wisdom and EAN codes

The things on my mind today:

Three wise men with loud laughter and gentle eyes in the kitchen of a century-old farmhouse.

A wise woman out of my past who suddenly impacts my day.

The heartbreak of summer.

Strawberries with cream.

Electricity in my off-the-grid paradise.

The prison of a certain relationship.

EAN codes.

unworthy and inadequate

"There will be times when you feel unworthy and inadequate. Remember, God has not asked you to be worthy or adequate - He has asked you to trust Him."

(unknown)

meringue pie and exhaustion

That feeling when you return home on Sunday evening after a fabulous weekend, so tired that it's impossible to function and impossible to fall asleep. So tired that you make yourself even more tired hopelessly trying to unwind.

I tried TV, I tried sleep. On a too-hot balcony, with a laptop on my lap and a glass of rum at my side, I'm trying to decide whether a weekend like this is good or bad.

The bad: Mosquitoes, an exhausting relationship, a long drive.

The good: Swimming in a pure blue sea, lots of laughs, seldom-seen friends who still love you, a delicious meringue pie shared with family on the beach.

what june is

June is a garden of sun, flowers and baby birds, a month made for loving life. A mad rush of fragrance and beauty, as if God suddenly decided he needs to make it up to the Finns for the long winter.

June is sometimes hit with an icy wind, which stops me in my tracks for days.

June is wine on balconies and bare feet in grass. Mosquitoes. Icecream. Trying to wind down, and a panicked feeling that summer is too short and I'm not enjoying it enough. The unfairness of the icy wind. The absolute loveliness of warm mornings with sunlight on water, and slow, easy evenings around a barbecue. Beachvolley.

June is dreams and plans for the annual vacation later in the summer, joy and frustration in an impossible mix. Boats in clear water, vanilla icecream, exuberant smiles.

June is midnight sun and a party with my very own Midsummer people.

kiss my turku

Turku, Finland. Probably the best city in the world. One sure sign of its greatness is that it's built on seven hills.

It has a real castle, where a king was held captive in the dungeons, pining for the love of his life.

And a real cathedral (13th century) where on an ordinary weekday afternoon you can hear live organ music echo under the vaults and touch your very soul. Peace is found here - no wonder, since it's built on the Hill of Sleep.

There are lovely river walks. And bar boats!

There are unimaginably charming hidden parks, ancient buildings, lots of lovely cafés (order the blueberry/dark chocolate pastry Kiss My Turku) and the combined wisdom of two and a half venerated universities. And a huge daisy.

Not to forget, a giant spiderweb in a cave very near the city centre. What lives here?

Turku is the first capital of Finland, its first real city. Nine hundred years of history and a beach where you can experience the thrill of having your swim rudely interrupted by giant Stockholm ferries. What more could you possibly need?

I lived seven years in this city. Here I learned everything about life, love, friendship, the internet and how to write a French essay when you don't know any French.

god needed, apply within

I like myself on the days when I turn down full-time jobs to focus on the unsafe freedom of my own company, listen to rock classics just to educate myself, read books in foreign languages, buy coloured drinking glasses instead of the old boring ones, organize, minimize, smile at people, allow myself to live unfettered.

I don't like myself much on the nights when I twist my mind in unnecessary worry, escape into useless distractions, believe in my own lies.

I need a God to steer me right.

coloured drinking glasses

a European problem

I am torn between the urge to have dozens of little lamps for mood lighting and the necessity to preserve at least a few of the earth's resources for future needs.

As I wrote this, I was stabbed with guilt. To be thinking about mood lighting when people are drowning, starving and being beheaded.

just enough to inflame

"Foreign lands never yield their secrets to a traveller. The best they offer are tantalising snippets, just enough to inflame the imagination. The secrets they do reveal are your own - the ones you have kept from yourself. And this is reason enough to travel, to leave home."

(Graeme Sparks)

a silvery evening with pathology

Neither young nor old, I am here in this Northern country where a summer rain is showering silver. The door is wide open, to birdsong and the fragrance of water on sun-warm asphalt and lush gardens.

I light a golden candle in the silver light, sink into my sofa and have a little competition with my friends in a chat window: posting pictures of the weirdest books we have on our shelves. Surgical Pathology is winning hands-down.

go home and love yourself

"At the end of the day, you will go home to yourself and yourself only. Ensure you are proud of the person you have to fall asleep with, of who you are. Those who tell you that you aren’t good enough are not there with you at 3am when you’re crying in the dark because you’ve pretended to be someone you aren’t and you are no longer sure who you are anymore. Go home and love yourself."

(unknown)

so strong they can be gentle

"We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free."

(Kavita Ramdas)

things I should tell him

That I'm a minimalist and a moderate anti-consumerist who can't cook.
That I am one of those annoying linguists who sigh dramatically whenever they see a misspelled sign and exclaim: "Everywhere needs a proofreader!"
That I need lots and lots of time alone.
That I get creative late at night.
That I read sixty books a year and don't remember them afterwards.
That I sing while I walk.
That I love rooms dimly lit rooms with candles, sitting with my back against the wall, watching everyone else.
That I mistake wine for creativity.
That a part of me is always in Ireland.

in-love-fallings, part five

* Mexican restaurants: the first time my big sister took me to dinner in one (Finnish, fake-Mexican, probably terribly unauthentic and cheesy). I love the poorly lit booths, narrow passageways, cheerily colourful decor, the sangria and fried icecream. (I may be in for a horrible surprise if I ever make it to Mexico.)

