pixie dust aftermath

Finland in November: ugliness of post-apocalyptic proportions. Add snow and a little sun: fairytale land of divine beauty.

And near-suicidal Finns are suddenly smiling again.

Took my laptop and walked through this fairytale to the library - stopping for a latte on the way. Work doesn't really feel like work when you are surrounded by books. I translated someone's account of a trip to the frontier in east Ukraine while students whispered secrets around me.

the Sunday soothing

The voice of a true friend in the morning, the cold white world of a blizzard.

The walk I took with freezing fingers, the joyful noise from the sledding hill.

The softness of a blanket, the comfort of cold pizza.

a rock star and cardigan afternoon

Alone in the office, not-even-daylight outside.

Friday afternoon, not expecting to be able to go home at a decent time. Translating the hideous slang of a rock star and waiting for urgent updates on the production status for a cardigan. Coffee stains on my white blouse and I walk with a limp.

But kind of peaceful. That's the kind of Friday afternoon I'm having.

a mist for falling asleep in

November picnic at the summer cottage.

A fire roaring in the fireplace, freezing fingers gripping a steaming coffee mug, the sweet taste of my mother's homemade peach pie. I can see my breath.

In the garden, everything is damp and grey under a layer of mist. The sea is the colour of steel and a gang of swans near the shore are filling their bellies before the long flight south. It's almost cold enough for snow.

The silence is almost absolute but peaceful, not oppressive. I feel my eyelids growing heavy. Time for sleep, the deep sleep of winter.

late so soon

"How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?"

(Dr. Seuss)

things to do for fun around here

Getting lost in the small, dreary Finnish city of Seinäjoki. Diving into its vast flea markets. Driving home under a darkening grey sky across the prairie.

you could

you could go the distance
you could run the mile

you could walk straight through hell with a smile

(unknown)

a shove-you-down and push-you-'round town

An evening walk in October yields some pretty sunlight,

some inviting windows,

 footprints in the sand (like in that poem, was Jesus here?)

and the realisation that some of the good townsfolk are very, very serious about dog poo located too close to their roses. "Owner of this dog, please call this number."

I also saw a great crowd of jackdaws wheeling around in the darkening sky, fishermen, a very suspicious meeting in a hair salon, yellow leaves. And around the seaside restaurant, there was an enticing smell of steak. I wanted nothing more than someone to take me out for dinner right then.

blue memories start calling

The October storms have arrived, and the very great darkness.

Time for some outrageously blue fairy lights in the window where they scream out their blueness all the way to Sweden. They are actually too blue, if such a thing is possible, and my neighbours hate me.

intelligent women

"Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women."

(Leo Tolstoy)

on pet placement

There is to be a final inspection of all the flats in my building after the plumbing renovation is finished. A notice on the door informs us that the inspectors will enter the flat even if nobody's home. It adds, "Any pets in the flat should be placed so as not to interfere with the inspection".

I would love to place my pets, if I had any, in appropriate locations. But do the inspectors know how hard it is to make sure that pets remain where they are placed?

the q words

English is not an easy language, even for a talented academic from Belarus. He is trying to explain to me why things are tense between two of our coworkers:

"Arthur and Teresa had a squirrel."
"A squirrel?"
"Yes, a squirrel ... eh, quarrel."

run with the wild horses

Unexpected encounters with horses:

I'm sunning myself by a quiet brook in the mountains. Four gigantic horses, of the draught horse kind, trot into view. Not another human being in sight. The horses wander down to the brook to drink and splash. I stare. A few minutes later, their owner and his friend show up, panting: "We've been chasing them for hours!"

The man who drives tourists in his horse-drawn carriage hands me the gelding's reins: "Could you look after him for me while I run inside for a minute?" The horse is rather old and lethargic and I expect no problems. Until another carriage passes by and the gelding is suddenly gripped with an urge to follow the herd. We spend a tense few minutes playing tug-of-war until the man comes back.

I stroll around one of the "commons", public green areas in the city of Cambridge. It is a pleasant place on the banks of the river Cam. Lots of people out for a stroll or bike trip, and on the river, every kind of boat. There are also horses and cows mingling calmly with the people since this common is part of their pasture. When I sit down on a bench to eat a sandwich, a horse approaches and makes it clear that he fancies a snack too. When I refuse him a bite of my sandwich, he takes a bite out of my arm instead. For days afterwards, people stare at the impressive mark on my arm and worriedly ask if my boyfriend is abusing me.

my knight errant

Alan of the blue eyes has me mesmerized.

