coming home, fourteen years later

I'm back in the Magic Valley, fourteen years after it changed my life.

Nobody here looks familiar - all my friends have moved on too. But the valley is as welcoming as ever, soothing my soul with its loveliness and sweet memories.

After a long day out in all this beauty and fresh air, I walk into the hotel bar, nervous. What if I recognise someone but they look straight through me? The thought is unbearable.

That fear is laid to rest when a man looks at me and exclaims: "Come here, stranger!" It's an old friend - the patron saint of magic valleys.

He spends the rest of the evening buying me drinks and talking to me. I stumble back to my hostel a little drunk, completely happy and at home.

daylight lamps, spiced tea

November is monochromatic coldness, too much to do, jackdaws, favourite boots. The dreaded, sunless month of dying, always dark. Sugar cravings, evening classes. Start of the party season with cake and mulled wine. Daylight lamps, spiced tea. A little worry and a great love for life.

November withers down, the essence of life is left. Find this treasure and be happy.

bus stop: Serenity

I have become a person who takes the bus.

The bus is noisy, a bit smelly, the windows are sometimes too dirty to see through and the heater is often on full blast, creating a tropic micro-climate that is not the best when you want to arrive at work cool and unruffled.

Above all, the bus is slow, winding its way through four or five suburbs. It never goes straight down any road if it can find a small side road into which to do a sharp turn, or an dodgy neighbourhood to circle. My fifteen-minute commute becomes at least forty-five minutes long.

Still, I cheerily greet the surly busdriver and find my seat in the back where I endure the jolting and shaking journey, surrounded by students and immigrants. Because the noisy bus is an oasis of calm. A no man's land. Work stress is left behind at the bus stop. I can do nothing about anything, just sit still and think, or not think, and watch people and things I've never seen before. And afterwards get a much-needed walk from the bus stop.

The bus turns my hyperactive brain off for a while.

the numb fingertips of Halloween

It always happens around Halloween, when you're in the middle of your busy, tired autumn and still far away from Christmas.

The first mornings of scraping ice off the car and skidding on frozen puddles. The first lungfuls of air that smells of winter and nothing else whatsoever.

The first sensation of fingertips going numb when you forgot your gloves. The first uncontrollable shivers under a parka not quite thick enough.

The first snow, delightful and shocking with its promise of a new season.
The last week in October - the time when autumn turns from mild to harsh. My fingers are constantly numb with cold but when other Finns moan about the long winter ahead, I only worry about getting the winter tires on my car. Once that is done - always a mad scramble at this time of the year, always a cold, cold task - I settle in to enjoy the challenging, mysterious, exotic, dangerous winter in the North.

the Carrie years, with a happy end

Map of the school where I spent my first teenage years:

It still gives me that haunted feeling. Endless corridors, filled with smirking faces, where I was chased by wild beasts. No place to rest or hide. The nightmarish place where all those corridors converged, a dark place that smelled of burned metal and where a loudspeaker was forever playing Europe.

Carrie, Carrie, things they change my friend ...

Classrooms behind locked doors, dull in appearance and spirit. Prison yards, struggling against graffiti, where my best friends stabbed me in the back. A cafeteria smelling of onions and fear. Nameless horrors everywhere.

Seeing it again makes me jump with joy and walk with a swagger. I survived! I went through hell and grew strong, and I will never, ever, let anyone chase me through a dark corridor again. What is there to fear, after this?

starlings and my lost voice

Starlings in the crabapple trees sing joy into my otherwise quiet world.

I'm looking for my voice. I go walking in woods where I'm sprinkled with gold, every tree a jewel.

The sun is at an angle, always staring me in the face. Storms are pushing wild water up against thresholds. Rustling of leaves, insistent winds. Red sunsets, too early. Crisp dawns with blue skies or dull greyness, later every day.

The cold creeps closer and I'm knitting another scarf. The darkness creeps further into my days and I feast on juicy red apples. I teach myself French, then Russian. I travel by bus and drink wine with my friends. I pray. I dress with care and learn to live my life in months. October smells of wet leaves and pencils.

Almost half a year until spring.

mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

I dreamed of this back then, when I roamed the world and was feeling weary and homesick:

After a successful day at the office, taking an interesting evening class in the community centre in my hometown, the bright and airy building with the wonderful library and the cosy café in it. Being surrounded by people who speak my language, running into people I haven't seen for decades. Having coffee with a friend I've known forever, in that cosy café. Strolling around the library that was my second home as a kid.

Then going to visit my mother who welcomes me with more coffee and sandwiches, which we share with another random visitor, my nephew. Discussing everyday things (unpaid bills) with my mother and lofty things (macroeconomics) with my clever nephew. Feeling connected to past and future.

It's been a while since my world-roaming days and nowadays my dreams are mostly of new adventures. But today, as this particular dream came true, I was quite content with being right here - at home.

Childhood hoods

the good darkness

Cold rain, red and yellow trees, and people who are afraid of the dark. It is the heart of autumn.

I am not afraid of autumn darkness. There are worse darknesses out there, and so much light to create.

holding a man's aorta

For some reason, I'm standing in an autopsy room.

A man who was alive up until a few days ago, is lying naked on a slab with excrement on his inner thighs and his entire torso cut open. The sight is horrifying and utterly sad.

The only sane way to deal with it is to pretend that he is not real, just a very authentic-looking dummy. So that is what we do. The medical examiner and her assistant dig out the important organs one by one, cut and study them, while doing a running commentary to us two outsiders who have no medical experience whatsoever.

At one point, I get to hold the aorta so I can see for myself how calcified and hard it is. It's absurd. I'm holding a man's aorta in my hands.

It is fascinating. I'm thrilled about the experience. Not to mention relieved to find that I can handle the sights and smells without fainting. What a piece of work is man! What an intricate puzzle of complicated pieces that all function seamlessly together - until they don't. (And even then they can usually be fixed, even heal themselves.)

Even more fascinating is the fact that it is so clear, looking at this poor man, that he himself is long gone. Whatever the soul is, it has left the building.

Afterwards I enjoy the sun on my face. I feel happy to be alive, and away from the smell of decay. And I feel sad. We pretended that the man wasn't real and in a way he wasn't - but he used to be.

buses, biogas and kittens

September is the month when I stare sunset in the face, celebrate chocolate harvest festival and become obsessed with beanies and pulse warmers.

This year, it was also the month when I found a kitten on my balcony, looked into a biogas reactor and started travelling by bus.

not just in a grain of sand

I want to ...

visit Prague, Barcelona and Venice.

have endless cups of tea and then be rocked to sleep on the train from Helsinki to Beijing.

shiver with fear in the heart of Africa on a hot, dark night full of strange sounds, feeling very far from home.

sail up the Amazon river and see crocodiles, monkeys and other unpleasant animals.

drink beer in the colourful cantinas of Mexico and sleep on a Pacific beach.

look for my lost love on the streets of Sydney.

get lost in a maze of neon-lit alleys in any city in East Asia where I don't understand a word of the language.

lazily cruise Polynesia, the Stockholm archipelago and any other friendly archipelago.

explore New York, Oklahoma, the Dakotas and every other part of the U.S. A.

really feel India.

be drunk and in love among the glitter of Hong Kong

travel on a slow, small boat along the rivers and canals of the European continent, listening to chansons, boat horns, crickets and the popping of wine corks, passing underneath low-hanging branches that smell of honeysuckle and roses, close enough to the river banks to wave at playing children and hear the sizzle of meat from summer barbecues.


see every medieval castle and ancient ruin known to man.

