derelict building. The young ex-convict, a few hardworking builders who diligently leave early in the mornings and return for an early night, a few others.

Late at night I walk through the overgrown jungle that used to be a garden on my way to lock up the sauna building for the night. A roaring fire is lit in an old fireplace at the other side, behind the trees, and an old man with snow-white hair and beard is sitting there quietly staring into the flames. It is a peaceful sight. He is there almost every night. His days he spends cleaning the hundreds of windows of the hotel, a task to which he seems to dedicate his heart.

Except for his threadbare clothes, he looks like Santa Claus. Maybe he is.

red silk unwinds me

Now that I have got myself a Chinese red silk bathrobe and summer is finally announcing its arrival, I will make myself an almond coffee and watch an old John Malkovich movie.

voices down the corridor

Walking down an empty corridor, an endless row of similar doors on each side. Worn and stained carpet. A faint odour of mildew. Murmuring voices behind some of the doors.

Reminds me of a dream. But this is real, this is a hotel.

Getting to know all its rooms, its nooks and crannies, is acquiring control. Knowing the good rooms, the ones to avoid, the one that smells, the one with the funny wallpaper, the one that has been converted to storage space. Deciding which one I would stay in if I had the chance. I walk down the corridor with purpose, jingling my master key.

I know what writer Paul Theroux meant when he wrote about the hotel he managed: "Shared by so many dreaming strangers, every room was vibrant with their secrets... the left-behind atoms and the residue of all the people who had ever stayed in it... Assigning people to such rooms, I believed I was able to influence their lives."

My brother, after millions of business trips, claims that hotel rooms are cold and dreary. But for me, knowing intimately how alive and vital an organism the hotel is and being in the middle of it, the rooms are a quiet and peaceful refuge. Hurrying into an empty room to look for something, I often pause to breathe. Occasionally, on quiet days, the staff sneak into one to watch TV while the boss is away. Sometimes I have been allowed to stay overnight and enjoyed the luxury of marble bathrooms with soft towels and expensive, complimentary cosmetics, or been amused by the bygone-era-atmosphere of rooms too old to be sold to paying customers.

Weary business travellers, elated families on holiday, backpackers, couples in love, people who move in groups, drifters with nowhere else to stay, people with hope in their eyes and others with despair in their entire being. All away from home, for good or for bad, and I can only imagine their feelings and experiences in these rooms.

It's true, in a hotel you really see it all. Cosmos packed into a corridor with doors leading... who knows? And I hold the master key.

five reasons for pianopoeting

Five reasons why I blog...

* I can gush about things others are tired of hearing about already
* I can whine
* I can scream the anguish that I otherwise wouldn't dare to show
* I can confront while avoiding confrontation
* I can meet some of the beautiful people out there...

I am also now an integrated member of the information society.

the janitor is worried

I defrost and deep fry, insert commas in people's writings, send letters saying "pay us or else" and I try to remember to turn the sauna on in time.

I mix three languages and improvise to balance the till. I tell an old lady that she can't see the sea from here. If I forget to give a receipt for the beer bottle I sell, the place might lose its licence.

The janitor is worried that I will leave too many lights on when I lock up for the night but he is not worried at all that one of the gangsters will steal money from the wide-open safe in the wide-open office.

I don't understand any of this either. It's a hotel. All the explanation you need.

i desire strawberries and a chef

Hotel kitchens are sexy.

It's a place where you step into a hot smell of spice and the even hotter stare from macho chefs. A real feminist would have a fit of righteous fury over the lewd remarks that chefs are experts at delivering to any unsuspecting female straying into their male-dominant territory.

But alas, I'm too in love with men to be a successful feminist. It's a game. I'm locked in a cage with a bunch of playful and handsome tigers and I have to be strong, smart and beautiful to survive. If I win the game, a chef will prepare a gorgeous feast just for me, with strawberries for dessert and a promise of more.

A strong, smart, beautiful man who can cook for you. It's enough to make even a feminist swoon.

To my eternal disappointment, this particular hotel kitchen is empty. A surly woman functions as a part-time cook and she is no fun at all.

I still hang out in the kitchen a lot. Listening for the echoes of happier times when food was hot, flirty, dangerous, exhilarating. Waiting and hoping for a genuine chef to arrive.

last thing I remember I was running for the door

Fell through a trap-door in the universe and find myself working in a hotel again.

If that's what it is. It's a place where the janitor is the boss, the building is a former refugee camp and half the receptionists don't speak decent Finnish. Mysterious Russians are the brains behind it all. It has the run-down look of an old gangster movie about it. And a huge bird, a magpie, has built a nest just outside the reception window. I've only seen one magpie in it yet though there should be two. "One for sorrow, two for joy..."

in the company of the warrior princess

Visited the Island. Xena the Warrior Princess lives there nowadays. At least I think it's her, although she is blonde and wearing wellies instead of sandals.

When I arrive after the long drive through forest and across the shockingly tall bridge, spring has painted the sea in glorious colours. The Warrior Princess is changing the tyres on her car and tells me about her upcoming wedding, the wedding she doesn't have the time to plan because she is (more or less single-handedly) restoring the old cottage where she lives.

"The safe feeling of being loved by someone... that is all I really need." The adventurer who tells me this once travelled alone through the darkest parts of Africa and will let nothing stand between her and her dreams. Against everybody's advice, she has almost torn the cottage apart to restore it to its original, beautiful shape. It's still complete chaos, but this girl can make even chaos look welcoming. There are three beautiful cats in the middle of it. One of them is sitting on the laptop.

The car is left standing with only two tyres attached because Xena has spotted something in the attic of the old barn that she absolutely has to investigate right away. So we climb around the ancient attic where the floor threatens to fall apart beneath our feet at any moment. The interesting object turns out to be half an old table and we haul it downstairs at the peril of our own lives.

An elderly man, a genuine soft-spoken Islander and expert on hand-crafted doors, arrives to look at an old door that Xena has found and wants put into the cottage. These old Islanders must be quite shaken up by this blonde tornado that has swept into their little old-fashioned community. Despite this, I have a feeling they can't help but love her. At least they have something to talk about. She has already engaged dozens of them in helping her repair her boat, give advice on the restoration work and tell her all about the history of the Island.

We snack on sandwiches and cheese crisps among the sawdust in the cottage before Xena gets back to sandpapering the walls and trying to persuade me to buy the cottage next door. The idea is too much for me to contemplate.

