while you wait

Infinity and a coffee is what I'm having. While enormous snow drifts are melting in mild weather outside.

I have played my volleyball and read my books and watched my DVDs and treasured my friends and performed my job. While I'm waiting for this deadly winter to end.

this is not one of those trendy interior design blogs

But this is my favourite charity shop find at the moment. Who can resist the combination of stained glass, gold stars and a tiny cow bell?

held down

"Get up, God! Are you going to sleep all day?
      Wake up! Don't you care what happens to us?
   Why do you bury your face in the pillow?
      Why pretend things are just fine with us?
   And here we are—flat on our faces in the dirt,
      held down with a boot on our necks.
   Get up and come to our rescue.
      If you love us so much, Help us!"

Psalm 44, The Message Bible

what to do when you're in a hurry

I was invisible in a room, in a sphere of my own, just sitting there quietly, reading. You came and laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Happy new year". You asked me how I was and sat down to listen. The meeting was delayed because everyone was waiting for you. Because you were there in the back room where nobody else could see me, making me visible.

another list of me

I like: spring rolls, diaries and exploring new places.
I need: woollen socks in winter, coffee and xylitol chewing gum.
I crave: chocolate, approval from people I admire and walks in the forest.
I hate: arrogance, early mornings and ugly clothes.
I fear: disease, public disgrace and growing old alone.

2010: the year of death and other quirks

Year 2010: two very cold, snowy winters, one very hot summer. The details:

* Ten-year anniversary of perhaps the best year of my life.
* Tried to follow conversations in Finnish, Hindi, Arabic and pidgin English simultaneously.
* My first real 3D-film and female FaceBook-conspiracy.
* Learned (in theory) how to be a strong and true woman and what a good masseuse can do to you.
* Took a trip to Ireland and learned how to live deeply, live lightly and shine. Also found out what a head shop is and the modern way of lighting a turf fire.
* Found the most difficult relationship of all: that between a woman and her mother.
* New nickname: "me little Cockney sparrow".
* Realised my thesis supervisor in English lit has turned into an Irish fiddler, and not a bad one at that.
* Best book title of the year: Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
* "Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
* Mostly used phrase of the year: "Bloody hell!"
* Tried a new identity as a van driver with work gloves, heavy boots and dangly earrings, reading Newsweek in between loading heavy boxes.
* Obsessions of the year: CSI:NY and strong men with good hearts.
* Bought a Citroën and sang songs in French for a week.
* Made eye contact with a fox.
* Picnic at the bronze feet of a buddhist monk.
* Admired a mirage of Sweden and climbed Mordor.
* Tried being one-eyed.
* Gave up on learning Gaelic.
* Danced myself to one-third of a beachvolley ball. Danced some more.
* Inflatable mattress-surfing on a windy beach.
* Happiest moment: floating out to sea on a raft under a summer sun, reading Paul Auster and humming "her name was New York, New York..."
* Fell in love while spitting sand and getting bruises.
* Was accused of supporting African arms dealers.
* Revived my dream of running away with the circus. Practiced my psychic skills on FaceBook.
* Jazz, Picasso, the theatre, iPads and flirting - all the arts in one night.
* Drove an hour to attend the opening of the world's most boring exhibition at the world's most boring museum in a city that always gives me suicidal thoughts. The wine and company was excellent.
* Endured extreme temperatures: +95 and -27 degrees Celsius.
* Attended a football game and discussed unkissed body parts.
* Event invitations received on FaceBook: Crazy Sales Showroom at Consentido Bar-Lounge, Madrid, and Lughnasadh Tree Lore Weekend in Donegal, Ireland.
* Found that there are worse ways to spend a sunny autumn evening than watching 5000 cranes (my favourite bird) fly over a meteorite crater.
* Spare-time jobs can be rewarding. Learned more than I ever wanted about Indian pantomime, Israeli orphanages, dementia, Dead Sea mud cosmetics and something called the Quark Region.
* Dreams: 1. I spray-painted E=mc2 on the wall at my workplace (boss wasn't happy). 2. I created the new slogan for Finland's largest company (a power plant manufacturer): "The spinning wheel isn't the solution". 3. I was a singing algae (voice: bass).
* Dilemma of the year: can you be friends with a former wife-beater?
* Visit to the "village shop" of Tuuri, one of Finland's major tourist sites. (That fact says something about Finland.) Listened to Sibelius' "Finlandia" on the way home.
* Things I've never done before: taken sleeping pills, given a speech without the help of notes and eaten highland cow marinated in Coca-Cola.
* Got to know my brother.
* Lost my father.

don't thank me

My linguist brain struggles with the fact that the English word 'thank' cannot stand alone. You can't just thank. You have to thank someone.

Linguistics aside, everyone says being thankful is good for your mental health. And how can you be thankful unless you have someone to be thankful to?

So goodbye self-sufficiency. Hello believing in something outside of myself.

Today's spiritual reflection was brought to you courtesy of the Christmas blues and an overdose of chocolate-covered almonds.

take this opportunity to thank someone, anyone, for

The Arctic snow that makes noise when I walk on it and the friends I don't call but who answer when I do and the candles I light in the evening and the thriller I read in bed when I can't sleep and the cider I drink when I can't afford wine and the wheat warmer and the mornings I get to sleep in and the busy days in the shop when it's easy to smile again and the volleyball.