I mix melancholia with excitement, bonfires with storms

August was:

Encounters with hedgehogs and eagles, carnival smoothies with a doctor, midnight car crashes far away, sea buckthorn berries, a bonfire in a storm.

Long talks and arbour planning by the sea. Inaction, weariness and a little worry. Crying over a dead squirrel and the discovery that I am very strong, sometimes.

Days alone in the wilderness with chocolate and Once Upon A Time.

As always at the end of summer, melancholia mixed with excited plans.

a woman like me, but stronger

There is a woman, like me but stronger, that lives in a tiny flat in a big city, with a handsome man and a scruffy mongrel.

Each day, the man and the woman take their weapon of choice and go out to fight the good fight together. They save people and make them courageous. The dog usually gets to come along. The woman comes home to write about what she has seen and send the words across continents. The man cooks mushroom pies that smells deliciously of garlic and sings old jazz tunes.

In the evenings, they climb out on the roof to watch the sunset and drink wine. There are candles and colourful blankets. She teaches him Nordic myths and truths while playing him songs in strange, important languages. He tells her things she's never heard before and reads classic novels aloud.

They travel and love.

There is a piano and they get lost in the music.

the summer of deep-sea monsters, never-ending picnics and plus-ones

July was:

The hottest summer for a hundred years, and an inability to move. A beach picnic with wine, another with cinnamon buns, a third with salmon and luxury beer on the hottest day of the hottest summer. Dozing in city parks on brown grass, on the run from my own home.

Busy work days in air-conditioned offices, lazy vacation days when I never moved from the beach. Floating on the sea, making plans to conquer my anger and frustration. Being surrounded by some of my favourite smells: the sea, a summer garden, garlic in the frying-pan.

A photography exhibition with Nick Brandt's awesome work and a weekend in Helsinki. Never wearing any shoes except sandals, occasionally. Swimming in silky-smooth seas, rescuing an ancient fishing net out of the water and meeting what might have been the Baltic version of the Loch Ness monster.

An expensive work party and lots of fun with the plus one that I should stop bringing with me. A pizza party barefoot on a dark balcony while a cataclysmic thunderstorm raged. A cute mouse carried into the forest in a bucket. Family and weariness and happiness and longing for rain.

to helsinki, to be inspired

We drive the 400 kilometres to Helsinki, the nations capital, to hang out on a lovely beach near the city centre and watch the beachvolley championships.

To eat a weird lunch of cabbage rolls, to sip cold beer under a chestnut tree while a group of Hare Krishnas are having a street party right in front of us.

To walk among oddly coloured houses, to feel the asphalt soften under our sandals in the sizzling heat, to seek refuge and good coffee in deliciously cool malls. To watch people with weird hair colours and weird attitudes. To wonder about the hieroglyphs painted on a door.

To spend a lazy, inspiring weekend in a heatwave, in a beautiful, quirky and cool city.

storm-gazer's day

Storm-gazing across a darkening bay, breathlessly waiting for thunder rolling across land and sky. Making a show out of it, lining up sunchairs on the beach and handing out icecream, squabbling over whether that there was actually a lightning or not.

Thrillers are being read, neighbours are chatted with, bitter coffee is drunk.

Another hot day moves lazily into evening, darker than usual as the rain finally arrives. I feel the thirst of the withering land through my bare feet. Dry grass sighs with pleasure under warm rain. We light lamps for the first time in weeks - tonight there will be no near-midnight-sun - and huddle up around a kitchen table to eat chocolate pudding.

I'm savouring family life. There are dark winter nights ahead with not much company except for that of books and dreams, but that's OK. For now, there is everlasting sun and people to love and plans to be made.

horizons and horseflies

July sizzles under a record heatwave. This is where I'm happiest: in a cool sea, under a hot sun, with nothing but silent horizons and dreams and languages around me.

I stay as close to the sea as I can. Staring at distant islands, getting grass stains on my shorts, finding myself. I cook for my mother, study birds with my sister, lend my car to my brother-in-law, play silly games with my nephew.

I forget that there are such things as shoes, cold rain, work, lattes, make-up, friends, indoor activities.

I get annoyed by such things as horseflies, the proximity to my mother and the fact that the sun is trying to kill me.

I'm not moving from my hiding place until July is over.

me and another language and a mock-orange

I sit on a bench in the park and smell the sweet mock-orange and practice phrases like parce qu'elle est jeune nous pouvons la comprendre and think that it doesn't matter so much that I sit here alone.

his eyes aren't the ocean

"His eyes aren’t the ocean; I’m not going to drown when he tells me he doesn’t love me anymore.
His freckles aren’t really constellations that I can trace my fingers against so I can feel the stars shimmering under his skin,
and his veins are not a map I follow to lead me back to his heart where I belong.
He is honestly just a sleepy eyed boy with dimples and crooked teeth.
But it’s really hard not to see the world in someone when in truth, to you that’s what they are. Your entire fucking world."

(There’s just something about you (H.S), Dumbdaisies, Tumblr)

pine resin and a sing-along

The month of June had:

A boisterous party with rain, barbecue, birch leaf wine and a lullaby, career changes and the man who always runs out in the middle of parties to save someone in distress.

A poodle week with summery walks and early strawberries.

Long days by the sea with pine resin, sweat and old lady-watching.

An icecream session with the clan and a sing-along in a microbrewery.

Watering the wildlife and translating gangster movies.

the five-hour dinner of the Midsummer People

His beard is long and he looks like a hipster, my friend who has decided to leave the field of theology for a possible career in law enforcement.

It's Midsummer's Eve and he is in charge of the barbecue. I'm keeping him company in a drafty barn where we are barely sheltered from the cold rain. I move closer to the heat of the grill. I'm not dressed warmly enough in my jeans and tee but the smell of sizzling meat is delicious.

The air in the barn is dusty and grey, a bumble-bee occasionally buzzes around us. We have not talked like this for years, not since our days of playing pool in a dark basement.

Our friends are already gathered around the table. The cottage in the middle of the woods is warmly lit and nobody cares about the cold rain outside. There are hot steaks, corn and haloumi, homemade birch wine and a runny sorbet. There are more strawberries than we can eat. Someone plays a lullaby on the guitar and someone cries and someone gets their clothes ripped off by kids on a sugar rush.

The meal lasts for five hours, with the usual breaks for naps, rescue missions and disappearances.

l'or de mon passé

Since I can't write, I will quote and steal for a while. For all Francophiles out there, here are the words to a wonderful song.


Je voudrais oublier le temps
Pour un soupir, pour un instant
Une parenthèse après la course
Et partir où mon cœur me pousse

Je voudrais retrouver mes traces
Où est ma vie, ou est ma place
Et garder l’or de mon passé
Au chaud dans mon jardin secret

Je voudrais passer l’océan, croiser le vol d’un goéland
Penser à tout ce que j’ai vu ou bien aller vers l’inconnu
Je voudrais décrocher la lune, je voudrais même sauver la Terre
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Parler à mon père

Je voudrais choisir un bateau
Pas le plus grand ni le plus beau
Je le remplirais des images
Et des parfums de mes voyages

Je voudrais freiner pour m’assoir
Trouver au creux de ma mémoire
Des voix de ceux qui m’ont appris
Qu’il n’y a pas de rêve interdit

Je voudrais trouver les couleurs, des tableaux que j’ai dans le cœur
De ce décor aux lignes pures, où je vous voie et me rassure
Je voudrais décrocher la lune, je voudrais même sauver la Terre,
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Je voudrais parler à mon père

Je voudrais partir avec toi
Je voudrais rêver avec toi
Toujours chercher l’inaccessible
Toujours espérer l’impossible
Je voudrais décrocher la lune,
Et pourquoi pas sauver la Terre,
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Parler à mon père


(Céline Dion: Parler A Mon Père)

gardens, aioli and other things I don't write about

There are so many beautiful things I want to write about.