Driving back across the bridge to the mainland, I'm exhausted as if I had lived a lifetime in one evening.

a little pale and weary

The little Pleasantville (but in pastel colours) where I am temporarily residing is surrounded by a much more authentic village, old little wooden cottages (most of them beautifully restored and now containing all modern conveniances) interspersed among wide fields.

A chilly wind is still blowing across this brownish-grey landscape but the still-weak April sun is persistent and the colour green will soon be taking over. I try to forget my worries and enjoy the sun on the patio, comforting coffee mug in my hand. One of the cats, tiny Mjau, is chasing the first butterflies around my feet.

I am pale, weary. Not sure if I dare believe in a happy summer. Not convinced life has a meaning. But definitely certain that I will take this bleak day and make the best of it - nothing great, probably nothing much worth remembering, but the best I can do. It is enough.

alien in Pleasantville

To the two sleek, grey cats I was a complete stranger who just walked into their house and took out a tin of cat food. They didn't seem to think anything was amiss, just told me loudly how hungry they were.

To the nice, middle-class neighbours in this nice, middle-class residential area, who all have pastel-coloured houses and 2.4 children playing in cute little gardens, I was definitely a complete stranger. I breezed in with a dodgy car, urban sunglasses and a foreign-looking man in tow for a two-week house-sitting. Instead of bringing two toddlers to the park and having a gossip with other mothers in mud-stained clothes, I stay inside typing on a laptop with manicured nails or take the car into town for a latte.

Staying in someone else's house, someone with a stereotypical family life, and my own, quite boring lifestyle suddenly seems eccentric.

not just a pretty face

After a hard day's work of attacking everything that moved and a few things that didn't, exhaustion finally slowed Demolition Dog down enough for an almost decent portrait.

a terrorist in my home

I have a guest staying over the Easter weekend. He is very charming, extremely sociable and somewhat demanding. This morning, he woke me up at 7 am because he needed to go to the bathroom and didn't want to go alone. He won't let me go alone either.

Attempts to catch him on camera failed miserably as he is extremely fast. He always seems to be "exiting stage left". Or right. Or viciously attacking the camera.

As the pictures show, he is something furry and black who likes to demolish newspapers, towels, human toes and anything else that happens to cross his path.

Some would call him a puppy, but personally, I'm convinced he is a cross between a crocodile and the Terminator.

the essence of March

It's not a brain.
It's not vomit.
It's not Cookies'n'Cream icecream.
It's a picture of the dreadful month of March at 63 degrees North.

Melting, filthy snow. Thank God that month is over.

Actually, there might be some vomit mixed in there too.

survived the month of murders

March is the last month of sleep for growing things, says my mother. She always buys a sack of good soil in March and replants all her many potted plants. In April, it's too late, because by then the plants have woken from their winter sleep and started their growing season. And they don't like to be disturbed, pulled up by the roots and shoved into a new pot with new soil, once they have started growing. Or so she claims.

March here at 63 degrees North is a grey and wet affair. The crystal beauty of winter ruined, like a wedding dress that's been dragged through mud. Spring still hesitating behind the corner.

Like my mother's plants, I am half asleep, weary after a long winter, too sluggish to hope for the sun. I survive, barely. My history teacher in school once told me that March is the month of murders and I can see why.

It always seems to happen in March. Half dead, I'm pulled up by the roots and shoved into something new, if only a new way of thinking. It always hurts, no matter how absolutely essential it is for my survival. After a desperate struggle to adjust, I slowly start to notice the spring sun, the world turns on its hinges and my growing season has arrived.

I realise it's more or less too late to replant my own potted plants by now. I go out and buy some shockingly yellow daffodils.

not a very pious prayer

God, are you looking this way?

Was it you who woke me up this morning? Did you see me fight my way out of the anguish to get ready for another day? Were you trying to say something when I blocked out the words of everyone? Was it you who dragged me out the door? Did you try to get my attention with a ray of sunshine that made me wince? Were your words whispered in the mumbling of strangers in the street? Were you insistently making my phone ring when I tried to turn it off? Was it you who made me pull out my hair and shed tears of frustrated longing? Were you paying attention when I screamed? Are you the one who walked past me and made eye contact? Did you block my way and force me to look at you?

Are you laughing at me or are you saying my name, over and over again? Am I trying to get your attention or are you seeking mine? Am I cursing your name or desperately scrambling to get close?

I fight you. I cry for you. I hate you. I love you.

You shake me. Shock me. Force me. Deny me. Teach me. Protect me. Die for me. Cherish me. Love me. Love me. Love me.

a planet came looking for me

When I looked out towards the sea this evening there was the crescent moon with Venus again. If that is really Venus, that is - I should find out but my mind is too weary to go look for facts that I should know. Another thing to feel guilty about.

The sky was beautiful, that crescent and planet against the pink-gold sunset, and I was surprised to see it because I didn't deserve it. I have been languishing here in my grey prison for weeks with neither the energy nor the will to break out and I have come to expect nothing more. Sometimes I ask God and all other powers there be to do something, to break down these walls, but in the next moment I accept that he will do nothing of the kind because I can't, won't, help myself. Sunken into a stupor, I have accepted that grey walls are what I will be seeing for the rest of my life.

But then. The gentle light of a crescent moon, a shard of lunar glass. A rich cascade of sunset colours too valuable to waste on someone like me. A planet who has broken orbit and travelled closer to the earth just to show me that there is brilliance in the universe that I have yet to discover. They refuse to be ignored. Jolted out of my private room of misery, I stare in disbelief.

Just for me?

in the valley of the shadow of death

The silence is deeper than ever. Deafening. The dust settles slowly.

Death is still way ahead. I'm only walking in its shadow.

staring too long into the abyss

Staggering at the edge of the abyss, see it staring back at me. Is it reality I'm losing or is reality not real? If I step through the looking-glass, will I be more alive?

This world keeps ignoring me. Fine. See what I care. After a life of frugality, I will throw away my last penny on temporary comforts.

I just want to be alive.

beloved blood of my blood

Family get-together.

Wayward brother smelling of alcohol.
Two grandmothers trying to find common ground, one a globetrotter and wine connoisseur, the other a traditional, stay-at-home teetotaller.
A five-year-old doing his utmost to look under women's skirts.
Everyone embarrassed about what to say to the young cancer victim.
Siblings who never see each other trying to think of something to talk about.
Young cousins breaking each others' toys.

Surprisingly, a warm feeling. Family. Home. I belong. Count your blessings. And for God's sake, distract that five-year-old.

feminist skies tonight

Venus and the crescent Moon together in the sky. Two symbols of womanhood.