It's the first time we meet and he is asking me out on a date. I hear myself say yes.

The first date, he stands me up. I shrug and have a drink with my friends instead, laughing at the predictability of men.

A few days later, he comes back grovelling and asks for a second chance. I roll my eyes and accept.

The second date, he stands me up. I have already made this a joke among my friends, who are taking bets on whether he will actually show up or not. He doesn't and I call him. He apologizes profusely and begs for a third chance.

The third date, he shows up, to the surprise of me and all my friends. He takes me to a hamburger place somewhere in Tallaght, a dreary Dublin suburb. Afterwards, we go to visit a stable full of thoroughbred racehorses somewhere in the hills, so he can show me where he works - he's a steeplechase jockey apparently, as well as a rally driver. He likes fast horses and fast cars and drives like a mad knight with a death wish on the narrow Irish roads. I'm thrilled by the beautiful horses I've seen and don't mind too much (feeling that if I'm killed, I die happy).

We go back to the hotel where I work to continue our date in the bar there. Before we go in, he pulls me behind the car and kisses me. He's a very good kisser and his eyes still mesmerize me. But in the bar, I drift toward my friends and he towards his own.

A while later, he's gone. I never see him again. I don't really mind.


"All I wanted was a white knight
with a good heart, soft touch, fast horse..."
(Faith Hill: "This Kiss")

a Thai hand

My Thai nephew is in his early teens - a gorgeous, black-haired boy with an inherent fashion sense and a shy, irresistible charm. His most treasured possessions are his guitar, his subwoofer, his mountain bike and his friends - not necessarily in that order.

His eyes eyes shine at me across the table in one of the Thai restaurants in our town. Unusually, I'm having lunch with only him and his mother, the rest of the family occupied elsewhere. As we leave the restaurant, his mother and I grab one each of his hands and walk like that for a while, just to tease him. The teenager scoffs but indulges us with an eye-roll.

In fact, I can only recall one other time that just the three of us had lunch in town together. It must be close to ten years ago. He was tiny then, just arrived from his country of birth and shoved into a cold Finnish winter. I remember him charming shop assistants and just about everyone we met. And I remember him walking hand in hand with me just like this. His tiny hand in a thick winter glove. It's a ten-year-old déjà-vu.

thunder and a baby

Poetic memory:

Sitting curled up in an attic window, watching a thunderstorm rage over Irish mountains. The only other person in the quiet room was a six-week-old baby sleeping peacefully. I sat there for three hours.

helps me breathe

"I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few."

(Katie Kacvinsky, First Comes Love)

once, I hugged the world

Weird memory:

Wearing a swimsuit and hugging a world globe while being photographed by a Belarussian artist named Natasha.

She was going to use the pictures to do a painting but was later distracted by money problems and a dramatic breakup with a French boyfriend who had bad teeth. But I think I'm entitled to say that I have worked as a swimsuit model.

OK, unpaid. But still.

skull drill

On a sunny October afternoon I sit on my white sofa, calculating the costs of starting a business, while someone is drilling an everlasting hole in the neighbour's wall. They could be drilling into my skull. It must feel the same.

the dragon woke me again

From ghoulies and ghosties,
and long-leggedy beasties,
and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
(traditional Scottish poem)

No ghosts have bothered me yet. Long-leggedy beasties are admittedly scary but most of them can be thwarted with a good mosquito net or by making your home in a modern apartment building. But things that go bump in the night are tough to deal with.

Thanks to a plumbing renovation project in my building, there is a hellish contraption somewhere that at irregular intervals lets out a very ghoulish roar. Trust me, it's not something you want to wake up to in the middle of the night.

For years, any unexpected noise in the night would wake me immediately and set my heart racing. It was the result of scary things having startled me awake too many times. The sudden rattle of a door handle when drunk men tried to get into my room, cars crashing spectacularly right outside my window, thunderbolts, people screaming in pure rage, and that industrial-size fire alarm that once went off right next to my head on my most hungover morning ever. Sleeping, or suddenly and confusingly awake, I feel so vulnerable.

Nowadays I lead a quieter life and sleep quite peacefully. I don't go into full fight-or-flight mode when that beastly roar makes the building vibrate at 3 am. "Maybe there's a dragon in the dungeon," I think before rolling over and going back to sleep.