The way the evening sun falls across the garden right now. The whispering sound of birch logs burning in the fireplace. The fragrance of woodsmoke and a summer garden. The quiet peace between the trees, heavy and soothing as a warm blanket.

And more: The feeling of freedom last night as I cycled home through empty streets, a little drunk and a little in love with life. The smile on a new friend's face as we shared a bowl of baked potato wedges in aioli. The warmth of the sun as I drank coffee on my own in a quiet courtyard. The joy of painting my nails with chartreuse varnish. Receiving a phone call from my mother, thirty feet away, who wants to wish me a good day. Solitude and the meaningful looks between friends. Little details, colourful and funny.

But I don't write about all this. Because everyone is clamouring for attention and I would hate to be one of them. Because I'm tired of seeing written words falling flat.

the planet needs

“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kind.”

(Dalai Lama)

pine resin day

Bare feet, smell of pine resin, hot sun and nettle burns.

The sound of wind in tall grass, a chain saw cutting through fresh wood. Pine branches scratching skin, coffee breaks with sugary donuts. Trees falling. A woolly poodle being carried to safety. An old woman, a young man and two people who are halfway, gathering up loose branches and pushing wheelbarrows.

Hot  skin, tepid water thirstily drunk, a delicious rest in cool moss.

background music

“You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.” - Annie Proulx

(Except that now there is, everywhere. And sometimes that is a tragedy. But I know what Annie meant.)

hot town, summer in the city

We wander slowly.

In fragrant parks where lilacs bloom. Along deserted back streets where seagulls attack us to protect their chicks. Past children who play a noisy game called "What Time Is It, Uncle Wolf?" To the beach, where we linger to play in the shallow water. On the busy seafront path, past the even busier icecream kiosk.

In the cool morning air, when the world feels new and promising as we buy strawberries at the fish market. In the heat of the afternoon, when the shade is delicious under linden and maple trees. At midnight, when the sky is still white and pink and we can pretend the human race has left the earth to swallows, hares, dogwalkers and poets.

It's my favourite season and I have the best of companions - a poodle.

no matter what mayhem

“I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

(Susan Cain: Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)

the elders who loved me

How I remember them:

My grandfather, the farmer with a thousand stories and a love of open fields, had a pear tree in his garden with the tiniest and sweetest of pears. He once opened the door on his birthday to find that a capercaillie had wandered up on the porch and pecked on the door. He also taught me to play with matches.

My other grandfather, the farmer who had grown up poor, married above his station, fought in the war and knew how to make shoes, dressed in brown trousers with suspenders and sat in a rocking chair.

My grandmother, who had said goodbye to many emigrant brothers, studied English, knitted and went on guided trips. She always packed a sandwich lunch for me when I was going away.

My other grandmother, who during the war had run a farm (despite allergies) and raised children on her own, crocheted the most intricate blankets and doilies until rheumatism stopped her. She sat on her bed all day long, gave me sweets and listened when I played on her old pump organ.

What they all had in common: Love and a generous spirit. They are all gone, and I miss them all.

not so fantastic beasts and where to find them

I have whistled at a rosefinch, chased a seagull, been chased by mosquitoes, cooed at a baby hare and knocked down a wasp's nest. Not bad for a day by the seaside.

monthly report by the queen of denim

The month of May ...

There were weeks in the city: Hammering out thousands of subtitle two-liners, walking barefoot to the kitchen to make bitter coffee. I pulled down the blinds,visualized blindness and was blinded by a hot sun. In the office, I ruled the world of denim and wool - reconciling Swedish fashion dreams with Turkish deadline facts and putting a tea stain on a merino sweater. I got myself nerdy-cool glasses.

There was too much work. But there were also walks on the seaside path in hot weather, icecream with my icecream friend. There were parties on a balcony overlooking the bay, fueled by strawberry cider or pinot gris. I would have liked to drink wine and discuss God, world literature and the mysteries of science. Instead, we drank wine and discussed sex. Some of us sang along to the music - When you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong ... and sweet like a chic-a-cherry cola. That was OK too, because we laughed a lot and I declared myself as being "made of cobweb and birdsong". Other visitors gave me mango sweets in exchange for suspicious pills, or promised me boat trips.

There were weekends by the seaside: sun and sweet air, a hundred swans. An old lady who had to be watched over and occasionally fought with. A laptop full of jobs. Peace in my leaning ivory tower.

nice day for an autopsy

I happily ditched work and biked through sunny streets on a beautiful spring morning to attend an autopsy at the hospital.

Sometimes I suspect my curiosity is becoming a little too morbid.

a man's neck

“The line of a man’s neck can change your life. The way he digs in his pockets for change can make your heart groan and hands grow cold. How he touches your elbow or the button that is not closed on the cuff of his shirt are demons he’s loosed without ever knowing it. They own us immediately. He was a thoroughly compelling man. I wanted to rise to the occasion of his presence in my life and become something more than I’d previously thought myself capable of.”

(Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky)

some merpeople don't exist

"Sit like The Little Mermaid!"

Our pilates teacher is giving us instructions. "Imagine that you're mermaids, with your tail spread out like so. Mermaids and ... what do you call men with fish tails?"

Our little group of women and a couple of men goes quiet for a second as everyone ponders this. Then somebody says, in the voice of a patiently admonishing teacher, "Men like that don't exist."

I find this funny on many levels. But maybe I'm just trying to laugh myself out of a desperately painful body position.

on violets and swans

Violets are blue and sprinkled all over the lawn.

Swans are as plentiful as rocks and look the same as they slumber in shallow waters.

The year's at the spring and the spring is chaotic, jubilant, excessive.

My temper was red-hot with fury and is now sinking into a lime-green pool of peace.

what the wind does

I spent hours sitting by the sea today. After a day with no wind, I finally heard the west wind arriving across the sea.

It confused me for a bit, that a wind could just arrive so suddenly. But then I thought, "I have been indoors too long. This is what the wind does."

This summer, I will be outdoors with the birds.

a merrier world

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - J.R.R. Tolkien

you and me and the road to Hook Head

You have no idea how much it means to me - to be driving around the back roads of Waterford and Wexford with you on sunny, windy April days.

Avoiding potholes, looking for the first spring flowers, taking the ferry across the wide river Suir. Stopping for a baguette lunch in sleepy villages, seeking treasure on marvellous beaches at low tide. Asking for directions to Tintern Abbey. Rating garden gnomes for their ugliness, cooing over newborn lambs.

Wrapping scarves around our necks against the cold, putting on sunglasses and feeling the hope of spring. Looking for the devil at the eerie Loftus Hall. Almost getting swept out to sea by the wild waves around Hook Head lighthouse. Feeling at home in a country that is not our own.

All this, while asking each other the deepest questions in life.

walk on water, win this fight

I walk along a windy, endless beach of smooth sand, seashells and pretty pebbles. With me is one of my closest friends, not seen for years. We are less than an hour into our happy reunion and there is a slight tension between us - are we still close, has she changed, have I changed?

