what I give up for Lent: worrying

I need to: Learn more English, learn more French, learn more Finnish. Go over my notes from the course in self-defence. Love my friends better. Go see my parents more often. Write the dream. Get a dog. Stop worrying. Be loved. Eat less bread. Tell my neighbour what she needs to hear. Stop looking for attention. Grab attention. Love myself. Stop obsessing about myself. Eat more fruit. Go to the gym. Laugh. Go for longer walks. Be fascinated by the world. Stop to think. Laugh again. Experience the moment. Watch fewer DVDs. Play the piano and sing. Go to bed earlier. Feel less envy. Listen to more music. Dare to face my repressed dreams, if they are still there somewhere. Water the potted plants. Grin.

coffee and toffee and demons

Tired and lonely.

Beautiful winter, pristine snow, an important task that apparently only I could do, a new sofa, a father who cares, film "Australia" and a sudden urge to read The Songlines, friends that don't forget me, a thermos with coffee in the snow, God. Behold things to remember when despair strikes again as it always seems to do as the month of murder approaches.

Tomorrow I will go to the expensive coffee shop and have a large vanilla latte and a piece of toffee cake. Coffee and toffee, invaluable weapons in the battle against demons.

in a van through winter

Steering an impossible huge and heavy van across the plains of Western Finland, I try to shut out the chatter of my travelling companion and dream of Prince Charming.

Icy roads are okay as long as there is snow on the fields and forests to add a shimmer to an otherwise bleak landscape. I keep an eye out for elk and deer and try to decide on a radio station. The van is loaded with books but smells of apples and winter. My fingers are numb with cold and I turn up the heater a notch.

Sleepy villages and towns pass by with their wooden cottages and ugly '60s blocks. An occasional tractor blocks the road. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, people have chosen to live, even here there are schoolyards with laughing children. Imagine.

There will be no sun today either, and darkness is falling as we head home in the late afternoon. I slow down and turn on the full headlights. My shoulders are aching from the driving and from carrying heavy book cases in the cold but I am served coffee out of a thermos and life seems suddenly quite allright. I am driving through winter and I can smell the sleeping fields and the resin of the woods, and oh how beautiful is this country I am in.

darling books: i'm shack-shocked

When God invites you to spend a weekend at a shack where your daughter was violently killed - will you go? I know I would, after reading The Shack (by W.P.Young). If only to ask him to explain himself. And to watch him cook dinner.

This book shockingly turned my thinking upside down. With all the books I read, it doesn't often happen.

to the strangers in the church lobby

Faces that are becoming dear to me, sometimes I hate you. Sometimes you annoy me, frustrate me, look right through me when I need you to see me. Don't walk past me! Don't smile politely. I need you to really look at me, to ask me.

Faces of strangers, you are family. We share so much, let's share more. Let's listen. Let's care. When I am lonely, I will look around and see if you need me to ask. When I dry my tears I will say "are you okay?". When I'm exhausted I will reach out a trembling hand to steady you. In my weakness, I will try.

But I need you. To see me, to speak gently to me, to give me a shoulder to lean against for a minute. To love me when I'm not worth it.

Because I love you too, even when I hate you, my family of strangers.

harmonious day

Ordering in CDs by new, unknown artists and helping them spread their message.
Imagining that a book I sell will change someone's life.
Seeing the joy in an old woman's eyes when I get her a book that she has been looking for and never thought she would find.
Playing a beautiful song on the CD-player and seeing stressed-out customers pause to listen.

There is joy in working in a shop sometimes.

sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits

Took a walk by the seafront in the January twilight and counted my blessings. My new golden boots left gold sprinkle in the powdery snow - or so I like to think.

This year has already brought new things. Golden boots. A chocolate tasting party where it took us 2 hours to get through five small pieces of chocolate. A new responsibility. Even a new admirer (though I still wish to be admired by someone else entirely).

And new sports clothes, for that New Year's resolution that I adamantly claim to never have made at all. But here it is: this year, I will be beautiful, rich and happy.

Pause for irony.

OK, OK. Too much, I know. So I will settle for being just beautiful and happy.

