not just in a grain of sand

I want to ...

visit Prague, Barcelona and Venice.

have endless cups of tea and then be rocked to sleep on the train from Helsinki to Beijing.

shiver with fear in the heart of Africa on a hot, dark night full of strange sounds, feeling very far from home.

sail up the Amazon river and see crocodiles, monkeys and other unpleasant animals.

drink beer in the colourful cantinas of Mexico and sleep on a Pacific beach.

look for my lost love on the streets of Sydney.

get lost in a maze of neon-lit alleys in any city in East Asia where I don't understand a word of the language.

lazily cruise Polynesia, the Stockholm archipelago and any other friendly archipelago.

explore New York, Oklahoma, the Dakotas and every other part of the U.S. A.

really feel India.

be drunk and in love among the glitter of Hong Kong

travel on a slow, small boat along the rivers and canals of the European continent, listening to chansons, boat horns, crickets and the popping of wine corks, passing underneath low-hanging branches that smell of honeysuckle and roses, close enough to the river banks to wave at playing children and hear the sizzle of meat from summer barbecues.


see every medieval castle and ancient ruin known to man.

I mix melancholia with excitement, bonfires with storms

August was:

Encounters with hedgehogs and eagles, carnival smoothies with a doctor, midnight car crashes far away, sea buckthorn berries, a bonfire in a storm.

Long talks and arbour planning by the sea. Inaction, weariness and a little worry. Crying over a dead squirrel and the discovery that I am very strong, sometimes.

Days alone in the wilderness with chocolate and Once Upon A Time.

As always at the end of summer, melancholia mixed with excited plans.

a woman like me, but stronger

There is a woman, like me but stronger, that lives in a tiny flat in a big city, with a handsome man and a scruffy mongrel.

Each day, the man and the woman take their weapon of choice and go out to fight the good fight together. They save people and make them courageous. The dog usually gets to come along. The woman comes home to write about what she has seen and send the words across continents. The man cooks mushroom pies that smells deliciously of garlic and sings old jazz tunes.

In the evenings, they climb out on the roof to watch the sunset and drink wine. There are candles and colourful blankets. She teaches him Nordic myths and truths while playing him songs in strange, important languages. He tells her things she's never heard before and reads classic novels aloud.

They travel and love.

There is a piano and they get lost in the music.

the summer of deep-sea monsters, never-ending picnics and plus-ones

July was:

The hottest summer for a hundred years, and an inability to move. A beach picnic with wine, another with cinnamon buns, a third with salmon and luxury beer on the hottest day of the hottest summer. Dozing in city parks on brown grass, on the run from my own home.

Busy work days in air-conditioned offices, lazy vacation days when I never moved from the beach. Floating on the sea, making plans to conquer my anger and frustration. Being surrounded by some of my favourite smells: the sea, a summer garden, garlic in the frying-pan.

A photography exhibition with Nick Brandt's awesome work and a weekend in Helsinki. Never wearing any shoes except sandals, occasionally. Swimming in silky-smooth seas, rescuing an ancient fishing net out of the water and meeting what might have been the Baltic version of the Loch Ness monster.

An expensive work party and lots of fun with the plus one that I should stop bringing with me. A pizza party barefoot on a dark balcony while a cataclysmic thunderstorm raged. A cute mouse carried into the forest in a bucket. Family and weariness and happiness and longing for rain.

to helsinki, to be inspired

We drive the 400 kilometres to Helsinki, the nations capital, to hang out on a lovely beach near the city centre and watch the beachvolley championships.

To eat a weird lunch of cabbage rolls, to sip cold beer under a chestnut tree while a group of Hare Krishnas are having a street party right in front of us.

To walk among oddly coloured houses, to feel the asphalt soften under our sandals in the sizzling heat, to seek refuge and good coffee in deliciously cool malls. To watch people with weird hair colours and weird attitudes. To wonder about the hieroglyphs painted on a door.

To spend a lazy, inspiring weekend in a heatwave, in a beautiful, quirky and cool city.

storm-gazer's day

Storm-gazing across a darkening bay, breathlessly waiting for thunder rolling across land and sky. Making a show out of it, lining up sunchairs on the beach and handing out icecream, squabbling over whether that there was actually a lightning or not.