We watch surfers and playing dogs as she tells me of her plans to kill herself before her birthday next week. It seems so wrong, more than ever against the wild beauty of the beach in the sunshine, the tide just starting to come in.

When the April wind gets too cold we sit down in a café that is warm from sunlight, steaming coffee and the exuberance of families celebrating a sunny spring day. We drink hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows and talk in low voices about possible reasons for living.

It's completely absurd, but I have never felt so intensely alive.

choose to call it an epic

“Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that’s when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that’s celebration.”

(Shauna Niequist)

when everybody sings at night

This is a time of boat trailers rattling by on my cobblestoned street.

This is a time when it's impossible to sleep because the nights are too white and because everyone sings: drunk men in the streets, partying neighbours, the birds, yourself.

It's a time for t-shirts and sunscreen, and for wool cardigans and thick socks. For the mad Walpurgis night. For cold picknicks on foreign strawberries and homemade mead with raisins. For lounging on beaches where the sun is hot, ice floes are melting on the water and sea smoke sends chilly vapours to the shore.

It's a time for dust in the city and mud in the country.

monday in Monaghan

"Don't taste the foam", I say. "Dip straight through to the dark liquid."

I am in Ireland again, at last, and this time I brought a few Finnish friends with me. We're on a road trip and ended up in the rather unknown little town of Monaghan, where we had to stop for the night.

It's Monday. Monday in Monaghan, and we're celebrating our last night in Ireland with a little pub crawl. One of my friends is trying Guinness for the first time and I'm giving her advice. Guinness can be a shock when you're not used to stout - it was for me, the first time, and I couldn't even finish my pint without adding blackcurrant essence to it. Now I'm thinking I should make Guinness my drink.

Monaghan is dark, quiet and secretive, a contrast to the wild coast of Donegal we experienced during the last few days. Already drunk on holiday feelings we have stumbled out of the guesthouse and into the nearest bar.

In Ireland (and probably everywhere else) you know you've found an authentic, non-touristy pub if the only patrons are a few men, seated at the bar, who turn around and stare when you enter. You know you've really struck gold if one of them, the resident drunk, greets you eloquently despite his inebriated state and the others tell you not to mind him. This bar in Monaghan does not disappoint. We reply cheerfully and drink our Guinnesses and Jameson's.

The next, and last, bar on our tour is even better. Dark as sin, Gaelic name, even more unembarrassed staring. A couple of us decide to shake things up a bit and order Bailey's on ice. The bartender couldn't have looked more shocked if we had asked for a pint of the Saviour's blood. That's all it takes for the locals to engage us in an intense discussion about the terrible spring Ireland is having and whether Finland's could possibly be any worse.

The Bailey's comes in slightly dirty glasses and is delicious. Our Monday night out in Monaghan is a roaring success.

the making of music

My mother, probably sometime in the 1940s, sat down at a pump organ, the kind that was rather common in Finnish homes, chapels and schools at the time. Her grandfather kindly taught her a few basic major and minor chords and she practiced putting them together. In the same way, she sat me down at our beautiful upright piano many years later and passed the chords on to me.

My father, when the mood took him, would sit down at the same chocolate-coloured piano and hammer out the sad-sounding tune to a hymn with the oddly happy title "Jag har inga sorger i världen".

I had already taken many lessons in classical piano (and hated it) but chords were a new world to me. Somehow I managed to figure out, before the age of the helpful internet, how to put them together and make music, starting out with a melody and the root note. I found some song books and taught myself to play.

When I moved away from home and the chocolate-brown piano, I bought a synthesizer with a little help from my father and took it with me to university.

A few years later, my music maker was an old, black upright in a back room of an Irish hotel. The hotel staff got used to me sneaking into the room in the evenings to practice everything from the Moonlight Sonata to hymns and pop songs. The music soothed me if I was upset and inspired me when I was restless and frustrated. The piano was eventually moved to the hotel's main lounge and occasionally, when I was feeling brave and not too many people were around, I played there too despite my fear of public performance.

Then, there were the quiet years.

Now, every Monday evening, I cycle through lashing rain or walk along icy back streets to the little bright room with the piano, clutching sheet music in my hand. My teacher meets me with a smile and many encouring words. Music has returned.

stop being an arrogant bitch

My whole life, just about, I have wanted to create. More specifically, to write.

My whole life, just about, this craving has frustrated me in some way or another.

As I get older, I increasingly doubt my ability to write well. But that is not really the problem. The problem is that I have nothing to write about.

Now I have identified the underlying issue, I think. I don't know how to write, because I have no-one to write for. An important part of me don't want anyone (at least not anyone I know in real life) to read it. Maybe because I'm afraid of judgment. Maybe because I have come to detest the ever-present attention-seeking everywhere, manifesting itself on social media, and would do anything not to succumb to the same.

Because I think that I'm better than all these pathetic attention-seekers.

And this arrogance stems from bitterness - over all the things that never turned out the way I hoped (expected!) them to do - and secret envy of others.

My self-prescribed medicine: learn to love myself and my life, such as it is, and humbly let people into my secret life of writing. Stop being an arrogant bitch.

have to be everything

“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.”

(unknown)

by the turf fire

For the best breakfast in Dublin:

Make sure it's lashing down rain of the coldest, most awful kind outside. Find an ancient, venerable café that has a marble-topped table right next to the fireplace with a fragrant, warming turf fire. Order organic porridge with blueberries, granola and honey, and a glass of orange juice. Read the paper and eavesdrop on upper-class people complaining to the manager about how the service no longer is what it used to be a hundred years ago. Feel the friendliness and goodwill of the Irish permeate the atmosphere, even so.

Sigh with pleasure as the heat from the fire soaks into your cold, weary body.

the country of deadly

I went to Ireland, again.

I found a country slightly more worn-down and a people even friendlier than I remembered. The coffee had improved slightly, in some places.

Everything else seemed more or less the same. Green hills, curiosity, sunny spells and scattered showers, radio morning shows in cosy kitchens or on commuter buses with rain-streaked windows, the best seafood in the world, Guinness in dark pubs, great bookshops, wild landscapes, B&Bs with flowery curtains. A feeling of home and adventure at the same time. All the world in one small country.

You're 100% Irish when punctuation really isn't your thing

an unlikely pilgrimage

In a faraway land, where I once lived, a cave sits on the steep hillside above a dark lake.

More than a thousand years ago, a saint lived in this cave. The hillside is impossibly steep and treacherous and the cave is said to be unreachable except by boat - and there are no boats on the lake anymore.

But on dark nights, over too much red wine and whiskey, one or two of my many intrepid friends have whispered to me of a secret path that winds along the lake shore to the cave - difficult to walk, dangerous too, but not impossible if you have courage.

One of my stranger dreams is to find this hidden path and make my way to the saint's dwelling. To reach this wild, impossible place at the end of the world. I may never get the chance - after all, I live two thousand miles from there - but it doesn't really matter in the end. Having this secret plan seems important.

she once asked me

“She once asked me the name of my favourite poet and I replied
God
She laughed and played along and asked me which one of his works was my absolute favourite
I said it was the one where he wrote her into existence”

(unknown)

oatmeal and insecurity

Now: Snow, oatmeal porridge with honey and blueberries, a feeling of insecurity.

Later: A quiet office, pilates class, a question of why.

sorbet in the streets

The cold is easing up under a relentless sun and the snow under my feet is turning into a sorbet-like mush.

