Puzzled

It’s impossible to understand other people. At least for me it’s not possible, because the more I try to understand, the more I get confused. I’m not puzzled over other people. No, I wonder about my own reactions when dealing with other people. I realize that I don’t know myself at all.

Being a stranger to myself, how can I know anything about other people?

There are situations that take you by surprise and you look at yourself astonished and say: Well, I didn’t know I had this rage in me. Oh dear, I’m actually bitter and jealous. Where does this hate come from? Why is the thought of killing somebody suddenly very tempting?

Hey, this is me! The kind and loving person who has a wide and gentle heart and who’s got wisdom and patience and understanding. Why do I feel these things? Where do they come from?

I don’t know myself a bit. I can’t understand my reactions. Time after time, I must confess it: I thought I knew, but I don’t. I’ll never know.

That’s why I don’t even try to understand other people. I just try to cope with them.

Three words

I can still remember those words. Those three words.

She is sitting by the table, finishing a big puzzle, lying on the sofa, maybe sleeping, dozing in the armchair looking at TV, holding a book in her hand, standing in the kitchen, her hands in soapy clouds, fingers lazily swimming in the lukewarm water. Or maybe she is ironing something and the scent of hot, clean clothes lingers in the hallway.

Those words, those three words have burned black holes in my mind, holes filled with pitch dark memories, scents that still make breathing impossible.

Leave me alone.

My old hometown revisited

I visited my old hometown for a couple of days. I was born in that town and lived there the first twenty and some years of my life and every time I take the train and travel to the surroundings of my childhood, I lose the weight of years and become young once more.

It’s funny in some ways.

I walk the streets of the town and my eyes seek for people I used to know. I look and try to see familiar faces in the crowd of the market-square, in the malls, everywhere.
I see nobody I know and I realize that I look at people who are too young, who are the same age as I, when I left this town.
I should look at people, who walk by with grey hair and grandchildren.
Well, maybe I exaggerate a little, but you get my meaning, don’t you.

And that’s the funny thing about travelling to the place you’re coming from. You return to your childhood, you become a child once more and yet, you have the knowledge and experiences of an adult. You don’t have to be afraid like a child. You can feel yourself safe.

No wonder so many people return home after the long years some where else, to the roots where they come from.

Will I?

Too many words

Sometimes I get tired of words. Written words, spoken words. Words, words, words. Everywhere only words. Words at home, words at work. Words heard in the bus, words spoken in the shop. Words, words, words.

The meanings behind the words, never the same, always the possibility to explain everything in a different way.
I didn’t mean what I just said.
But you said it, anyway?

Words. To toy with words, that is what I do. My work is based on words. I use spoken words as tools to comprehend. And the more I hear words, the less I understand, because words can lie, cheat and guide you astray.
And I know it and all the time I wonder why we can’t speak with real words, say what we really think.
Oh, but that requires more words.

After the spoken words of the day, I swift into written words, and my mind starts to burst and words flow to the screen.

Suddenly I realize my tiredness. I’m worn-out of every word. I want to hear nothing. I want to see nothing. To read or write or to speak couldn’t interest me less.

A picture, a photo doesn’t demand words. I can just feel. Or not.
Without words.

Solitude

I’m freezing. Take
me in your arms
and never let go.
Hold me.
It’s cold and
I’m lonelier than I was
yesterday.

I fear of tomorrow.

She talks to me

She talks to me.

Look, mommy, look how I stand on one foot, look at me!
There’s a rainbow, mommy, look! Can I touch it? It’s so beautiful.
Mommy, I found a secret place in the back yard. I think it’s the home of elves.
I don’t want to wake up yet. Please, mommy, let me sleep, just a little more.
Mommy! I saw the sweetest puppy! Can I have a dog, please, please!
I love you too, mommy.
It doesn’t hurt a bit, Mommy. It’s just a scratch.
I like school, mommy. The teacher has beautiful hair.
Oh, mommy, I’m so in love, but he doesn’t love me, I’m sure about it.
Don’t worry, mommy, I’ll be home in time.
Mommy.

She talks to me, day after day, all the years to come.
My unborn child.

The ghost-writers of my mind

HPY asked me in her comment the other day, if I knew how a story is going to end, when I start to write. I answered her that most of the times, the characters of the story begin to live their own life and I have very little power over them. They just won’t bend to my demands, ideas and plans. They are very stubborn, more stubborn than me and that’s a lot, I can assure you.