Thrillers are being read, neighbours are chatted with, bitter coffee is drunk.

Another hot day moves lazily into evening, darker than usual as the rain finally arrives. I feel the thirst of the withering land through my bare feet. Dry grass sighs with pleasure under warm rain. We light lamps for the first time in weeks - tonight there will be no near-midnight-sun - and huddle up around a kitchen table to eat chocolate pudding.

I'm savouring family life. There are dark winter nights ahead with not much company except for that of books and dreams, but that's OK. For now, there is everlasting sun and people to love and plans to be made.

horizons and horseflies

July sizzles under a record heatwave. This is where I'm happiest: in a cool sea, under a hot sun, with nothing but silent horizons and dreams and languages around me.

I stay as close to the sea as I can. Staring at distant islands, getting grass stains on my shorts, finding myself. I cook for my mother, study birds with my sister, lend my car to my brother-in-law, play silly games with my nephew.

I forget that there are such things as shoes, cold rain, work, lattes, make-up, friends, indoor activities.

I get annoyed by such things as horseflies, the proximity to my mother and the fact that the sun is trying to kill me.

I'm not moving from my hiding place until July is over.

me and another language and a mock-orange

I sit on a bench in the park and smell the sweet mock-orange and practice phrases like parce qu'elle est jeune nous pouvons la comprendre and think that it doesn't matter so much that I sit here alone.

his eyes aren't the ocean

"His eyes aren’t the ocean; I’m not going to drown when he tells me he doesn’t love me anymore.
His freckles aren’t really constellations that I can trace my fingers against so I can feel the stars shimmering under his skin,
and his veins are not a map I follow to lead me back to his heart where I belong.
He is honestly just a sleepy eyed boy with dimples and crooked teeth.
But it’s really hard not to see the world in someone when in truth, to you that’s what they are. Your entire fucking world."

(There’s just something about you (H.S), Dumbdaisies, Tumblr)

pine resin and a sing-along

The month of June had:

A boisterous party with rain, barbecue, birch leaf wine and a lullaby, career changes and the man who always runs out in the middle of parties to save someone in distress.

A poodle week with summery walks and early strawberries.

Long days by the sea with pine resin, sweat and old lady-watching.

An icecream session with the clan and a sing-along in a microbrewery.

Watering the wildlife and translating gangster movies.

the five-hour dinner of the Midsummer People

His beard is long and he looks like a hipster, my friend who has decided to leave the field of theology for a possible career in law enforcement.

It's Midsummer's Eve and he is in charge of the barbecue. I'm keeping him company in a drafty barn where we are barely sheltered from the cold rain. I move closer to the heat of the grill. I'm not dressed warmly enough in my jeans and tee but the smell of sizzling meat is delicious.

The air in the barn is dusty and grey, a bumble-bee occasionally buzzes around us. We have not talked like this for years, not since our days of playing pool in a dark basement.

Our friends are already gathered around the table. The cottage in the middle of the woods is warmly lit and nobody cares about the cold rain outside. There are hot steaks, corn and haloumi, homemade birch wine and a runny sorbet. There are more strawberries than we can eat. Someone plays a lullaby on the guitar and someone cries and someone gets their clothes ripped off by kids on a sugar rush.

The meal lasts for five hours, with the usual breaks for naps, rescue missions and disappearances.

l'or de mon passé

Since I can't write, I will quote and steal for a while. For all Francophiles out there, here are the words to a wonderful song.