March, a long time ago, used to be the month for building the last snow forts, the kind that fortify themselves with a glaze of ice during cold nights. Getting your bike out of storage. The joyful lightness of exchanging heavy boots for sneakers in electric colours. Delicious sunlight on your frozen face. Mild evenings with woodsmoke and dogs barking in the neighbourhood.

March, not so long ago, used to be the dreaded month of working too much and endlessly waiting for winter to end. This year, I'm enjoying it.

I unbutton my heavy, green coat and flex my fingers to warm them up for my piano lesson.When March ends, I will play "Walking My Baby Back Home" during my last lesson ever. A new season will begin.

March is the month of nostalgia and preparing for new adventures.

cold ghost wandering

“Lonely skies, orphan eyes, I’m a cold ghost wandering, waiting for a warm hand to take my own, for a warm heart to lead me home.”

(Josh Riebock)

the road to the Loire is a difficult one

It's in a luscious garden in France, just as the July heat is cooling into a delicious evening, that I decide that I hate my best friend.

Behind us are days admiring the beautiful, rocky coasts of Normandy and Brittany. We have explored the smaller roads, laughing and snacking on fresh apricots and smelly, wonderful local Camembert. But I'm tiring of the sea. The alluring Loire valley, with its rolling hills, fairytale castles and a thousand years of history, is beckoning me.

My friend wants to stay longer by the sea and then take the motorway straight back to the airport.

This is where we hiss our most heartfelt feelings of disappointment at each other and I run off into the old garden just to get away from her.

Travelling together can do that. Even if you are the best of friends who have travelled together before.

The end of the story: we made up, compromised, travelled through the Loire valley and had a few more wonderous adventures.

to see a world in a cup of espresso

A memory:

The waiter in the little seaside café brings me an espresso because my rusty French doesn't seem up to ordering the café au lait I really wanted.

Sometimes the world decides to show you new perspectives of itself. The espresso, coupled with a tiny piece of dark chocolate, flows into me like smooth, black honey.

Around me are sunwarmed cobblestones, squabbling sparrows and a sweet breeze from the sea. I am free, I have my best friend with me and I am on the beautiful coast of Normandy.

to call myself beloved

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

(Raymond Carver: "Late Fragment")

not brave

I am not brave.

Throw me in the sea and I will panic and drown. Put me in a roller-coaster and I will suffer an immediate heart attack. Force me to endure a flight in heavy turbulence and you will hear me whimper with fear. Whisper the word 'cancer' and I will scream at you to shut up.

But give me honesty and then ask me to take a risk on you. I will calmly assess the situation and then take the jump for you.

road trip with Camembert

For an ideal summer week in France:

* Bring your best friend and rent a car. Try not to faint with fear while driving out of Paris in the mad rush hours.
* Drink real espresso, complemented with a piece of dark chocolate, in a seaside café in Normandy.
* Buy Camembert cheese, newly picked apricots and local cider and throw in a couple of bottles of wine. You will develop a tolerance for the strong smell of mouldy cheese that is fermenting in the hot car.
* Admire the rocky coast of Normandy and Brittany, playground to the likes of Joan of Arc and many a famous painter.
* Sense the shock and grief still lingering over the eerie fields of Omaha Beach.
* Stay at picturesque chambres d'hôte and struggle making conversations with the chatty hosts in forgotten French.
* Fear for your life on the back streets of Le Havre.
* Discover that your friend wants to stay by the seaside but you dream of reliving history in castles and stone age tombs in luscious Anjou.
* Have epic fights with above-mentioned best friend in the idyllic Loire valley and make up in time to have equally epic giggle fits over strange things such as ghost towns and monsters hiding in wheat fields.
* Spend a day of massive thunderstorms in Chartres and its enormous cathedral.
* Come home without your suitcase because the Parisian baggage handlers had an important football game to watch. Allez les bleus!

the day of the Saudi-Arabian camel whip

Penkkarit is being celebrated these days. Final year students of upper secondary schools hail their last day of school by coming to school in fancy dress, arranging all sorts of merriment and parading through town piled onto lorries, shouting and throwing sweets at everyone.

I remember my own penkkarit decades ago, dressed as a stereotypical cowboy (or as such a one was imagined in Finland in the 90s). It was so crowded on that lorry that I hardly felt the piercing February coldness. Twelve years of school were over and the future beckoned.

I was rather incongruously carrying a serious camel whip, a real one brought home from Saudi-Arabia by my brother. It impressed everyone.

Harry Potter and the Regressing Adult

It's been a Harry Potter winter for me and my friends, as we dedicated seven dark evenings to rewatching the films over wine and snacks (and once, memorably, cheese fondue). Say what you want about the wizard boy, he makes for great entertainment. On film as well as in the books.

Some deep reflection, too. And emotions (unless that was just the wine). I can't get into the Potter world without feeling the longing for a great cause and the aching need for love.

Now I'm reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the first time. It's a script for a play and so only gives you the bare dialogue and a few stage directions. And yet, I feel deep emotions welling up in me again. Different ones, this time: the cold loneliness of being different and not understood, the anger and the need to rebel just to be seen for who you are.

I think I'm back to being a teenager.

your very flesh shall be a great poem

“This is what you shall do;
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches,
give alms to every one that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, 
read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,
re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

(Walt Whitman)

winter, electric and crimson

It is a heavy feeling, donning a large, green coat. Walking out in sturdy, insulated boots. Being late as usual because it took so long to find your wool mittens and a chunky knit hat. Feeling icy air bite your throat if you haven't wrapped the scarf tightly enough.

It is a heavy feeling, walking out into a cold, cold winter.

But the snow is enchanting everything, the frost shimmers like silver on tree branches. The assault of the cold makes your blood run faster, dispelling all weariness. The air is electric, the sunset is crimson, faraway lights flicker like stars. The world smells of wood smoke and snow, and that heavy feeling is not heavy anymore.

moonlight and love songs - never out of date

The icy darkness of the Nordic winter can't stop me.

My nervousness almost does, sometimes.

Still, I wrap myself in layers of white and green wool every Monday evening and go out, sheet music clasped in thick mittens. I walk with the certainty that as I play this week's song for my teacher I will experience the miracle: A collection of difficult chords that made little sense a week ago have been transformed, through her advice and my own persistence, into music.

There's a small, bright room with a piano at the end of my walk - a portal into an unknown world. There's someone to teach me to play that piano, and there's music that flows - greater than the sum of its parts, wild with emotions.

silence the pianos, let the mourners come

In the dark corridor of the English Department at the university, just outside the literature library where forgotten books were gathering dust, a poster hung on the wall. It had a poem, "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden, on it.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Passing by this poem every day, was it then I realised that my blood always sighs with melancholy - of either the happy or the sad kind?

stay scared as hell

“Get scared. It will do you good. Smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. Get scared some more. Allow your little mind to do nothing but function. Stay inside, go out - I don’t care what you’ll do; but stay scared as hell. You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”

(Albert Camus)

the buzzing at week's end

Saturday, the day of possibilities. Of sleeping late, of setting out on adventures, of partying in glitzy clothes and smoky eyes.

I used to love Saturdays as a child. I got up early in the morning to watch a long and boring Swedish talk show (it was before the time of children's morning TV) just to see a Tom and Jerry cartoon that appeared somewhere midway through. I didn't even like Tom and Jerry - too violent! - but it was my own Saturday morning ritual. I sat quietly, played with my toys and listened to the boring drone of the talk show, peaceful and happy. The house was quiet. A long day of freedom lay before me.

