books, candles and wine bottles

I read a wonderful book last winter. It has magic doors opening from our world into an underground labyrinth filled with books, candles and wine bottles (what more could you wish for?), mystery, bees, time travel, books where you read about yourself, a sea of honey ... I could go on. 

I'll just give you a few excerpts from Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea:

Zachary picks a different hall to wander down, this one has shelves carved into the stone, books piled in irregular cubbies along with teacups and bottles and stray crayons. [...] 

There are so many candles that the scent of beeswax permeates everything, soft and sweet mingling with paper and leather and stone with a hint of smoke. Who lights all of these if there's no one else here? Zachary wonders as he passes a candelabra holding more than a dozen smoldering tapers, wax dripping down over the stone that has clearly been dripped on by many, many candles before.

One door opens into a round room with intricately carved walls. A single lamp sits on the floor and as Zachary walks around it the light catches different parts of the carvings, revealing images and text but he cannot read the whole story.

 ..

Zachary picks up her glass of wine from the table and takes a sip of it. It tastes like winter sun and melting snow, bubbles bright and sharp and bursting.

 ..

He takes a book from a stack near the wall and puts it down again. He wanders down a hallway lined with curving shelves so the books surround him at all angles, like a tunnel. He cannot tell how the ones above his head manage not to fall. 

He tries opening doors. Some are locked but many open, revealing rooms filled with more books, chairs an desks and tables with bottles of ink and bottles of wine and bottles of brandy. The sheer volume of books intimidates him. He does not know how one would choose what to read.

He hears more people than he sees, footsteps and whispers close but unseen. He spots a figure in a white robe lighting candles and a woman so absorbed in the book she is reading that she does not look up as he passes.

He walks through a hall filled with paintings, all images of impossible buildings. Floating castles. Mansions melded together with ships. Cities carved into cliffs. The books around them all seem to be volumes on architecture. A corridor leads him to an amphitheater where actors appear to be rehearsing Shakespeare.

more savouring, less swearing

The life improvement program I set up for myself after last summer has not been satisfactorily executed.

In fact, it's probably fair to say it's a laughable shambles.

Tiredness have ruined so many attempts at improving myself. Giving up sugar should really be next on my improvement list. 

But perhaps I'm a little more merciful towards myself.

So here's the list of areas where I have improved: walking in twilight, stuttering in two foreign languages, writing unpublishable fiction, enjoying books, making the most of quiet evenings, helping my mother, standing up for myself, loving trees, getting things done, savouring moments, choosing personal protective equipment, not swearing so much in traffic.

dying unicorns and such

What I have today: 

A dying unicorn, faraway voices, a damp fog and laundry that's not drying, a spicy red candle.

darling books: calamity physics

One of my favourite books of all time: Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

I'm rereading it and wondering which friend I could recommend it to. I have quite a few friends but can't think of a single one with the right mindset to thoroughly enjoy it.

It's a strange mix. A text heavily laden with literary references and philosophical ponderings, shaped like a mock-academic syllabus, yet such a pageturner that I stay up way too late reading. A thriller with many twists. I remember the heart-wrenching ending, yet when I'm rereading the book for the third time - though it's been a few years since the last time - I can't puzzle out the mystery until the end. Maybe not even then.

When I finish it, my insides ache with grief but my mind is yelling that I need to go out and live my life.

Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it.

  "Unless your name is something along the lines of Mozart, Matisse, Churchill, Che Guevara or Bond - James Bond - you best spend your free time finger painting or playing shuffleboard, for no one, with the exception of your flabby-armed mother with stiff hair and a mashed-potato way of looking at you, will want to hear the particulars of your pitiable existence, which doubtlessly will end as it began - with a wheeze."

  Given such rigid parameters, I always assumed I wouldn't have my Magnificent Reason until I was at least seventy, with liver spots, rheumatism, wit as quick as a carving knife, a squat stucco house in Avignon (where I could be found eating 365 different cheeses), a lover twenty years my junior who worked in the fields (I don't know what kind of fields - any kind that were gold and frothy) and, with any luck, a small triumph of science or philosophy to my name.

a choir on white wings

The choir of seagulls is persistent and constant and doesn't even disturb my sleep anymore. Nothing is so omnipresent in this city during spring and summer as that noise, and the sight of white wings.

The sun swings wildly towards the north, landing further out in the sea every evening. I take my birdsong app out. I breathe in dust and sag with weariness. I'm not sure what I need right now.

just wanna find an empty road

Today I'm dreaming of: taking off in the car, going north to Kalajoki with the sandy dunes, staying in a pretty cabin, eating croissants with wine, exploring cold beaches and miles of blue sky, being free.

Dreaming of anywhere but here.

coltsfoot thoughts

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

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

mud and vintage cognac

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

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

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

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

welcome every migrant bird

What I do in April: throw open the balcony doors to a turquoise evening, chilly with the fragrance of melting ice, euphoric with the promise of spring and adventure. I listen as seagulls announce their return from warmer climes and music spills out from warmly-lit windows.

I savour the bright colours of Easter, the strangeness of traditions like April Fool's Day and Easter witches, the mind-blowing message of Easter itself. I drink coffee in the sun while watching the ice melt into the sea. I plan for a delicious birthday cake and welcome every migrant bird that returns.

