2020: the year I stayed home and wrote space opera

Twenty twenty, the twenty-year anniversary of my graduation and my new life. Oh yes, and a pandemic that stopped life in the whole world.

* New Year out on the town with a clergyman, blueberry bubbly and old movies.

* New Year's resolution: to feel loved and alive and creative and see a bit more of the world (haha!).

* Helsinki trip: vintage shopping, the science museum, the most wonderful library in the world, battling crowds at the Lux festival of fiery art.

* Exiled from my home due to renovations - spent a lot of time working in cafés, libraries and my mother's sofa. Learned that I really, really need peace and quiet.

* Community theatre play - Two for One, funny - and tea with the Ski Club in my childhood hoods.

* Twenty-twenty party with a reenactment of The Divine Comedy in an old church - inferno with moral tales and a cembalo (a diabolical instrument in my opinion) in the eerie basement vaults, purgatory where I got to play the enormous church organ, paradise in the attic where we climbed the roof beams and studied the ancient clock mechanism and several hundred year old graffiti.

* Extended my laptop collection to 5 pcs.

* Asbestos in my house, and a cold colour in my hair after a lifetime of warmth.

* A winter of no winter, then a spring with a lot of winter (snow and a thunderstorm with snow). 

* Badminton with the boys. I played worse and worse.

* Volleyball tournament with the funniest, if not the best, team. I was attacked by a genuine pitbull and played against a sumo wrestler with a fashion sense.

* Learned how to put a cast on a leg.

* The pandemic arrived, my trip to Italy was cancelled, Finland was put into a state of emergency and lockdown. My work continued at a little more distance than usual. Two and a half months of emergency consisted for me mostly of Star Trek and personal protection equipment.

* Volunteered in food distribution to the needy. It involved frozen princess cake, rotten bananas, canned snails and some really cool people.

* Studied personal protection equipment and became qualified in advising firefighters on which breathing apparatus they should choose.

* Birthday: a hike with friends and slightly outdated banana cake, reading in the sun, pizza and action movie with a man.

* Alternative Italy trip in the neighbourhood: a creek was Venice, a crooked fir tree was the leaning tower, a deserted camp site was Florence. Picnic in chilly sunshine with raspberry pastries and Nordic mead and a view over water and birds.

* Found out that I work for the kind of boss who gets sued for slander and is found guilty and gets his hunting rifles impounded by the police (all due to local politics and the feuding it begets. Stay out of politics).

* Funeral for  my uncle in pandemic times: outdoor service in cold spring sunshine. Then highland beef stew with lots of laughs on a farm owned by family for generations. Then a picnic at the summer house, with cake, football and sunbathing in our funeral finest. My uncle would have approved.

* Scary crisis when one of my nearest and dearest had a stroke. He survived and recovered.

* Foot spa get-together with friends, online. Wine and the scent of peppermint.

* Celebrated the start of summer and (temporary) end of pandemic restrictions with a friend and a bottle of wine by the sea. We talked until the sun shone from a northern angle in among the dandelions.

* Planted lilacs and daisies. 

* Moved furniture here and there over all the town, all summer.

* Beachvolley weekend with hot weather, modern cathedrals, corona concerns and brunch arguments.

* Drove a boat in scary conditions despite my general sea-unworthiness. Found a paradisical, hidden beach with dark coffee and a mystery.

* Night of the Arts, corona edition: explored the visual arts of friends and enemies, chamber music and hip hop dance. And big band jazz from my balcony, against my will.

* Road trips out of my comfort zone (scared of my car breaking down but being courageous about it). Saw ancient churches, great beaches, waffles and cupcakes, a lot of forest.

* Witnessed a house lifting operation.

* Picnics and barbecues.

* My first ever team-building day at work. A hike and fake champagne, a luxury lunch, checking out the competition.

* An August with many wilderness nights alone in the forest, with candles, Netflix, books, pizza and the most perfect peace. And melancholia.

* The year of meetings. Staff  meetings just because, church team-leader meetings, virtual Friday night "meetings" with friends over wine.

* Realised that my mother has the beginning of dementia and a tendency to fall over.

* Got acquainted with Pilates balls, a really strange method of exercising.

* Visited an artists' collective.

* A rare night out on the town with a new friend, deep talk, music and dancing - on a night when the virus tore through our town (making it one of the worst places in Europe for a while) and forced it to close down. At least I got my dancing done before that happened.

* Course in altered book art journalling, loved it and scorned at the same time. I'm a conflicted artist.

* Dreamed a lot and wrote a lot.

* Had a man fall deeply in love with me. Turned him down.

* An October of living in the midst of the pandemic.

* Wolves nearly at my office door.

* Virtual reality games - it turned out I'm a natural-born talent at swinging light sabres.

* Road trip to the depressing neighbour city for a spot of shopping and new perspectives (travelling goals had to be adjusted this year).

* Bought an expensive bottle of gin. I don't even like gin.

* Fabulous work Christmas party with luxury food on a snowy Tuesday afternoon.

* Art experiments involving matchboxes and glitter.

* Christmas with family and strangers, a snarling dog and photos from the 50s.

Work-related issues: the mysterious life of eels, subtitling (for the deaf) a crash course in death metal growling, fabrics, Kalevala in beautiful Swedish, how elks sound when they are in heat (again, subtitling it for the deaf), doing a search on the zulu version of Wikipedia, sleeping bags for pro footballers, how to certify kneepads.

The year in general: Exploding head syndrome and forest walks, rediscovering childhood fairytales and favourite novels, scifi from my teens, lots of chocolate cake to celebrate that we're still alive, writing space opera.

First time events: frying asparagus, paddling a kayak, making banana pancakes, playing virtual reality games.

Quote of the year: "No-one has greater love than he who smears sauerkraut juice on his friends' cars."

the dinosaur is coming

We welcomed the year of hope, 2021, in a dark, snowy garden. I twirled my long skirt, waved sparklers and shouted, caught in that electric elation of watching fireworks explode and a new year being born. 

The fireworks and the party were tiny, as befits a pandemic year. We spent hours playing a card game called Virus, trying to infect each other's vital organs. One of the kids screamed at me, "WE ALL HATE YOU" and I still didn't win. We amused ourselves with drinking strawberry wine, made in a local old wizard's subterranean vaults (all of us survived), and with the Finnish tradition of telling our fortunes by melting toxic tin and then trying to interpret its solidified shapes.

According to the tin, my destiny this year is to meet a tall, dark dinosaur. After a year like 2020, who is even surprised?

christmas with no line breaks

My white witch coat. Snow falling on Christmas Eve after a charcoal winter. Trying to avoid spreading a pandemic by going to only one Christmas dinner. Salmon, lamb, rosolli, herring, meatballs and about sixteen different kinds of sweets. People who are always there for Christmas, some that are not, some that are in quarantine. Finland-Swedes, a Swede turned Finn, a Kurd, an Afghan, someone of Thai origin. A Christmas tree, rhyming and laughter and a wonderful, wonderful feeling. Youngsters who watch people eating on YouTube and show me that I really can't pretend I'm up to date with what youngsters like these days. A night and a day spent with an old lady. Delight and irritation. Chocolates, a ton thereof. A scent of wild mint and hyacinth. A burst of experimental creativity involving glitter, water colours, matchboxes, toothpicks and golden ribbons - and that familiar feeling of this is kinda fun but what's the point really? Walks in snowy woods and festive neighbourhoods in dubious grey daylight. Fiction writing. Faraway laughter in the night. A little doubt and fear as darkness plays its tricks. A glittering bottle I have not dared to open yet. A friend bringing spicy glögg. Time to read fantasy and theology.

what a winter night holds

A winter night is full of candle-light, hot peppermint tea, words on a page, spicy smells, dreams, weariness and fear.

on writing, disgust and crawling through the world

I'm reading about writing. It's pissing me off. Everybody says: Just sit down and write.

I should have known this already but I'm not like others, not in my passion for writing either. It's when I sit down and write that I can't write. I have to sneak up on my writing, pounce on it unexpectedly when I pretend to just walk by all uninterested. 

