where a flag once came down from heaven

The sound of many voices singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" is rising from an ancient church on Sunday morning. Outside the souvenir shop next door, a plastic Santa is playing a tinny, noisy version "Jingle Bells".

The contrast could symbolise this entire December weekend. I pull up my hood against the winter rain and keep walking, stubbornly excited, along slippery cobblestoned streets.

I saw a glimpse of the "real" Tallinn when we slipped into one of the modern shopping centres that looked exactly like any shopping centre in Helsinki, a two-hour ferry ride away. The old town, where we spend most of the weekend, is a wondrous world of winding streets, tall church spires, glowing windows, thick town walls and fortified towers and everything you expect from the most romantic of medieval settings.

It is also an isolated little world of fragrant Christmas spices, alluring restaurants, gaudy souvenir shops and rosy-cheeked tourists snapping selfies - all quaintness and mulled wine.

It may not be very authentic but it's easy to get sucked into the happy carefreeness. To exclaim over Gothic vaults and the glow of Baltic amber, to drink cinnamon beer allegedly made from an old monastery recipe, to drift around cozy cafés and majestic churches among crowds of Russians and Scandinavians. It doesn't matter that the cold is creeping in and that the cobblestones are grey with rain. We're on holiday, chestnuts are roasting and we're having ourselves a merry little Christmas.

pleased, as man, with men to dwell

... born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth ...

Words drift past. Mostly unnoticed. Occasionally they knock me out with beauty and truth.

a good party and the best part

There is something delicious in stepping out on the porch, at a party where the music is ringing in your ears and the alcohol is buzzing hotly in your veins, and step straight into a snow storm.

To take a break from clinking wine glasses and loud music, burlesque dancers, the heat of many bodies and your companions' shouted conversation. To feel the icy wind go straight through your flimsy dress, to see your high heels make delicate prints in the snow. To wrap a soft cardigan around your shoulders and breathe deeply. To hear only silence. To smell the winter of the North.

like their mothers

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
(Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest)

I have inherited my mother's, and her mother's, tendency to worry too much, suffer sudden indecisiveness and occasionally fall into despair.

Also their heartfelt smile, thick hair, curiosity, love of the English language, loyalty and soft-spoken independence.

stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop

“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”

(Walker Evans)

a hundred years of blue and white

A hundred years of independence.

Happy birthday, Finland. Independence is valuable to us Finns on an individual level so a hundred years of it is worth celebrating.

I will mark this day by standing on a cold street listening to some pompous music. Then I will withdraw to a warm kitchen where gingerbread cookies are baking in the oven, teenagers are squabbling and an old lady is knitting socks in the corner.

In the evening, I will watch the president's ball on TV with a friend and decide to never have another gingerbread cookie again.

At some point, I will listen to Sibelius' "Finlandia" and cry.

red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart

My favourite yellow-reddish colour, as seen today:

The sky at sunset, reflected in ice. The candles and the coloured light bulbs chasing away the darkness. The sweet strawberry drink I'm clutching between cold fingers. The dying embers of my creativity. And the stubborn glow of my joy.

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones ...

(Title from the song "Yellow Flicker Beat" by Lorde) 

make an ugly shirt

"Eat the damn chocolate cake, get your hair wet, love someone, dance in those muddy puddles, tell someone off, draw a picture with crayons like you’re still 6 years old and then give it to someone who is very important to you. Take a nap, go on vacation, do a cartwheel, make your own recipe, dance like no one sees you, paint each nail a different color, take a bubble bath, laugh at a corny joke. Get on that table and dance, pick strawberries, take a jog, plant a garden, make an ugly shirt and wear it all day. Learn a new language, write a song, date someone you wouldn’t usually go for, make a scrap book, go on a picnic, relax in the sun, make your own home video, kiss the un-kissed, hug the un-hugged, love the unloved, and live your life to the fullest. So at the end of the day, you’ll have no regrets, no sorrows, no disappointments."

(unknown)

the day after the night before

Sometimes, especially when you're not at your best after a boozy party last night, you need a slow Sunday walk in a snowy landscape and a greasy hamburger for lunch.

If only your companion wasn't quite so chipper.

as if for the first time

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

(Bill Bryson)

wasted and wounded at this old piano

The piano has been silent for years.

Now I play again. I'm rusty and slow and yet my fingers still know this intricate system of keys, my brain connects chords and something in my body finds a rhythm and goes with it.

I play the wrong notes and turn the sound down on my keyboard so as not to drive the neighbours insane. But music flows from me. I let myself have fun with it, my soul grows into another dimension and my piano teacher sighs with happiness.

best version

“A healthy relationship is one where two independent people just make a deal that they will help make the other person the best version of themselves.”

(unknown)

my Sunday rest

Dreary is the word for the place - a worn-down, bleak school on a cold afternoon when icy rain is lashing down.