I let my weariness melt in the warmth of the sun.

colour your world

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

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

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

spontaneous studies in theology

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is so much to learn.

this Disney winter

I should stop complaining about the Finnish winters. Because this one has been picture-perfect, ridiculous in its idyllic gorgeousness, breathtakingly beautiful, as if Disney had come here and sprinkled magic snowdust all over a fairytale movie set. Weather-wise, at least.

It's all glittering ice crystals dancing in the sun, rosy-cheeked children playing in powdery snow, hot coffee in thermos flasks, iceskating and snowball throwing and snow-fort building, ski tracks through silent fir forests, blinding sun over ice. Even wolves - real, wild ones, scaring dog-walkers and early morning joggers in quiet suburbs. I fantasize about hearing them howl at night while I make tiny snowmen on my balcony.

It's a bit too cold, perhaps, at times. My car coughed a little in minus 20 degrees Celsius today, and I'm fighting an almost chronic case of frostbite in my fingers. But it's better than suffering the grey sleet or rain of warmer winters.

I'm not a very outdoorsy type but I can't resist the siren call of all this beauty. I dress in three layers, including ridiculous woollen hats, boots with metal studs in the sole, and a coat that looks like its last owner was a mammoth. Then I walk in the wide-open landscape of a frozen sea or along winding paths in snowy woods. Listening to the silence and breathing the scentless, crystal air of deep winter. Only in a very cold and dark country can the return of the sun make you want to cry from relief and melt into its comforting embrace.

A friend took me on a walk in a forest unknown to me. The snow glittered and sparkled, the sun was low in the sky but almost warming, caressing us with friendly rays through the frozen pine trees. We climbed a look-out tower and gazed at endless forests, distant seas, cold horizons. At a picnic spot, we grilled stick bread over open fire and warmed cold fingers on coffee mugs. 

It was seven degrees below freezing but we didn't feel it. We sat in the middle of a snowy forest for over an hour, talking about the adventures from our youth, feasting on hot, garlicky bread.

Picture-perfect winter.

a companion through the ages

My friend and I sat in a fast food joint in a bland, suburbian mall, discussing physical therapy and inheritance tax with the dissonance of muzak and screaming kids around us.

In our youth, she and I used to sit in medieval cafés in inspiring university towns, discussing dreams and the world as candles flickered quietly under ancient vaults.

But our friendship ripens and sweetens deliciously as time goes by.

blinis and grief

Winter sun, winter gin. Long walks in snowy woods. A brightening at the horizon. A blini evening with people I love and a dog that tried to pull a sock off me. A repetitive strain injury from too much space opera.

And the strange grief that occasionally strikes me, with full force, over a life not meant for me.

blessed, found, loved

Today's best colours: A cloud of powdery white snow, a green DKNY bottle, a rose-golden sun. 

I doubted and feared and despaired a lot today. Then I remember that I'm one of the blessed, one of the found, one of the loved.

the office puppy

My boss in the garment industry understands the importance of good employee care, it must be said. Amenities in the office have escalated from a fruit bowl to a Nespresso machine and now to a PUPPY. 

Here with mirror image for your doubled viewing pleasure.

Perceived results in employee efficiency: Employees eagerly arrive at work, and then don't get much work done.

days of sparkle and cold

It's January. Enough said.  

Midwinter is terror and magic. Snow, achingly cold and beautiful. Outer space and its mysteries, almost close enough to touch. Days of icy, grey rain so desperate that no human should have to endure them. Days of sparkle and cold that freezes your breath and kills in minutes. Midwinter is immediate danger and exotic adventure. Cars skidding off the road, dogs playing in the snow, sleds and skates and skis.

In midwinter, there is death and despair. In January 2021, so many people are balancing on the edge.

But I pray and hope and learn to live.

excerpt from a space opera

   A faint whooshing sound, barely audible, caught Dak’s attention. It was a very familiar sound and it did something strange to his heart.

  Neither of them had said anything for hours - Xandor wasn’t much for small talk with a slave and spent a lot of time half-asleep anyway - but Dak’s loneliness suddenly reached new heights. 

  He said quietly, 'They’re powering up the engines.'

  Xandor didn’t react at first and Dak wondered if he was asleep again. Then he replied, just as softly, 'Yes. We’re leaving for Earth One. Royard will be doing a night shift in the pilot’s seat.'

  Dak had somehow managed to forget that. His world had strangely shrunk to only include the most immediate, concrete facts and fears of his existence. The world outside these bulkheads was receding into a dream.

  The whoosh was accompanied by a distant clang and other vague noises. He recognised them all - this was the airlock being secured, that was the mooring being disengaged. He closed his eyes and imagined himself in the pilot’s chair. It was suddenly so real that he expected to feel the smooth shape of the helm control in his right hand and hear the scratchy voice from the station traffic control operator in his ears. 

  The engine noise rose to a smooth buzz. The ship vibrated softly in response. He would now be saying his goodbyes to the operator and shifting the helm control ever so slowly to set the Sky Vixen in motion. 

  His right hand twitched. There was no helm control under it. 

  Dak pressed his sleeve against his face to stop the tears. 

  Xandor’s voice was so gentle that he nearly didn’t hear it. 'It will be alright, boy. Go to sleep now.'

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.