And I feel a deep disgust for myself if I detect any desire to be published (a blog doesn't count, nobody reads those anyway). The world is full of words being screamed, of attention being craved. I don't want to be a part of that.

And despite my idealistic longing to do something good, I'm too broken and alone to do more than occasionally smile at someone as I crawl through this world on my way to the next.

a sleeping spell all over the country

December is cold steel and wet grey wool and a sleeping spell all over the country except nobody is allowed to actually sleep. 

It's dragging yourself out of bed after a restless night, daylight lamps hurting your eyes or Christmas lights reminding you that you won't get through the day without hearing "Last Christmas" at least once. A constant fog even when there is no fog. 

It's clementines and scented candles and the mirage of a holiday and a little hope and buying a really expensive bottle because it glitters and reminds you of happiness and spices. 

It's being awake for lunch hour and going back into hibernation afterwards. Forgetting what being warm feels like, what summer smells like. Stiff muscles and fear of demons. Vitamin D and melatonin. Restless words pouring out, quieter thoughts too tired to surface. The beauty of grey fog.

It's face masks, uncertainty and no concerts this year, and maybe a little more rest.

December is also thai food with friends, volleyball with friends, Zoom meetings with friends, really weird phone calls with friends, a reminder that you can't make it without friends.

gravel, sun and a red skirt

I don't remember how it actually happened. The tall, lanky man was sitting on a chair outside an Irish cottage, on a sunny summer's day. I think he pulled me down to sit on his lap, or maybe it was my idea. We probably kissed. In any case, the chair tipped over and we both fell on the gravel, which hurt him more than me because I mostly landed on him.

I remember I was wearing my blood red wrap skirt, because in that moment it opened and showed more than was completely decent. He teased me about my "wardrobe malfunction". I laughed wildly, still lying in his arms, on the gravel under a warm summer sun.

Later, he texted me: "I  have a bruise on my arm where a girl fell on me. Not that she was heavy, mind."

I remember the day I met this man - I was in high heels and walked with him into a kitchen. I turned around and smiled at him and knew that I liked him.

I also remember the last time I saw him. It was just a glimpse of his anguished face because he refused to look at me. I turned my own face away because I knew I had destroyed him.

But that day with the gravel, the sun and the red skirt is my strongest - and fondest - memory of a man I once loved.

sing, all ye blissful ones of heav'n above

Cold sea, frost-bitten old grass, bare tree branches, clouds, jackdaws, frozen mud on a forgotten path. Lonely boats on still grey water, people with dogs. This path along the sea is all I need today.

I think of the dream I had last night, of living on the beach and really living. I think of that night I spent dancing before all the dance floors closed down. I think of beauty, dogs, friends with different perspectives.

I come home and play my Christmas playlist for the first time this year. Songs from long-gone childhood records, Bach and Tchaikovsky, beautiful new songs, hymns, fairytales of New York, choral works in Latin that still resound in my memories from university town cathedrals, homesick Canadian-Irish songs that somehow ended up in my Christmas canon, that annoying Mariah Carey that I can't bear to delete.

I need to clean my house. I'm cynical and weary. But even I can see the candle of hope flickering in a window far away. Light and life to all He brings, ris'n with healing in His wings.

Peace, the First Sunday of Advent, God waiting behind the corner. O sing, all ye blissful ones of heav'n above.

i hate cooking

Cold and tired and wishing someone would cook for me. That's the essence of November.

I hate cooking. I proclaim it to the world. And ready-made food always has added sugar or is too expensive. How old do you have to be to get that meals-on-wheels deal senior citizens do? When will someone invent that cheap pill that you can take instead of food?

Today this seems to me a major problem. Must be a November thing.

sabres, wolves and licking

Dancing with light sabres in virtual reality, walking near wolves at a seven-hundred-year old seat of power, sun and ice, licking someone's hair.

It was that kind of weekend.

stars around my neck

I wear stars around my neck, and a vanilla leather trenchcoat that stiffens my spine. I wonder why modern novels are so thick and why I carry home more from the library than I actually read. I roll around on pilates balls.

I'm supposed to be looking for divine love and seeing the world, but both are impossible so I write a space opera instead.

stiff-necked and fictional

A bottle of wine red as blood, a cold sea outside, pages of fiction pouring out of me. 

Bucketloads of clementines and one tea calendar. A stiff neck and no energy for adventures, just a stroll in the wilderness of strange suburbs.

Almond butter, avocado butter and other strange news, a world that has shrunk to a few streets, The Crown and Friends on Netflix, economics as comics.

while waiting for the first snow

I watched the lovely, quietly heart-wrenching film Ensilumi (Any Day Now) and I felt the pain, behind dark eyes, of waching destiny come for you. While the world is being beautiful around you.

We were alone in the cinema and I wrapped my scarf around me for comfort, and afterwards we went for cappuccino and silly jokes about engineers and Parisians, and my heart had been wrenched but it was all for good.

cardigans and a green bottle

A few drops of scent from a tiny, green bottle. A long cardigan that even warms my knees. Walks among dripping fir trees and in neighbourhoods with wood smoke and friendly dogs. My favourite books with yellowing pages. 

These are my October weapons.

the lost era of kissing strangers

The strangest things right now:

The closed doors, closed nations, closed faces. It used to be a comforting thought, that there were always places in the world just waiting to be experienced. I used to hate the fact that everything in my town closed down for the night. It made me feel alone. Now the whole world seems to be closed down and nobody knows for how long.

The utter paradigm shift in how we live our lives. I watch movies less than a year old and they seem to be from another century - a time when people kissed strangers, elbowed their way through crowds, laughed when somebody sneezed in somebody else's face, pressed elevator buttons without any compulsion to wash their hands afterwards.

my new virtual reality

In the not so good old days I used to go to work coughing and sneezing. I only called in sick if I felt that I might be dying.

Now, if I sneeze just once, for any reason, I'm expected to stay at home. And I do, of course. I don't even have to go to work if I'm in perfect health - I can do my job without ever leaving home.

My city is closing down again, battening down the hatches. Schools close, restaurants close, it's a ghost town after dark. Teenagers go for wild drives, every one else goes for walks. People walk in the woods, by the sea, in the parks. The virus is making us a working-from-home, ordering-take-away, video-conferencing, country-dwelling, walking people with very clean hands.

I had drinks with my friends last Friday. There were snacks, candles, a great atmosphere. We chatted for hours - via video conference.

the procrastinator and the American

If you're a procrastinator, you will always be a procrastinator.

It could have been that American guest professor I had at university who said it. He taught me what the word means. I had never heard it before, my mother tongue Swedish has no such word. 

He had his good sides, that professor, although all the students were scared of him. He was too demanding and then disappointed in our efforts during his courses - like most of the other guest professors who came from the UK or the US of A to a small Finnish university where the students at the English department were surprisingly good at English but terrible at analyzing literature and writing essays. (Finland is a country that teaches languages but not literature. Strange but true.)

"Do NOT procrastinate when you write your essays during this course," he warned us, with something vaguely threatening beneath his charming American smile. I of course procrastinated wildly and handed in my essay after pulling an all-nighter just before the deadline, as always. I hated writing essays (and receiving disappointed feedback on them later). I hated all-nighters and deadline panic even more, but that didn't help. They were a constant ingredient in my university life. I was a procrastinator, preferring instant gratification to self-discipline. Born that way.

But I'm not a procrastinator anymore. 

Maybe I finally had had enough of instant gratification. For a while I did only what pleased me and it didn't take long before the inevitable emptiness of that life caught up with me. It was probably that and the hatred of deadline panic which changed me eventually. It took years.

The heady feeling of accomplishment and the unexpected pleasure in having set routines for work/study are strangely addictive. Also, I am driven like never before. I was never ambitious. But I have an urge to get things done because life is short and you don't want to waste time fretting over chores when you could just get them done and then go do something more fun, or something great and meaningful. 

And studying is much more fun if you're actually interested in learning something. Which I wasn't for years. But I am now. Life is full of fascinating facts and the more you know, the more fascinating it becomes. 

