incredibly close and decades away

It's 4 o'clock in the morning. Everyone is in their pajamas and looking bleary-eyed. Nobody can remember whose stupid idea it was to throw a surprise party for Jonas on his birthday, the surprise element being the part where we dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night, stuck him under a cold shower and then presented him with cake and presents in the common room.

A good time was, however, had by all. Including Jonas (at least after the shower was over). Nobody worried about the fact that we had to be up early in the morning for bible study class. After all, we were young, history-makers in the making, and loved each other to bits.

This is one of the weirdest things in my life. To have people in your life that you have had no contact with for almost 20 years (most of them) but who were so close then that you still remember the sound of their voice. That particular look on their face when they were upset or excited. Their dreams, shared in an almost frightened but hopeful whisper, and sometimes their most shameful secrets. The comfort of their presence when you were puking your guts out in a stinking third-world toilet, and they were puking right next to you. The weak laughter you shared in your lowest moments. The fierce hugs they gave you when you asked their forgiveness for letting them down when times were rough. Their unconditional love and help when you were at the end of your rope.

This common room, in the middle of the night - and in that stinking third-world toilet - is where I learned about friendship.

at least I'm not in handcuffs

Bought a washing machine of my very own for the first time ever. So now I feel old and settled in my ways and tied down my mundane possessions (washing machines are not easy to pack up and move when inspiration hits).

The machine's drain hose was too short so I bought an extension but could not figure out how to attach it. So now I have to cry a little and feel useless.

Had to have a tetanus shot since it's apparently been ten years since my last one (after that unfortunate incident with the feral cat). So now my arm is paralyzed by pain (am I actually having a localized case of tetanus? Interesting. I never heard of anyone who's ever had tetanus) and I am hardly capable of even dressing myself.

So, being old, weepy and crippled, it's time to settle down with a box of chocolates and watch White Collar. Finally, an excuse.

foolproof insomnia remedy

Sometimes, when I can't sleep... I set the alarm that I normally use for my wake-up call in the morning to sound right away. It never fails to trigger one thought, and one thought only, in my head: Lovely, lovely sleep. And off I go into dreamland.

friends who like pasta

One friend gives instructions on what to do with the onions. The other measures pasta and sings a song we once made up, many years ago. Suddenly it's like we are back in that student flat and nothing has changed.

And nobody whines about vegetarian diet or LCHF. Thank God for true friends.

defrost moment

Sometime in April, my body and mind wake up. It's a surprise every year.

The human being isn't meant to live in temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F). Any colder than that, you can't relate to nature. Smells disappear, sounds are oddly muted, and the air itself becomes an enemy to be fought off with many layers of clothing.

The first time of the year that I feel the air against bare skin and it doesn't make me shiver, something inside me lets go and I feel like crying from relief. The world is friendly again.

the slow-down balcony

I stand on the balcony, a glass of water in my hand, listening idly to my neighbour chattering about her grandchildren... thinking vaguely about all the other things I could be doing with my precious day... The winter seemed endlessly grey and sunless, but when the spring sun finally arrives it blinds everything with its merciless brightness... I seem to spend half of the year longing for light and the remaining half squinting and fumbling for my sunglasses...

I feel, to my surprise, a languid contentment that shouldn't logically be there, as I look out over an empty back street, an eerily deserted prison yard, a quiet seafront promenade and the vast expanse of the bay...

Two ladies, out for a stroll along the street below, look up as the sound of my neighbour's voice carries down from the fourth floor balcony. The woman with the four chihuahuas walks by, expertly juggling her dog leashes. Someone drives his expensive Mercedes very slowly to avoid being rattled by the cobblestones. A pair of crows are constructing a nest in the still winter-bare linden tree. A couple take their bicycles out for the first time on newly ice-free streets. A thrush is searching the wet grass for last year's berries. Far away, there is the clanging noise from bridge construction work.

I should be in a hurry to make an excuse to my neighbour and go back inside to do something useful or at least fun. But, for someone who dreams of the electrifying chaos of New York avenues, I'm oddly bewitched by the quiet peace in deserted, small-town back streets. My heartrate slows down and I can't move...

sarcasm saved my life

I would like to write something witty and/or poignant.

Oh well. When all else fails, there is always sarcasm.

war, eggs and lack of guitar players

Winter and spring are waging a furious war on each other. Every night, snow falls and the wind is icy. During the day, a relentless sun burns away the snow, not even leaving wet patches on the sidewalks. I pull the blinds against the brightness but still get headaches.

It's Easter. Time off work, a busy time in church (and I waver between wanting to take part and not), evenings watching TV or reading fanfic, egg hunting with young nephews. The guitarist of interest is off playing gigs in crowded clubs too far away.

I think about: why I only feel like myself when I'm alone.

my past in many Aprils

Russian letters and horror movies (2006)
Blackened snow and Terminator puppy (2007)
Redefined character and involuntary holiday (2008)
Sea dreams and good intentions (2009)
Diamond core and CSI:NY (2010)
Auto-destruct and ancient castles (2011)
Turkish perils and moving power (2012)

coracesium and the seven perils

I'm going to a place where they say the sun smiles. A place by the Mediterranean Sea where people have lived for 20,000 years, where Alexander the Great passed by and Cleopatra visited, a port of pirates.

I'm not looking forward to it. Even though it's a holiday in the sun and I, the wandering star, haven't been beyond a hundred miles from home for two years. Maybe home has killed my love of adventure. I'm afraid of Turks (for no good reason, I just don't know any). I fear that the flight will be horrible and I will arrive feeling sick and realise that the hotel is awful. I'm worried that my travel companion, my elderly mother, will fall sick or be robbed.

But most of all, I'm scared that I will get there and experience that wonderful adventure of being in a new and foreign place where I've never been before - and that I will be completely, utterly indifferent. I'm terrified of discovering that nothing has the power to move me anymore.

brave new world that has such people in it!

An assortment of customers in the Little Shop of Harmony:

Jukka. My least favourite customer. Probably because he rarely pays for the clothes he picks up in the second-hand basement and seems to think he makes up for it by leaving an extremely smelly piece of his own clothing somewhere instead. He is arrogant, ungrateful and shouts at me when I refuse to give him things for free (forgetting that I gave him something out of pity only the day before). But he does have some entertainment value. He sometimes wears an orange wig and pretends he is John Lennon. He picks up Christian tracts and hands them out to people in the street. He carries around an old guitar which he never plays. Sometimes he asks me to kiss him (which I also refuse). And sometimes he shocks some of the staid, too-dignified customers that definitely need to be shocked out of their own world every now and then.

The war veteran. Almost 90 years old and he pedals for miles on a tricycle every day, usually in camouflage-patterned clothes (I wouldn't have thought that would be a veteran's first choice in fashion but maybe he can't afford to buy something else). Nearly deaf but fluent in two languages, always polite and ready for a chat with anyone. "Time to go home and count the kids", he jokes and it cuts me a bit to the heart because I witnessed the pain in him a couple of years ago when his beloved wife passed away after a long illness and I know his only child only rarely visits him. He has trouble with his heart and every time he leaves I wonder if this is the last time I see him, and I already know I will miss him.

Eeva L. A proper lady. Comes by every day, sometimes twice, and usually buys something from the basement - a silk blouse, a nice scarf, something expensive-looking. Always wears a skirt and heels, in winter a fur coat, plenty of make-up to hide the fact that she is over 60. In a town where elderly ladies usually are of the mousey kind, she stands out. She runs some kind of cosmetics business from her home and sometimes mentions needing all these nice clothes for business meetings, but my colleague warned me not to take everything she says at face value. She is quiet and has a beautiful, warm smile.