* Irish pubs: my first, dizzying evening in Ireland. Dark nooks, rough wooden tables with spilled beer, smell of tobacco, red-faced men saying incomprehensible things, raucous laughter, Guinness ads claiming it is good for you, pipe music (and U2 music), radiators on full blast to ward off the chilly dampness outside, and a feeling that all is well with the world.

* second-hand shops: in a treasure chamber in a basement, where I got accidentally locked in.

* laptops: some cold evening in a wintry Finland when I first lost myself in the world out there, available on my own lap. (Tablet computers are too clumsy to type on. Smartphones annoy me.)

* peppermint tea: on holiday, tiny cabin at boring camp site, parents and sister. I was about 16. The weather was chilly, I can't remember doing much fun and the only tea we had in the cabin was peppermint. But the atmosphere: family, cozy evenings, peppermint. So, peppermint = coziness, comfort. Reinforced during that summer in France when I spent the evenings watching TV in the attic with two wonderful boys who always brought me peppermint tea because I had once mentioned that I liked it.

the three desires of a woman

"I think you’ll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That’s what makes a woman come alive."

(John and Staci Eldredge)

yes. go. now.

"Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right. Because, I think there’s something inside of you—and inside of all of us—when we see something and we think, “I think I can do it, I think I can do it. But I’m afraid to.” Bridging that gap, doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that—THAT is what life is. And I think you might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s special. And if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself. Now you know. A mystery is solved. So, I think you should just give it a try. Just inch yourself out of that back line. Step into life. Courage. Risks. Yes. Go. Now."

(Amy Poehler)

enter the businesswoman

The last year or more I've been ...

worrying, procrastinating, making feasibility plans, making appointments I didn't want to keep, talking about things I didn't understand, filling out forms, waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, trying to forget about everything, being pushed forward by sheer despair, reading boring material, trying to remember figures, wondering why nobody can help me, forcing myself onward ...

while trying to remember that this is what forging my freedom looks like.

minimum stay three weeks

I have lived at least three weeks in these places:

A small house in the suburbs. Long winters buried in snow, lovely summers embedded in a lush garden.

A room in an old school with a beautiful Swede as roommate. The walls smelled like old stone, the attic was a treasure chamber of books and God was everywhere.

A motel room near a Thai beach - shared with history makers, world shakers and the occasional cockroach.

A tiny room filled to bursting with sleeping bags and friends with diarrhoea.

A large flat overlooking grey city streets and rooftops with flags. Full of  file folders, languages and new friends.

A cold room in a Scottish attic and a bed with two eiderdown duvets.

A wooden Swiss chalet where I could hear wolves howl at night (maybe in my imagination).

A Hawaiian house with a slow-moving ceiling fan, shutters instead of windows and sometimes a friendly gecko.

A small flat high above the busy streets, where boys came to woo.

A house in France among endless open fields - with an orchard and boys who brought me tea and taught me ping pong.

A tiny flat hidden behind an elm tree in a quiet street. I slept alone and prepared for the world.

A worn-down attic in a worn-down Irish house, with plenty of people. Buzzed with illegal parties on boozy nights, while deer and sheep grazed outside on misty mornings.

Another attic room, above a bar and beside a mountain. A deep window, creaky floors, a yellow blanket, a beloved bathtub, a Canadian and a Frenchwoman.

The Window Sill room, hardly bigger than the window sill, where I contentedly contemplated my loneliness and my adventures and read English novels.

A terrible room in a suburb, where the only good things were red sheets, a poster of a calla lily and a view over barley fields.

The tiniest bedsit of all in a row house shared with a lawyer. The comfort of a tree outside the window and TV in bed during the small hours.

The House of the Thirteen Clocks. Disastrous, disastrous and dreary. I barely escaped with my sanity intact.

The flat of the eternal moonlight. Fairy lights and a kitchen table as protection against a cold winter. And it had a dance floor.


The Beach Hut - an ordinary flat with an extraordinary sea view. Beauty and weird neighbours.

An idyllic cottage in an idyllic village with idyllic people. Shared with an idyllic sheepdog.

And lastly, the paradise which has been there for me all through the years and which words cannot describe.

crowbeaten

Got hit in the head with a crow today. Twice. Intentionally. By the crow itself. Then it shrieked at me to eff off.

I effed off and took the long way around.

It was that kind of day.

a continent to explore

"Someone once told me a story about long term relationships. To think of them as a continent to explore. I could spend a lifetime backpacking through Africa, and I would still never know all there is to know about that continent. To stay the course, to stay intentional, to stay curious and connected – that’s the heart of it. But it’s so easy to lose track of the trail, to get tired, to want to give up, or to want a new adventure. It can be so easy to lose sight of the goodness and mystery within the person sitting right in front of you."

(Joy Williams)

on my study list

Finnish words, classic jazz songs, everything in history, how to be joyful.