So I'm not procrastinating anymore (except when it's about washing the dishes). I'm not scared of Americans either.

more like a creation myth

she fills the cracks in her sidewalks

with honeybee forgiveness

monsoon hair hanging into

a mug of lukewarm tea

she is less like a love story

and more like a creation myth

                                (- ap)

a minor invasion

Someone out there is in love with me. It's strange, how it should feel wonderful but always feels like a minor invasion.

whistling through half-open windows

Coloured lights reflected in dark, silvery waves. Fiery leaves, grey skies. Coldly threatening winds whistling through half-open windows on velvety evenings.

An air of secrets, of adventures in the dark, of distant bonfires and signs in the sky.

Burrowing into a mound of blankets after days filled with challenges, emails, languages, disinfectant, people to reconnect with, laptop screens and volleyball courts, heavy demands and not enough energy, fun and fashion inspiration, favourite novels and novel ideas.

Chamomile tea, filling page after page with writing. My mind is alive but the world seems too distant and love is still calling from a darkening horizon.

asbestos or xylene, that's the question

"Is TH2P R SL sufficient respiratory protective equiment if the dust saturation is 90 milligram per cubic meter on average over an eight hour workday?"

This question was asked of me today. I'm continuing my studies in personal protective equipment and pondering safety issues in industrial environments. I have hardly even seen the inside of a factory or had to breathe more dust than can be found behind my sofa. I have certainly never used more advanced respiratory protective equipment than a disposable face mask. I am to become an expert on these things. In a language with very long words.

I find myself muttering to myself in my third language about particulate respirators, compressed air from remote sources, assigned protection factors. Whether asbestos or xylene is of higher priority in a risk analysis. Whether oxygen deficiency or explosive environments are preferable when you're trying to stay alive. Whether my boss will kill me if I fail the exam when she paid so much for this course.

the whitefish at world's end

On the Island, not much has changed. I've used the long drive to clear my head of summer confusion and sigh as I cross the tall bridge over an endless sea. 

Sunlight sparkles in the Baltic waves. I take detours into some of the small villages. Forests and fields, winding roads, a craft shop where I buy homemade bisquits. I'm in no hurry. It's the last day of my annual leave and still summer in my mind. I came alone because I needed to be alone.

At the farthest tip of the Island lies a small harbour, looking out towards open sea and the world heritage archipelago. The little restaurant at the end of the universe is getting ready to close for the season but still serves an delicious meal of whitefish and spicy potatoes. Dark coffee and a pink cupcake for dessert. 

The wind from the sea is chilly but I sit in the sun on the open patio to watch boats come and go, carefully navigating between thousands of islets and reefs. I wrap up in a cardigan and warm my cold fingers on the coffee mug. Before the long winter I have to soak up every sunray, every scent of saltwater and vibrant earth.

A hike along one of the trails takes me past birch forests, inlets and fishing spots, old cottages and ancient rock formations. Even some highland cattle grazing on what used to be seabed.

The Island wraps me in its mystical air.

welcome, icy clarity

Ah, to finally be past the emotional funfair that is August - with its wild carnival laughter, colours, a bewildered heart - and safely land in the ordered world of September!

The memories of hot sand, summer nailpolish, whirling ideas and cool grass are fading. I note that I did some of the things I had planned for this summer. There were mojitos, friends, drives through lush fields, the saving of a seagull chick, excited smiles on my mother's face, walks among fragrant pine trees, boat trips beyond the horizon, exploration of things unknown, Netflixing alone in the cabin between the sea and the forest, love and languages.

I still welcome the chilly nights of now, the starry skies dripping ice. The smell of the gym I haven't set foot in for months, the pilates balls, the dancing shoes, the volleyball men with their muscles and the exhilaration of sweating off all that sadness. The delicious lunches in the cafeteria at work, the business meetings around laptops, wry smiles, plans. The new knowledge that is placed before me, the Excel charts and the music course and all the books I haven't read. Beautiful clothes. The feeling of setting off.

I loved the summer but I was lost and confused. I mourn the loss of a hot sun and birdsong, of being so close to nature that I can hear it breathe.

 I revel in making schedules with early morning work and evening classes, and the peace that comes with sticking to them.

Welcome, icy clarity of autumn.

on a dark coast

A tiny cabin lit with coloured lamps and a wood fire in the stove, hidden in the forest and all alone on a dark coast. 

In the middle of the night, I hear the absolute silence of the starry skies dripping ice on me. Other nights, rain or restless seas sing me to sleep. 

I could disappear here.

road trip with waffles

Fields and forests, sleepy villages, old wooden churches with stained-glass windows. Narrow roads through empty wilderness. Hidden lakes, silent and silky under a grey sky. A stop at a cafe somewhere - they serve waffles with strawberry jam and icecream.

It's just me and an old lady and our summer tradition - a road trip. Happiness and nostalgia and longing, all stretching out on the road before us.

i'm salt liquorice and vanilla sugar

I love the different and surprising. I'm bored.

I make my friends laugh, I'm tired of people. I want to be alone and I'm lonely. I cannot understand the need to share anything at all on social media. I cannot understand the human race.

My hair is a mess of  colours - salt liquorice, chocolate, caramel and vanilla sugar. I'm infinitely curious.

"I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself." (Warsan Shire)

not somewhere else

I have a sore throat and should isolate myself. So I fight a sudden urge to go absolutely everywhere just to see people.

In cutoff denim shorts and woollen socks, I bring my laptop out on the balcony and proofread rainwear labels in the company of sea and sky.

I asked God why I'm not somewhere else. He said, "Because you don't really want to be."

desperate measures: banana pancakes

Cold rain lashing the windows. Woollen socks not keeping out the chill in primitive holiday cabins. Low moods. The summer being difficult again here in the almost-Arctic.

When heat and sweet smells are desperately needed, you take out a frying pan and make banana pancakes with vanilla sugar and fat, juicy blueberries from the forest.

can't see a marvellous comet

I'm in the middle of summer, in a canary-yellow sun hat and bare feet. I'm in sadness and happiness.

I breathe in pines, a thousand flowers, a quiet sea with thunder on the horizon. I cook dishes my mother has never tasted. I cut firewood for other people's children. I take my grandmother's ancient bike to the village and listen to the silence of the barley fields. I dip my toes in salt water and speak gently to someone who needs it. I drink coffee and lick chocolate off my fingers.

There is peace on the wind and restlessness in a hot sun. I want to see the world and learn. I'm wild with envy towards those who make their dreams come true, because I don't know how.

I want to be anywhere else. I want to stay here, watch the flowers grow, sing with the blackbird and the rosefinch.

I'm one of those who can't see a marvellous comet pass by because their sky is too bright.

daisies first, then breakfast

I planted daisies before breakfast. I walked in the rain, saw merganser chicks sleep in a huddle, dozed by the fireplace. I dreamed of impossible journeys.

fridge findings, three years later

Three years ago, on a boring day alone at the office, I did a stock take of the office fridge (see it here). Some interesting findings there (antibiotics with pickled cornichons, wasabi and Kahlua liqueur, anyone?).

As I'm having another boring office day alone, I felt it was time for an update. Clearly, hard times have fallen upon this company. These were the meager results today:

* 15 bottles of mineral water (small, lemon flavoured)

* 12 bottles of ginger beer

* 6 bottles of soft drinks

* 1 bottle of Czech beer (same one as three years ago?)

* 1 tin of olives (opened)

* 1 tin of lingonberry jam

* 1 tin of chili sauce

* 1 bottle of vinegar

* 1 bottle of lemon essence

* 2 cartons of lactose-free milk (small)

It would be a harsh (but not thirsty) few days if I was accidentally locked in at the office over the weekend.

my work among the fairies

From a cabin in the woods I travelled in to work and started by going out for lunch.

Today's work tasks, once that was done: sending a piece of wood to China, pondering the different meanings of the word 'agency" in three languages, putting a fairy in her place, spending 800 of my employer's euros, deleting a picture of my nails, wondering what cookies really are, sending a container on a journey across the globe.

seafarers and lullabies

Ordinary events by the sea: a man I admire sailed in and someone sang Mammas lilla gullgull - my childhood lullaby (of unknown and possibly ancient origin) which still makes me sleepy.

live laugh love kill me now

I'm sick of cheery, upbeat blog entries of the carpe diem, live laugh love variety.