Old man Kanervikko. Smells of moth balls and his clothes look a hundred years old. Whenever he comes in through the door, I sigh because I know I will be listening to his chatter for at least twenty minutes unless I make an excuse to go off and do something else. But he needs someone to listen to him, so usually I stay for a while. He comes to buy some book recommended on the Christian TV channel (which he watches devoutly even though he is not a church-goer) and enthusiastically tells me about that book or some other he has read recently (i.e. within the last thirty years). However, chatting to him is usually rewarding, as sooner or later he will say or do something unintentionally funny. One day, he told me he had snuck out to buy a book while he was supposed to be baby-sitting his grandson - after making a deal with the boy not to tell his parents. "But I met the parents as I was leaving", he adds with a guilty giggle. Today, he took off his hundred-year-old hat, and small pieces of what looked like toilet paper fell out and snowed all over the floor. He picked them all up without a break in his chattering, stuffed them back in the hat and put it back on.

shine, don't shrink

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


(Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love)

that star, dancing out of reach

Being creative is fun and easy. But getting to that fun and easy part is such hard work. The main problem is prying oneself away from all those distractions.

According to Nietzsche, it takes a bit of chaos as well, of which I have plenty.

"Man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können" 
(One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star).

The lesson I have learned, though, is that creation is done one small step at a time. Even God couldn't do it all in one day. It's about building that cathedral.

midnight in the cemetery

The picture says it all. Three street bums making an evening of it with a bottle of whiskey. Right? Well, not quite...

The setting is this: A wooded valley between the mountains. Thousand-year-old monastery ruins with a cemetery where ancient headstones, overgrown with blackberry and ivy, lean eerily in the silence of deep midnight. The shriek of some nocturnal animal far away echoing through the valley. An enormous, starry autumn sky overhead. It's straight out of a Gothic novel or a classic horror movie. It's stunningly beautiful.

In the middle of the cemetery, the tiny Priest's House is a roofless ruin dating back to the 12th century. There are ancient headstones in here as well. We place a candle on the dirt floor and huddle up within the narrow stone walls, sharing whiskey, stories and jokes. We are new friends from countries far apart who feel a connection and have bonded as an adventurous, easy-going gang. We have shared a fun-filled summer and know that this summer has come to an end and soon there will be good-byes - probably forever. As the autumn night grows colder and the stars wander across the sky we curl up even closer to each other under a pile of wool blankets. One falls asleep, another worries quietly about ghosts, and I lie awake looking at the stars. It's a perfect night. Beauty, adventure, friends from faraway countries. Midnight in the cemetery, completely safe and at peace.

blood, sweat and tears of laughter

"I have blood all over me and I don't know whose it is."

The aftermath of a particularly vicious volleyball game can be disturbing for sensitive viewers. But I washed the blood off me and reflected on the fact that I had almost died on that court - of laughter. And we lost the game.

mom always said there's safety in numbers

One of those days. One of those days. At work. Hard to smile at customers, even more difficult to check emails and tidy the shelves, and absolutely unthinkable to get started on all those orders I need to put together. Brain working sluggishly at half-speed. Back aching from slouching in front of the computer, browsing anything even remotely interesting on the internet and being bored by all of it. Counting hour-long minutes until I get to close up shop and go home. Desperately in need of inspiration, excitement, a fairytale event crashing unexpectedly into my dull life.

One of those days when settling down to enter sales figures into a spreadsheet is the only thing that can soothe my troubled mind.

a stray comment

"We got engaged during a holiday in Athens, with a stray dog as our only witness. Now that dog is dead."

girl talk

"I was just kidding, you don't actually look like a teenager."
"You're saying I look middle-aged?"
"Well, what are you trying to prove with those ear-rings anyway?"

evening to dye for

This will be the day that I dye (my hair). But before that, time to head over to best friend's place with bottle of wine and the FaceBook film.

moving mountains long before we knew we could

I was born an idealist. A romantic. ( Oddly enough, as my parents were of the rather pragmatic, down-to-earth kind. ) I believed in all that stuff: Everything has a meaning, there is a God and he speaks, life is a wonderful adventure, the universe has patterns and symbols and miracles, there are mysteries to solve and treasures to find and a soulmate somewhere out there who will love me until death do us part. And if you do the right thing, the inevitable result is happily-ever-after.

As many born idealists, I am now a hardcore cynic. ( Realists seldom turn cynics as disappointments don't knock them down the same way. )

One sunny morning recently, as I was walking to work, the thought struck me: "Is this the reason I often feel at odds with myself?" I have looked at the facts - broken hearts, meaningless tragedies, an absent God, betrayals, hopelessness, the unbearable tedium of daily routine - and created an armour of non-belief and distrust around me. But no matter how appropriate and safe, even true, this armour seems, it fits me ill. It pinches, itches, chokes me. It's not me.

So, truth does not fit me? Maybe it's not the whole truth, just the surface of it. ( Ironically, that is a rather idealistic thought. ) Maybe there are some patterns and miracles after all, a few beautiful mysteries and a few people capable of loving and maybe even a God somewhere. And none of us have yet seen the whole picture, so who's to say Good and Right won't prevail in the end after all. I'm not saying I believe yet. But sometimes I'm willing to try, very cautiously, a little bit.

Because the world needs idealists and romantics. We are the ones who make others see these things. We are the ones, in an otherwise empty and ugly world, who believe these things into existence.

declaration: as of this day

Could we start again please? I will marvel over the miracle of being loved by you, just as I am. I will not suspect that you look at me with disappointment, indifference, resentment or ill will. I will not blame you for bad experiences in the past. I will not assume that you have given up on me or my possible future. I will not try to live up to any standards. I will absolutely refuse to think that I am a failure. I will lay down my burdens. I will live as if here and now is all there is. I will believe that anything is possible, even that I can change. I will expect wonderful things to happen today because you are right here beside me. I will love you absolutely, infinitely, madly.

and may all your St. Patrick's days be green

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona duit go léir, taitneamh a bhaint as an seisiún!

lion kings, a P45 and talent in the tavern

Random excerpts from correspondence from the Western civilisation...

"Can you cook? I doubt it though ..."
"Me and my lion king are fine."
"Your P45 and a cheque will be on the way according to Ms. R"
"May I just say that she put on a lot of weight too ..."
"This girl is ok but there is an abyss between me and her."
"I am the new Rita!!!!"
"One day my mother just took a little bit of money and escape to Europe because 'they' wanted to kill her. 'They' are the same that wanted to kill my brother and me ... no comments!!!"
"You are young, European and clever so you have too many choices."
"She and her girlfriend are very nice and friendly. For me is a very strange situation."
"Irish people don't talk about that ... all is 'grand'."
"I'm sure that after countless hours of talking we would have been ... no wiser."
"I think Patrick has gone quiet altogether. God love him."
"You may find me crazy but in my imagination I associate you with the image of a novelist. Did you ever consider writing?"
"Already had about 55 marriage proposals!"
"I'm shocked you even know a word like 'nipples' but mine are still very much intact."
"I'm not fleeing from the family to have them follow me!"
"The girls thought there was no talent in the tavern and wanted to go home."
"There is something going on that I can only call an exodus."
"How could we EVER fancy him??"
"He looks blurry and talks absolute blabla."
"We have 60 Irish priests staying in the house. I still try to make up a confession I'd like to do but it's hard being perfect me."

rescue a teenager today

Walked past the school I always walk past in the morning. Saw the same teenagers I always see hurrying to their first class or morning assembly or whatever they have to hurry to in the mornings. Actually, I always seem to meet different teenagers every day, how many students can there be in that school really?