Perhaps I have just been reading too much feminist literature. Fretting over the injustices of the world in general towards women. The burden weighing more heavily still on my frail shoulders.

Be beautiful (read: skinny), be sexy and available and show a lot of skin, be not-too-smart, behave as females have been expected to behave the last couple of millennia. Raise your daughters to be cautious, wary, conformist, insecure, enemies of their own body and feelings. Make sure they feel worthless if they do not conform to all of the above.

On the other hand, the sign in the sky tonight may just be telling me to move to Turkey.

swearing and longing

Up before dark. Strong coffee. Translate political commentaries from the weird language of Finnish to the bizarre language of Swedish. Swear. Email sister in despair. Eat chocolate.

Longing to go to the second-hand book shop. To the jeans shop. To the American-style coffee shop.

Another day is well underway.

Prancer on ice

A day-long hike or a short Sunday stroll. When the ice on the bay is thick enough, people bring their kids, sleighs, skis, dogs, kites and ice-fishing kits and head out, irresistibly drawn to the open vista and the possibility to explore the little islets.

Yesterday was mild and sunny enough even for me to venture out, wrapped up in layers of wool and armed with my sunglasses.

I love people-watching, but even more so, dog-watching. One of the dogs, the largest one, turned out to be one of Santa's reindeer. Posing nonchalantly for a tabloid photographer, he ignored the stares from passers-by. Occasionally he was filled with enthusiasm and trotted away towards the open horizon, his keeper helplessly dragged along by a long leash.

So now we know what Santa's reindeer do the rest of the year. Modelling.

grow up and play

Volleyball. Unimportant, friendly local game. Nerves, nevertheless. Pacing the corridors before the game, worrying about a cramping muscle, checking for the fifteenth time that the water bottle is filled.

She forgets to be her usual fearful, take-no-risks woman and throws herself on the floor and against walls to save the ball.

Normally shy and wary of drawing attention, she nevertheless blocks out the spectators and yells, laughs, and swears under her breath. Not afraid of being the tall one, the dangerous one near the net. Not shy to show off bare legs even though they cannot compete with those of the teenage bambi on the other side of the court.

Open, loud joy when the team succeeds. Makes a face when she completely misses an easy ball but shrugs and concentrates on the next. Graciously accepts good advice from the more experienced. Savours the triumph of getting an applause of her own. Hates the opposing team but forgives them and shakes hands afterwards.

If I learn to laugh and yell out loud, to deal with nerves, to accept criticism and defeat, to make friends, to give everything and in return feel the full force of life here and now... then it doesn't really matter that we lost that game.

the thick ticking of the tin clock stopped

Some days my life is in sepia and cold winter light seeps through the window. I am low. Almost floor level.

Time has stopped. I crave life but it is denied me.

that weird goodness

Contrary to popular belief, good people do exist. I am forced to believe the testimony of my own eyes and ears.

I am an optimist and have always believed that there is goodness in all of us. Experience, on the other hand, has shown me that selfishness or indifference wins the battle in most of us. We are too weak to be good.

Christianity says God can be strong in our weakness. Lovely thought, but reality is different, right? Even an optimist has to be a realist.

But there they are, impossible to ignore. The genuine. People who are not afraid to admit their faults but do not crave sympathy. With my sharp eye for falseness, I pick out their weaknesses and look for any signs of pretense. People who are tired from the daily battles but who push their problems aside for a moment to give full attention to my needs. Who draw on a mysterious strength to give me what I ask for, and sometimes what I am too scared or proud or stupid to ask for. Who knock out my defenses with that smile, the authentic, caring, wise smile.

Even an optimist can be a cynic. That smile will wear itself out, I think, just try to keep it up for a while and see it fade. Only for some people it does not. Day after day, year after year, they keep caring, giving, helping, loving. Sometimes they cry from exhaustion. Sometimes they voice their doubts and despair. But the next day they stand there again, hands outstretched, smiling.

I am speechless with astonishment. It is not possible, not in this world. A mere human cannot do this and I never believed in superhumans.

All of these people that I have dared to ask, say the same thing. God. Not a mysterious force, no rituals, just God as a person, giving freely, just a prayer away. Just demanding your entire life in return. But what a life. What a freedom, being who you really are.

lovely, hateful pride

In my dream, control slips out of my hand. I am humiliated, shamed, before the person I admire the most. Nightmare at its worst.

I wake up shaking in a cold sweat.

Later the same day, I see him, the admirable one, at a distance. Beautiful, confident, but with nothing false about him.

I am proud and willful, a woman with backbone. But to have someone see me as I am and still love me... If it were him, maybe I would dare.

attitude control

Learn contentment.

Coffee brewing.
Blueberry scent on my skin.
A pile of good books.

Another battle won in the digital world. I can overcome my prejudice about myself. I am still going somewhere!

The world is white-grey instead of green-grey but I will learn to love it.

kicked myself out of paradise

In my magic Irish valley, walking through the woods as darkness falls.

As a city woman, I have not yet grasped the idea of being home before dark. The path is uneven, miles from streetlights and neon. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams. A rustle of deer or wild goats among ancient oaks, but I am too melancholy to be afraid of dangers. This is home, the hearth of my heart - how can one have lived in these mountains and not feel their breathing for the rest of her life?

Yet, a visitor. A tourist in my own dreams. A few days to wander these woods and gaze at the lakes and then leave.

The wishing well is a dark pool beneath the ghostly tree where wanderers through the ages have tied pieces of cloth, strings of beads, shards of their lives. I dip a finger in the cold mountain water and say "may this valley always be home. May I keep coming back".

Even though it tears me apart every time I do. I could have stayed here for the rest of my life, and it would have killed me. The other dimension of this magnificent peace is a maelstrom of conflict and powerful emotions, a black hole where you lose control, lose yourself. Intoxicating experience, like that first shot of a powerful drug, the immense pleasure of taking leave of reality. But after that you have to stop, force yourself to stay real and sane, take yourself away from there. Because you know you have to survive.

I hear a low rumble in the mountains, an explosion in a mine miles underground. The shriek of a deer makes me jump. But I see the lights from the inn, the promise of warmth and village gossip and hot whiskey by the fireplace. I wipe away the last of my tears. I may not ever allow myself to stay. But I will keep coming back.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

(A.E. Housman)

rocks and sea do battle

At Europe's oldest lighthouse in the southeast of Ireland, the sun was shining and strong winds threatened to blow us into the sea. Intrepid, we braved the danger. Felt the spray of the waves lashing against the rocks and had to make a run for it when a wave tried to drag us into the abyss.

