"Fall back...

...spring forward." That is the phrase that helps me remember which direction to change the clock when daylight savings begins and ends. Our secretary at work has a different way of remembering. "I just think about how everything longs for the summer. The Fall looks back to the summer that passed, so the time moves back an hour. The Spring looks forward to summer that is coming, trying to speed it up by an hour." I like her way of thinking about it. Here where the seasons are so distinct and the winters so dark, it is no wonder that summer is the long-awaited magical season.

This fall has felt different than my earlier ones. While I am still no friend of the darkness, I feel more settled and happy than I did before. It is part of the continuing process of arriving at different levels of adjustment, I'd say. Some things take years. I even look at the temperature nowadays and think, "Wow, it's 8 degrees today, that's warm!" Insane isn't it, how relative temperature can be! In Ecuador, 8 degrees feels like frostbite, here it is an excuse to wear a skirt. This contentment does not mean I want to stay here forever, but it does mean that I will be well for however long God has me here. And you know what? It feels good.

making me think

"You don't have a soul, you are a soul that has a body."



"You have the right to feel. You have the right to be honest."



I have picked these phrases up, turned them upside down, shaken them a bit, put them in my pocket, and then decided to post them here. They just add a slight adjustment of perspective to the way I think about some things.

love is in the air...

Paul Young’s tune has been running through my mind recently, as if the music player inside my head were set on the “repeat song” function. “Love is in the air...” sneaks up on me at random moments, like when I snapped engagement shots of my roommate and her fiancé in a sunny forest. The tune returned as I celebrated at my friends’ wedding a few days ago. Over the past weeks I have also heard news of friends’ engagements around the globe, and they also whispered the same refrain.

“I’m no expert in love or marriage,” said the best man at the wedding, “but I do believe I’m an expert in the longing for love. Actually, I believe all of us here today are experts in this,” he continued his speech with simplicity and honesty. He unraveled a bit of his heart to share how he, and we, search for the kind of love that was promised in the words, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” We long for the kind of “perfect love that casts out all fear.” We search for it in the wrong places, and we try to find substitutes to fill this longing for love. Deep down, Hollywood movie love is not what we yearn for. We want the kind of love that promises to stick around no matter what events and wrinkles await down the road of life, love that accepts and forgives us no matter what stupidities we may say and do.

Perhaps these thoughts stuck with me because I know a bit of the best man’s story; or perhaps because I know so many stories that contain this red thread of longing, my own included. But now I’m hearing it again, “Love is in the air, from the rising of the sun, love is in the air, when the day is nearly done...”

So true, isn’t it? The One that said “I will never leave you or forsake you” is near now, and tomorrow, and in the worst moments when your heart is shattered, and in the best ones when you feel like you’re on top of the world, and in the everyday ones when the trash is waiting to be taken out. His love is the kind that is perfect, for it brings freedom to be exactly who you are in all your human humility and glory, whether you're engaged, married, widowed, divorced, single or dating!

waiting for a coup

I have spent yesterday and today doing nothing much, simply because my cold turned into a dictator that tyrannized me so much I had to come home from work and crawl under the covers. It is amazing how soft and comforting your pillow can feel when your head is heavy! Today has been day two, and the dictator has given in enough to allow me a spin outside. But mostly I have been downing heated black currant juice and lazing about in a most regal manner. (Must be a benevolent dictator, since my house arrest has been to my benefit.) Tomorrow is a holiday in South America, so thankfully I don't have to get up for work, and then the weekend will be here!

Sooner or later, good health will return and stage a coup, allowing me to concentrate on the myriad of responsibilities that the dictator has prevented me from attending to. But until the dictator's abdication, I have resigned myself to lazing about, sleeping, drinking, movie-watching, dreaming and music-listening....sigh. So do not cry for me, for I have accepted my fate.
:)

mtns

a morning hike in the alps does a world of good.
pictures don't really do justice to it.
but that's where i was.
yesterday.

about Finnylanders

This is my third fall in Finland. I thought I would mark the occasion with some gathered thoughts along the lines of, "you know you've been in Finland too long when..."

- You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage

- You don't think twice about putting the wet dishes away in the cupboard to dry

- You pass a grocery store and think "Wow, I wonder if I need to go in an buy something!"

- Your native language has seriously deteriorated, now you begin to "eat medicine," "open the television," "close the lights," and tell someone "you needn't to!"

- "No comment" becomes a conversation strategy

- You hear loud-talking passengers on the train. You immediately assume:
a. they are drunk
b. they are Swedish-speaking
c. they are American
d. all of the above

- You accept that 80 degrees C in a sauna is chilly, but 20 degrees C outside is freaking hot.

- You don't think twice when given a spoon to eat your cake.

- Upon hearing Finnish when abroad, you immediately duck for cover and hope they go away. Whatever you do, you in NO WAY, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE utter a single Finnish word (By jove, they might want to come and talk to you, as if that was completely acceptable Finnish behaviour when not in Finland!)

- You've become lactose intolerant.

And if your brow is now furrowed deeply because you just didn't get it, don't worry. Only 5.2 million Finns get it. Sometimes I still can't believe I get it.

found on a train

"You got a letter from the Lost and Found Center," my roommate pointed to the white envelope on the shelf by the door.
"Huh?" I read the envelope and marveled that there would be such a place as a national lost and found. But as to why I was being contacted, I couldn't imagine.
"Open it! I'm curious to know what it says!" she prodded me, as I tried to go through a mental checklist of any belongings I might be missing. Well, the letter revealed nothing, only that they had something of mine that I needed to retrieve or pay to have mailed to me. Obviously, the item had my personal information, since they knew to contact me.

Because the idea of exploring new sections of Helsinki appealed to me, today I went in person to pick it up from an office where I obviously wasn't the only absentminded client coming to claim missing property! I was amused at the quantity of numerically tagged umbrellas that filled plastic barrels (the one with the red tulip handle was quite unique) and the boxes by the wall labeled, "gloves found on public transportation."

The old lady ahead of me in line turned in some keys she had found discarded in the grass. Perhaps those nondescript keys will remain unclaimed like so many of those umbrellas. But in my case, I was thankful that this system in Finland works, because I hadn't even known my passport was missing!

Fresh out of the woods

Dear Public,

"Mushroom pickers in Latvia and Lithuania made two surprising discoveries...a Latvian fungus fan made headlines by unearthing an expensive Maserati sports car hidden in the forest outside Riga. The $140,000 luxury car was hidden under a camouflage net and had its registration plates removed. Two days later, a Lithuanian man found a cache of 412 Soviet-era artillery shells while mushroom picking near Klaipeda. The two surprising finds come in the lead up to a mushroom picking championship scheduled to take place in the Ogre region of Latvia..." (Baltic Times, Sept. 12)

I've heard of people looking for magic mushrooms, and the smelly Matsutake fungi (one first class Matsutake mushroom can cost up to 120 euros in Japan!), but Maserati 'shrooms are previously unheard of! Perhaps that Ogre location could yield some interesting results as well? :)

Ok, that was the random info for the day. You may continue what you were doing. :)

Highlights of the Weekend

In list format:
- sleeping in! Such luxury to wake up after 10 am!
- spending time with cousins I rarely see
- being with the clan gathered together for a birthday
- creating impromptu theater sketch involving zanny costumes
- walking the streets of Helsinki on a fall evening
- watching fireworks reflected over water
- coming home to friendly roommate

still laughing

Q: how many coworkers does it take to hammer a nail into the office wall?

A: more than are available at my office!!! (that includes three men, mind you...)

so after all the hoopla, i have a wall full of holes and no picture frames.