2008: the year I became an African

What I Did During the Year 2008: *After the Veuve Clicquot of the New Year celebrations faded out of my system, I had a runny nose and cynical mind. *Borrowed (for a few days) a terrier who hated postmen and barked at ice. *Couldn't hide from the dentist any longer (but 10 years is a personal best!). *Advanced in my digital development. *Had a dream where I found out I'm worth 1300 euro. Everyone was surprised. *Was pictured in the newspaper eating fish soup. *Forced the Little Shop of Harmony into the computer age (with a malfunctioning fax machine as my accomplice). *Worried that my jaw would fall off. It stopped feeling like it would when I stopped worrying. *Had dinner with a Limey. *Tried snowboarding. Only really managed to stay upright while clinging desperately to the gorgeous snowboard instructor. *Danced until midnight at an African wedding and then walked for miles through a wintry night in my party clothes to have a man teach me to play the mandolin. *Tried public speaking in a foreign language in front of hundreds of people. Almost died. Then felt like I'd gone to heaven. *Got my first parking ticket. *Spent a weekend getting foot massage, compliments and Russian poetry. *Limped around the island of Crete and discovered that what I love most of all is limping around foreign islands and really having the time to look. *Baked a cake. *Had the best possible Midsummer, laughing and dozing among friends and not having a care in the world except which man to choose as the most handsome. *Studied macho men at a metalsmithing fair, met real-life villagers at a local craft fair and genuine urbanites at an inter-city beachvolley tournament. *Ended a close friendship, restarted another. *Took on the responsibility of bringing Swedish literature to the Finnish people... at least some of it, to some of them. *Tried to teach a refugee girl not to dye her dog's fur yellow. *Decided to be happy. *Was denied membership in a church and felt more at home than ever. *Was totally culture-shocked, not to say culture-bowled-over at yet another noisy, chaotic African wedding. *Drove a van through the Land of Cool, Sweden, and tried to look cool. *Learned about mussels, black pasta, the EMO look, the life of rich EU brats, modern art that actually managed to move me, Flemish pubs, and how much I love my sister, during an intense Halloween in the capital of Europe. *Suffered defeat, over and over again, with the volleyball team. *Dreaded family Christmas turned out to be surprisingly OK, perhaps due to the presence of seven (7) dogs. *During the last evening of the year, was awarded the title of honorary African. By a non-African. *Made a fool of myself and it didn't matter one bit. And now, over to the next year... Wishing all of my blogging friends all the joy in the world for 2009!

excerpt from my diary

"What I like about weddings is that nobody is in a hurry; you eat & laugh & applaud each other & sometimes ignore the program in order to chat to someone & eat some more & send an sms to somebody you wish were there & take pictures of people & sit all by yourself and ponder life for a while & drink some coffee & all of a sudden 8 hours have passed... and then it's time to dance!"

Said by someone who doesn't hate weddings as much as she claims to.

in need of tuning

dissonance screeches through my life as notes of evil
I shake my head to clear it
but have to keep playing, keep playing
to reach that endnote of beauty

forgive me, I'm off key again

i am a fake Irish

Just realised that I spelled "whisky" the Scottish and not the Irish way in my last post. Shame on me. Nothing against Scotland, but I harbour a secret desire to be Irish.

Found a book about Ireland in a flea market today, published in 1957. I will probably read it eventually, but right now I just enjoy looking at the old pictures. Pictures of an Ireland that I never knew. Yet so familiar.

But I'm trying to survive Finland. This time of the year it is so dark and wet and miserable. An excuse to wear fake fur and bright colours, and to light candles and spend evenings on the sofa eating chocolates while I dream of hot whiskey by a smoky fire somewhere in the Irish mountains.

we work while God is playing pool

December 1st. A good day for arriving late at work, a Monday morning, and still find that even busy Christmas shoppers can make you smile. That searching for hard-to-find books and struggling with a credit card machine and talking to someone I used to laugh at 8 years ago is just what I needed today.

All is not lost, as I thought yesterday. Then, I decided that I am a hopeless case and that God is off drinking whisky and playing pool in a bar somewhere where women are not welcome.

babylon has its beauty too

Someone defined the deepest desires of my female soul today and I felt suddenly understood. My every cell sparkles with joy. I have a direction.

Beauty is not just a subjective point of view. Beauty is real, essential to life and available. As I have a right to exist as I am.