It's Sunday but the school is not entirely deserted. In the gym hall, two teams of young girl are playing a mean game of volleyball. I buy a cup of bitter coffee from a stand their parents have set up outside and join the handful of spectators. My friend whispers comments on the girls' sets and spikes, another friend shows up briefly to share a joke or two.

The girls are very loud - their shouts and shrieks of joy echo in the bare hall - and the hall is poorly heated. It's not the environment I would choose for an afternoon of desperately needed rest. Still, as I cradle my hot coffee in cold hands and watch the intense game, my mind stops spinning and a feeling of calm settles me down.

A bar of chocolate completes the afternoon.

the turning

My coworker asks me the question, first thing in the morning. Later in the day, I hear it again - from a stranger that I happen to walk past on my way to lunch. And from my elderly neighbour, dressed in fur. The question is on everybody's lips.

"Got your winter tyres on yet?"

It's time for the biannual, mandatory tyre swap. In Finland, you must have one set of car tyres for summer, another for winter. Most like to leave the autumn swap until the last minute, i.e. just before the weather turns icy or the snow arrives to stay. People study weather forecasts and ponder the risks of driving in snow with summer tyres.

In the evening, the first snow arrives, as predicted by every forecast. I still haven't changed my tyres. I watch the swirling snow and think of the winter ahead - always so long and cold and fraught with danger. The first snow is still magical.

I fall asleep in the eerily yellowish light of street lights reflected in so much white. The next morning, the world is changed.

I drive to work, extremely slowly.

soup and melatonin

On an October day of the genuine kind, I do the following:

* take the winter coat into use and enjoy being warm again
* wander into town for a bowl of hot soup with rustic bread
* buy melatonin supplement and desperately try to get as much daylight as possible
* walk in the park and listen to the soft whisper of yellow leaves falling like snowflakes
* speculate, with everyone I meet, on the possibility of the first snow and when it's time to put winter tyres on the car
* light candles and worry a little bit about the winter ahead
* go out on the balcony before bed, to look for the aurora borealis

celebrate yourself

“When nobody else celebrates you, learn to celebrate yourself. When nobody else compliments you, then compliment yourself. It’s not up to other people to keep you encouraged. It’s up to you. Encouragement should come from the inside.”

(Joel Osteen)

bare, probe, live

Asleep, I dream of sailing on moon-lit seas and exploring unknown landscapes.

Awake, I pray for meaning, adventure and unexpected meetings with beautiful strangers. I learn piano chords and foreign words and come up with strange ideas, like long Sunday morning walks. I take time to stand and stare. I bare my soul to others. I probe the souls of others. I long. I live. I suck the marrow out of life.

the Cigar Room that never existed

It feels odd to talk about sailing on a dark evening in October when all around us in the marina, yachts and smaller boats are being hoisted out of the water for winter storage.

But the president of the yacht club is an enthusiastic man who enthralls us landlubbers with tales from the club's history. And he gives us coffee and biscuits.

Our motley crew of listeners didn't expect the coffee, much less the history lesson. We came because the adult education centre arranges a course on "the secret rooms of the city" and takes us on guided tours in beautiful, historic buildings not normally open to the public. The point of visiting the yacht club is apparently the mysterious Cigar Room in the ancient club house.

"I have no idea where this room is, or used to be," our guide admits from the outset. In fact, nobody in the club (or among us course participants) has even heard of it - apart from someone in the adult education centre who asked our guide to arrange this lecture and tour. That someone doesn't work at the centre anymore and can't be reached.

Things get increasingly odd when we realize that we have come to visit a secret room that is so secret that nobody has ever heard of its existence.

Still, we finish the tour in a small, cold room with large windows overlooking the marina. It's not hard to imagine sailors of old sitting here, smoking cigars and talking of distant horizons. The room smells of old wood and the sea, and is dimly lit by two boat lanterns - one red, one green. The lights around the bay twinkle poetically.

The group around me experiences a bizarre moment of companionship, joined by our interest in this secret Cigar Room that is probably a figment of someone's imagination. I shiver with joy.

darling books: wonderful troublesome Moomin life

"I'm longing to get away from this stony country. Even a poet can have enough sometimes."

Some children's books are not children's books at all but wonderful and beautiful when you've grown up. The Moomin Books (by Tove Jansson) are like that. They scared me when I was little. Now they give me poetry and life. They make me want to wander for hundreds of miles through the silent forests of my homeland and arrive in a valley where a steaming cup of coffee is waiting in a warm kitchen.

"That's where we're going to live and lead a wonderful life, full of troubles ...."

(quotes from T. Jansson's Comet in Moominland and Moominpappa at Sea)

unconditional and complete

“I demand unconditional love and complete freedom. That is why I am terrible.”

Tomaz Salamun