During my years in the hotel business I fell out of love with Saturday. It was a busy, long day of work and sometimes parties that were just a little too wild. During my time as a shop assistant, Saturday turned out to be a short and sweet workday, full of interesting people and with freedom dawning when I locked the door mid-afternoon.

Now I spend my Saturdays working hard at my laptop at home, looking forward to free days ahead. Watching people through the window, often still in my pyjamas. Taking a walk in the early evening on streets still quiet but brewing excitement for the party night to come. Returning home for a movie night with friends or in blissful solitude. If it's the latter, I still feel the Saturday night fever in the air - faraway friends suddenly message me and distant laughter is heard.

purple dusk

Red stars are twinkling in my kitchen and a hot oven heats a chilly flat with the aroma of melted cheese.

I eat a plate of roasted vegetables while typing furiously on my computer and dreaming of adventure. A purple dusk is falling. If the world has purple dusks, anything is possible.

my heart is an old house

“But my heart is an old house
(the kind my mother
grew up in)
hell to heat and cool
and faulty in the wiring
and though it’s nice to look at
I have no business
inviting lovers in.”

(Clementine von Radics)

heart winter

It's what the Finns so beautifully named sydäntalvi - heart winter, midwinter.

The sounds: snow ploughs, crows and sparrows and jackdaws, indoor parties - and the snow itself.

And on starry, ice-cold nights, the deep silence of outer space.

2017: the year of breaking, mending and knitting

* Started the year with an impromptu midnight party with wine and meringue-and-persimmon cake.
* Fell into despair of the worst kind, then fell in love - all in one night.
* Rescued road kill - an Edam cheese.
* Contributed to a businessman's memoirs.

* Bought rescue spray and heard God speak.
* Took anti-depressants and talked to a therapist for months.
* Stood in a bread line with a criminal and drove him to his trial.
* Ate pizza from the 80s, courtesy of my boss.
* Stopped for a hitch-hiker.
* Had a moving weekend in Tampere.
* Finished my cross-stitch project not touched for 20 years.
* Pledged eternal friendship and prayed on a cold April beach.

* Taught myself how to knit scarves.
* Realised that I'm good at trust.
* Had Easter brunch with sourdough croissants, rhurbarb juice and friends.
* Got a new nickname: The P-filter.
* Attended a book release party with blue cookies.
* Took a guided tour of the pathology department at the hospital - tissue studies, the autopsy room and a forgotten fetus in a jar.
* Celebrated my birthday: care label composition, hospital lunch (more fun than it sounds), parties: with wine, pizza and rowdy friends in a bohemian attic, with silver pear-and-strawberry cake and quieter friends, with luxury chocolate cake and family.
* Tried to fix my knees, without much success.
* Was compared to the common houseleek ("letting no nonsense through").
* Babysat a fluffy cat.
* Discovered new worlds in the town museum.
 * Went to a police auction (bought  none).
* Took a road trip to the world heritage site of Rauma old town.
* Enjoyed days of nostalgia and free-spirited roaming in my beloved city of Turku: wine by the river, organ concerts, prison visits and exloring the best castle in the world.

* Experienced a summer in paradise: rain and chilly air, wild rabbits and herons, feeding the fire with A Farewell to Arms, bike race in rain-heavy forest, boat race in sunny harbour, partying with fireworks and barbecue and family, lazy introspection in the company of wine and a poodle and a wide open sky, and a delicious day with butter-fried perch.
* Started food fights in the local hospital.
* Celebrated midsummer with the Midsummer People, sauna and French toast.
* Had visits by a death-defying kitten.
* Organized balcony parties, a summer favourite.
* Bought a grandma bicycle.
* Took a road trip to Helsinki to watch beachvolley on a sunny beach and drink mojitos.

* Painted a house yellow.
* Experienced the Night of the Arts with friends, the best nachos in town, and cider and low conversation by a darkening sea.
* Drove across the country on summery roads to watch the beachvolley championships: hot sun and huddling in pouring rain under umbrellas, princess cake in bed and old Batman reruns in a crowded budget hotel room - inspiration for the autumn ahead.
* Cut down on volleyball, took up pilates and the piano and some difficult dancing instead.
* Had an unexpected encounter with the finance minister.
* Did an art excursion with art-lovers in coffee-smelling studios with rainy windows.
* Waved goodbye to my shepherd and guiding light.
* Enjoyed a Per Gessle concert with coworkers, beer, a long skirt, a VIP badge and a plus one.
* Had some lovely, dark autumn evenings with Harry Potter, friends and wine.

* Was commanded to go on a training day at work: a boat trip to the outer archipelago with ancient history, wilderness and a great steak.
* Explored the secret rooms of the city: Mannerheim's bedroom, a haunted theatre and a wig studio, a top-secret cigar room, a cupola on the roof, the Court of Appeal with chandeliers and Finland's oldest flag.
* Visited the dog shelter and fell in love more than once.
* Had an October picnic by the sea with an old lady.
* Lighted my winter mornings with a daylight lamp.
* Enjoyed a suspiciously happy November.
* Did an All Saint's Eve with a difference: drove north under a gigantic moon to see long-lost relatives and listen to a private organ concert in a deserted church.
* Was whisked away to an office party with luxury, gold and burlesque dancers.
* Drank my way through a tea calendar in December.
* Played at being a shop assistant selling Danish design.
* Had a nightclub outing with new friends and half the town, much frustration and some joy.
* Dined on fine steaks and wine with one volleyball team, hamburgers and beer with another.
* Wandered through a winter weekend in Tallinn with medieval feelings and honey beer. Found the gates of heaven.
* Celebrated Christmas in two places at once and almost crashed my mother's new retro Fiat.
* Had a Nepalese New Year's dinner with new friends and Lambrusco while other people's children ran rampage in my home.

A year of anxiety and exhaustion - but also the end of the Reign of Terror in my life. Seeking help, rooting out buried secrets, learning to listen to my body and live as loved. Looking for God, facing up to demons, daring to be weak, growing stronger.

A year of gym, pilates, piano, knitting scarves and seeking help, physical and mental therapy, troubled back, troubled knees, troubled hair, book club, volleyball  - but no beachvolley.

Social events: pool in pubs, "Finlandia" and hot tuna sandwiches, cocktail testing, gingerbread cookie baking, office parties, Harry Potter nights.

Work: talk show, teenage gaming slang, Bogart movies, other 40s movies, Puccini and his white beans, English for a child show competition, care labels and inspection certificates, the law, what to do in the event of nuclear fallout, googling assassin terminology.

do the salsa and let it snow

I'm swinging my hips together with salsa dancers on a cold, grey evening.

The weather outside is frightful. But since we've no place to go, let's have some tapas with delicious red wine, do the salsa and let it snow.

except you, you badass. welcome.

I listen quietly as yet another foreigner complains about Finland, the Finns and the climate.

I like foreigners, but why do they stay here if the only thing they can do is complain?

Finland is for badasses only. Most people can't cope here, much less find any beauty in its winter darkness. But there is beauty and adventure in this wild and rough country and in its quirky, smart people - lots of it. If you can't find a way to see it - well, I'm sorry, you're just not as tough as you think.

 
 (Banner from annual Slush conference in Helsinki)

pomegranate day, without actual pomegranates

"As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks ..." was the Bible verse I dreamily quoted today. The context was a pomegranate poster and a discussion on the pomegranate's meaning in Jewish culture.