At this site, Irish monks used to light beacons to guide ships as far back as a millennium ago - to the delight of my ferocious ancestors, the Vikings, who were happy to find such a warm welcome among the people they were about to plunder and kill. It seems to have paid off for the monks, though, as they were spared. Or so the story goes.

In the stormy seas around the lighthouse, rescue services were searching for seamen recently lost at sea. The steady rocks did not tremble even when the roaring waves crashed into them. The bedrock, the ocean, the sun. I am small and fragile.

life is easy, as a celt

After nine fabulous days in that alternate universe, Ireland, I still have not landed in Finnish reality. Not that I want to.

I'm still in Irish mode, taking life easy, trusting that everything will be well if I can just chat to nice people over a glass every now and then. Smiling at strangers, making jokes. Fearing nothing.

Walking along endless beaches, in the rain, content. Even happy.

brave the danger and find your Eden

Country roads, take me home.

Narrow roads with plenty of potholes, where an unsuspecting sheep could be standing around the next corner, where everyone drives with reckless abandon. This is Ireland. Being a passenger in an Irish car is a roller-coaster ride, scary but absolutely exhilarating. Going around a hairpin bend at breakneck speed, close your eyes and clutch at your seat, give up your hope of living another hour. It helps if you are a little bit drunk, but not unfrequently the driver is too. The trees close in around the car. Suddenly, a mountain vista opens up.

This time, we took a taxi to go 45 kilometers. An expensive way to travel, but public transport would mean a travel time of three hours on a roundabout route. The country roads took us up over the mountains. I had had the foresight to check the weather report to make sure the mountain pass was open since anyone could see that the mountains were covered in snow, but hadn't counted on the fact that the taxi driver was Nigerian and had no experience of driving in icy conditions...

We survived. And the mountains and the snow and the silence were breathtaking and beautiful. Skidding into the valley on the other side, we discovered everything was green and the birds were singing in the sun. I swear, the garden of Eden is located in Ireland.

Yes! I am inVINcible!

PianoPoet, also known as the Technology Ignoramus, has fought a mighty battle against said technology. Five hours in front of the computer, consulting four manuals, making countless installations and uninstallations, ripping out a cable in fury, making a tuna sandwich as comfort food, spitting at the computer and forcefeeding a memory card (and almost, accidentally, some tuna) into an unwilling phone - and her matchmaking skills triumphed at last and the phone and the computer found each other and became loving partners.

Doesn't PianoPoet look rather cross-eyed? But the result is here: a picture. More to follow soon, hopefully. I might even let you see my other eye (yes, I have two).

The next battle is already looming at the horizon: PianoPoet will look up a nice vegetable dish in her never-used cookbook, buy ingredients and cook it.

stomach teaser

Items in my fridge:
Honey
1 lemon
Sun-dried tomatoes
Pesto sauce
Milk about to go off
Mouldy cheese
1 1/2 slice of dark bread
Homemade apple jam

How do you make a lunch out of these?

Go out for pizza.

the unexpected family

A winter night survived with no significant insomnia.

Monday morning with a familiar worry in my gut, but the comfort of a loving church family in my memories of Sunday. Someone looked at me as if I meant something. I was there, present, in the Now, in my jeans and flattering shirt and warming cardigan. Snuggled into a church pew, leaning back with my feet up, as comfortable as possible, to listen and take a part in everything the family has been up to this week. A hug, a smile, a friendly touch, an atmosphere where forgiveness was palpable. God in the pew right next to me.

With a lot of help from my friends I will get through this day as well, and the help is there, a rock beneath my trembling feet.

A phonecall from a bureaucrat that caused a wry smile. A chat with one of the widows across the balcony railing, leaning out into the bleak, rare sunshine of a Finnish winter. The beauty of the view and of casual neighbourly friendship. The constant fear of opening my email, vulnerable to the harshness of the world and its demands on me. The loneliness and the hope. One day at a time, hope wins.

a new ally and an old stubborn friend

How emotions and hope soar in the blue sky one day and take a nosedive the next. I never did like rollercoasters.

I finally joined the 21st century and bought a new phone. My shameless delight knows no limits. How can one not be instantly successful in life if one has a phone like those on TV?

I also shoved my existential panic to the side and booked myself on a flight to the land of my dreams, of storms and peat fires and hot whiskey, of gangsters and everyday poets; Eire, the Emerald Island... Ireland. I have heard it calling to me every day for three years, ever since I left the embrace of its brooding mountains.

"Will you come back?" my family and friends ask me with worry in their eyes. Yes, that's the plan. It's only for a week. My mission in Finland (whatever it is) is not completed.

I'm not sure I sound convinced. How Eire always tears at my heart.

magic starts the year

A New Year celebration by candlelight, looking out across the dark water and ceaseless fireworks, in the comfort of darkness and the company of old friends who are not afraid of my weird soul... I didn't even have to cook. It was peaceful. One of the best New Year's Eves ever, one where I didn't have to pretend to have fun either.

Now, the year has turned and settled into gear. The familiar worry in my gut makes itself known again. What will happen? Will I be able to cope? I'm so tired of being afraid.

Today, I watch the shifting fog. Today, I will manage. Just for today. Tomorrow can take care of its own troubles. One step at a time. I will get there.

The fog shifts again and the skyline is suddenly clear - except for the tall power plant with its mystical chimneys, my wellknown landmark, which is suddenly gone. Invisible. By some feat of magic, someone made it disappear. Only the smoke is still rising out of the emptyness. I laugh out loud in sheer surprise.

to friends present, absent and possible

Wishing everybody out there joy and contentment and all good things in 2007!

May you wake up each morning and see a light; be it blinding or just a glimmer.

dawn darkest

Winter solstice and I am watching the dawn. Half past nine and we are only halfway to daylight. I wonder what they call this shade of blue?

All I want to do today is plant myself in a coffee shop and watch the Christmas shoppers.

good enough to smile at

Lambrusco and after-swim calm, Dido on the CD player and darkness outside. Persistent hunger and guilt. A candle and a few sparse Christmas decorations, an SMS from a friend. I should do laundry, wrap Christmas presents and get a good job. I want someone to love and that thrilling feeling inside. My money disappears and I can't stand any more good advice. I will take time to think. I pour another glass of wine and tell myself that life is here and now and it's good enough for now, good enough to smile at.