Especially my own. How can these sick, sugary creations arise from such a cynical mind? It was understandably ten years ago, it's typical of that age. I see it - and snigger condescendingly at it - in the social media posts of friends who are of that age now.

But I'm old and wise. I should know how to spew out properly bitter and world-weary missives.

The problem is just that missives like that are even more annoying.

The middle road - and the one I love - is sarcasm. Thank God for sarcasm and black humour. I'm sure it was the first thing he provided Adam and Eve with, as a consolation, when he was forced to kick them out of Eden to face reality.

I need a blog moderator who shuts me down - and bans me from the internet instantly - the moment I let a "live laugh love" slip out. Unless it's sarcastic.

exhausted and spider-bitten

Summer is for intense living.

There has already been wine on picnic blankets, seagull chick rescue operations, thunderstorms, flower picking, reading six year old magazines, heatwaves, tantrums, crossword puzzles over bad coffee, lilac planting, blisters and spider bites, mojitos, primitive living, expensive chocolate cakes, lawn-mowing in way-too-hot weather.

I'm exhausted, is it autumn soon?

church bells, star-flowers, history

The forest is warm and pine-scented - welcoming me with birdsong, winding paths and summer adventures.

Happy and alone, I pick lilies-of-the-valley in the emerald light of sun-soaked birch leaves. The bells of a church at the edge of the forest are ringing, a strange and beautiful melody that echoes through the trees as I wander further and further away.

I find a cave, canals with silent water, remains of ancient stonewalls and a mysterious hole in the ground. My additional findings include a site where people lost their lives for my freedom, a pet cemetery and a secret garden, luxuriously overgrown with apple blossom and lilacs.

A hill nearby was the centre of the world for many people, many centuries ago. History sings in my blood as I pick the star-flowers I remember from my childhood.

I have to come back. This forest contains almost everything that I love: summer, exploration, history, nostalgia, dreams.

planting lilacs

Digging soil and planting lilacs, hot sun, salt water, a spider bite, barefoot in a hammock, feeling at home.

a country opening around me tonight

From a weekend in the wilderness, I will return to a reopened country on Monday morning.

I have managed ten weeks in a closed country quite well. My work life wasn't much affected. I did a course in personal protective equipment. I got a little lazier and fatter, did a little charity work, read old books, watched Netflix, cycled and walked, drank wine with my friends.

I lost a trip to Italy, missed the library but rediscovered my own bookshelf of old favourites, did some writing, almost lost someone dear to me, was stiff-necked just like the folks in the Old Testament, enjoyed Star Trek and Kalevala.

I have really missed café windows, thrift shops, dinners in candle-lit bistros and freedom.

But there is rest in staying still, when everybody else is staying still too. And new ideas are coming.

around the Högfors stove

We sat around the Högfors stove, you and I, the ancient iron radiating heat into a chilly May evening. The evening sky still bright outside the old cottage, dust in the air around us.

Death had passed by me, the world felt fragile but I had hope and faith.

"I haven't bought any new clothes since this whole thing started," I said and picked at a loose thread in my old sweater. "It's time for some brand new thrift shop bargains!"

"I might apply for a new job," you said and put more firewood into the stove.

"The fairy tales we read as kids were really scary," one of us said. "And yet they never bothered us! Nobody would let their kids hear them today."

"Money is not everything," I admonished. "I'm not talking money, I'm talking time," you protested.

"You have your own piece of road," I said. "You could establish a road toll."

"I put out the nets, with my nephews," you said, "and we got eighteen perch and ten pike. Even the pike are quite tasty, smoked."

"Should we swap houses?" you said. "If you put a sea over there," I said and pointed out the window.

"We're already swapping stories about our aches and pains," we wailed. "In a few years, it will be all about bowel movements."

I left with three smoked perch and sang an old gospel song loudly on my way home.

the importance of rocks

I like rocks. The large, mossy kind you find scattered all over Finland, granite or gneiss ones. I love walking with bare feet on course, sunwarmed rock or boulders covered in cool, velvety moss with tiny flowers in it. I love smooth, wave-kissed rocks sloping down to the sea.

Rocks were my passion as a kid. The kind of rocks you could climb on and crawl under, and create little nests between. I created of them entire fantasy worlds where I lived in a wilderness with wild animals and fairytale people all around, a bit like my hero Robin Hood. My mother had large flower beds in our garden and forbade me to walk in them, but there were smaller rocks scattered there so I jumped from rock to rock in exhilaration.

As a moody teenager, I walked into the woods on summer nights and climbed up on the largest boulder I could find, then sat there for ages brooding about my teenage troubles and dreams.


As an adult I often take a pretty pebble home with me from the beaches of the world, my one and only souvenir.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that my name means 'rock'.

"When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I" (Psalm 61).

a pandemic at my heels

Empty streets, cold wind, sunlight. I walk past closed cafés and struggling shops. A pandemic at my heels. The air smells of dust clouds and hand sanitizer but swans are shouting the arrival of spring.

After sunset, a single candle. Stars wander past my nest as I isolate myself with a glowing screen and foreign languages.

The world is closed.

darling books: the 'revenge' of the Galilean

  'You say he seemed out of his head?' said Demetrius, anxiously.
  'Yes - dazed - as if something had hit him. And out there in that archway, he had a sort of empty look in his face. Maybe he didn't even know where he was.'
  Demetrius' steps slowed to a stop.
  'Melas,' he said, hoarsely. 'I'm sorry - but I've got to go back to him.'
  'Why - you -' The Thracian was at a loss for a strong enough epithet. 'I always thought you were soft! Afraid to run away from a fellow who strikes you in the face before a crowd of officers; just to show them how brave he is! Very well! You go back to him and be his slave forever! It will be tough! He has lost his mind!'
  Demetrius had turned and was walking away.
  'Good luck to you, Melas,' he called, soberly.
  'Better get rid of that Robe!' shouted Melas, his voice shrill with anger. 'That's what drove your smart young Marcellus out of his mind! He began to go crazy the minute he put it on! Let him be. He is accursed! The Galilean has had his revenge!'
  Demetrius stumbled on through the darkness, Melas' raging imprecations following him as far as the old gate.
  'Accursed!' he yelled. 'Accursed!'

This favourite book of mine (The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas) I found in a forgotten library in a musty Swedish attic. Later I bought my own copy on an island in the Pacific. It is a story of the Roman officer who crucified Jesus and won his robe in a dice game, and of the slave who tries to make sense of all this.

I don't think I've ever gotten so caught up in a book written in the 40s before. And it happens every time I go back to it. The writing is too good to ever feel musty and it puts a surprising spin on the familiar Bible stories without changing them.

Although it does have a lot of commas and exclamation marks. I guess they liked them, back in 1942!

oxygen deficiency and very long words

What I'm studying in pandemic times: 

EU certificates of conformity, risk assessment, how to choose your personal protective gear, noise exposure levels, liquified gas, why bactericides are not enough and how oxygen deficiency usually kills two people at the same occasion. 

All this in my third language. In which the first term bears the lovely name EU-vaatimustenmukaisuusvakuutus.

should have been in Florence

April is the cruelest month and my favourite - heat and ice, birdsong and wildness.

On the eve of my birthday I lounge in sunlight, with tea-green lamb's wool around me and coffee porter before me. I watch the boats on the bay and wonder if peace and strength are possible without love.

I should have been in Florence today, dizzy with wonder.

Whimsical clothing and the most boring textbook of all - today's odd combination. Life stands so still that I'm surprised the sun still wanders.

the unprecedentedness is unprecedented

For such an exciting time, with a pandemic locking down the entire world, bodies piling up and economies crashing left and right, life is really quite boring.

Thank God for that.

I work, eat, sleep, take walks or bike rides while socially distancing myself, watch Netflix. I read in the news that the use of the word 'unprecedented' in news reports is in itself unprecedented, and find it mildly funny.

I like: dozing on the couch and not feeling like a failure for it, reading more, taking slow walks with my mother, never knowing what's going to happen, seeing people help each other, connecting more deeply than before, learning new things, planning picnics.