I’m a fast writer. That’s funny, because I use only two fingers to type. My typing-speed is due to neither these fingers nor my thoughts that run pretty wild.
I used to think so and I was very pleased with my writing skills.

Now I know better. I have to thank the characters in my stories for my speed. They take the lead and rush me to the end. All I have to do is to write as fast as possible to see how the story ends.

Sometimes it’s spooky.

Because I have almost no control over my stories, I’m usually surprised when I read my stories after some time(I don’t do this very often –old texts bore me and my head is already filled with new words). I just can’t remember ever writing this particular story! It’s new for me and I have to read it all the way to see how it ends. I can’t remember!
Occasionally I’m pleased over some clever turns in the plot and how the ends of the ropes in the story are knot successfully, but I can’t thank myself at all. Somebody else writes these stories. My characters.

Spooky!

Chaos

music
sounds and voices
horns blowing their way in the street

the symphony of life
notes that lure you
to believe
everything is possible

chaos of shouts and shrieks
painfully pushing under
your skin
till you feel
nothing, you hear
no more

Girls in the city

When I was a child, I used to spend my summers in the city. Our family hadn’t a summer place. I didn’t have grandmothers or grandfathers living in the country. I was a city-girl. Country-living seemed strange and the mere thought of leaving the city for the summer was funny.

To leave for the country was to spend time in a place where there was nothing to do! That was my thought.

I saw my first living cow, when I was 21 years old, and they say it is a miracle, or at least extraordinary: to live and grow up in Finland without knowing the smell of hay and the feeling of a cow’s smooth side under your finger tips.

I managed to grow up anyway, maybe remaining a little odd and bizarre, who knows. Nowadays I spend my summers on an island and the scent of leaves swarm around me as I lie in the grass and look at the blue sky.
I can’t stay in the city when it’s summertime. There is too much to do and I want my peace after the busy winter and spring.
I’ve become a country-girl, well, maybe not exactly a girl anymore, but anyhow.

Everything is possible. Maybe I’ll someday even touch a cow.

(the house in the photo is just some house I once passed by)

The dizzy lady

oh, I don't feel dizzy at all, never felt.

I had a dream, though,
I saw her sleeping
the divan was of blue velvet
the room dusky and musky
the scent swarmed around her caressing her
obsessing her
to weep in her sleep
to seek for the strength
to hold the world in her hand

the pure palm of her hand
no touch of evil
no mercy

Words

smooth
hazel
dizzy
weather
gin
ambition
lethal

***words that taste delicious in my mouth***

Sad-eyed Sue

Sad-eyed Sue
look at you.
Lying on the floor
begging:

no more.

Sad-eyed Sue
look at you.
Crying in your shame
only you

to blame.

Sad, sad Sue
who are you?

Leave him and go.
Learn to say:

no.

The languages we write with

I’ve always written. As a child, I wrote in Finnish, but when I grew up, I began to write in Swedish too. Writing in Swedish was a way to get nearer my mother, who spoke Swedish better than Finnish, a means to understand her and her thoughts and feelings better.

A girl wants to be like her mother.

I grew up to my height as a teen-ager, learned how to speak French and German, but it was impossible to write in these languages. I liked to speak French, I liked to listen to it, but to write French became a horror for me. Same happened with German.

English. It has always been easy for me to learn English, it sounded familiar from the beginning, thanks to the movies I had watched from the early childhood. Laurel and Hardy, John Wayne, Julie Andrews and Peter O’Toole taught me to understand English.

It still feels natural for me to write in English and it puzzles me a little. My thoughts are mostly in Finnish and if writing is a documentation of ones thoughts, desire, hopes and life, why don’t I write only in Finnish?

Or could it be, that writing has no language? Is it only a state of mind?

Rescue me

the spring
is too far
away

the sun
won't come to

rescue me

The red flower

HPY challenged her readers to take a photo of the first flower of the year.
I don’t take photos of flowers. Don’t ask me why. I just don’t.

Besides, it’s winter up here in the north and although we have no snow in Helsinki, nothing is growing.
Besides despair.
The earth is bare and raw, the wind chilly.

The flower is red like a she-devil, full of passion and strength, ready to survive.
In my painting.

Harry Lime

harry lime
became a slime
as he crossed the line
like a greedy swine

chorus:
oh, harry, oh,
stick to your wine!

better to drink
forget how to think
or else you’ll sink
begone in a wink

chorus:
oh, harry, oh,
pigs are pink!