As soon as a good song comes on, I will make a dance floor out of my living room and forget the worries queuing outside my door. Because what more do I need?

I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea
to travel the world alone and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
cos there's really nothing left here to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
well I deserve nothing more than I get
cos nothing I have is truly mine

(Dido)

laughing and killing in the Now

My adorable little nephew and my painfully cute little niece are trying to scratch each other's eyes out. I'm trying to keep them as far apart as possible but no distance is too great for sibling ire.

Still, how can anyone not love this little angels, however avenging they are? Children amaze me - they are always so in the Now. Everything is vitally important: a toy, a loose tooth, a best friend in kindergarten, the painful and exuberant waiting for Santa Claus - in this moment, this is all that exists in the entire universe. Every joy is without limits and every betrayal a mortal wound. There is no perspective- if your brother gets a slightly larger piece of the chocolate cake you wail over the injustice of the universe because you cannot understand that the next time the larger piece will be yours, or you will grow up and earn a larger salary than him so it all evens out in the end... The pain of childhood: you fight for your happiness at every moment and if you fail there is no consolation.

As an adult, I find myself for the first time thankful that I know not only the highs but the lows. By now, I know that what feels like the end of the world is not necessary that. I know that this too will pass.

I only wish it wouldn't apply the other way: I'm too well aware of the fact that the present joy will fade or be crushed. I have decided to fight this - my moments of joy and happiness I will savour as if it was my last day on earth. Because one hour of joy compensates for a day of sorrow.

I think my niece and nephew would agree, but they are busy killing each other right Now.

stormgazer, elf and other career options

Stormgazer. That's what I'm going to be when I've tired of being a candlestick maker. I'm practicing right now, in the comfort of my own armchair, while an autumn storm is hurling rain and rattling the windows. I don't recognise this December. Where is the snow? The cold? The glitter of Christmas Future? This is November still, outstaying its welcome, suffocating the season's cheer in its all consuming darkness.

I have been buried under a pile of work and existential angst. The smiles of some people helped me crawl out again - while the smiles of others, uncomprehending, only heaped more weights onto my burden.

But I am standing up again. Determined to be strong, true, beautiful, wise.

Stormgazer, yes. Or maybe I could be an angel. I have more career ideas now than when I was trying to make my choice on education and profession. If I could find a cheap flight to Middle Earth I would go there and become an Elf and talk to the trees. I stood in the forest one day not long ago and listened to the silence and actually hugged a tree (after carefully checking that I was alone). A strong, silent, comforting tree.

How I wished I could hear its song.

sad and weary satellite

One more time, a "no". Bizarre how such a small word can completely drain you of all energy.

So I keep wandering around the dark periphery, fighting the demons of bitterness and self-pity, enviously circling the glittering people who know how to smile and give and feel hope. They reach out to me, sometimes. But they don't know darkness and can never reach far enough. I can't blame them - who would want to risk leaving the bright centre to face the terrors here?

When I turn away from the brightness I notice that there are others out here. Lost souls with despair in their eyes, some even further out in the wilderness than I. Sometimes - just sometimes, when I can find the strength - I manage to clasp the hand of one of them, and we share our pitiful warmth for a while. If I could pull one of them just a little bit closer to the light, maybe it's all worth it.

dissenters welcome

Annoyed.

Some bloggers write interesting, provoking entries that beg for comments and differing opinions... and then they don't allow comments on their blogs except for those of their "team members" (a chosen few who they can trust to agree with everything).

That is like stating your controversial opinion and then covering your ears. "Lalala, I'm not listening!"

Cowards.

Anyone don't agree with this, feel absolutely free to comment!

a tale from the quest for China

One of my first friends ever was a little boy, full of energy and action and wicked little ideas.

He got it into his head that we would dig a hole in the ground in the backyard of his house. If we dug far enough, he convinced me, we would eventually emerge on the other side of the earth, which is China. "Really?" said I, eyes wide.

We had to be very careful though, because the devil lives underground, and he might find his way out through our hole. If he did, we would be in a lot of trouble.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this at all," I said in a slightly trembling voice.

"Don't worry," my friend reassured me and handed me an old ice hockey helmet. "If you wear this, he can't hurt you."

I fastened the helmet carefully, and as a typical representative of the weaker sex watched in awe as he enthusiastically worked the frozen ground with his little spade. His own helmet he carelessly left lying on the ground beside him. I admired his courage.

Ever since I was five years old I have  believed everything men tell me.  Lately, I have experienced doubt. But I still admire their courage.


Epilogue: We never reached China. Fortunately, we saw no sign of the devil either. My friend tired of the digging after a while and we went indoors to ask his mother for hot chocolate.

breathe just one more time

How astonishing it seems to me. That so many people survive an ordinary day. Survive disease, accidents, natural disasters, the evil of other people, the evil all around us, the dreariness of our little lives, the destructive obsessions of our own minds, the failure of our pathetically beating heart in the darkest hour of the night.

That even in the devil's bedroom we find a thing of beauty, something to laugh at through our tears, a human being to give a scrap of love.

That even in the hour of our death we fight with with teeth and claws and scream our last breath in a desperate will to live.

What an overwhelmingly powerful life source there must be somewhere.


"God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life."
"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me."

ode to Father Jack

I used to be a friend of the drunks. A random collection of red-nosed, old and middle-aged men who every day came to prop up the bar at the little Irish hotel where I worked. Some arrived as soon as the bar opened in the morning. They came to chat to each other, to watch a rugby game on the sports channel, to sit alone in a corner brooding, but most of all to drink. A few of them were drunk enough to fall off their bar stool by mid-afternoon but few of them did. Irish men have drinking stamina. Still, many of them had to be carried home when the bar closed.

At first, I carefully avoided them. I had experience of Finnish men who had attained the same state of drunkenness, their tendency to drape themselves over any female in a rather demanding way and whispering things to you that you'd rather not hear. But the Irish alcoholics were different. Their flattering comments to the young, female receptionist were suggestive but with an undertone of genuine admiration and it was difficult to take offense. Equally irresistible was their undisguised joy whenever somebody stopped to exchange a few friendly words with them.

