Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

  One still needs to gear up to come sit on the balcony in July; I don’t recall when it was last this cold for this long in the summer. The soil is so soft and wet from the constant rain the county worker’s lawnmower leaves large trails of brown on the green, as if the entire vast lawn is suddenly striped. I was given some hard advice about you. I have always been headstrong, but the advice I got has given me pause. The worst damage from the storm was the age-old aspen ripped from the ground in one fell swoop, with the roots now exposed and an enormous chunk of soil still attached to them, with the majority of the tree now in Lake Pyhä. The sight was simultaneously devastating and magnificent. The littlest damage was my scarf leaving my hiking provisions bag unobserved as I was down there on my walk, my smoky pink silk scarf, I loved it so. A token tribute to the gods of weather, most likely also now in Lake Pyhä, since I followed loosely the bike trail, that is my hike now...

Since the honorable Mr. Reeves is taking the Internet by what appears not a mere storm, but a hurricane, and the moment just a couple of weeks ago, when he replied to an overwhelmed fan’s breathless declaration with an even more breathtaking response has gone viral, I think just the one piece on the man about the John Wick franchise found below is simply not enough. Now I know every girl in town likes to think she is Keanu Reeves’ number one fan, and I am entering the competition at an awkward stage, right in between the aftershocks of the huge blow that was the Cyberpunk 2077 press conference, the release of Toy Story 4, John Wick 3 playing in theaters, and the success of Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe, but here goes anyway. The title of this story is a bit misleading, since ever since Keanu Reeves started getting bigger roles on screen he has been showered with attention. Though not always complementary on his acting skills - I myself remember a huge cover story in Suosikki...

Before having Rocketman recommended to me by a workmate who had seen it at a screening for the press and loved it dearly and told me she thought I would, too, I mostly associated Elton John with my sister. When I was little, she would make these mixtapes for me from whatever songs were big hits just then mixed with some classics, using special Japanese cassette tapes, pink and transparent and adorable. I would examine the hand-written song lists carefully in my Lanzarote novelty fringe top, wearing my neon-colored shades bought from the only punk shop in town, while listening to the tapes over and over in my silver boombox. I knew Crocodile Rock like the back of my hand, because it was on one of those tapes, a special Summer Mix tape. I remember staying at my sister’s place and listening to her vinyl copy of Elton John’s Greatest Hits, the blue-tinted album with the man in his Sacrifice look on the cover I think every teenager and young adult back then had in their collection. I k...

We were planning a mutiny, but the hedgehogs just wanted to retire back to their respective piles of leaves and kick back with a few beers, and the flowers were unable to get out of china. Marlena played her usual dismissal dance with me, and just when I figured she couldn’t be any meaner she stopped acknowledging my presence altogether. The worst part of it was that all the other girls gradually went along with it. Instead of me beefing with only Marlena, they all began acting the exact same way. Not making eye contact, monosyllabic answers, dismissing my questions completely, turning their backs when I was talking, never, even for a second, letting a smile escape on their faces when forced to talk to me during class. I grew to hate Marlena and despise her little flock of mocking birds. You can all go to hell, I thought, you despicable lemmings. But being totally ignored and never looked at started leaving their mark on me, and after a year, I retaliated. I started l...

Marlena told everyone that I smelled bad. That my hair pins were shameful. That I had jam hands. That I was a pig for these reasons, and possibly for some other ones too that didn’t come to my knowledge. Her influence was vast, and one day even Georgina moved slightly away from me when I sat next to her on the long wooden bench in the lunch hall. Only ever so slightly, but I noticed it, and took more offence I could ever have imagined, and excused myself shortly after eating only a few bites and ran into the bathroom and locked myself in one of the stalls and cried. Kotona isoisä pyysi minua haravoimaan, ja pihan perällä, orapihlaja-aidan suojissa, purin murheeni aidassa iltaa istuville sinitiaisille ja kompostia vartioivalle siiliperheelle. Puristin kädet tiukasti nyrkkiin, ja ajattelin kuinka tapasimme jakaa ostamamme vadelmakaramellit kaupan edessä, ja Marlena sanoi vievänsä yhden kotiin koiralleen, vaikkei hänellä ollut oikeasti koiraa, mutten kosk...

Yritin muistella kiiltokuvia ja voikukkia ja pieniä lempeitä suukkosia. Makasin selälläni vuoteella Adèle kyljellään vierelläni. Silmäni olivat ummessa, hänen kätensä lepäsi kevyesti vatsallani. Tunsin hänen otteensa tiukkenevan ja arvelin hänen heräävän. But pretty pictures and dandelions were all there was, and the intoxicating lilac aroma by her window as we walked by it on our way to the woods to play and share secrets, and the kisses could have been something I had at first presented as a possibility and then as a memory. They were in the palm of my hand now as fickle as a bunch of fireflies, or perhaps as sure as one of those precious scented erasers shaped like a daisy or an ice cream cone, and I had her long hairs in the breast pockets of my denim jacket and knowing they were there made me unspeakably happy. Avasin silmäni. Käänsin kasvoni päin hänen kasvojaan kuvitellen näkeväni hänet heräämässä, poskien hento nukka pystyssä, pieni unihiekan jyvänen vielä sil...