Anyway, apart from my usual, semi-subconscious reflections - how glad I am not to be an awkward, scared teenager in school, how slightly envious I am of these kids with their glossy skin and bright futures - I suddenly got angry. At my own time in school, specifically those years (thankfully, only three) when the classrooms and crowded corridors were a war zone with potential enemies lurking everywhere. Where were the adults who were supposed to help, guide and protect? No teacher seemed to give a damn about a suffering fourteen-year-old. Parents offered help but when a stubborn kid claimed she could handle any problems on her own, they didn't press the issue. Bloody hell. A teenager can't cope with everything, no matter how convincing she sounds. They should have asked again, and again. Taken matters in their own hands and protected the kid, changed the world for her. Against her will if necessary.

What did I learn from this? That you'd better handle things on your own, because nobody else will be there for you. That there must be something wrong with me because I didn't succeed in making everybody love me when I was that shy fourteen-year-old. That it's a good idea not to be yourself, because who you are doesn't cut it.

Things can hardly be much better for teenagers now, in these days of even larger schools and fewer teachers and counsellors. It chills me to the bone when I think about it. As I walk past that school, suddenly all I see is lost souls going to their doom.

the bliss of the Irish

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive 
But to be young was very heaven"

Not a film star on a yacht in Monte Carlo. A hotel receptionist on a pier outside a modest little Irish town. But oh so happy. The quote could represent her whole existence right then.

(The quote is from William Wordsworth: "The French Revolution". I learned it not in studying English poetry, which I was never very good at anyway, but because it was splashed in bold print across the front page of a major Irish newspaper one day. The reason for the Irish press waxing lyrical? Ireland had made it to some semi-final in some football world cup, or something like it - unprecedented in that particular sport. Only the Irish would celebrate such a (to me) mundane thing by quoting poetry in the headlines of the day. It is so true what T.E. Kalem said about the Irish people and the English language:

"They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man's fate and man's follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth.")

before your snow castle melts

The month of March. When you are a child.

The sound of the wind in pine trees as dusk falls over the neighbourhood, the soggy grey snow beneath your boots, the smell of wet earth emerging slowly, the mildness in the air piercing the cold that has lasted so long, the light sky in the evenings, the first migrating birds returning, the feeling of promise.

You play your fantasy games in your melting snow castle, getting a little wet and cold as twilight descends. You have your own world which stretches further than the stars and knows no limit to hope and dreams, but you also have the safety of hearing the familiar voices of the neighbourhood. Soon, your father's car will pull into the driveway and you will run to him. And your mother will call out that supper is ready. Somewhere, a dog is barking.

Later in life, your dreams may break and you may learn that March is the month of murders. But if you have had even one of these evenings in childhood, you have a treasure that cannot be taken from you.

breath and death and the difference

Not breathing, that will be the death of me.

Well, obviously. But, really.

You shouldn't speculate about your own death. I'm not superstitious, but words do have power and you set things in motion when you talk about them (self-fulfilling prophecies and all that). But it's after midnight and I'm feeling a bit rebellious and a bit tired of playing by safe rules and I will die some day anyway. Right now it doesn't worry me in the slightest.

There is nothing physically wrong with me. I can run and jump for hours. Yet sometimes I have to control my breathing so as not to hyperventilate, just because I'm weak or not well or just generally anguished. Sometimes my body stops breathing and then remembers to restart at the last minute (with a reassuringly powerful effort, admittedly). I tend to panic in water so am a drowning victim waiting to happen. My father died because his lungs stopped working.

A very spiritual friend of mine once told me breathing is connected to one's spirit (spiritus in Latin means breath). Or perhaps to God's spirit, the one who is also called the Breath of God and is compared to a wind (Ruach Elohim). My friend suggested getting to know this Spirit. He may have a point.

What I really think? That I'm out of breath because I have been running for so long - hunted by pressure to be someone else, and desperate longing, and a terrible fear of not being loved. One day, I hope to be able to stop and catch my breath.

When you pick me up and carry me. Then I will feel as if I can breathe for the first time in years. Safe.

fight this!

While we are on the subject of grassroot movements... Have a look at this. Let's make one person famous - not because he deserves it but because it will save 30 000 children.


KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.


"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)

what happened to Sun Tzu?

There are some Sherlock Holmes fans even in my little city. I was forced to google #believeinsherlock, apparently a worldwide campaign, after finding little post-it notes here and there. This one was stuck to the cover of a book I happened to pull out from the shelf of a bookshop. (I'm not sure how Holmes and Watson felt about Sun Tzu?)

I am ever the fan of underground movements and bohemian campaigns, little assaults on the commonplace. Not to mention the feeling that this backwater town is somehow connected to the rest of the world.

pink day

I know it's hard to believe but I actually dressed in pink today. I own two pieces of pink clothing, both glimpsed here. Here's the Pink Cougar on her way to a coffee date with a young and innocent man.

He seemed to like it. I definitely liked it. We discussed calories, skinny models, unwise excuses to use for taking a sick day, failed marketing strategies, perfume and sweat, how far you are willing to go for your work, evening shifts and a Turkish soap vendor named Ali.

the Sisterhood of M

Three friends glued together for life thanks to a spacious city-centre flat with uninspiring rooftop views, a welcome-all attitude and a quirky wig-making landlady. University and a lively, strange city and a beautiful river within walking distance.

An intellectual one with a sharp mind, a logical leadership style, social skills edged with straight-forwardness, and a tendency towards anxiety. A romantic charmer with boundless exuberance, vulnerable openness, a taste for traditions and an urge to make friends with everyone and explore absolutely everything. And then the third one who is not in this picture, the rather confused one in the middle who envied them both and loved them both and learned to live thanks to them both. Strangely, she was the only one who was never homesick. That one was me.

just in case I ever leave

I am committing Finland to memory for future reference.

I pay attention to the way the ice crunches under my boots as I walk to work in the morning sun. The way my neighbours say hello as we pass in the hallway. How my mother smiles when I walk into her flat. How the Finnish language flows into intriguing verb forms. How regular customers in the shop always greet me in the same way. How my best friend texts to ask me if I'm also watching NCIS right now. How the view outside my window is always stunningly beautiful, no matter the weather. How my internet connection is never down (how could it, when I have four different ones?). How I can experience Arctic temperatures when I go out and still walk barefoot in my flat.

How I feel safe - in walking through dark streets in the middle of the night. In placing orders at work and knowing I won't get it wrong. In trusting that my stove won't break down as I cook dinner, or if it does, that I can make a call and someone will fix it before I die of starvation. In knowing that if I get sick someone will take care of me and it won't break my bank. In being able to predict how people think and act. In always having someone nearby to talk to.

In essence, Finland is Home and Safety. So how much is Freedom worth?

and a mustard seed afterthought

mustard seed thirteen (a.k.a. coming home)

Could there be two more beautiful places on earth to leave your heart? Between Sea and Fire there is nothing but Peace.

say I am wonderful

I look at an old picture of myself in ill-fitting clothes and cannot understand how I could love myself back then. Did I? Could I at all identify myself with my own body?