And: I can listen to a sermon whenever I feel the need to. And: it's been too long since I watched Babylon 5.

kiss and drive

"Kiss and drive" says the signposts marking the drop-off point outside Brussels airport. Stern policemen make sure that no car stops for longer than the time it takes to kiss your loved ones goodbye and unload your luggage.

I visited Brussels, the capital of Europe, with almost no knowledge about it beforehand. I saw the vast buildings that house the enormous, complicated administrative machinery of the European Union that is moved every once in a while to another city just to keep everyone (except us ordinary taxpayers) happy. But I also saw a lot of charming neighbourhoods and ate some excellent mussels with a glass of white beer.

In the city centre I also came across another sign that seemed to indicate a place where your dog can go when he needs to. Right there, on the pavement at a street corner. They are strange, these Belgians.

angels we have heard on a high

My colleague, the motherly old lady who brings homemade apple pie for the coffee breaks, looked through a supplier catalogue with me. We were discussing which angels to buy.

"The little chubby ones are a sure bet."
The chubby ones were more than just chubby, they were more or less completely round in shape, and weighed down with golden glitter. "They just walk off the shelves!" my colleague insisted and I nodded. Obviously, they couldn't possibly fly with all that extra weight. I hope they don't have to guard anyone.

"On the other hand, the weird modern ones are in fashion."
The weird modern ones are the ones with haloes askew, arms attached at odd angles and slightly crazed smiles, as if the twenty-first century is slowly driving them around some cosmic bend. They usually also have to carry around a giant heart or a string of stars made of barbed wire.

They all sit there on the shelf by the window among the scented candles, smiling crazily. Possibly the artificial cinnamon and lemon scents are going to their heads. Stoned angels. Sometimes I wish they would not all sit there looking at me.

russian wisdom: let it amaze you

"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship." Said Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky, whom I have not yet managed to read except in the form of WikiQuote, has also apparently said something along the lines of: "You have to love life more than its meaning."

Which I interpret as: don't wear yourself out trying to rationalize a meaning out of everything, because it's impossible anyway. Just live life as it is and let it amaze you.

So I try, out of a ditch of weariness and worry. There is actually something there: a song about snakeskin boots picked me up today, together with a large mug of spiced coffee. Maybe I'll even find someone to worship today.

on wild apples

A colleague at the Little Shop of Harmony who obviously feels I eat way too many biscuits at coffee break gave me a bag full of apples from her own apple trees.

I eyed them suspiciously because I buy my apples (and biscuits) at the supermarket. Supermarket apples are always perfectly round, even-coloured, flawless and come in little plastic bags looking almost clinically sterile. Actually, they look a bit like the biscuits except for the chocolate topping but don't taste as good. These apples were bruised, slightly overripe and with worrying little holes in them. When I opened the bag, a little fly flew out in a hurry.

Then I forgot everything else, even my horror of worms (not easily forgotten). Oh the fragrance! A smell not of supermarket plastic but of apples! Of autumn, dewy grass, woodsmoke, soil, berries, childhood, happiness, life.

They even taste good. I haven't found a worm yet.

mind games on the beach

Silvery balls land in cool sand on the beach. I enjoy the golden sunset over the still September sea but the game bores me. I feel myself drifting away from my friends' laughter.

I think:
this is autumn, at its loveliest
soon enough be cold enough for wool and fake fur
this little city by the sea, how lucky I am
could I love loud children who shriek like that
how many of my friends fancy that handsome man over there
why do I drift like this
someone please hold on to me
I'm probably just hungry
melted cheese sandwich with olives

my life with a metaphysical twist

September, and I have more friends than I ever deserve and will I do them justice?

I worry too much. I believe in God and still don't believe what he says. I trust him less than I do myself.

Two upcoming trips abroad, one that I will cherish and another that I dread a little.

I will go out and explore my own neighbourhood. The thirst for life keeps growing.

I am stuck in my fears and can never change. And yet, the force that I gave my life to is inside me and is stronger than the force of this world.

And please God, may people never stop buying books.

the trade was good today

You gave me an orange, I gave you coffee. You gave me an account of hospital life, I gave you a beach walk. You gave me a meaning for today's life, I gave you a sympathetic ear.

You left while singing I'm trading my sorrow, I'm trading my shame... I was left with a feeling of peace and joy.