I dream of: hugging my mother, sitting idle in a café, travelling to Venice, feeling less lonely, mocking life with friends over Mexican food and wine, dancing with other people than myself, browsing second-hand shops, playing volleyball, GETTING OUT OF HERE, renewing my life completely, kissing someone.

still lost in the Delta Quadrant

The pandemic drove me to go on a retro-trip on Netflix. I binge-watch Star Trek: Voyager, the series I loved madly twenty years ago.

I've had no interest in the show since then, but I've fallen right back in now and can't stop. What a dream it would have been twenty years ago, to have access to a series streamed on demand, or even DVD boxes! Back then I was limited to one episode a week, broadcasted on TV (and if my VHS recorder or TV malfunctioned I only got to see it once or missed it completely), a few pages of fanfiction on the brand new Internet, and a couple of paperback fandom novels I found in a sci-fi bookstore on a dodgy backstreet.

(But if Netflix had existed, I would never have got a stitch of work done, or managed to find my way out into the world.)

Filming and acting were different in the 90s. Now the acting looks clumsy, the dialogues sound clichéd. But were they clichéd back then or do they seem so now because I recognise every line, from that show or any of a thousand others I've watched since?

Oh the nostalgia! Twenty years ago I was graduating and gearing up to go see the world for real. April then was like April now, minus pandemics and lockdowns: the golden light returning, seagulls, wild spring in the air, exuberance, promises of happiness. I threw open my windows to dark, crisp evenings and watched Voyager's crazy adventures while I secretly, desperately wished for adventures of my own.

And yes, I got them. I got on a plane, almost on a whim, and ended up in a mad place where I sometimes thought of myself as part of a starship crew in a universe of impossible adventures. Because it was actually a bit like that. I ran around putting out fires, fighting monsters (sometimes almost literally) and kissing aliens (really literally). I wore a uniform, screamed for backup in threatening situations, tried to communicate with hostile entities and ate things I probably shouldn't in the mess hall. I couldn't have found more drama and weirdness if I had gone looking for it in outer space.

Still, did Star Trek: Voyager set me up for disappointment? I mean, what normal life could continue to provide such a maelstrom of mad happenings and tightly-knit teams of friends? Yet somehow I think I expected it to.

I watch episode after episode and find myself back in that stormy spring world of the year 2000. It was a magic idea, such unlimited freedom, to end up 70 000 lightyears from Earth like the starship did - but the other day I saw a picture on the news of a black hole 5.5 billion lightyears from here and that adjusted my perspective a little.

But I still wonder why my life has so few space/time rifts, hull breaches, aliens wielding flashy weapons and chatty Talaxians cooking leola-root soup.

wind and green marzipan

The world is wild. The wind is wild.

I couldn't sleep last night and now I stand in a school kitchen, cutting thousands of slices of princess cake. Strangers around me sort boxes of free food for the needy and chatter easily in two languages. We couldn't sleep last night because we worried about ourselves. This morning we decided to worry about the even more helpless. We came together to sort lettuce from bread and cut princess cake.

Outside, the wild wind throws up dust devils to prove how scary the world is. But people still want to help people and my kitchen world is a calmness of green marzipan.

words to bring home

I will change your name
You shall no longer be called
Wounded, Outcast,
Lonely or Afraid
I will change your name
Your new name shall be
Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One,
Faithfulness, Friend of God,
One Who Seeks My Face

(D.J. Butler: "I Will Change Your Name")

I found these words on the other side of the world in 1996 and took them home with me. They are still pinned up on the inside of a kitchen cupboard door.

They are still a summary of pretty much everything I aspire to.

no way to Venice

I binge-watched Marco Polo, the TV series, on Netflix recently and dreamed myself away to the steppes of Central Asia.

The Marco Polo of this series often looks up at the starry skies. His father, who cruelly left him alone at the mercy of Kublai Khan, told him that the stars of Orion's Belt will lead him back home to Venice.

A month or so ago, I bought a ticket to Venice for a long-planned exploration trip of Italy with friends. Well, that trip has now been cruelly cancelled as all of Europe locks itself away for a while.

Now I look to Orion for guidance. It is no easier for me than for poor Marco to find a way to Venice.

viral days

These are viral days and I'm stocking up on books, vitamins, potatoes, Netflix, tofu and apples. The only thing I'm afraid of is tension neck and lack of love.

When will I learn to breathe right, live right? A quarantine could not make me feel more stuck than I am already.

the ice cannot fix this

I went down to the bay, with its ice like a mirror all the way to the horizon, and sat on a sun-warmed rock. The ice was singing.

It has not been a good winter. It has not been a winter at all, in some respects. Just a dark wetness, bringing dark thoughts.

It went well for a while. I savoured each month carefully, deliberately. The swirling grey mists of November, the spicy candles of December. Then came the discordant threats of January, the midwinter demons that play tricks on body and mind. I have been so busy fighting them that I hardly even noticed this bland February.

The last two months, and probably for a few more to come, I wake early in the mornings to the sound of drilling in the walls around me. Instead of working from home, I'm forced to take my laptop to noisy cafés, chilly libraries and my mother's quiet flat. It has its charms - sipping smoothies or my mother's strong coffee while I work - but hunching on uncomfortable chairs over a small laptop twists my body into seizures and aches.

I didn't sign up for any evening classes or courses last autumn, as I usually do. I was tired and needed my evenings for myself. I couldn't even find any fun dance classes at the gym, only boring workouts alone.

I may be more rested now. Or more stressed out, from the drilling. My mind wanders only around the same, small circles - my flat, the grey streets where nothing ever happens. My creativity has dried up. Love is still not a reality. Only my friends and family keep me afloat on this dull ocean.

I used to be the traveller, the explorer, the curious one. How did I become this dazed and lonely shadow?

The ice sang its song to me today, with cracks and soft hoots.

travel report

I went to Helsinki.

I saw fire and some impressive art, studied science and rats for a day at the Heureka Museum and heard the blackbird sing in the middle of winter, in the middle of the city. I found English books and a lovely quilt. I walked too much and had a comfort pizza.

Now I feel socially acceptable again. I have been to the big city. I have actually seen other people.

tofu and tension

This is a winter of huddling beneath a Helsinki quilt. Watching Netflix and the rain that should have been snow. Frying tofu and rolling wraps. Fleeing my noisy apartment building to work in cafés and libraries. Being so tense it hurts, jumping at loud noises.

A winter of spinning my 80's globe - it has countries like Zaïre, Czechoslovakia and the USSR - and calling my mother because I miss her even though I saw her yesterday.

dust and a smell of copper

The sun is so far away, there is dust and a smell of copper, builders are ringing my doorbell at 7 AM, my brain zaps me at night, I still haven't found true love, every little thing scares me, and I sit alone in my house on a Saturday night.

But God will command his angels regarding me, I will not fear the terror of night nor the plague that destroys at midday, and I will dwell in the shelter of the Most High.

2019: the year of the twinge and the north wind

* New Year: Pink bubbly in a storm, friends and deep talk.
* Got better at planning my days - or not? ("World dominion, then food.")
* Prison visit - shuddered in a solitary confinement cell. News station visit - stood quiet as a mouse in a studio broadcasting live.
* Reread my journals from 35 years. Lessons learned(?): Personal development comes from seeking help and daring to show weakness. I have a life-long longing for creativity. Drive is important - happiness comes from working towards improvement and being kind to myself. Other people cause me to change. And I forget a lot.
* A twinge in my back: No volleyball for seven months and a gorgeous physiotherapist.
* Brought a borrowed bichon frisé to the office for a day.
* Threw a party for an 85-year-old. It didn't stop until a few days later.
* Epic, half-year-long fight among my closest friends. Is one of them is a psychopath?
* Wrote 40 pages of fiction.
* Birthday with road trip, mango cake, Cava and an espresso maker.