Before long, I had made friends with all of them. On my way through the bar I usually stopped to say hello and ask them how they were. If I came in there on my day off, one or two of them would always buy me a drink and we would chat about anything and everything - if they were still sober enough for coherent speech and thought. My prejudice against the typical drunk disintegrated after a few of these chats and I was astonished at the things I discovered. These alcoholics had nothing in common with each other apart from the fact that they happened to live in the same village, but they all seemed to be poets, musicians, successful businessmen, skilled craftsmen, philosophers - nothing they usually boasted about, just a fact that emerged during the course of our occasional chats. Sometimes I thought that I had discovered a normal, archetypal drunk with a boring job and the usual, boring life details, just to discover that he knew more about the symbolism in Hamlet or some detail in my own country's history than I did. They were always interested in what I had to say, asked about my family, lent a sympathetic ear whenever I had boyfriend trouble.

I forget - they did have one more thing in common. A storm that had crushed them at some point in their life, an impossible obstacle that had stopped them in their tracks. Or just a debilitating feeling of loneliness. Whether it was really a dead end they had encountered or just a minor problem they hadn't dared to face, to me it seemed a terrible tragedy. Such talented people, hiding from life in the smoky darkness of a country pub.

I like my friends sober. But great wisdom and great mysteries have been whispered to me by the people nobody listens to anymore, through a cloud of alcohol fumes.

twilight and sleep

Twilight refuses to yield to daylight today. I don't want to get out of bed. Not lazy, just deep-down, body-and-soul weary. There is winter inside me and like the daylight that never came, the life inside me cannot be woken today. It's time to hibernate.

But beneath the greyness, the sea takes on a surprisingly turquoise-green hue.

the party-pooper's daydream

Fog is good. It blurs the edges and protects you from the harsh reality. There is an empty world outside my window, comforting as a wool blanket.

Going to a party tonight. One of those safe, alcohol-free birthday bashes with cake and tea, mounds of chocolate sweets, cheerful people who all know each other. Nothing wrong with it. But I feel a familiar antipathy rising within me. I will arrive and feel as if I'm a decade older and wiser than anybody else (not true at all but facts have nothing to do with it) and sit in a corner and be bored and wish for lightning to strike.

If I'm lucky I will find a fascinating person to whisper secrets to. Alternatively, I will be seized by recklessness caused by boredom and spend the evening scattering witty or absurd remarks around me, making people helpless with laughter. This behaviour is completely uncharacteristic for me but my longing for excitement sometimes backfires on me and acts like a powerful intoxicating drug. A cheap high.

Why do we always go to parties expecting a personal reward? Can I not go there with the objective to give? My idealism fights against my cynicism.

a candlestick maker with all the spices

I have decided I want to be a candlestick maker. I like the way it sounds - artistic, bohemian but safe.

I am a person who falls in love with words. I got tired of the taste of vanilla latte a long time ago but I still order it in my local coffee shop. Hopelessly addicted to the word 'vanilla'.

I can't eat very spicy food but I enjoy the taste of the spice names on my tongue. Just muttering "cinnamon, basil, pepper, nutmeg, saffron, rosemary..." to myself improves my mood considerably.

so close, so very invisible

I wish God would show himself. Apparently it's not his style. Sometimes I get the feeling he is right behind me - but I can't turn around fast enough to catch a glimpse.

another world, where I make stew

To have travelled. That is the greatest blessing and achievement of my life so far. When I think of my adventures in other countries, other life situations, they seem remote and unreal as memories of dreams. As if they happened to me, but another me, in alternate universes.

Intriguing. I sometimes have flashbacks to these alternate universes, unprompted. This morning, as I yawned and tried to talk myself into leaving my lovely, warm bed and get started on today's work, I suddenly saw myself in a large French country-house kitchen.

It's a hot July day, a few years ago, in the district of Champagne, France. Outside, a landscape of rolling fields of corn, wheat and vines, dotted by the occasional oil pump, is dozing in the heat of the sun. Inside the old stone house, it's cool except for the heat radiated by the generously sized oven where lunch for a dozen people is cooking. A young me is emerging from the narrow stairs leading up from the basement - a cellar where the damp is dripping off stone walls - with a few long baguettes, the genuine, one-and-only French bread clutched in her arms.

The chef, a broad-chested, husky-voiced Frenchwoman, is looking into the oven with a frown on her face. I deposit the bread on the wooden table and come to stand beside her. Together we gaze at the courgette stew in the oven, boiling over and spreading courgette juice laced with white wine all over the oven. I, who don't speak much French, make an effort and manage to put two words together to state the obvious: "Ça coule." It's running over.

"Oui. Ça coule," agrees the chef gravely. Together, we ponder the state of life, universe and the stew for a while.
This is the glimpse of a memory of a dream of another life in another world that I got this morning. I was delighted.

a gift of darkness for my dearest friend

My friend calls me, crying over the phone. I try to console but feel helpless. At least I can offer her my listening, and she thanks me for it.

"Ring me when you are in pain the next time," she urges me. I promise.

The next day, I am in pain and in the deepest darkness of the soul. But I don't call her, even though I know she would listen with sincere sympathy. I lie alone in the dark and cry. I withdraw like a wounded animal. How can I look for consolation from my friends? How would that help? I am scared to let them see me weep.

I must learn to share my pain. I know there is something healing in the process even though I don't understand it yet. A true friend needs to see the real you.

I may not call her next time I cry in the dark. But maybe the day after I will share with her a little piece of what is haunting me. As a start, a genuine offering from my heart. I will give her my most precious possession, the one I guard with my life. My pain and weakness. Because she gave me hers.

the upstairs guitar

One of the neighbours plays the electric guitar. I consider trying to drown the noise in the much more threatening noise of my piano - the guitar is not one of my favourite instruments. But I eventually decide that I like it when people make music.

Maybe I long for proof that I'm not alone in the universe.

having tea with the Africans

Fifteen African students in a city flat. Outside, snow is falling but inside tea is being poured and cake is consumed at an alarming speed. I'm one of the handful of white people present. The Africans are cheerfully complaining of the cold outside. They have met up for a Bible study and express their surprise at the fact that Finnish people live in a Christian country and have all the Christian values but are not remotely interested in God. A song is taken up and echoes throughout the apartment building - I try to push my Finnish "what will the neighbours think?"-reaction out of my mind. Everybody listens quietly and with no visible reaction to the speaker explaining a passage from the Bible, but afterwards, the discussion is intense. Good-natured smiles all around even when opinions differ.

Our host whispers to me that some of the newer students had never seen a white person before they came to this country. Some of the women shyly avoid even looking at the men, much less talk to them. In the beginning, I find it difficult to tell these people apart - somehow all black people look the same - but after a while, I notice significant differences. After all, a Kenyan probably has less in common with a Nigerian than I have with a Portuguese.