At some point in my life I acquired a dress sense which is now such an integral part of my identity that I feel almost physically ill if I wear something that doesn't fit me. Some people say they dress how they feel. I dress how I want to feel (not that it always works).

There should be nothing but beauty in the world. I work on that. I want to add to it.

nouns of March

Shocking diaries and Andromeda adventures (2006)
Abysses and shadows (2007)
Kiss resistance and wet feet (2008)
Jasper bracelets and angel choirs (2009)
Blizzard shopping and American wisdom (2010)
Crowded minds and sunset colours (2011)
Supermarket miracle and dream fuel (2012)

as one incapable of her own distress

Over a lazy Saturday coffee I try to list good things that have emerged out of my seven Finnish years of tribulation. There are indeed a few. And today, there will be a road trip through sunny snowscapes with good friends and a good man I hope to sit next to. At our destination, there will be cake.

And when I feel down, I am comforted by the thought of curling up on my sofa with a glass of wine and my latest TV-series addiction. Pathetic, yes. But there is also an element of fueling my deepest desire for change until it cannot help but take off - or possibly blow up in my face (but worry about that later).

the supermarket where Superman shops

So many pictures in this blog nowadays. It used to be a plain-text, boring old blog. Shouldn't really overdo it.

I just fell in love with pictures this winter.

To balance all the pretty dreamy images, here is kitchen-sink-realism: A mugshot of the supermarket where I reluctantly go to shop for eggs and bread. The one with the unbelievable queues to the check-outs, which give you time to study all the normal and weird people around you. The other day, an old man couldn't find all the euros he needed to pay for his groceries and an impatient businessman in the queue behind him stepped in to pay the balance. That never happens in cold-hearted, cold-climate Finland. When the old man tried to thank him, the businessman actually said: "Pay it forward." I almost proposed to him on the spot.

mustard seed twelve (a.k.a. the English Dream)

a beautiful shame

"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."

(G.R.R. Martin: A Game of Thrones)

mustard seed eleven

mustard seed ten

stuck in the middle with you

What would a baby think if she had the capacity, a week before her first Christmas? That the milk carton will look the same more than 30 years from now? That three dark-haired children of strength and tender hearts will be very different? That the Seventies are really cool-nerdy?

Maybe the one and only thought is, and will ever be, "look at me, Daddy".

darling books: beauty says, all will be well

"Eve was given to the world as the incarnation of a beautiful, captivating God - a life-offering, life-saving lover, a relational specialist, full of tender mercy and hope. Yes, she brought a strength to the world, but not a striving, sharp-edged strength. She was inviting, alluring, captivating."

Rereading the best book I ever read on what it is like to be a woman (Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge). How can anyone know so much about what I'm like? What I was meant to be and what went wrong?

Makes me a bit shaky.

mustard seed nine

kicksleds and monsters

Normally somewhat pessimistic, I knew it was going to be a perfect day from the minute I picked up some fresh donuts from the supermarket and drove out to the Island. Maybe it was because of the brilliant sunshine over white snow and the ideal winter temperature, just below freezing.

The Island has an ancient mummers tradition of sorts on Shrove Tuesday. It's mad, bad and dangerous to know... Young people get dressed up as monsters and walk around the village, making noise and entering a few houses. The general idea is to attack random people on the way, drag them into the ditch and "wash" them with snow, a cold and rather unpleasant experience for the victim. A crowd of children of all ages and some adults follow them around, drawn by morbid curiosity, and every now and then the mummers turn around and attack their followers. It's not exactly safe - I saw and heard complaints of scrapes and bruises, ruined cellphones, and witnessed children shaking with terror or cold or both. At one point I was trying to comfort my friend's toddler who cried as he saw his mother dragged off by two monsters while another approached him to rub some snow into his face.

And still, all the children were completely exhilarated afterwards. The adults bought hot dogs at an improvised concession stand and muttered about things getting way out of hand, but the same was muttered last year and the year before that and still everyone is eager to keep this tradition going exactly as it is.

I was trailing after the monsters like the others but was spared any attacks. Maybe because I am a stranger in this village where everyone knows everyone. But I was as exhilarated as the rest. It's a strangely scary feeling, standing passively still and avoiding eye contact as gangs of masked monsters - who never utter a sound - advance on you, while children run away and adults shift nervously but never resist as they are randomly and rather violently dragged off the road for punishment.

And the rest of it - moving around the snowy village roads on a kicksled with a toddler bedded down in sheepskins and wool blankets, passing ancient cottages and sleeping fields, golden sunshine giving way to blueish dusk and starry skies, hearing the locals chatter around me, warming myself by a gas barbecue outside the community hall, going home to hot chocolate and traditional Shrove Tuesday "klimp" soup and pastries with the Warrior Princess and her elderly aunt - it was all just perfect. As I knew it would be.

mustard seed eight

gonna have a riot

Heading out to the Island, where they apparently have their own quirky take on Shrove Tuesday celebrations. My friend's only clues were a vague "well, they hit people on the head" and a worried "I really can't guarantee that you won't break any bones".

But there is actual sunshine today, the bright "promise of spring" kind, and a dripping sound of melting snow on the windowsill. So I go bravely.

mustard seed seven

age and smoke detectors

I just had a terribly middle-aged thought: I should check the batteries in my smoke detector.

To counter-balance this thought, I now need to go do something teenaged. But it's late and I really just want to go lie in bed with my knitting and my hot-water bottle.

mustard seed six

waiting for future nostalgia

A slight thud, and then the wind howls in through the balcony door. I jump, startled. I was googling pictures of Irish guesthouses and my mind was far away in the milder climates of the Emerald Isle. But in February in Finland you don't let a door remain open if a stubborn winter wind has managed to tug it open, so I reluctantly get up from the sofa.

On the balcony, powdery snow is whirling around. I look across the dark, ice-locked bay and hear the wind rush through the night. The small city is already sleeping. I pull my sweater tightly around me but my feet, despite woollen socks, are already going cold. This is real winter in the North... and while I might wish with all my heart to be somewhere else, cry myself to sleep longing to for other horizons, this is home.

And someday soon, I will be homesick and heartbroken - for this. There is a bizarre hope in that thought.

mustard seed five

mustard seed four

mustard seed three

mustard seed two

mustard seed one

the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed

I have decided to visualize my dreams, even the ridiculous ones and the ones I don't believe in. Because when you do, you sow a seed. And seeds grow whether you believe in them or not.

So in no particular order, the seeds will show up on this blog. In a year or two or ten or forty, hopefully they will have grown into a lush forest of life.

transcendence, or how God tries to woo me

* Birdsong in the mornings when I walk to work or open the balcony door - even in midwinter, even when it's 25 degrees below freezing point.
* A day off, lounging on the couch with a coffee mug. Watching spring clouds or a bleak winter sun - sticking close to the horizon - move across the sky, taking their time. In no hurry anywhere, just being what they are: glorious.
* A bathtub, candlelight and Bach.
* Ireland.
* Taking a break from a grey, anguished, everyday life and sitting down at a café table. Being comforted by caffeine and a sugar rush, watching people walk by and having important thoughts just come to me. Or even just retiring to the dismal staff room at work and pouring myself a cup of hot black coffee, feeling as if this is a tiny moment of grace.
* Pubs.
* Ancient vaults surrounding me as I feel centuries of human life rush by.
* Music that overwhelms me, classical and modern at once.
* A walk through a foreign landscape.
* A smile and a touch from someone admirable.
* Experiencing the flow of creating / learning / doing something I'm good at / spiking a volleyball.
* A long drive, alone with music.
* Summer evenings by the sea, with a bottle of wine.
* The moment when I realise that someone knows exactly how I feel.
* The feeling of rebellion and freedom and being strong - I might have to explore that one further.

rule-breaking break-taking

Happiness is having a job where you can check FaceBook or chat with a friend or do something else completely non-work-related once in a while, even when your boss is watching. Even when you are not sure whether he/she will approve.

