Suomen Soliloquies

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...

Read to the end and the title will make sense. I promise :) The author Amy Krouse Rosenthal earlier this year at the age of 51 due to cancer. I had never heard of Amy until about two weeks before she died yet I felt a tremendous sadness at her passing. From what I’ve heard of her though, she was a woman who made the world a little brighter. It turns out that Amy was a children’s author, which is what surprises me because I spent the past two years swallowing all children’s books I could lay my hands on. Somehow none of her books ever crossed my path. I heard about her because of an essay she wrote for the New York Times in which she wrote an imaginary dating profile for her husband, who was going to have to keep living once she passed away. Amy’s love and tenderness poured out from every word on the page. Despite the cancer and medication that were both eating away at her ability to form coherent sentences, she wrote with a poignancy I can only hope for in my own writing....

A view from under the bridge in Turku The past few days have been rather snowy in Turku. The roads are covered in a packed layer of snow, with ice patches camouflaged under the white. While walking to class today, I saw a guy descending from the hill to the footpath under the bridge. He took a step onto the sidewalk and jolted back with his arms flailing out. This all occurred in the matter of seconds. He quickly regained his balance and kept walking as though nothing had happened. I’ve seen so many people nearly slip, the same way this young man did. Most casually keep walking, sometimes they share a laugh with their companions if they are walking with others. A few actually fall to the ground, get back up, and continue on. I’ve done both on many occasions. But today it struck me that this sight is very endearing. The word cute also came to mind to describe it. And then I realized how terrible both thoughts sounded, even in my head. I had to reflect about it ...