* Days in Prague: Good beer hunting, Mozart dinner, reunion with old friends, the castle in pouring rain, Jewish quarter, private guided tour and a zombie.
* Found Cloud Lake, a soul-healing place.
* Road trip with volleyballers, with discussions on whether Jesus ever took the tram.
* Climbed an old attic to look for treasure and feasted on perch toast and kids' pancakes.
* Summery brunch with the non-skiing Ski Club.
* Whirlwind business trip to sunny Uppsala, Sweden. Clothes, outdoor lunch inspired by Linnaeus, a forest fire.
* Second-hand shopping day in Jakobstad with expert.
* North wind and moth summer, and wonderful days alone in the wilderness (with DVDs).
* Ranch visit and Agda the people-loving sheep.
* My first single-handed major renovation project, undertaken very reluctantly and with lots of whining.
* Road trip with mother to Nedervetil, Kaustby, Terjärv, Evijärvi, Kortesjärvi, Komossa. YWAM nostalgia. Open fields, silent forests, hidden lakes, cottages, family history.
* Wrote a professional, official statement regarding ugly guys, for a court case.
* Watched heavy rain approach, feeling exhilarated. Went berry picking (with a scarf on my head, very old-fashioned and appropriate look).
* Goal: find divine love.
* Jyväskylä weekend: Airbnb luxury apartment, beachvolley and flamenco dancers. Home with a detour via Death (the village).
* Chased geese dressed in Armani.
* End-of-summer celebration, wonderful and melancholic as always.
* Translated God's own words to me, half-deaf.
* Saw a play: Fiddler on the Roof.
* Dug out old family treasures and arranged a good old-fashioned, analogue slide show.
* Attended a vernissage where the artwork had lava and gold in it, and made sure to drink enough champagne to get me through a game of volleyball after.
* Halloween weekend in Tampere and the surrounding lake district: ancient ruins in rain, good and bad music, boots shopping, thriller writing, a medieval castle.
* Discovered the farmers market and started handing over cash for suspicious carrot bags out of someone's car boot in a pitch-black parking lot.
* Sent my phone to an unknown fate in Lithuania and got a new one in return. There went my 440-day streak on DuoLingo.
* Six concerts in as  many weeks (I never go to concerts, really.) Mozart, KAJ, lots of gospel and Christmas music.
* Became a grandfather's sister and all my nieces and nephews are now officially adults. And I still wear a teenager's beanie.
* Asked the janitor to move in with me since he was here all the time anyway to fix stuff.
* Traditional Christmas lunch with important people that I didn't know how to talk to.
* Christmas celebrations: the simple version and the expensive version. It took nine hours this year too.
* New Year's Eve with someone I didn't really know. Deep talk, great salmon pizza and blueberry bubbly.

Other noteworthy things during the year: Delicious brunches, a webinar, a traditional midsummer party with traditional emergencies, a poodle week, ruffs, beach wrestling, picnics and my fairytale world, loneliness, helping mother, a far-travelled oak leaf, a phone smelling of male sweat, tofu, Netflix.

Work-related stuff: Investigated how to break a pair of trousers, chased lost underwear (from a distance), translated a speech by the president of South Sudan, pretended I knew Norwegian.

Hair colour melange: ivory-cream-chestnut-chocolate-anthracite.

New phenomena: Started dreaming more (at night), taking my coffee black and sitting in cafés again.

Quote of the year: "Farewell, beautiful thighs. I would like to have knees also in the future."

twenty twenty vision

The year 2020 will be an anniversary - of the year I graduated and stormed wildly into the world, of the year I lost my father.

It has started with storms and rain, a trip to the big city, a new laptop and the demonic whisperings of January.

New Year's Eve was deliciously spent in the company of a minister, luxury pizza in a hot basement, old movies from the last Twenties in a hipster bar, blueberry champagne and fireworks.

The trip to the big city included fire and lights, the science museum with a planetarium, simulators and VR and basketball-playing rats, breakfast with Russians, English books, too much walking, a singing blackbird, the best library I've ever seen and a lovely quilt.

The new laptop means that I can see no happiness in life until I have successfully installed the most uninstallable but necessary software.

The demonic whisperings of January means the normal demonic whisperings of the month of darkness. The sun, energy and meaning do not exist right now. Nothing to do about it except take vitamins and walks and binge on Netflix.

Better times are coming.

glitter and saffron

A Christmas of glitter, hugs, saffron and chocolates. A thick candle flickering its light towards a distant horizon. Books. Chattering people and a feeling of future.

I wore something glittery red and chattered almost as much as the others.

Now I take walks in silent, dark woods where all life is asleep. I look at lit windows and let snow and rain fall on my face. I long for light and find a sleepy peace in the darkness.

I'm not sure I did this year right but I think I did my best.

on this very Christmas night

It is a deep dark night that swirls around our northern lands.

It tastes of cold, gingerbread and woodsmoke. It smells of snow travelling towards us. It has hyacinths, lights that twinkle and people who just want to sleep.

I'm tired in body and soul, and yet every song makes me dance. My God is on his way to save me.

This night
we pray
our lives
will show
this dream
he had
each child
still knows 
we are waiting
we have not forgotten
on this night
on this night
on this very Christmas night

(words from The United Orchestra's "Christmas Canon")

pale face to a pale sky

Spur your little Citroën onwards through thick, slushy snow. Lead your elderly mother by the hand. Don't think of all the work you should be doing.

Instead, lift your pale face to a pale sky. Warm your hands in the pockets of a winter jacket and rejoice in your heavy boots. See how people smile at you, willing to help.

The day is cold, snow is still falling, life is good.

brave, efficient, bitter

I have changed. I'm no longer afraid of conflict and not too preoccupied with what other people think. I don't need to fix other people's relationships. I don't say yes to everything. I'm not worried that I don't feel loving enough. The world doesn't have to be black and white. I accept.

I don't have to experience everything. I am aware of the need to make plans and be efficient. I am happier even when life isn't going according to plan. I state my opinions when I want. I am braver, much more confident.

I am also more bitter and grumpy.

aimlessness with coffee

Green smoothies next to a book. A tuna salad underneath an exotic wallpaper with jungle flowers and pigs.  A laptop in a library, surrounded by whispering students. Buckets of black coffee with melancholia and a will to live.

Streets in a grey mist that reaches from here to February. Long sleeves over hands with silver nailpolish. A whole day of aimlessly roaming the city. Weariness with excitement, boots and woollen scarves.

dress code: business bohemian

During office hours I sit at a beautiful teak desk. The staff room has a fancy espresso maker and exotic fruits in the snack bowl.

My colleagues arrive in expensive cars, dressed in ripped jeans and hoodies - it's the kind of office that is too cool for a business dress code.

I sometimes arrive in a sharp pencil skirt, sometimes in a hoodie. Sometimes both. I put rings on my fingers, hoops in my ears, thick mascara on my lashes. I stomp around in boots. I sometimes arrive in a very uncool, noisy car that looks out of place among the Audis. Mostly I take the bus - where I'm sometimes the only woman not in a hijab.

I feel a need to be extra bohemian in this environment.

house of candles and cherries

A dark cottage lit by fig and mango candles, a tiled kitchen with a hot scent of cinnamon and honey. A garden of pear and lemon trees, birdsong and the sweetest of cherries. A small creek with a canoe in it, ready for adventures.

the most heated scenes of my life, a list

40 degrees Celsius in a small Californian town. We try to cool down by dipping ourselves into a very shallow river.

A sauna by the lakeside, with two old women. It's not far off a hundred degrees Celsius, and very humid. Dipping into the cool lake afterwards is heavenly.

The sauna by the public swimming pool. A woman pours several buckets of water onto the stove, creating great clouds of lethally hot steam, then leaves. The rest of us are left gasping for air.

savour the rain-soaked fields

To be able to enjoy almost everything.

Slow, sad, utterly Finnish music in a dark room on the outskirts of town. A breath-taking requiem by Mozart echoing under the vaults of an imposing church, moving yet another generation to tears.

Exploring an old ruin in the rain, in a muddy field. Zipping up coats, feeling cold rain seep through jeans, and just laughing all the more.

Seeing grey fields, silvery lakes, dark and rolling hills, farmhouses with lights in the windows. Marvelling at something so grey and rain-soaked and sprinkled with beauty.

