Skip to main content

Changing Seasons


The leaves in Turku are changing color. It took me by surprise for some reason, it feels like the change just crept up on me. I looked at the trees in the cemetery behind my apartment and suddenly realized they were no longer the sea of green that they had been two weeks ago.

The change from summer to fall used to make me a little sad. Fall meant the coming of cold weather, cloudy, shorter days and the stress of school resuming. The only way I appreciated the changing colors of the leaves was that they made me realize how green everything had been during the summer.

Last year was the first year when this feeling did not hit me at all. Everything was too new and exciting for me to care that the weather was changing, that classes were bringing copious amounts of work or that there was increasingly fewer daylight hours. In fact, I welcomed all of it as part of the adventure.

This year though, all of the nerves and apprehension returned. The newness of the Finnish adventure is gone, I thought. I felt that there was no possibility for this year to match the wonderful new people I had met last year or the opportunities I had found. And how much more could I have to learn about the new country I was in?

(This last one arose out of the despair the first two thoughts caused. There are, of course, plenty of new things to learn, they just require a little more effort to find.)

But the fall colors are coming again and I have found the changing of the season has also brought a change of perspective. Looking back at last year, I realized that my time here has been in phases, with different friends, activities, worries and adventures dominating each. They are like the planets moving in and out of your life, each combination bringing a unique tenor to your days.

This new year is a new phase. I have new people who have come in place of those who left. People who I look forward to baking homemade pop-tarts with, relaxing in summer cottages with, and attending dance shows with (not to mention drinking copious amounts of chai). They have their own stories to tell and interests to share. I have also found a rhythm to my work, to build from what we all started when we came to the LLEES program. And I have started to look to the future-- to what happens after this master’s is over.
While the new season for me has been easy to accept and find the good in, I know that this is not always the case. There are times when the combination of planets brings bad tides. But they will change again and eventually bring good again.

I am now welcoming the changing color of the leaves. I am welcoming fall and all the phases it will bring. And I am feeling gratitude for what past seasons have already brought.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Differences

Time is a funny thing. It seems to move in leaps and bounds at times and at times it moves slower than molasses. Right now it's doing both. I can't believe it's only been a week and yet I can't believe it's already been a week. Sunset in Helsinki This week I've been in Helsinki for our Fulbright orientation. We learned a lot of information and it would be impossible for me to fit all of it into a reasonable amount of space so I will leave that summary for another day. But a week has given me some time to notice some differences in how things work in Finland and how they work in the US. I thought I would highlight five here that encompass a fair variety of my experiences so far. I have to give credit to my friend Marie who helped me with this list. Many of these are her ideas. 1. Nature is Everywhere This one is first because I think it is the most important one for Finns. Finnish people love nature and it shows in the way cities are built (at least th...
5 comments
Read more

Summer (Cottage) Fun

This is a very selfish post. I am writing it purely to relive memories because, even though I have absolutely loved being at home for this week, eating my mother’s cooking, meeting friends and remembering what 30 ° (90 ° for my American friends) weather feels like, part of me misses Finland. I probably wouldn’t miss it so much if it weren’t for a weekend trip I took before leaving to a friend’s summer cottage. It was quintessentially Finnish. (And then later that week we made hernekeitto and pannukakku . You can’t get more Finnish than that.) The cottage was tucked away in the middle of woods. Though there were two other cottages not far from ours, we couldn’t see or hear anything from our neighbors, thus giving the illusion that we were completely secluded from the outside world. Cottages are generally located near a body of water, either a lake or the ocean. This cottage was by a lake. It actually belongs to my friend’s mother who spends almos...
1 comment
Read more

Finland's mark

Today in Finnish class I went up to a Nepali classmate and asked him if he knew a Nepali song that I have been obsessed with for the past two weeks. I told him that I was in love with the song but couldn’t understand a word so could he please translate it? In the middle of asking my question I realized he had no idea what I was talking about and that this was really awkward but it was too late to back out so I ploughed ahead anyway. The result was that I avoided him for the rest of class. But part of me didn’t care. Being in a new country gives you thick skin for awkward encounters. Being in a new country also shapes you and molds you into a different version of yourself. A friend of mine wisely said that “where you live leaves a mark on you.” I’m still only a couple months into my two year long stay here in Finland but it is leaving a mark already. On our way to Naantali, a town 18 km away from Turku. There are the little things. I drink coffee (well, half of it i...
Post a Comment
Read more