sing, all ye blissful ones of heav'n above

Cold sea, frost-bitten old grass, bare tree branches, clouds, jackdaws, frozen mud on a forgotten path. Lonely boats on still grey water, people with dogs. This path along the sea is all I need today.

I think of the dream I had last night, of living on the beach and really living. I think of that night I spent dancing before all the dance floors closed down. I think of beauty, dogs, friends with different perspectives.

I come home and play my Christmas playlist for the first time this year. Songs from long-gone childhood records, Bach and Tchaikovsky, beautiful new songs, hymns, fairytales of New York, choral works in Latin that still resound in my memories from university town cathedrals, homesick Canadian-Irish songs that somehow ended up in my Christmas canon, that annoying Mariah Carey that I can't bear to delete.

I need to clean my house. I'm cynical and weary. But even I can see the candle of hope flickering in a window far away. Light and life to all He brings, ris'n with healing in His wings.

Peace, the First Sunday of Advent, God waiting behind the corner. O sing, all ye blissful ones of heav'n above.

i hate cooking

Cold and tired and wishing someone would cook for me. That's the essence of November.

I hate cooking. I proclaim it to the world. And ready-made food always has added sugar or is too expensive. How old do you have to be to get that meals-on-wheels deal senior citizens do? When will someone invent that cheap pill that you can take instead of food?

Today this seems to me a major problem. Must be a November thing.

sabres, wolves and licking

Dancing with light sabres in virtual reality, walking near wolves at a seven-hundred-year old seat of power, sun and ice, licking someone's hair.

It was that kind of weekend.

stars around my neck

I wear stars around my neck, and a vanilla leather trenchcoat that stiffens my spine. I wonder why modern novels are so thick and why I carry home more from the library than I actually read. I roll around on pilates balls.

I'm supposed to be looking for divine love and seeing the world, but both are impossible so I write a space opera instead.

stiff-necked and fictional

A bottle of wine red as blood, a cold sea outside, pages of fiction pouring out of me. 

Bucketloads of clementines and one tea calendar. A stiff neck and no energy for adventures, just a stroll in the wilderness of strange suburbs.

Almond butter, avocado butter and other strange news, a world that has shrunk to a few streets, The Crown and Friends on Netflix, economics as comics.

while waiting for the first snow

I watched the lovely, quietly heart-wrenching film Ensilumi (Any Day Now) and I felt the pain, behind dark eyes, of waching destiny come for you. While the world is being beautiful around you.

We were alone in the cinema and I wrapped my scarf around me for comfort, and afterwards we went for cappuccino and silly jokes about engineers and Parisians, and my heart had been wrenched but it was all for good.

cardigans and a green bottle

A few drops of scent from a tiny, green bottle. A long cardigan that even warms my knees. Walks among dripping fir trees and in neighbourhoods with wood smoke and friendly dogs. My favourite books with yellowing pages. 

These are my October weapons.

the lost era of kissing strangers

The strangest things right now:

The closed doors, closed nations, closed faces. It used to be a comforting thought, that there were always places in the world just waiting to be experienced. I used to hate the fact that everything in my town closed down for the night. It made me feel alone. Now the whole world seems to be closed down and nobody knows for how long.

The utter paradigm shift in how we live our lives. I watch movies less than a year old and they seem to be from another century - a time when people kissed strangers, elbowed their way through crowds, laughed when somebody sneezed in somebody else's face, pressed elevator buttons without any compulsion to wash their hands afterwards.

my new virtual reality

In the not so good old days I used to go to work coughing and sneezing. I only called in sick if I felt that I might be dying.

Now, if I sneeze just once, for any reason, I'm expected to stay at home. And I do, of course. I don't even have to go to work if I'm in perfect health - I can do my job without ever leaving home.

My city is closing down again, battening down the hatches. Schools close, restaurants close, it's a ghost town after dark. Teenagers go for wild drives, every one else goes for walks. People walk in the woods, by the sea, in the parks. The virus is making us a working-from-home, ordering-take-away, video-conferencing, country-dwelling, walking people with very clean hands.

I had drinks with my friends last Friday. There were snacks, candles, a great atmosphere. We chatted for hours - via video conference.

the procrastinator and the American

If you're a procrastinator, you will always be a procrastinator.

It could have been that American guest professor I had at university who said it. He taught me what the word means. I had never heard it before, my mother tongue Swedish has no such word. 

He had his good sides, that professor, although all the students were scared of him. He was too demanding and then disappointed in our efforts during his courses - like most of the other guest professors who came from the UK or the US of A to a small Finnish university where the students at the English department were surprisingly good at English but terrible at analyzing literature and writing essays. (Finland is a country that teaches languages but not literature. Strange but true.)

"Do NOT procrastinate when you write your essays during this course," he warned us, with something vaguely threatening beneath his charming American smile. I of course procrastinated wildly and handed in my essay after pulling an all-nighter just before the deadline, as always. I hated writing essays (and receiving disappointed feedback on them later). I hated all-nighters and deadline panic even more, but that didn't help. They were a constant ingredient in my university life. I was a procrastinator, preferring instant gratification to self-discipline. Born that way.

But I'm not a procrastinator anymore. 

Maybe I finally had had enough of instant gratification. For a while I did only what pleased me and it didn't take long before the inevitable emptiness of that life caught up with me. It was probably that and the hatred of deadline panic which changed me eventually. It took years.

The heady feeling of accomplishment and the unexpected pleasure in having set routines for work/study are strangely addictive. Also, I am driven like never before. I was never ambitious. But I have an urge to get things done because life is short and you don't want to waste time fretting over chores when you could just get them done and then go do something more fun, or something great and meaningful. 