Being so sure of your own irreplaceability. Or just not worrying. Not feeling defensive. Being free.

moving literature in a cold climate

With thirteen cardboard boxes and a Swedish man... I aimed my car north and prayed its French engine would hold together in 23 degrees below freezing temperature. When you work with books, these are things you do sometimes.

It kind of feels good, transporting literature somewhere, despite the acute physical pain when you have to get out of the car into the Arctic weather.

In our sister bookshop in the town further north I loaded and unloaded boxes, discussed upcoming releases with the Swedish sales rep and my colleagues, had lots of coffee, took a good look around the bookshelves, checked FaceBook when there was nothing to do, had lunch in the Indian restaurant next door with my new boss and the sales rep. During the book talks I found myself uncharacteristically drifting off - into pointless daydreams of another life. What is wrong with me? Isn't this the life I should be dreaming of?

februarying

* Bureaucracy-battling and fun-needing (2006)
* Blueberry-scenting and attitude-controlling (2007)
* Post-it-noting and me-being (2008)
* Winter-hiking and coffee/toffee-strategizing (2009)
* Beach-harmonizing and Tesco-shopping (2010)
* Neighbour-watching and Observer-reading (2011)
* Shivering and father-figure-obsessing (2012)

how to survive Scotland

* Go to university to study English in your country of residence and then travel with your fellow students to Edinburgh for a month-long course for foreign university students.
* Ensure you are being housed with an elderly Scottish couple living in a tenement in the north of the city. He is retired and likes to play golf even though it cripples him for the next two days, she goes to work but still has the time to cook and clean and mother you. They are both excellent at dealing with your shyness and broken English.
* Stay in an attic room with poor heating (since you are unsure of how to work the gas heater and too shy to ask) but which has two lovely goose down duvets in the bed.
* Have doughy bread with marmalade for breakfast. Have lunch in student cafeterias or at Pizza Hut. Have hearty dinners with your hosts. Discover that crisps are perfectly respectable as part of an ordinary lunch, not just (as your mother taught you) an unhealthy snack.
* Take the double-decker bus - a lovely experience! - to campus every morning. Walk home every evening. ("I have miles to go before I sleep.")
* Explore the Castle, Arthur's Seat, Prince's Street Gardens, the Royal Mile, the Camera Obscura, the lovely little closes and the amazing book shops.
* Learn about Scottish literature, art, society, education and justice system. Not to mention Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. Learn absolutely everything about Scotland.
* Go on field trips to lots of castles and realise that it rains a lot even in May.
* Have a crush on one of the Scottish course coordinators and gossip about him during pub evenings.
* Experience cultural differences in relation to the other foreign students. Especially the ones from your own country. Deal with it and learn something in the process.
* Attend ceilidhs and learn to dance reels and gigs with men in kilts.
* Ask people in the street about ghosts. Interview a professor of parapsychology.
* Try the haggis.
* Act in a play. Almost get thrown out of a court room for giggling at the judge's wig.
* Walk seven miles to see the Loch Ness monster, because you don't realise how long a mile is, until a Scottish family takes pity on you and takes you to the lake in their boat.
* Travel on lots of trains, stay in lots of hostels and eat lots of fudge.
* Ride horses on a Braveheart beach, hitch-hike with strange men and manage to get involved in a local feud.
* Love Scotland.

go away, cold beauty

"I used to pretend I loved the winter. But I'm tired of pretending. I can't wait for it to be over."

After this statement, I put my insulated gloves on, pulled my woollen hat down over my ears and tugged the zipper on my fake-fur coat as high as it would go. Then I walked in the hazy almost-sunshine (much welcome after weeks of no sun at all) down to the snowy paths by the seafront. The sea was frozen and snowed over but birds were singing. It was so cold I could see ice crystals floating in the air. And I had to admit: It was beautiful.

how to write a thesis in English lit

* Do it in an era when few students (and certainly not you) have their own computer to use.
* Choose the computer lab of the English department at a small university. Make sure the lab is located in a tiny basement room with a couple of minuscule windows near the ceiling (showing the feet of passers-by to remind you that there is a world out there), limited air supply, about six working desktop computers and one temperamental printer.
* Choose to work on your thesis mainly on Sundays and in the middle of the night so you have the room to yourself.
* Choose as topic a modern work of literature but make sure it includes having to study Herodotus' The Histories in detail. A topic which you will have no use for in the future is preferable.
* Have the department choose for you (to your dismay) a thesis supervisor who is an eccentric Englishman who does not know how to dress or keep his office in order but who can discuss at length Medieval alchemy, celestial spheres, Orientalism in literature and other things that are utterly beyond your own understanding. Discover that he knows the exact formula for inspiring/pushing you to write, is able to descend from the celestial spheres and is in fact the best thing that has ever happened to you.
* Hum "ain't nothing gonna break my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving" while you write. Save your work on a floppy disc.
* Watch a certain film a hundred times and read a certain novel until it falls apart at the seams. Fill a large notebook with your illegible scribblings. Do some of this at a café where it is impossible to concentrate but which has great coffee.
* Ponder, "'till it drives you mad", the symbolicism indicative of national and/or personal identity, and the effect of post-colonialism on Sri Lankan-Canadian writers.
* Take endless, long breaks to surf the internet (a fairly new thing, and a limited experience in this era), reading Star Trek fanfiction and exchanging lengthy, eloquent and extremely funny emails with your email buddy Ole who is sitting somewhere else in the same city studying something really boring.
* Discover, after many long years of literature studies when you didn't really get it at all, the beauty of intricately symbolic writing. Let it affect your pragmatic heart.
* Make late starts a habit, and only call it a day when your brain and body scream for sleep or food. Ride your bicycle home through eerily empty streets in the small hours and feel strangely at peace while you wonder what your mother would say if she knew you were out alone at this hour. Count yourself blessed to be tripping over the same uneven cobblestones as students have for centuries and try not to wake your flatmate when you get home.
* Put your thesis on hiatus while you are busy working, holidaying or flirting. Email excuses to your long-suffering thesis supervisor.
* At last, spend a few hours coaxing the temperamental printer into printing your 70 pages, take them to the university publisher and pick out a handsome navy blue cover.
* Submit your thesis and revel in the feeling of being a published writer - conveniently forget the fact that in all probability, the two thesis examiners will be the only ones to ever read it.
* Realise that these were really the best of times and the worst of times.

* For a long time afterwards, occasionally entertain the fantasy that the author whose work you studied will one day read your analysis of his work (and be extremely impressed). Yes, Michael Ondaatje, I'm talking to you!

at opposite ends of a century

Two new prized possessions (after a year of frugality). A new phone. And an old pocket watch - handed down from my grandfather and probably owned by one of the American emigrants in his family. Hello, my beauties!

a native of Nokia land - supposedly

Want to feel like a moron with sausage fingers? Then I recommend buying a fancy new phone.

saturday night on the Island

Driving the long, dark road to the Island. The car skidding in every curve on the wintry road. Having to dip my headlights and slow down every time I meet another car (which is not very often). Keeping my eye out for elks and hoping the road won't get snowed in before it's time to go back home.