The Song of Solomon really is delicious. It also contains far more racy comparisons with the pomegranate.

broken piece of lovely

“And the best thing you might be able to do today is get outside, thank the skies for this day, and be the best darn broken piece of lovely you can be. Broken loveliness is the world’s most common language. We all speak it so we might as well get fluent.”

(Hannah Brencher)

2018 bubbles

A proper champagne-and-dog-hair New Year in my old hoods. In my home, where I wasn't, children were rampaging.

where a flag once came down from heaven

The sound of many voices singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" is rising from an ancient church on Sunday morning. Outside the souvenir shop next door, a plastic Santa is playing a tinny, noisy version "Jingle Bells".

The contrast could symbolise this entire December weekend. I pull up my hood against the winter rain and keep walking, stubbornly excited, along slippery cobblestoned streets.

I saw a glimpse of the "real" Tallinn when we slipped into one of the modern shopping centres that looked exactly like any shopping centre in Helsinki, a two-hour ferry ride away. The old town, where we spend most of the weekend, is a wondrous world of winding streets, tall church spires, glowing windows, thick town walls and fortified towers and everything you expect from the most romantic of medieval settings.

It is also an isolated little world of fragrant Christmas spices, alluring restaurants, gaudy souvenir shops and rosy-cheeked tourists snapping selfies - all quaintness and mulled wine.

It may not be very authentic but it's easy to get sucked into the happy carefreeness. To exclaim over Gothic vaults and the glow of Baltic amber, to drink cinnamon beer allegedly made from an old monastery recipe, to drift around cozy cafés and majestic churches among crowds of Russians and Scandinavians. It doesn't matter that the cold is creeping in and that the cobblestones are grey with rain. We're on holiday, chestnuts are roasting and we're having ourselves a merry little Christmas.

pleased, as man, with men to dwell

... born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth ...

Words drift past. Mostly unnoticed. Occasionally they knock me out with beauty and truth.

a good party and the best part

There is something delicious in stepping out on the porch, at a party where the music is ringing in your ears and the alcohol is buzzing hotly in your veins, and step straight into a snow storm.

To take a break from clinking wine glasses and loud music, burlesque dancers, the heat of many bodies and your companions' shouted conversation. To feel the icy wind go straight through your flimsy dress, to see your high heels make delicate prints in the snow. To wrap a soft cardigan around your shoulders and breathe deeply. To hear only silence. To smell the winter of the North.

like their mothers

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
(Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest)

I have inherited my mother's, and her mother's, tendency to worry too much, suffer sudden indecisiveness and occasionally fall into despair.

Also their heartfelt smile, thick hair, curiosity, love of the English language, loyalty and soft-spoken independence.

stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop

“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”

(Walker Evans)

a hundred years of blue and white

A hundred years of independence.

Happy birthday, Finland. Independence is valuable to us Finns on an individual level so a hundred years of it is worth celebrating.

I will mark this day by standing on a cold street listening to some pompous music. Then I will withdraw to a warm kitchen where gingerbread cookies are baking in the oven, teenagers are squabbling and an old lady is knitting socks in the corner.

In the evening, I will watch the president's ball on TV with a friend and decide to never have another gingerbread cookie again.

At some point, I will listen to Sibelius' "Finlandia" and cry.

red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart

My favourite yellow-reddish colour, as seen today:

The sky at sunset, reflected in ice. The candles and the coloured light bulbs chasing away the darkness. The sweet strawberry drink I'm clutching between cold fingers. The dying embers of my creativity. And the stubborn glow of my joy.

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones ...

(Title from the song "Yellow Flicker Beat" by Lorde) 

make an ugly shirt

"Eat the damn chocolate cake, get your hair wet, love someone, dance in those muddy puddles, tell someone off, draw a picture with crayons like you’re still 6 years old and then give it to someone who is very important to you. Take a nap, go on vacation, do a cartwheel, make your own recipe, dance like no one sees you, paint each nail a different color, take a bubble bath, laugh at a corny joke. Get on that table and dance, pick strawberries, take a jog, plant a garden, make an ugly shirt and wear it all day. Learn a new language, write a song, date someone you wouldn’t usually go for, make a scrap book, go on a picnic, relax in the sun, make your own home video, kiss the un-kissed, hug the un-hugged, love the unloved, and live your life to the fullest. So at the end of the day, you’ll have no regrets, no sorrows, no disappointments."

(unknown)

the day after the night before

Sometimes, especially when you're not at your best after a boozy party last night, you need a slow Sunday walk in a snowy landscape and a greasy hamburger for lunch.

If only your companion wasn't quite so chipper.

as if for the first time

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

(Bill Bryson)

wasted and wounded at this old piano

The piano has been silent for years.

Now I play again. I'm rusty and slow and yet my fingers still know this intricate system of keys, my brain connects chords and something in my body finds a rhythm and goes with it.

I play the wrong notes and turn the sound down on my keyboard so as not to drive the neighbours insane. But music flows from me. I let myself have fun with it, my soul grows into another dimension and my piano teacher sighs with happiness.

best version

“A healthy relationship is one where two independent people just make a deal that they will help make the other person the best version of themselves.”

(unknown)

my Sunday rest

Dreary is the word for the place - a worn-down, bleak school on a cold afternoon when icy rain is lashing down.

It's Sunday but the school is not entirely deserted. In the gym hall, two teams of young girl are playing a mean game of volleyball. I buy a cup of bitter coffee from a stand their parents have set up outside and join the handful of spectators. My friend whispers comments on the girls' sets and spikes, another friend shows up briefly to share a joke or two.

The girls are very loud - their shouts and shrieks of joy echo in the bare hall - and the hall is poorly heated. It's not the environment I would choose for an afternoon of desperately needed rest. Still, as I cradle my hot coffee in cold hands and watch the intense game, my mind stops spinning and a feeling of calm settles me down.

A bar of chocolate completes the afternoon.

the turning

My coworker asks me the question, first thing in the morning. Later in the day, I hear it again - from a stranger that I happen to walk past on my way to lunch. And from my elderly neighbour, dressed in fur. The question is on everybody's lips.

"Got your winter tyres on yet?"

It's time for the biannual, mandatory tyre swap. In Finland, you must have one set of car tyres for summer, another for winter. Most like to leave the autumn swap until the last minute, i.e. just before the weather turns icy or the snow arrives to stay. People study weather forecasts and ponder the risks of driving in snow with summer tyres.

In the evening, the first snow arrives, as predicted by every forecast. I still haven't changed my tyres. I watch the swirling snow and think of the winter ahead - always so long and cold and fraught with danger. The first snow is still magical.

I fall asleep in the eerily yellowish light of street lights reflected in so much white. The next morning, the world is changed.

I drive to work, extremely slowly.

soup and melatonin

On an October day of the genuine kind, I do the following:

* take the winter coat into use and enjoy being warm again
* wander into town for a bowl of hot soup with rustic bread
* buy melatonin supplement and desperately try to get as much daylight as possible
* walk in the park and listen to the soft whisper of yellow leaves falling like snowflakes
* speculate, with everyone I meet, on the possibility of the first snow and when it's time to put winter tyres on the car
* light candles and worry a little bit about the winter ahead
* go out on the balcony before bed, to look for the aurora borealis

celebrate yourself

“When nobody else celebrates you, learn to celebrate yourself. When nobody else compliments you, then compliment yourself. It’s not up to other people to keep you encouraged. It’s up to you. Encouragement should come from the inside.”

