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...

It is, finally, the beginning of summer. For those like me, who are working indoors all day and fantasizing being outside in the sunlight where, in this particular dark fantasy, every single other person on the planet is sunbathing as we speak and recuperating in the light from the long barren winter of the utmost discontent: this is the alcohol beverage for you. I was taking a power hike after a shift, briskly walking to the beat of my current favorite album and enjoying the gradual greening of nature and the fact that after months, one could feel sweat trickling down one’s spine instead of the freezing Northern gale blowdrying it in an instant. I was being good after neglecting my health for many months out of sheer exhaustion and lack of energy for it.  Spiriting my soul in the luminosity that is Finnish early summer, I had a wonderful idea, and, for a ceremonial ending of my solitary selfcare date, walked straight into the liquor store. For those who are new to the blog: yes, t...

Greetings from what used to be Funkytown.  There have been a few inquiries as to what the hell is going on and why is it taking so long. While I find it both heart-warming - and somewhat unnerving – that, in the end, there are some precious lovelies out there who find these ever insightful and dare I say it ingenious stories amusing and forthcoming, I, for the first time in almost two years, am afraid I have been otherwise engaged. This is just a quick word. I must be back soon, because they know I am typing and not working, and I just know if I leave them alone long enough, they are bound to band together, and that is one mutiny I’d rather never see happen. The reason I have been occupied elsewhere for such a long time is that for some insane reason I had what at the time seemed like the idea of the century: to, after more than five years of not touching my needles, knit presents to my family and loved ones this year. Why I would succumb to such madness is anybod...

I recently posted on my Instagram page a series of pictures of making a huge batch of cabbage rolls, a traditional Finnish delicacy, and was happy to realize the rather time-consuming, handicraft dish has lost the bad rep it had when I was a kid hating the horrible cabbage smell and reluctantly picking at the one sad, solitary roll on my plate before tiring out my parents and being excused from the table. Now, people were thrilled to see me make them, and if Instagram was a delivery service, I wouldn’t have had any left by the time we were done making them. And I don’t blame ‘em: in the mouth of a grownup, they do taste delicious, like home, like our childhoods; like it took three to four hours to make them, including the trip to the store in the middle of the preparation process, because I was being lavish with the stuffing and ran out of it during the first oven sheet, and father was like “I’ll go, I’ll go right away!” and me and my mother were like “Great, we’ll just hang ...

A friend of mine started a challenge on Instagram. It has to do with our everyday green acts, the little things we can all do and should do to ease the burden of this pretty plane of ours so that our legacy to the next generations won’t be a re-enactment of the Nebuchadnezzar ride outside the Matrix. An old workmate of mine, back from when I was working in another town, was, and still is, an eco-terrorist, as he himself liked to describe himself back then, and concern over ecological matters was a mutual thing for us. Nearing some election or another, when discussing parties and who to vote, I still remember what he said in the conversation as we were all hanging out behind the counter because of the five p.m. lull. “The thing is, if the planet goes, no one is going to be left standing to argue with anybody about anything.” For some reason, perhaps because we both tend to vote for the same party, the line has stuck with me, and there may have even been an occasion where I myself...