It's tough driving. But I'm experimenting with some new music on the stereo. And when I reach my destination at last, 40 kilometres later, lights are welcoming me from every window of the picturesque cottage. The candles are lit, the table is set and the guests are mingling. The Warrior Princess, dressed in pink silk, is smiling at me. It's the end of the world and the party is on.

to carry bumblebees

Last night I was carrying a stack of bumblebees which I had, in an ingenious way, crocheted into my sweater. Then I had trouble disentangling them from the same when I was about to release them into the forest. How does my boring mind ever come up with these storylines in my dreams?

That it was a "stack" was significant somehow - my mind puts words on things and probably only then visualizes them. Intriguing. I should donate my brain to research.

the veil between the worlds is so thin

A lovely man who is real and present, and an even better one who is fictitious - you would think the choice is easy. But, le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point.

the peace of white

Late Friday evening, a small city. A deserted back street near the seafront. The blizzard is just winding down and a snow plough has just barely cleared the street. Huge piles of snow has been pushed to the sides, almost burying the parked cars and mine is of course one of these. It takes me twenty minutes to brush four inches of snow off it, another twenty at least to shovel away enough of the powdery stuff around the wheels. The wind is hurling snow into my face, my thick gloves are getting soaked through and the drift is more than knee-deep in places.  Normally, this is something I hate doing, especially being cold and wet.

But the silence of the winter night is deep, there is only the sound of the wind which is strangely soothing. I work myself into a meditative state. Snow is so earthy - nothing is as real, as present. You can't ignore it and drift into a daydream when it is covering you, chilling you and at the same time calming you with its purity.

No matter how much you might hate winter, it is a powerful experience to embrace the essence of it.

a snowy night in the Underworld

"You know the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times."
"You know, that's the first of two curses."
"What's the other one?"
"May you find what you're looking for."

(Quote from my latest TV obsession, White Collar)

I am in no danger of any of these curses befalling me. This is the dead of winter, literally and figuratively. And what I am looking for can never be found. So I sit through dark nights of blizzards, with lit candles, lots of wine and left-over Christmas chocolates. Sometimes I even savour it - being dead. Being far removed from life of any kind.

Because I am Eurydice and there is an Orpheus coming to play his lyre and get me out of here, without looking back. Or perhaps I will just play my own way out. I'm practicing on the lyre.

January pursuits

* Dream of seagulls with teeth and get reacquainted with real winter (2006)
* Feel technologically successful and plan new Celtic adventures (2007)
* Experience sinusitis, raspberry soufflé and a splinter of the True Cross (2008)
* Walk in golden boots and attend chocolate tasting parties (2009)
* Feel the rain and the smell of turf fires and be unconditionally happy on an Irish beach (2010)
* Be down and out but occasionally seen despite invisibility (2011)

surviving quasi-winter

When the worst kind of winter (if you can call it that) hits Finland - alternating snow and rain, resulting in sleet, slush and utter dreariness - it is too dangerous to go out because you might be overcome by suicidal impulses.

The only recourse is to hole up with lots of candles, blankets, wine, chocolate, music and DVDs.

2011: everything from caraway fields to dead puppies

2011: A year of sorrow and various afflictions, Arthurian legend, poverty and absence of newspapers. A year of watching smurfette movies just to be near a certain man. A stay-at-home year when after two decades of foreign travel I did not go beyond 75 miles from home. A year that included four summer weeks of non-stop sun and family and happiness. A dull year often shaken up by whirlwinds of obsession and emotion. A year of being vaguely aware of revolutions in Arab countries and the imminent collapse of the euro but in my little street there were only dog fights and in my purse there was a constant lack of euros anyway.

* Started the year with grief, good friends, fireworks and Harry Potter.
* Found a way into my enchanted forest again.
* Suffered through a winter of repeatedly digging my father's grave out of the snow and lighting candles with frozen fingers. Pain had never before seemed so real.
* Dated a man with licence to kill. Probably should be grateful he chose to dump me only in the metaphorical sense of the word.
* Received a personal delivery of parmesan cheese from Sicily and salami from Hungary.
* Tried a combination of wine-tasting and volleyball with positive results.
* Dedicated a holiday week entirely to three seasons of a TV-show. Which caused some despair but also inspired me to be strong and brave, to fight, to seek supernatural power, to go back to the British Isles and find me a prince. Finally realised having kids and a house is not my thing.
* Found my first geocache underneath a jetty, within spitting distance from my own home, and learned that there are 500 of these treasures within a radius of 50 kilometres.
* Celebrated my birthday by trying new things: using an automatic car wash and changing tires on my car all by myself.
* Spent May Day weekend with fine dining and then a hike to the end of the world. Picnic on the beach while watching eagles, hearing the snow melt and feeling winter turn into spring.
* Experienced nausea, extreme weakness, dizziness, fear of death and even a few days of sick leave. Drew a skull and crossbones on my cough medicine bottle.
* Explored a mansion complete with ghosts and dungeons.
* Sold all of my stock (I had four shares in total, 6 euro each).
* Spent Midsummer's Eve with the Midsummer people, lilac juice and caraway fields. And Midsummer Day navigating the labyrinthic archipelago in an old wooden boat with a baby on my lap, feeling wonderfully lost in a water jungle.
* Felt responsible for the entire English-speaking world while arranging interpretation for a conference. Not many of them showed up.
* Savoured another summer in the serenity pool with the sticklebacks (who put on a show) and fantasy novels, and on the beachvolley courts with the beautiful people. The price: two lost toe rings.
* Watched a house move - literally.
* Found out I have a sibling in heaven.
* Attended a lovely wedding in a very bad place.
* Breezed through my first job interview in years and even succeeded in naming all the planets in the solar system.
* Got even more internationally involved.
* Enjoyed a Chinese tea and dumplings party which evolved into a wasabi-eating contest and story-telling of babies born in bank vaults.
* Experimented with towing a car.
* Subbed for the secretary of the CEO of the city's biggest construction company - for all of two hours.
* Edited a text for an Israeli writer but was interrupted by Yom Kippur.
* Practiced spending entire evenings with strangers - at a cottage at world's end and in a posh penthouse apartment.
* Had my whole world put in order by a virus and an Irish philosophy.
* Closed the grief door and opened the happy memories door - once again with the help of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
* Danced in black lace and fell in love with a man in pure white.
* Was given a set of Torah scrolls and helped a celebrity sell books.
* Attended the most chaotic christening ever in an Alvar Aalto church.
* Visited a friend who had a dead puppy on the coffee table.
* Lent my voice to a Christmas performance where the archangel Gabriel had a sizeable beer belly and the wise men of the east were very proud of their asses.
* Washed my phone in the washing machine. Both broke down.
* Swapped one obsession for another and was inspired to know everything, play the piano and love.
* Skipped work, for the first time ever, to stay at home and watch TV.
* Enjoyed a very lonely and lovely New Year's Eve with lots of red wine.
* Couldn't decide which dream to go for: Power-dressing, cocktail-sipping white-collar worker in flashy London/New York offices or boho chic aid worker running soup kitchens.

in need of rocket fuel tonight

"There are times when we need the rocket fuel of singing and dancing to power us through an act of blind faith. Falling in love is one of those times, when we need to move into a phase of enchantment with enough force so that when things cool and the air clears, we are locked into that person, that love. We fall in love and we sing as we walk down the street; we turn up the music and dance."