The dreams of exploring new shores and the people who really see me and the wool skirt that flatters my legs and my niece who educates me on Justin Bieber and my nephew who draws me pictures of horses and my other nephew who quotes interesting trivia and the fact that I never have money yet never lack any good thing and my mother who loves me and my work for a good cause and the sea outside my window and the DVDs I watch and the birds that remind me of God and the languages and the music in my body and soul and the hope that I glimpse occasionally.

And the fact that I am saved by grace.

at the gates of Heaven

I went there. To the place, an insignificant parking lot outside a community hall in a suburb, where God came down to get you. Where your soul left the earth.

What an unthinkable, unfathomable thing that happened here. There should be some divine brightness over the place, a holy atmosphere, at least a sign with a black cross on it. But. Nothing to indicate this ever happened. A winter evening, snow and Christmas decorations, commuters returning home for dinner and helping kids with homework and drowsing in front of the telly. I cried for a while and then left.

Life goes on. What a comfort and what a cruelty.

but a walking shadow

Fairy lights. Candlelight. Laptop screen light. Street light reflected on snow.

The light inside me is burning low.

Spent some time with my family. In the middle of life. A children's dance show, my beautiful niece did herself justice. Lots of proud fathers and beaming mothers and bored siblings in the audience. I pretended to be a part of it. I would have laughed at the dancers who were more preoccupied with twirling their pretty skirts than focusing on their dance number. But the laughter couldn't find its way to me. I could see and hear love in the voices of my family. But I could neither feel nor taste it, it stopped somewhere short. My darkness is impenetrable.

But this is just one day of sorrow. Tomorrow there will be a slight shift towards the future. A brief nuance of a brighter light.

what world is this? what kingdom?

Is it really real? That you are laid in a hole deep down in frozen ground, covered with dirt and flowers and a layer of snow, and darkness...

That you just ceased to breathe and suddenly found yourself in another place, warm and joyful, and face to face with those you said farewell to years and years ago?

I have never thought about this before.

famous last gifts

Dad (pleased with himself): "I just bought you two Christmas presents!"
Me (skeptical and amused, because it's always Mum who does the shopping): "You bought me presents?"
Dad: "Yes. Motor oil and a spade."
Me: "Noooo, you're not supposed to tell me! ... Did you say motor oil and a spade?"

One day later, he was dead. As last conversations go, it was certainly memorable.

R.I.P., Dad. You were always my hero. I will love you all the way to heaven.

myself until the end

Everybody else is happy. Everybody else picks themselves up when they are not happy. Everybody else gets back on track when their life spirals out of control. Everybody else just makes it.

I am not everybody else. I am a reluctant rebel in the land of Personal Success One Way Or Another. If I am a failure I bloody well have the right to be a failure and PROUD OF IT. I raise my flag and sing my rebel song: I will not pretend. Myself until the end. 

overheard in a church pew

"Are you pregnant?"
"Of course! You?"
"No. Worms!"

november, Bach and a prayer

If you are real, then I want:

To rest against your shoulder and feel loved.
To be led by you somewhere, unthinking, in trust.
Eyes open in peaceful wonder.

the Despicable List

People I am sick of:

* arrogant people
* people who want to change you
* people who expect you to be like them (especially in religious contexts)
* people who pity you if you are not like them (in any context)
* people who expect God to be like them
* unreliable people
* liars, thiefs, hustlers and plain old cheats
* wife-beaters and men who don't even realise they see women as inferiour (plain old passive women-haters are ok though, at least they are honest)
* bloggers who post lots of pics of their kids
* people who tell you how happy they are and expect you to be happy for them. And peg you as a "negative person" if you don't succeed in being quite as happy.
* people of one-track-minds
* people who are "tolerant" (unless you have conservative views)
* people who voice strong opinions on matters they know nothing about
* people who laugh at you when you are emotional (even "lovingly")

I feel as if I have met at least one of each category during the past week. Does that mean:
a) I am a negative person,
b) I attract the worst kind of people, or
c) I need a holiday?

with my body, I thee worship

The good book says: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?"

No, I did not know. Until someone came to worship and lit the candles on the altar, burned some incense, let the vaults echo with the harmonies of hymns. Made it glow.

Life is not lived solely in the mind.

midnight, and I'm with the sweet prince

Frailty, thy name is woman. Hamlet, in the middle of the night. Kenneth Branagh, I shall love thee forever.

No, really. I've never been a fan of Shakespeare. Or Shakespeare films. Until you started making them.

one of those invisible nights

Regenerating hair spray, new nail polish and a drink. I'm good to go. To sleep.

What is this life, when no-one sees you? Neither at your best nor your worst.

joy and other unmentionable things

The tragedy of our wealthy, self-realising society is that you never dare to voice your innermost dream to anyone anymore - not even yourself. The kind of dream that you don't know if you dare or even really want to realise even if you had the chance. Because if you mention your dream, people say: "What's stopping you? Go for it!"

And then you realise that you are too scared or lazy or overwhelmed by the task or afraid of disappointment... so you don't. And feel shame. Because everyone else seems to make their dreams come true. So your self-esteem sinks a little bit lower and your dream fades a little bit further.

So. I will voice my dreams. The ones that I don't know if I really want to remain only dreams or not:

* Sail in a (sub)tropical archipelago (biggest obstacle: afraid of big waves).
* Travel around the world - slowly - with a handsome, awesome and incredibly rich man and stay in five-star tree lodges and swim in pools with a view (biggest obstacle: don't know any handsome and awesome millionaires).
* Be a joyful woman who dances, rides horses, does new things all the time and fascinates people (biggest obstacle: simply not possible).
* Have a completely flat stomach (biggest obstacle: laws of biology).