Je voudrais oublier le temps
Pour un soupir, pour un instant
Une parenthèse après la course
Et partir où mon cœur me pousse

Je voudrais retrouver mes traces
Où est ma vie, ou est ma place
Et garder l’or de mon passé
Au chaud dans mon jardin secret

Je voudrais passer l’océan, croiser le vol d’un goéland
Penser à tout ce que j’ai vu ou bien aller vers l’inconnu
Je voudrais décrocher la lune, je voudrais même sauver la Terre
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Parler à mon père

Je voudrais choisir un bateau
Pas le plus grand ni le plus beau
Je le remplirais des images
Et des parfums de mes voyages

Je voudrais freiner pour m’assoir
Trouver au creux de ma mémoire
Des voix de ceux qui m’ont appris
Qu’il n’y a pas de rêve interdit

Je voudrais trouver les couleurs, des tableaux que j’ai dans le cœur
De ce décor aux lignes pures, où je vous voie et me rassure
Je voudrais décrocher la lune, je voudrais même sauver la Terre,
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Je voudrais parler à mon père

Je voudrais partir avec toi
Je voudrais rêver avec toi
Toujours chercher l’inaccessible
Toujours espérer l’impossible
Je voudrais décrocher la lune,
Et pourquoi pas sauver la Terre,
Mais avant tout, je voudrais parler à mon père
Parler à mon père


(Céline Dion: Parler A Mon Père)

gardens, aioli and other things I don't write about

There are so many beautiful things I want to write about.

The way the evening sun falls across the garden right now. The whispering sound of birch logs burning in the fireplace. The fragrance of woodsmoke and a summer garden. The quiet peace between the trees, heavy and soothing as a warm blanket.

And more: The feeling of freedom last night as I cycled home through empty streets, a little drunk and a little in love with life. The smile on a new friend's face as we shared a bowl of baked potato wedges in aioli. The warmth of the sun as I drank coffee on my own in a quiet courtyard. The joy of painting my nails with chartreuse varnish. Receiving a phone call from my mother, thirty feet away, who wants to wish me a good day. Solitude and the meaningful looks between friends. Little details, colourful and funny.

But I don't write about all this. Because everyone is clamouring for attention and I would hate to be one of them. Because I'm tired of seeing written words falling flat.

the planet needs

“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kind.”

(Dalai Lama)

pine resin day

Bare feet, smell of pine resin, hot sun and nettle burns.

The sound of wind in tall grass, a chain saw cutting through fresh wood. Pine branches scratching skin, coffee breaks with sugary donuts. Trees falling. A woolly poodle being carried to safety. An old woman, a young man and two people who are halfway, gathering up loose branches and pushing wheelbarrows.

Hot  skin, tepid water thirstily drunk, a delicious rest in cool moss.

background music

“You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.” - Annie Proulx

(Except that now there is, everywhere. And sometimes that is a tragedy. But I know what Annie meant.)

hot town, summer in the city

We wander slowly.

In fragrant parks where lilacs bloom. Along deserted back streets where seagulls attack us to protect their chicks. Past children who play a noisy game called "What Time Is It, Uncle Wolf?" To the beach, where we linger to play in the shallow water. On the busy seafront path, past the even busier icecream kiosk.

In the cool morning air, when the world feels new and promising as we buy strawberries at the fish market. In the heat of the afternoon, when the shade is delicious under linden and maple trees. At midnight, when the sky is still white and pink and we can pretend the human race has left the earth to swallows, hares, dogwalkers and poets.

It's my favourite season and I have the best of companions - a poodle.

no matter what mayhem

“I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

(Susan Cain: Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)

the elders who loved me

How I remember them:

My grandfather, the farmer with a thousand stories and a love of open fields, had a pear tree in his garden with the tiniest and sweetest of pears. He once opened the door on his birthday to find that a capercaillie had wandered up on the porch and pecked on the door. He also taught me to play with matches.

My other grandfather, the farmer who had grown up poor, married above his station, fought in the war and knew how to make shoes, dressed in brown trousers with suspenders and sat in a rocking chair.

My grandmother, who had said goodbye to many emigrant brothers, studied English, knitted and went on guided trips. She always packed a sandwich lunch for me when I was going away.

My other grandmother, who during the war had run a farm (despite allergies) and raised children on her own, crocheted the most intricate blankets and doilies until rheumatism stopped her. She sat on her bed all day long, gave me sweets and listened when I played on her old pump organ.

What they all had in common: Love and a generous spirit. They are all gone, and I miss them all.

not so fantastic beasts and where to find them

I have whistled at a rosefinch, chased a seagull, been chased by mosquitoes, cooed at a baby hare and knocked down a wasp's nest. Not bad for a day by the seaside.