I can never really understand why Africans choose to come to Finland to study when they could go to, say, the UK. Finland is cold and dark for a large portion of the year. Nobody knows where Finland is. In Finland, you have to study not only Finnish but also Swedish - two minor languages, completely different. Finnish people are reserved. Finland is expensive.

I get no sensible answers to this question from any of them. Maybe I grasp an understanding anyway: Finland, from everybody's point of view except 5 million Finns, is... kind of... exotic. Precisely because nobody really knows where it is.

a hard day's blog work

There are always little things to be grateful for. A boring job, where you look for any excuse to take a break, with no boss watching over you and nobody else to talk to either, results in a frequently updated blog.

So I keep adding to the endless stream of more or less useful information available online. Stubbornly believing.

they always appear on Monday mornings

Some people are idiots. Idiots! How lucky I am to get one of them as my first Monday morning interaction. A student emails me her 50-page-thesis and asks me to language-check it for tomorrow. Tomorrow. As if my desktop wasn't already full of stuff that is due tomorrow. She mentions in passing that she tried to email it to me weeks ago but I might not have received it as her email program has been acting up. No, really? And she didn't think to check with me?

I take a sinful pleasure in telling her "no way". Not even this week unless I happen to take mercy on her. And I don't feel particularly merciful on a Monday morning.

At least there is lunch with my sister to look forward to.

soaking in beauty

Dazzling glorious morning with sunshine on snow.

Only a Sunday can be this beautiful. Sleep, a lazy look through the paper, cook breakfast, watch people in the harbour taking their boats up for the winter. The beauty of the outside world reflecting in my inner peace.

I never again in my life want to see anything ugly.

the danger of cinnamon buns

My mum and dad always welcome me when I arrive. Their flat is always tidy and cosy. There are always church newsletters on the coffee table and the radio is tuned in on the local, Swedish-speaking station. There is always coffee and a fridge full of food that I (almost shamelessly) take advantage of when I've exceeded my budget. Today, I ate two homemade cinnamon buns and enjoyed the safe feeling of home.

It wasn't always like this. Last year, I lived in that same flat with my parents for months. Sometimes I'm surprised my sanity is still intact. It almost destroyed me. Family can rip you to pieces in its genuine and flawed love.

But time heals, and I'm slowly nearing the point where I can again enjoy the warmth of returning home every now and then and find shelter. I can somehow deal with that love.

But love is like that storm I lived through last night. If you get carried away by it, you can end up in a place you never dreamed of, which makes it all worth while. But it can never be completely controlled.

I will forever be in danger.

even snow can roar

As the storm, a genuine blizzard, finally arrived last night, I curled up on my sofa with a good book and some cheese and wine (to compensate after a tough volleball training session) and lit a candle to increase the coziness factor.

At some point, however, I couldn't resist venturing out on the balcony. It's a glazed balcony but a couple of the glass panes I've never managed to shut properly so wet snow was whirling in and the rest of the panes were rattling in the wind rather threateningly. Freezing cold. Yet, the sight of the snow masses drifting past against the background of the dark sky had me spellbound for a long time. The snowflakes, though wet and heavy, were not falling, they were being carried horisontally by the wind. Meaning there will be snow on the ground tomorrow but not too much. Wonder how many miles inland those snow flakes finally end up?

During the night, in my uneasy sleep, I could feel the building trembling around me.

In the morning, all was quiet and peaceful. A grey light over a landscape covered in white, and a bird singing. We survived and we are calm and humble.

stormgazer

I'm waiting for a storm. They say it's on the way this evening, approaching from the west, the first proper storm of the autumn. Since my flat overlooks the west sea I'm expecting the gale to hurl itself against my balcony windows very soon. I will see it coming.

If only that were the case with all the storms of life.

walk through space, time stands still

I drag myself out for a walk. Past the red-brick prison walls, past the small-boat harbour, on along the seafront. The trees are a silent explosion in yellow and red next to the grey velvet of the water. I hear silly lyrical phrases float up inside my head and try to ignore them.

The sandy beach next to the great hospital complex is empty. I doubt that the nudists still occupy the bath house next to it - they are hardy ladies who have probably just moved on to the private sauna of the ice bathing club at the other main beach, where they fry themselves in the sauna before going for a dip in the sea - the colder, the better. At least they wear their swim suits during the winter. Many of my friends also display a manic love of this extreme behaviour. Now, with the winter approaching fast, the sea will soon freeze and the excited souls will cut up a hole in the ice. In fact, almost half of the country seems to have picked up this strange habit during the years that I was in exile. What happened during that time? Was Finland exposed to radiation from a Russian nuclear disaster or was everybody abducted and replaced by aliens?

I walk back home through a part of the city, past the indoor swimming pool and the Greek-Orthodox church, while I plan my simple dinner - cucumber and ready-made pizza. Maybe accompanied by a glass of rosé. I pass ugly 1960s apartment buildings and 19th century former factory buildings, now transformed into enchanting apartments. The traffic is heavy, at least as heavy as it ever gets in this tiny city. The old wooden barracks of what used to be an army base are being done up as well, to equally lovely residences. Top-notch apartments in hundred-year-old buildings are the big thing here.

People are hurrying home from work or university classes, hurrying to the gym or the community college, walking their dogs.

Sometimes I feel at home with this. Sometimes it's all alien.

chat and silence

Finnish women tend to chatter. Not incessantly, like some other nationalities. But chatter nevertheless.

Finnish men are typically men of few words. Nothing unnecessary should be uttered if it can be avoided.

Some people claim men and women are very similar, mentally and socially speaking. Not in Finland. This is my latest observation.

I take courses at the local community college, not having much else to do. Languages, computer skills and such. The latest is a course in volunteer friend activity run by the Red Cross and the participants are, predictably, all female. Most of them have no problem with voicing their opinions in class in front of strangers. I have attended other courses where the majority is male, and these classes tend to be very quiet apart from the lecturer who desperately tries to start up discussions. The women, if in minority, seem to wait for the men to speak (this is interesting, in one of the world's most gender-equal nations). They may be waiting forever.

Me? I'm a female, but the shy type. I usually prefer to listen to others talk and squirm in embarrassing silences. The problem with chatty, all-female classes though is that it's often just that - chat. Not much of all the useful knowledge and skills I'm there to learn seem to get through.