Enjoying ourselves among the riches and temptations of a large mall, learning history in a medieval castle. Loving our food and wine, sitting quietly lost in thoughts for hours in the car.

One of the most valuable lessons I'm learning: Find the beauty in everything. Savour it.

weekend in a Jaguar

Road trip in a Jaguar with friends, Bruce Springsteen and the prettiest parts of Finland.

Cold rain will be soaking a monochrome landscape as we explore medieval ruins but we will stop at a mall where everything is warm, colourful and enticing.

Mozart's most beautiful music will be resounding through a cathedral and at the party afterwards, the synopsis of a thriller will be scribbled down on wine-stained paper.

Cold air, ancient castles, sad music. Wine, laughing friends and lots of history. And a long, lazy drive home through the darkest of forests.

hello to the howling wind

Say goodbye to the sun for about half a year.

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

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

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

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

with a mother's voice in my ear

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

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

God and the July sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world is too cold for that.

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

ice, darkness, apples

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

a metaphor made me write this

Birches are dripping gold, maples are weeping blood.

The forest is silence and the air is ice.

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

myths unfold in the city tonight

There is strangeness in the city.

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

lingonberry jam and death

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

Meanwhile, the radio is analysing the latest school shooting.

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

I have also wondered how long my mother will live.

our city is spreading its wings

Wings are leaving the city, all the time.

That's what we call them, the 30 to 50 meters long wind turbine rotor blades. They arrive by ship, make a strange addition to the landscape for a while as they are stored in a field near the harbour, and then leave the city while stopping traffic with their special transports and flickering orange lights.

I've been seeing these giant hulks for years, patiently pulling my car over to make room when they come. I still catch my breath when I see them. Beautiful, eerie and impossibly large, they are going away to harness the wind. It moves me.

fridge poetry

chant: all you and delirious!
play with a sun, still as a storm

bitter goddess with shadow hair
diamond skin, bare feet, cool blood

dream of frantic symphony above
dress like a scream, misty red fashion
run on moon juice
hot tiny light in luscious language garden

blue peach girl
drunk on sky, mad rose in bed
elaborate ache whispers over fiddle boy
sad beauty said no here

live rain woman:
go watch water
love like a thousand lazy summers
and sing about a ship of honey

always a stranger

In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence

(Bei Dao)

discontent with a vanilla scent

I'm in a cosy corner of the balcony, high above the sea. So why is it so hard to feel content? When I have a pink sunset, a vanilla candle and a gorgeous gypsy skirt? When I'm loved by God?

whiskey and silver nails

I come armed with whiskey and silver nails.

Autumn has nothing on me as I turn my world into silver and get ready for change. I will go on a quest for love. I will tell shivering secrets and diamond truths to my friends. Let the weak say "I am strong" because grace is sufficient for me.

I will live from day to month and love the chilling skies. There will be music, libraries and the whispering of French words. I will let my voice be heard and laugh without fear of the future. I was born for this and I know how to dress the part.

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. I will drink lots of water and grow in strength and wisdom.

I will walk down the street like a rock star, but with love.

raspberries, moths and the north wind

It was a summer of the north wind, of raspberries and moths. Of cool and empty offices, white paint and espresso. Hot sun and blue waters. Snacking on lentil crisps and getting out of the chilly wind. Stacking firewood, eating blueberries in the woods and making eye contact with birds. A summer of difficult emotions and the sweetest of sleeps.

And I saw a grey curtain of heavy rain advance against me after weeks of drought. I longed for it, smelled it, heard its muted whisper - then it came to me across the sea.

summer's end, always untimely

In my candle-lit cabin in the woods I prepare for the year ahead.

I rage against the dying of the light. I want to stay in the candle-light, silence, summer. In warm wind, laughter, salt water. In boat trips with sugar pig pastries. In being so close to nature that I feel it breathing. In the company of birds, poodles, people. In being so safe, so far from everything heavy and oppressing.

But the birds, poodles and people are moving on. Winter is coming. How fast and how unfairly!

It breaks my heart. But because I must, I make plans for the war ahead. I will conquer winter with music, spicy casseroles, wool, dancing myself tired, old and new wisdom. Above all, with love. This year, I will learn what it is to be loved by God.

It's a silent night in the woods. Tomorrow, I get into my Citroën and go to battle.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 
(Robert Frost)

this place loves me back

Raspberries, lots of coffee, the calm breathing of sea and forest.

The peace of a place where nothing happens all day and nobody is expected to accomplish anything. The sea breathes in, the forest breathes out.

I am all alone. I read, eat, watch DVDs, drink coffee, read and eat some more, take a slow walk, do some small tasks that I happen upon, stick my bare feet in the sea, have a glass of wine, pick some raspberries and eat them, doze in front of the laptop. There is nothing to be accomplished. The only thing I need to do right now is live.

I put music on and dance on the grass, wildly.

The clouds pass by, slowly. The light changes as the sun moves. The colours change. The evening is long, darkness won't arrive until close to midnight. The silence amplifies the small sounds - a bird landing on the roof, a twig breaking as the wind picks up. I won't see a human being for days. But I make eye contact with a bird and listen to my feelings and maybe God has a chance to say something.

My dreams stretch out toward the open horizon and beyond. I sing a song I just learned to the sea.

The air smells of pine trees and salt. This place loves me back.

In the cool of the evening, a fire crackles in the fireplace. I will soon sleep and only hear the fire and the wind and my own dreams.

gathering fuel

A fire near me, a cold night outside.

I'm missing some people and at least one dog, but I have an old lady next door who will go on a trip with me tomorrow. The birds are going quiet and I'm lonely.

Two weeks, a cosy cottage and all the books I need. The north wind is blowing. I'm sad.

Every accomplishment in my life was fuelled by a negative emotion. I will fly to the stars propelled by loneliness and sadness.

just the essentials, please

I crave velvety loose-fit trousers, cocktails, beachvolley weather, adventure and love.

barefoot in my dreamscape

"If you see a rock, tell me on which side."
"What do I say about a rock that is right underneath the boat?"
"What? You had one job!"

I'm in a tiny boat, singing "Row row row your boat" but the others say it's too cheerful: "Do the one from Titanic!"

On a desert island we have a picnic on the smooth rocks - coffee, crisps, "sugar pig" pastries. I could sit there forever, staring out at the summer sea. The heat, the smell of sun-warmed stone and pine trees. The wilderness. The cool, pure water where I immerse myself. Drops of salty water on tanned skin. My dreams, stretching out to the horizon and beyond. Everything is possible, everything is good.

I didn't bring any shoes on this trip. A barefoot life is part of my dreams.

when we were penpals

In ancient times, when there was such a thing as penpals, I had these:

* Fethanegest, an Ethiopian boy who wanted to study biology to become a doctor and who sent me a postcard depicting a Coptic saint coming back from a trip to hell.
* Sameer, a Druze boy who lived in a village in the Golan Heights, built his own house with his father as his bank and was excited about his cool car.
* Vania, a German church-going girl who became a friend.
* A Moroccan guy who just couldn't take a hint.
* An assortment of boring teenage airheads just like me.

Bonus pick from my correspondence box: My grandmother's postcard from a trip to Sweden where she got to meet "the Lapland doctor". Probably the only postcard she ever sent.

stuff I found along the road

Beachvolley with friends on a hot summer day. Evenings over a pint in a dark pub. Fixing my computer. Sunday brunch with cocktails. Hotels. Writing. Music and dance floors. Boho clothes. Being in a completely foreign environment.

These are things that make me feel good. Because they are completely my own, not inherited from family.

business and forest fires - so Swedish

I have breakfast, sandwich and yogurt, at Sweden's largest airport while I text with a friend I'm very upset with.

It's barely seven o'clock in the morning and too early for this sort of thing. But the energy of the large airport is inspiring. I watch the 7-Eleven staff restock shelves and the security guards mutter to each other. Swedes are different from Finns. They have a directness in looking at and approaching people.

I've always been jealous of people who get to live in Sweden. I have a very romantic view of the country. To me, Sweden is idyllic country roads lined with blooming fields and red cottages. It has lakes, horses, cute cafés around every corner. It has friendly people. It has an ancient history of kings and castles. It has traditions that still echo that ancient history. It has style. And my own language is spoken everywhere, unlike the country I live in.