(Joel Osteen)

bare, probe, live

Asleep, I dream of sailing on moon-lit seas and exploring unknown landscapes.

Awake, I pray for meaning, adventure and unexpected meetings with beautiful strangers. I learn piano chords and foreign words and come up with strange ideas, like long Sunday morning walks. I take time to stand and stare. I bare my soul to others. I probe the souls of others. I long. I live. I suck the marrow out of life.

the Cigar Room that never existed

It feels odd to talk about sailing on a dark evening in October when all around us in the marina, yachts and smaller boats are being hoisted out of the water for winter storage.

But the president of the yacht club is an enthusiastic man who enthralls us landlubbers with tales from the club's history. And he gives us coffee and biscuits.

Our motley crew of listeners didn't expect the coffee, much less the history lesson. We came because the adult education centre arranges a course on "the secret rooms of the city" and takes us on guided tours in beautiful, historic buildings not normally open to the public. The point of visiting the yacht club is apparently the mysterious Cigar Room in the ancient club house.

"I have no idea where this room is, or used to be," our guide admits from the outset. In fact, nobody in the club (or among us course participants) has even heard of it - apart from someone in the adult education centre who asked our guide to arrange this lecture and tour. That someone doesn't work at the centre anymore and can't be reached.

Things get increasingly odd when we realize that we have come to visit a secret room that is so secret that nobody has ever heard of its existence.

Still, we finish the tour in a small, cold room with large windows overlooking the marina. It's not hard to imagine sailors of old sitting here, smoking cigars and talking of distant horizons. The room smells of old wood and the sea, and is dimly lit by two boat lanterns - one red, one green. The lights around the bay twinkle poetically.

The group around me experiences a bizarre moment of companionship, joined by our interest in this secret Cigar Room that is probably a figment of someone's imagination. I shiver with joy.

darling books: wonderful troublesome Moomin life

"I'm longing to get away from this stony country. Even a poet can have enough sometimes."

Some children's books are not children's books at all but wonderful and beautiful when you've grown up. The Moomin Books (by Tove Jansson) are like that. They scared me when I was little. Now they give me poetry and life. They make me want to wander for hundreds of miles through the silent forests of my homeland and arrive in a valley where a steaming cup of coffee is waiting in a warm kitchen.

"That's where we're going to live and lead a wonderful life, full of troubles ...."

(quotes from T. Jansson's Comet in Moominland and Moominpappa at Sea)

unconditional and complete

“I demand unconditional love and complete freedom. That is why I am terrible.”

Tomaz Salamun

ode to October

October is that first lash of cold rain. Your car buried under red and yellow maple leaves. Evenings so dark you can't see where you're going. Social events, evening classes, taking on extra jobs. Apples and all your friends making warm apple pies. Heaters not working properly. Sweaters and candles and movie nights. Waiting for the first snow.

road trips in Finland when you're young

You travel in the wilderness of Lapland, along the marvellous sand ridge of Punkaharju and to the mighty rapids of Imatra when you are so young that the memories only consist of hazy, dreamlike images and smells - reindeer crossing the road, the pine smell of a wooden cottage where you stayed the night, the oddly unknown mummy of Keminmaa. Your dad takes pictures of you in front of carved troll statues and your grandmother climbs mountains wearing long skirts and wellies.

You travel along small roads through hills, villages and lots of forest, enchanted by summer. You swim in a few of the country's 187,888 lakes. You cook spaghetti lunches in pure lake water on a camping stove. In the evening, you drink red wine before squeezing into a small tent with best friends and strangers.

You pack an old van full of friends and skiing equipment and drive north on wintry roads. You spend an unplanned day in a non-descript town halfway when the van breaks down. You finally reach your destination late at night and discover that Lapland is a magical realm of snowy forests, starry skies and the breathtaking silence of an icy wilderness. You ski on the mountains all day and stop only to grill sausages over open fire and pass a thermos of hot coffee around in the middle of the forest. You spend evenings in a cottage playing board games in front of the fire with people you will never see again but will remember for the rest of your life.

You stay at an Orthodox monastery and watch the monks make berry wine. You explore the medieval castles of Olavinlinna and Suomenlinna. You island-hop in the charming Åland archipelago and try seaweed delicacies. You laugh until it hurts and you tire yourself out driving endless distances through empty forests.

You return home to the open prairies near the west coast, with the vast sky and the glittering sea saying welcome.

Nietzsche on reality

"No artist tolerates reality."

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

the clearest way into the universe

The forest is a part of my soul. I have grown up with it like a silence inside me that calms anxiety. The silence of it in autumn, with only the whispering of a wind setting heavy spruce branches in motion, the lonely call of a bird. The vibrant energy of it in spring and summer, with a thousand birds singing and everything exploding into joyous life.

The fragrance of it. Rich earth and moss, spicy scents of spruce needles, a honey note of flowers.

I played in the forest as a kid and walked in it with my father, in wellies and with bucket in hand, to pick blueberries and lingonberries. I wandered in it as a lonely teenager with a trusty dog as my companion. The moss was soft under my feet, the quiet of the wilderness was soothing. I discovered strange things and wondered, with a shiver of fear, if a bulky shadow was going to turn out to be an elk or bear.

At times, the mere idea of the forest can intimidate me. It is too vast, too strange, too dark in every sense of the word.

The forest is a place of thoughts. Of dreams. I'm in a world bursting with life that humans know nothing about. I can walk for hours and not reach the end of it and never be within a mile of a human being. I can get hopelessly lost. It is a place where everything is born, lives and dies without anyone noticing or remembering. This is the landscape of my forefathers. They walked among ancient trees and dreamed, and now they are gone.

The solitude, the purity and the feeling of infinity. If you want to feel safe, go and lean against an old tree that goes nowhere for a hundred years but slowly and steadily reaches for the stars. Press your face against the sweet-smelling bark. Experience creation.

downhill swing café

In a dream last  night I started a blog and called it Downhill Swing Café.

The blog spoke about real life, not airbrushed or edited. It comforted those who thought they were the only failures and losers around. It was a virtual café with the wonderful, spicy aroma of dark roast coffee and sweet vanilla lattes. It played old jazz, the kind that anchors you and takes you flying at the same time.

The blog was an instant success.

carry me on the waves to the lands I've never seen

Sometimes, very seldom, this happens: Someone puts me in a speedboat, hands me a can of cider and off we go. With speed, loud music and people I barely know.

My people, the Ostrobothnians, are a boat people. To me, the archipelago is largely an unknown world, even though I can see it from my window every morning.

And such a lovely world it is, vast and intimidating and beautiful. The endless vista of open water, the strange marine birds and the seals, the millions of uninhabited islets with rocky beaches or smooth cliffs. The fresh, salty air. The feeling of being helpless in a world not made for humans.

The silence, when you disembark on an island, as if you were a hundred miles from civilisation. The strange and beautiful labyrinths laid out with stones on many of the outer islands, ancient and mysterious. The stories of shipwrecks, the centuries of perilous fishing and of setting off towards unknown shores in search of something, the tragedies.

On the island of our destination, the autumn colours are vivid, the air smells of paradise and the woods are filled to bursting with mushrooms and dark red lingonberries. The sun is warm but a light mist is swirling eerily among the ancient graves of the shipwrecked. We feast on grilled meat, hot potato wedges and black coffee in one of the old fishing huts and try our luck navigating one of the old labyrinths that could be up to a thousand years old.

Someone should put me in a boat more often.