(Lavinia Greenlaw: The Importance of Music to Girls)

I'd even cut my hair and change my name

A Christmas spent with my beloved family. A Christmas spent longing to be somewhere else entirely where there are no well-behaved kids, well-decorated houses, well-organized lives.

I have to go live in New York. Otherwise I will never be happy ever again. Have to find a way to walk those streets, exciting days, cool and smart people, glitzy bars to look beautiful in, a love to share a bottle of red and cold pizza with in a cramped apartment.

I think maybe I could, if I only first could find fifteen percent concentrated power of will.

finding the gate, finding the door,
finding the streets I used to walk before
when I was free, when I could see
when I was crazy
I wish somebody told me *

And then what? Throw away what I have now? Family, a view of the sea, a job I not only like but even believe in? Where is God and why did he make me want things and how come is life so bloody complicated?

* Marie Serneholt: I Need A House

the deadly blog entry

Note to self: Before you turn on the washing machine, ensure your phone is not located inside it.

While my phone is drying out on top of the radiator, I try to write a summary of the year that is soon to end, as I usually do this time of the year. Reading through the draft, I realise it is like that book from some fairytale I vaguely remember: Anyone who dares to read it ends up dead. (Or is my recollection of that stupid horror film I don't want to admit I have actually seen, The Ring?). I would like to believe there is something supernatural about my text. But the dreary truth is, my year 2011 was so miserable and dull that anyone who is bored enough to read a summary of it will get an immediate urge to slash their wrists.

how to locate your deity

It is important to locate God. In case you were thinking about trying this little corner of Finland, I can advise you that he is not here.

My God is in exciting stories, fascinating and odd people, animals, science fiction, pubs and above all in foreign countries. Most likely he is somewhere in the British Isles.

favourite smells

Lily-of-the-valleys, peppermint tea, coffee, railroad tracks, books, cigarrette smoke.

academic love

I had just studied Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and like Orsino, I was in love with love itself. Like Olivia, I was in love with a dream.

I was a first-year student and dreamed one night about a boy, an older student who bossed me around like older students do with freshmen. I fell helplessly in love. As far as I knew, he didn't exist in real life. But you never know for sure.

I would go to the old factory building where the English department was housed and attend lectures in the depressing basement room (only a few tiny windows near the ceiling showing the feet of passers-by proved to us students that life went on outside). There were lectures on British society by a white-bearded English gentleman, who worried about us in with avuncular kindness, and a smart, older-brother-type of a post-graduate student. There were grammatical drills by a stern but eternally smiling blonde lady (I tried to dislike her as much as I hated her subject but found it impossible) and strange literary analyses led by a weird girl who sometimes seemed to detest us and an even weirder fat man who spoke in a dreamy voice about medieval alchemy (never realising that none of us could follow him to the higher spheres where he dwelled). There were lectures on language history that I followed with reluctant but increasing interest, held by a Santa Claus-lookalike who patiently endured the fact that few of us showed up for lectures and even fewer ever did any homework (his subject somehow always ending up last on our long list of priorities). There were courses in American society, literature and language varieties led by the guest professor from Harvard who was deceptively funny and likeable and who scared us all silly with his high demands and his warnings against procrastinating. There was the one memorable course dedicated to Shakespeare, presided over by our awe-inspiring professor who had once shook the Queen's hand.

(How I would have admired all these people for their intelligence and knowledge, had I met them later in life...! At the time I was either too scared of them or just assumed I knew everything I needed to know.)

I also spent time in the dusty, deadly quiet of the two library rooms of the department, strangely inspired by the towering bookshelves around me and the feeling that these contained knowledge not found anywhere else. I was never inspired by the small room where we endured small-group tutorials and were forced to answer difficult questions, present our essays and sweat through the criticism of teachers and fellow students. I was scared of the common room, cosy with its coffee fragrance, magazines, and funny quotes pinned to the notice board, simply because the older students gathered there.

And wandering around the long corridors and tiny rooms with old carpets and new desks, meeting bright and beautiful people everywhere, I secretly hoped that I would one day turn a corner and stand face to face with HIM, the prince of my dream. Or that he would suddenly emerge from a group of older students gossiping around their coffee mugs. Perhaps he would pretend I was beneath his notice, like other first-years, but as he passed me with a regal stride he would grudgingly nod at me or toss me a mocking but well-meaning comment. And that would be enough. I would be his forever.

what I didn't learn at university

Next time I get a university education I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. But I will also get more involved in my studies.

Last time around, I did go to parties, but usually the non-alcoholic kind. For some unfathomable reason, I didn't pay much attention to the boys. I spent more time worrying about my personal morals and the European Union (!) than enjoying youth and freedom. I ran from lectures rather than let them inspire me. Stupid, stupid me!

Still, there is something to be learned from this. In my present life, I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. I will pay attention to the men. I will stop worrying about worrying and I will enjoy freedom, experience and the fact that I work for a crap salary and a good cause. I will be inspired.

the kitchen of all humankind

"Wow, a personal visit by the Inquisition! Would you care for a coffee?"

When friends of mine drop by at the Little Shop of Harmony and I happen to be at lunch, my coworkers direct them to the staff kitchen where they inevitably find me chewing on a cheese sandwich while reading a book and brewing a pot of coffee. My coworkers never say so, but they seem to find these visits slightly odd. Can't say that I blame them. Various visitors in the staff kitchen during my half-hour lunch include:

* A giant of a man in black leather and tattoos weeping like a baby
* Another tall, muscular man striding in and going straight to the business of ripping a metal locker door off its hinges
* A third man in a long military coat who never makes it as far as the kitchen because he gets distracted by all the books
* A tiny Asian girl who looks no older than twelve and who leaves as quickly as she arrived without meeting anyone's eyes
* A doctor coming to tell me off (hence my Inquisition comment)
* My sister, bringing another cheese sandwich, coming to lunch not with me but with one of my coworkers
* An environmental engineer coming for hushed conversations with me regarding the Revolution
* Our landlord, bypassing my boss, breezing in to discuss the future of the shop with me

It's the kitchen that does it - never was there a better place for human beings.

there are priorities and there are princes

Hid in the basement when I should have been helping my coworkers with the Christmas rush. Because I needed to flirt with a handsome man.

December action

* Clubbing, eating blue cheese and pondering decadence (2005)
* Stormgazing and treehugging (2006)
* Finding the gates of Heaven at a street corner in Stockholm (2007)
* Suspecting God is off somewhere drinking whiskey and playing pool (2008)
* Trying to love winter while scraping ice off a borrowed car (2009)
* Being fatherless and facing a new world (2010)
* Thinking a prince might love me back (2011)

a flawless night in Vöråstan

Homemade, hot mulled wine, made on redcurrant and other currants and some serious spices. A cheese platter. Russian chocolates. A storm lashing the windows with rain. A friend not seen for ages. Candles.

Topics discussed: Life. Men. Cheese. Work. Disease. Friends. Church. How to change the world. Books. More books. More men. How to start a company. How to live on less. Ex-poodles. Kids. Internet connections. How to change the world while making money and living on less. Ice Age 3. Sugar addiction. Clearing out attics. Moscow. Ice-skating. Ultra-sound massage.

It ended on: "Where's your Calcutta? See you on Independence Day!" and a bike ride home in the rain.

deus dixit

 And the voice of God boomed:

Why are you working so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?

when I learned to spell Choszczno

Poland, in the '90s.

Summer heat makes the pavement soggy and minds foggy. Fairly clueless foreign teenagers sing in the streets for mildly interested Poles.