Maybe my thirst for knowledge and cost-effectiveness is male?

what to talk about in October

Subjects discussed with a close friend over a drink:

* Thoughts and feelings of a person buried alive beneath a collapsed skyscraper
* Tobacco-smelling hair
* Drunk brothers
* Life ruled by fear
* Wineglass sizes and alcohol measures
* Madness
* The influence of Mum
* Newly-divorced men and their traumas
* City singles
* The rise and fall of civilisation as we know it
* To care or not to care
* Personality types
* God and mind control
* Fuel miracles

And the wine was good too.

merrily, merrily

Some days I head out to town and then just forget what day it is and what I'm supposed to do. I hang around the library reading or sit in a café wondering about all the people around me. I'm either going prematurely senile or just being distracted by life.

I see it as a good sign. Being able to drift like that means I'm not too hopelessly anchored to time and space and expectations.

First day of winter. Snow on the ground and the air is bright and chilly. I had my breakfast on the balcony, wrapped in blankets and reading Harry Potter.

my ancient Sunday angel

I know an angel. She looks old, really old actually, probably has been around for a few tough millennia. Or maybe it's just her disguise. She lives by herself in an old fisherman's house on the Island, with a little mischievous cat for company, and can be seen slowly limping across the yard on weary old legs to dig up potatoes out of the little garden plot. She has a car which she drives around to visit her friends and to go to church in town every Sunday. The only time she actually misses church is when her cat has run away, because then she is too worried to leave the Island.

Whenever I come to church, she beams her smile at me and scurries over to say hello, leaving the elderly ladies behind. She asks me how I'm doing and holds my hand or strokes my arm affectionately while we chat. No words of deep wisdom are exchanged, just the usual "how are you?" and then I get to hear what her cat has been up to lately. But such a warm, comforting feeling it brings me.

I wonder why she was sent to earth. Maybe it was only for this.

damsel in technological distress

Technology is neither good nor bad, but our thinking makes it so. To paraphrase Shakespeare. Despite being a characteristic female I am able to operate a microwave oven and a car. I can even reboot a computer. Still, the sight of any unfamiliar gadget with more than two buttons makes me shudder.

But this fact has sometimes unpredictable benefits for my social life. Today, I was faced with one of these unfamiliar gadgets with about thirty buttons and fifteen cables plugged into it, and felt myself starting to hyperventilate.

Thirty seconds later, I had not one but two gorgeous-looking men rushing to my assistance. I gave them both my most dazzling smile. One of them found the on/off button and the gadget problem was solved. But at least I got their attention.

whirlwind has got me

I have never been inside a whirlwind but I know what it's like.

It must be like this, the way my emotions are being tossed around. After a long while, exhaustion wins out and my mood is taking a steep dive that knows no bottom.

Three steps to break the fall: 1) eat, 2) eat chocolate, 3) drink - coffee, or if all else fails, wine.

Hate to admit that last bit because it sounds so alcoholic and I really wouldn't recommend it to anybody else but myself. But it's a fact. A glass of white breaks the back of that obsession with being in control and the panic in realising that I'm not.

I just need a break from myself. I would like to leave the world for a while and then come back and start over.

an idealist speaks her mind

According to a certain book on the four personality types I'm an Idealist. Another book I'm reading says relationships are the only thing in life that really matters.

Today the sun is shining but I feel like drinking wine. Alone.

being hunted through dreamland

I have a recurring dream in which I'm in a car (my dad's), trying to manouver it out of a crowded parking lot or the like, trying not to hit any of the cars around it or trying to avoid rolling into a ditch. For some reason, the brakes are always in a terrible condition (strange, since my dad is very caring of his car) and that recurring moment in my dream is the panic I feel when I desperately try to brake and it's not working.

Definitely to be interpreted as my fear of not being in control and of people realising that I'm not in control.

The last time I had that dream, I suddenly had enough of trying to brake and violently stepped on the accelerator instead, and the car bounded right into the ditch and up on the other side. I woke up feeling better about myself.

My other recurring dream is the one where I'm being chased. I keep running, knowing that it is futile, and sooner or later I always fall, or stumble on the edge of a precipice. The strange thing is, the hunter at my heels always catches me just as I'm falling and thereby saves my life. The weird feeling of being caught and being safe, simultaneously.

I always wake up from this dream longing to be loved, stubbornly and unconditionally, by someone who knows even my weaknesses.

evening delights

A teenager is wandering around in the House of Seven Widows. He rang on my door and asked me if I avail myself of cleaning service. I thought he was going to advertise his own services but his next question was whether I suffer from asthma. Turned out he was selling air humidifiers.

The widow next door closed the door in his face before he even made it to the asthma question with her. I wonder how many of the other widows he will survive. They don't take kindly to door-to-door vendors. He's the first I've seen who's even made it to the fourth floor of the building. Must have been his teenage charm.

The weather is rainy and cold, as usual, and I wrap myself in an old sweater. I keep my laptop on my lap because its ineffective fan makes it a nice little heater. I sleep more than I should when the weather is like this. Today I had to get up early for a job interview and was reminded of the scary, unpleasant coldness of the early hour when normal people have to get up. Don't think I miss those times when I had to be up by six to cycle through a deserted city to get to work.

I'm an evening person. The twilight time, the blue hour, when people are taking their early evening strolls, the smell of dinner cooking is wafting through windows and lamps are lit, when dogs are barking and children are out playing, that's my favourite time. I love to watch the sky darken and listen to the sounds of human beings returning home.

writings of a morose, stiff and generally doomed poet

Just read two novels (by Finnish authors, nobody else would think to write about us) which both described the Finnish people as morose, stiff and grudging of others.

Yes, we are. But not all the time, and probably not more so than other people. We have love, joy and fun here in Finland too. The problem is, we tell ourselves over and over that we are morose, stiff and grudging. And we believe it.

I would like some positive thinking, please! And positive writing by Finnish authors. I'm sick of being told I'm morose. Come to think of it, I'm sick of this "realistic" writing style that everybody thinks is the only credible writing out there. It's definitely not realistic, it's pessimistic. If you dare to write that you have hope for the human race, you are sneered at for being naïve. If you dare to include any flight of fancy in your writing, you get stuck in the children's lit or fantasy category.

Conclusion: we must be morose and stiff and generally doomed after all.

undesirable freedom

Strolling aimlessly around the city, envying people the purpose in their stride. I do what I want, but I don't want it anymore. When I sit down to relax I wish to do it because I deserve a rest. Not because there is nothing else to do. Coffee doesn't taste as good when you haven't had to long for it during hours of work. The city and the world is on the move towards the future but I have no part in it.

I merely observe. Maybe some day this will be useful.