Imagined conversation with someone interested

(Bear with me please, and there will be a reward for you at the end.)

(General hubbub of conversations around, say, a table at a bar or a pub. A voice is heard over the hubbub, asking a direct question aimed particularly at someone. In fact, at the "I" of this story:)

So, you know, Anna, how come you're like on your own, are you like, you know, a bit of a man-hater or something [jokingly, but maybe with a hint of seriousness]?

me: NO. I would've thought you'd see that I'm not? Deary me. No, you see, the real reason lies within myself. The fact is I don't know how to fall in love with someone who would actually have me.

Aww but no, come on, surely not, it's just that you haven't met the Right Person, … blah … and so on… [obviously, the imagined party doesn't say "blah and so on", okay? "Blah and so on" is shorthand for the bland things people say, the sort of things people very often say, even if they're nice and intelligent people, just because us people we have - it seems - a need to tell a person who seems to be hurting or, I don't know, something, that "it isn't as bad as all that", thinking that this will make them feel better. It doesn't, of course. It should, however, be noted, that the "I" of this story replies with absolutely no aggression or hostility - for although the matter is one that brings an amount of sadness, it just is the way of things, and sadness shouldn't be mixed up with bitterness or anger or whatever.]

me: Oh p-lease, don't get all fortune-cookie soppy-wisdommy on me, give me a bit more credit. I have given this some real thought, you know, and obviously, I've had a few relationships in my time, and I have seen and realised and identified my pattern, and it's just a fact. I know a thousand and one ways of being in a relationship which isn't a relationship [again, please - "a thousand and one" should not be taken literally here, okay? No need to think the speaker is a total slag, it's a figure of speech]. Which never will be a relationship. I have empirical evidence that spans three decades. Every time, it is someone who will never, ever have me, although the ways of them not having me are (usually, thankfully) different. And you know, during these three decades, there may well have been one or two people who actually would have had me, but then I just really didn't want to know. Or it freaked me out and put me off them. Or I went for it and then went off the whole thing.

Ummm. Hmmm. Ahemm. Hrrmmm [uncomfortable].

me: Oh it's okay, please don't start feeling sorry for me or you know, get all worried that I'm going to cry or something. I don't even need your sympathy, but I would love some understanding. Yes it is often lonely, but it really isn't the worst thing in the world at all, being alone. It's way worse being caught in a violent or loveless or just plain unworking relationship. You just have to be able to get along by yourself, that's all.

(Lo, herewith reward: a Portrait of the Artist as a Tourist. Photo courtesy of Mark Maher, artist and a truly fine travel companion.)

I posted this on a train. Isn't that cool?

Days like today I swear I can almost see the Helsinki-dwellers who have already gone. I don’t only mean the ones who have died – although obviously, I mean them, too; I also mean us who are still here, but the way we were before, in our past, the past that is as gone as – theirs.

February is particularly good for this, for it needs to be so the snow is wee needles in the wind, and daylight is needed, too. Somehow, the effect is never the same in the dark hours, but by February, the days have suddenly returned, and I can see them – almost see them, their shapes forming in the spaces between the needles of snow the wind is full of.

I can feel them too, of course, which is probably why I can almost see them. I see those of long ago, long skirts or dresses, heavy overcoats, scarves and shawls, dark bundled figures. I see myself, at twelve or so, my existential awakening of a kind coinciding and somehow becoming forever connected with the snow piling up everywhere – on the branches of our city trees, making drifts along the streets, creating sculptures of lampposts, walls, window ledges, adding their bit to statues. I see myself a few years later, at fifteen, yes fifteen, life and the future rushing at me, my future, the future, The Future, as if a miracle, the world, The World, all the excitement of realising there is a life larger than oneself and a world to be discovered and -. Found? Owned? Belonged in?

I want to wave to myself, I want to say, be brave, be brave, be braver. Don’t lose yourself in the business of life.

It’s so strange that I am there too, with the old Helsinki folks, the by-gonners, the bundled-up ghosts. Is anyone else there?

2

I very, very, very rarely partypoliticise on this blog - but now's the time. If you're a Finn…

mene ensi sunnuntaina pieneen koppiin ja kirjoita ystävällisen virkailijan sinulle antamaan korttiin numero 2 *

If you're not a Finn, I hope you enjoy this flashmob performance which was arranged to support the Green presidential candidate Pekka Haavisto, our very own wee David against a Goliath favourite-to-win. Haavisto has made his career until now in international peace negotiations in the hot spots of atrocious warfare and carnage around the world (Darfur, anyone?), is intelligent, warm, civilised through to his heart, with an uncanny knack for meeting all kinds of people at the same level: as an equal, as a fellow human.

He is also, to my knowledge, the world's first openly gay presidential candidate. On its own, this would be a curio; combined with his personality, it accentuates the way he has grown into the personification of the fight-back spirit we've seen arise over here in these Northern Lands [after last year's catastrophic parliamentary election, for those of you who may not know, after which I seriously considered whether now was the time to change my native tongue into Swedish (our traditional language minority) so as not to be a representative of the herrakansa ** which seemed to be arising; to send my children away to more civilised countries so as to ensure they wouldn't suffer when I would convert my walk-in cupboard and start hiding immigrant families there… you get the picture… future was looking about as bright as it would for someone in the early 1930s in Germany who really didn't fancy watching their country becoming a centre of bigotry, hatred and slaughter, and their fellow countrymen being made to deteriorate into mass murderers].

So yes, against all this background, I choose to believe in the miracle that we need this Sunday, and against this background, the Sibelian song sends shivers down my back. Listen to the lyrics (this is my favourite bit):

Oi Suomi nosta korkealle, pääs seppelöimä suurten muistojen
Oi nouse Suomi, näytit maailmalle, sa että karkoitit orjuuden
Ja ettet taipunut sa sorron alle
On aamus alkanut, synnyinmaa ***





Thank you for listening to my political rant. I'll get off me soap-box now…
…maybe.





* "next Sunday, go in a small cubicle and write on the card the friendly official has given you the number 2"

** Finnish for "das Herrenvolk"

*** Oh Finland, hold up high thy head wreathed in great memories,
Oh rise Finland and show the world that you banished slavery,
And that you did not bend under oppression,
Your morning has broken, land of our birth

The Shadow Sura

"The one who has no
shadow within
No shadow to withdraw to
from the company of people
No shadow, no shade, no secret spring
quietly bubbling
No spring whose water heals
the spirit from fever

is helpless in the desert,
blinded by the sun,
doomed to take for real
every mirage,
and the desert sand forever
changing shape,
the city disappeared from maps
remaining as far away

The one who has no
shadow within
No shadow to withdraw to
from the company of people
No shadow, no shade, no secret spring
quietly bubbling
No spring whose water heals
the spirit from fever

Unhappy who has no shadow within"

In the wee interview in the end, he says - paraphrased: "This is madness, of course [writing poetry]… It's a consoling thing to remember, once you've flung something, a few verses, out onto their own orbit, in a way they remain there, whether you remember them or not. When you've done something and meant it for real… Poetry, in its way, has no season, no time, no autumn. They are there, if they are to be, to exist, at all. An organismic thing,which you just sometimes have to blow new life into."

He lived fast, died young, made many headlines due to his lifestyle, but I love his poetry and am currently reading his biography. It is a shame he is not translated into English - this effort is mine, and is here just to give someone who expressed interest a tiny taster.