I sing my heart out, giggle when people give us money, long for an icecream and drown in the dark eyes of a Polish boy named Robert. New friends try to teach me the language, the icecream costs us thousands of zlotys and nights are spent sleeping on couches and floors.

We rehearse a dance routine by the tall, rundown apartment buildings where we live, while our host family's poodle begs us for snacks. Our hostess cooks us strange food in the tiny, muggy flat with the lace curtains. We take a canoe trip along silent lakes and creeks overgrown with the lushness of high summer and share baskets of cherries. We spend cooler evenings on the basketball and volleyball courts with youngsters from the neighbourhood. I have my heart broken by Robert of the dark eyes but I have friends who hug me, tease me and make me laugh with their weird plans of touring in a Fiat Polski. I realise that the strange people of Eastern Europe are fun, warm-hearted, wise and do know how to do a decent volleyball spike.

sewage and sugar rush

How much greyer could it get? You walk shivering through a city of bare concrete walls and wet asphalt, it's November with a lame excuse for a daylight, and you are forced to squeeze past a sewage truck pumping something smelly out of a building, hoping the hose won't burst just as you are delicately stepping over it in your best boots.

So you really, really deserve that delicious, colourful, supersweet and ultra-creamy cupcake that is fragrantly crooning at you from the pastry shelf of a cosy café.

These are the three things that I think about: writing, a prince, and cupcakes.

the day of nothing better

A cup of not-great coffee, sleepy remnants of a dream featuring the man of my dreams, vague anxiety. And the rest of the world is probably extremely happy.

decide to decide

"An entire planet of music is spinning past me, and I'm trapped here in a shrine to my stupid sadness. Time to join the party." *

There comes a point when pain and grief is ready to let go of you, if you let go of it. It just takes a decision. I think.

I will wait one more week. Then I will make that decision. I need to prepare myself.

* R.M. Goldsby: Rhythm

darling books: one I'm falling for

"I don't know."
We pass through the rear courtyard of the art museum, the one separating it from Dod. There are footprints here, back and forth in zigzags.
"You know what Charlie told me?" he says, staring at the marks in the snow. 
"What?"
"If you fire a gun, the bullet falls as fast as if you'd dropped it."
This sounds like something I learned in introductory physics.
"You can never outrun gravity," Paul says. "No matter how fast you go, you're still falling like a rock. It makes you wonder if horizontal motion is an illusion. If we move just to convince ourselves we're not falling."

One of my favourite novels, for its combination of ancient mysteries, life-loving university atmosphere and something else: The Rule of Four by Caldwell & Thomason. Makes me want to go to Princeton, stay up all night studying and fall in love.

the Himalayas and me

I have three problems:

I am lonely.
I hate cooking.
I am extremely poor.

And interestingly, for one of these I have some hope for a change even though there is no sign of it yet. Yes, the last one.

Meaning I don't believe in love and I don't believe I can change, but apparently I do believe the world will eventually come to its senses and offer me a decent job.

 

helmet vs. vegetable

Dilemma as I cycle around town: wear a helmet and feel ugly and ridiculous, or not wear a helmet and feel fantastic and alive? I don't fear hitting my head and dying. I fear hitting my head and spending a long life as a vegetable.

That was today's middle-aged moment. Now I will take my vitamin supplement and go do something slightly less pathetic. Count my pension savings perhaps?

I was born to dance on a mountain

I remember the days when I lived deeply and lived lightly.

I used to wake up in a big bed in a friend's house, comfortable under the duvet even though the room was slightly chilly. I would stretch and yawn and then decide that although it would be nice to sleep a bit longer, instead I would get up and make the most of this day. I read a few pages from a book left lying on the nightstand, a little pretty book* that said things like "When I loved myself enough, I started taking the gift of life seriously and gratefully" and I felt seriously grateful for little things, like the grey winter daylight and the cats that came in to investigate when I opened the bedroom door.

I looked out the window and saw little back yards surrounded by crumbling stone walls, and the rooftops of a little Irish city. When I opened the window, the air was chilly and raw, yet incredibly mild for one who is used to the severe cold of a Nordic winter. There was, as always, the sounds of Ireland (a burglar alarm going off somewhere in the distance) and the smells of Ireland (turf fires). Shivering in the poorly heated house but genuinely joyful, I sensed coffee brewing and went downstairs for a shower and a simple breakfast with one of my best friends in the world. Everything, from the weird start/stop-button in the shower to the breakfast rolls with marmalade, was both foreign and well-known. I was back in my second homeland with an intense, almost physical feeling of belonging.

And everything I did that day, and all the days of my all-too-short Irish visit, I did with mindfulness and concentration and simple enjoyment. It was a series of moments, ordinary but special. It was walks on the beach, talking to stray dogs, exploring the city's bookshops and back streets, food shopping in Tesco's, driving my friend's car (on the left side of the road!), reading papers to catch up on current Irish issues, lazy evenings with my friend, her cats and some wine while laughing at stupid Celebrity Big Brother. I felt at home visiting the dry-cleaner's and walking alone through dark streets to get a bottle from the off-license.

I did not let my awareness of life slip. I spent almost no time reading, playing inane computer games, checking in on FaceBook or worrying/dreaming about the past/future. I was just there, just then, feeling loved and at home and determined not to let an hour go by unexperienced. Determined to live out every positive and negative feeling instead of analysing them too much.

And I went dancing with old friends. And when they dragged me on a midnight drive along dangerous mountain paths to someone's house for yet another party when I wanted nothing more than a long night's sleep, I was able to let go of tiredness and fear and submit to the thrill of letting adventure take me where I'd never been before.

That's the kind of people I want around me: Those who take life lightly and enjoy it. Who accept people as they are. Who don't analyse everything but who can spend a whole day just hanging out together, discussing whatever comes up (whether it's celebrity gossip or deep emotions). Who are themselves without trying to live up to ideals that are beyond them. Who let their personality shine and allow themselves to really feel every feeling. Who can dance.


That's who I am: The person I am in Ireland is ME, the one I was created to be - free, open-minded, ready for adventure, curious, carefree. Now I just have to convince her to come back to Finland with me.

Run to win. Live your life, the world will wonder why. Or like my friend advised me: "Wear high heels while you still can."

* When I Loved Myself Enough by Kim McMillen

the mysteries of trees

Strolling in the romantically named Forest of Court of Appeal, which is growing wild and where you half expect to suddenly find Sleeping Beauty's castle, I came upon this little note lying on the muddy path.

"Maybe the next tree?"

Intriguing. But the next tree gave no further clue.

the November chronicles

In November these things have been known to happen:

* The government tries to drown me in forms and I am in despair (2005)
* I have tea with fifteen Africans and get a guitarist neighbour (2006)
* Game stew is served at the university (2007)
* I explore the mussels of Brussels and run past a "kiss and drive" sign (2008)
* Fancy fills my dreaming eye as I bond with a Brontë (2009)
* I make a comprehensive list of all the despicable people of the world (2010)
* I discover happiness in a virus and walk among ruins (2011)

influenza: the meaning of life

Today I have: a runny nose, a wheezing chest, a scratchy voice and a faint suspicion that I may be dying.

And, even more incomprehensibly than yesterday, I also still have that mysterious joy of life. As I dragged my soon-to-be corpse to work, I felt a spark of elation when I stepped out into the grey morning. That NEVER happens. And I didn't kick my neighbour's bike which is always parked where it blocks my way.

If this is one of the flu symptoms, I never want to get well, ever again.