And studying is much more fun if you're actually interested in learning something. Which I wasn't for years. But I am now. Life is full of fascinating facts and the more you know, the more fascinating it becomes. 

So I'm not procrastinating anymore (except when it's about washing the dishes). I'm not scared of Americans either.

more like a creation myth

she fills the cracks in her sidewalks

with honeybee forgiveness

monsoon hair hanging into

a mug of lukewarm tea

she is less like a love story

and more like a creation myth

                                (- ap)

a minor invasion

Someone out there is in love with me. It's strange, how it should feel wonderful but always feels like a minor invasion.

whistling through half-open windows

Coloured lights reflected in dark, silvery waves. Fiery leaves, grey skies. Coldly threatening winds whistling through half-open windows on velvety evenings.

An air of secrets, of adventures in the dark, of distant bonfires and signs in the sky.

Burrowing into a mound of blankets after days filled with challenges, emails, languages, disinfectant, people to reconnect with, laptop screens and volleyball courts, heavy demands and not enough energy, fun and fashion inspiration, favourite novels and novel ideas.

Chamomile tea, filling page after page with writing. My mind is alive but the world seems too distant and love is still calling from a darkening horizon.

asbestos or xylene, that's the question

"Is TH2P R SL sufficient respiratory protective equiment if the dust saturation is 90 milligram per cubic meter on average over an eight hour workday?"

This question was asked of me today. I'm continuing my studies in personal protective equipment and pondering safety issues in industrial environments. I have hardly even seen the inside of a factory or had to breathe more dust than can be found behind my sofa. I have certainly never used more advanced respiratory protective equipment than a disposable face mask. I am to become an expert on these things. In a language with very long words.

I find myself muttering to myself in my third language about particulate respirators, compressed air from remote sources, assigned protection factors. Whether asbestos or xylene is of higher priority in a risk analysis. Whether oxygen deficiency or explosive environments are preferable when you're trying to stay alive. Whether my boss will kill me if I fail the exam when she paid so much for this course.

the whitefish at world's end

On the Island, not much has changed. I've used the long drive to clear my head of summer confusion and sigh as I cross the tall bridge over an endless sea. 

Sunlight sparkles in the Baltic waves. I take detours into some of the small villages. Forests and fields, winding roads, a craft shop where I buy homemade bisquits. I'm in no hurry. It's the last day of my annual leave and still summer in my mind. I came alone because I needed to be alone.

At the farthest tip of the Island lies a small harbour, looking out towards open sea and the world heritage archipelago. The little restaurant at the end of the universe is getting ready to close for the season but still serves an delicious meal of whitefish and spicy potatoes. Dark coffee and a pink cupcake for dessert. 

The wind from the sea is chilly but I sit in the sun on the open patio to watch boats come and go, carefully navigating between thousands of islets and reefs. I wrap up in a cardigan and warm my cold fingers on the coffee mug. Before the long winter I have to soak up every sunray, every scent of saltwater and vibrant earth.

A hike along one of the trails takes me past birch forests, inlets and fishing spots, old cottages and ancient rock formations. Even some highland cattle grazing on what used to be seabed.

The Island wraps me in its mystical air.

welcome, icy clarity

Ah, to finally be past the emotional funfair that is August - with its wild carnival laughter, colours, a bewildered heart - and safely land in the ordered world of September!

The memories of hot sand, summer nailpolish, whirling ideas and cool grass are fading. I note that I did some of the things I had planned for this summer. There were mojitos, friends, drives through lush fields, the saving of a seagull chick, excited smiles on my mother's face, walks among fragrant pine trees, boat trips beyond the horizon, exploration of things unknown, Netflixing alone in the cabin between the sea and the forest, love and languages.

I still welcome the chilly nights of now, the starry skies dripping ice. The smell of the gym I haven't set foot in for months, the pilates balls, the dancing shoes, the volleyball men with their muscles and the exhilaration of sweating off all that sadness. The delicious lunches in the cafeteria at work, the business meetings around laptops, wry smiles, plans. The new knowledge that is placed before me, the Excel charts and the music course and all the books I haven't read. Beautiful clothes. The feeling of setting off.

I loved the summer but I was lost and confused. I mourn the loss of a hot sun and birdsong, of being so close to nature that I can hear it breathe.

 I revel in making schedules with early morning work and evening classes, and the peace that comes with sticking to them.

Welcome, icy clarity of autumn.

on a dark coast

A tiny cabin lit with coloured lamps and a wood fire in the stove, hidden in the forest and all alone on a dark coast. 

In the middle of the night, I hear the absolute silence of the starry skies dripping ice on me. Other nights, rain or restless seas sing me to sleep. 

I could disappear here.

road trip with waffles

Fields and forests, sleepy villages, old wooden churches with stained-glass windows. Narrow roads through empty wilderness. Hidden lakes, silent and silky under a grey sky. A stop at a cafe somewhere - they serve waffles with strawberry jam and icecream.

It's just me and an old lady and our summer tradition - a road trip. Happiness and nostalgia and longing, all stretching out on the road before us.

i'm salt liquorice and vanilla sugar

I love the different and surprising. I'm bored.

I make my friends laugh, I'm tired of people. I want to be alone and I'm lonely. I cannot understand the need to share anything at all on social media. I cannot understand the human race.

My hair is a mess of  colours - salt liquorice, chocolate, caramel and vanilla sugar. I'm infinitely curious.

"I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself." (Warsan Shire)

not somewhere else

I have a sore throat and should isolate myself. So I fight a sudden urge to go absolutely everywhere just to see people.

In cutoff denim shorts and woollen socks, I bring my laptop out on the balcony and proofread rainwear labels in the company of sea and sky.

I asked God why I'm not somewhere else. He said, "Because you don't really want to be."