After just a day in Sweden, I'm seeing my life differently.

Not just because I have been in Sweden on a whirlwind visit. I have also lunched in the botanical garden in Linnaeus' own city, attended a business meeting and barely escaped a forest fire. All of these experiences seem very Swedish.

forget about ships and skirts

The queen of denim is dreaming in 98 percent cotton, 2 percent elastane and waiting for shipping approval.

It is Friday afternoon in summer. The blinds are down, the office is empty. The overhead lights keep switching themselves off, not detecting any motion.

A courier should bring me a denim skirt but he seems to be lost in Helsinki. A man should love me but he seems to be lost in space.

I should go home and forget about ships and skirts.

happy among mosquitoes

Alone between the sea and the forest.

Alone, that is, except for the Canada geese I chase away from the beach, the seagull babies I'm trying not to chase away, a rare bird I'm trying to identify, and too many mosquitoes.

There is deep silence here in the middle of nowhere. But not a complete silence. There are the sounds of the sea, the birds, the rain on the roof. There are also faraway sounds of other people further down the coast, and the hum of my laptop. Maybe the silence is inside me.

I have a bad back and a cynical mind. I am less flexible than before, in body and spirit. But I may be happier.

this blog's biggest secret

My blog is secret and anonymous.

Not because I want to keep it from those who know me in person. But because I wouldn't be able to write if I knew that they were reading it.

I am the opposite of an attention seeker. It's definitely not good for my writing.

when dealing with betrayal and geese, wear Armani

Today was the kind of day when I ...

... sat in the corner of a restaurant and said to a friend, "Do you understand that what you did was a betrayal and completely unacceptable? That you stabbed your friend in the back?"

... went to collect firewood from a shed at the edge of the forest, dressed in Armani

... ran across a lawn, laughing like a madwoman, with six wild geese trotting lazily in front of me


(Note: My one and only piece of Armani clothing was bought for six euros at a flea market. I'm an anti-consumerist.)

lilacs and heatwaves

Writing, lilacs, a poodle, work, a good book, a fish market, angry birds, heatwave, brunch with friends, long walks in fragrant parks, back ache. This is the way a summer starts.

birdsong and deception

May, and the world races towards summer. Colour bursts and evenings in the sun, millions of birds, the smell of earth and life, the first sensation of bare feet in cold grass - and then it's over.

A warm May is like first love. A cold May is like being deceived by your first love.

zombies and nuns in the capital of Bohemia

A zombie appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals as we strolled lazily across the famous Charles Bridge in Prague.

You know the type: white face, wild hair, weird eyes, threatening air. We avoided eye contact and nervously hurried onwards and lost it among the tourist crowds. A minute later, there it was again. Blocking our path, staring hungrily. We decided we had had enough of Charles Bridge and escaped into the narrow streets of Mala Strana.

Apart from this, Prague was all good. Well, except for the pouring rain as we explored the castle. It put a damper on our mood as we ran shivering between the cathedral, the White Tower and Golden Lane. But the lazy hour we spent in a warm, cozy café afterwards was worth it. We felt that we had earned our lemon tarte and excellent coffee.

Memorable moments included:

* drinking Staropramen on the roof terrace of a dancing house
* asking a stranger in the street for directions and discovering that he was able to sing our own national anthem to us - in Finnish
* discussing whether a horse can be painted, in the Old Town square
* gawking at all the impossibly beautiful buildings all over town
* having serious trouble finding dark beer in the capital of beer
* realising that the Astronomical Clock isn't a good meeting place at the strike of the hour
* listening to a sermon in Czech, only understanding the words for "truth" and "love" - but what else do you need from a sermon?
* pretending to be Czech as we travelled back and forth on trams and subway trains
* taking the wrong tram and deciding to stay on it and see what happened, in the company of a crowd of nuns
* being struck dumb with horror and awe in the Jewish Quarter, where Hitler had intended to create "a museum of an extinct race"
* being struck dumb with delight and awe at a Mozart dinner opera, where we drank Czech pinot noir and fell in love with classical music (and the baritone)
* getting a private guided tour which included a tame duck, many insults, political debate and shouting of the word "absinthe!"
* finding a lunch place far from the tourist streets, complete with surly waiters, incomprehensible menus and excellent bramboracky that cost next to nothing
* giggling over sweet American cocktails after an exhausting day

Sometimes I long to travel in luxury - being whisked from my grandiose hotel in an expensive car to an exclusive restaurant. Not having to do all the hard work of budget travelling.

But I have now decided that I much prefer travelling like I always do - walking for hours on aching feet, eating strange meals in local pubs, staying in tiny back street hotels, squeezing into trams filled to bursting with tired commuters, their dogs and their dripping umbrellas.

How else would you discover the hidden treasures of a city in the real world?

cloud lake found

Walking in the forest - tiny emeralds on every branch, birdsong, the soothing whisper of ancient trees. I'm breathing in silver air.

The lake, pale and smooth, has clouds in it and above it. I have found it, after half a lifetime. I sit down, hug my knees and stare into the past and the future. The haunting call of a loon echoes between tree-lined shores. A boy is fishing and a man has lit a fire on the shore. Woodsmoke, a hint of summer parties to come. Dogs are playing, people are smiling at strangers. But I could walk in this forest for hours and be all alone, all at peace.

Paths are promises of adventures. I will return to breathe more silver air.

Prague and the long-lost friends

I went to Prague for the first time in my life.

The sun shone bleakly on the famous astronomical clock, where a crowd of chattering tourists waited for the hourly chime. The cool April air shimmered with spring promise. I stood underneath the fifteenth-century clock and waited for a friend I had not seen for twelve years, the girl who taught me to play chess in Cambridge. I was nervous. Seeing a close friend for the first time in twelve years is scary. Would I even recognize her?

She suddenly stood before me. I recognized her immediately and hugged her tight as the clock chimed the hour and all the apostles looked down on us. We went to an obscure pub where nobody spoke a word of English but where they set cheap, delicious potato cakes and dark beer in front of us with typical Czech matter-of-factnesss. We discussed life for hours. Then we parted ways again. Not knowing if the next time we see each other is in twelve years or never.

The following evening, I crammed myself into an overcrowded tram in lashing rain and tried to interpret the tram map while not falling into a stranger's arms. In a dark restaurant by the river I was greeted by a man with wild, greying hair and beard. Another friend not seen for fifteen years, the last time in an Irish pub where he mocked me relentlessly and forced me to grow intellectually in order to keep up with him.

He told me his dark secrets and then showed me the secrets of Prague. As he kissed me goodbye, he looked as sad as I felt. Fifteen years or how long? Or never again?

April shimmers with promise of new adventures and is a good time to travel. To find long-lost friends. To lose them again.

burned sugar day

A red balloon drifted by my window.

Exhausted by my latest foreign adventure I decided that the world could celebrate May Day without me.

Someone pulled me out into the cold wind anyway. We had Mexican food and traditional Finnish mead, and admired vintage cars. The town smelled of exhaust fumes and burned sugar.

first fiction, then mämmi

I'm sitting here with a red sun, white birds and brownish-black traditional mämmi with cream.

I'm celebrating spring and the red sun, the eve of my birthday, a new router that I managed to install, an upcoming Czech adventure and the fact that I have written seven pages of fiction.

you need to wander

You need to wander the streets when they are warmed by the sun.

Because in a garden somewhere a robin is singing. You might meet a dog that looks at you and smiles. There is a strange house that you have walked past many times and never seen before.

An idea that will change your life will unexpectedly land at your feet. You will feel God walk beside you and say, "Look what I made for you".

The wind will tickle your face with a spicy scent and a knowing. You will turn around on a whim and meet the eyes of the one you have been longing for.

when birds and people sing

April is the month when birds and people start to sing.

The month when I don't have time for the million things that have to be done at this time of the year. Because I have to travel abroad, sit on the balcony, eat cake, smell of sunscreen, have a dizzy feeling, listen to birds and people singing.