Meetings

I’ve been writing very little lately, especially fiction and poems. I’ve craved for something else than words.

Colors.

I’ve been to various art exhibitions and filled myself with colors, textures, tecnics and sensations. It’s good to just look, not to have to talk. Only let pieces of art flow over you.

My art gallery is nowadays the most active of my blogs. I draw a lot, paint a little and sometimes I make a digital picture. I’ve splashed colors on aquarelle paper, loved every moment of it, knowing that result is nothing. Only the process means something to me.

While painting, I’ve met some artists. First there was Picasso. He was surely flirting with me or maybe the target of his glare was the naked woman running around the studio. Don’t know, but he certainly was in a funny mood.

Next I met Andy Warhol. He wanted to make a study of me. I said yes, but didn’t think much of the result. Seen that before. We had some tomato soup, talked about the weather. It was quite nice.

Jackson Pollock’s studio was a colorful mess, and after being there for some time, I was covered with red, blue, black and violet dots. First I thought I’ve got measles, but Jackson assured me that all that is seen is only art. That set my mind at rest, and we continued to sprinkle rainbows on the walls.

Today I had the honour to look at Modigliani in the heat of work. He had a sore throat, so he could only whisper some words. My hearing is not as good as it used to be, so I can’t repeat his words. Didn’t hear a thing. But he smiled nicely and I felt at ease with him.

It’s a miracle to be able to imagine, don’t you think so, too?

(All these drawings have been displayed also at SusuPetal art gallery.)

Meet My New Book

Meet my new book: it’s called Keskiäkäisiä hajatelmia which is impossible to translate into English. But I’ll tell you what you’ll find in the book.

The book contains comics, poems and stories about a woman, who has reached a certain point in her life. She’s not so young anymore, she’s more likely to be hit by lumbago than by the arrow of Amor, and she’s reached the age when she wants desperately to have a seat in the bus. She wonders about her life, the new facts days bring along, and she’s anxious to know why the seats in bars are so high nowadays. She remembers the days when she had ten drinks in the evening and two aspirins the next day, and can’t figure how it is nowadays two drinks and ten aspirins.

It was fun doing this book. I published it myself, like my earlier books, with the help of BoD.

The Quatation Of Today

"...I don't like you. I don't like the syphilic whore you were born out of, I don't like being down here in a rat-infested foreign country when I coul be at home with my family. I do like inflicting pain on criminals, so you had better answer my questions truthfully, or I'll hurt you bad."

James Ellroy: The Black Dahlia

It's out

and I'm off for a couple of days.

White Houses

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been busy finishing the manuscript of my novel. I’m going to, like the other two, self-publish the novel at Books on Demand.

It’s tedious to rewrite old text, I’ve been bored to death. I don’t like to read my old texts, they are familiar, and there’s nothing surprising in them. Boring, boring, boring, but now I’ve done it.

I had this manuscript, but no name for the novel, so I arranged a query in my main Finnish blog and asked the readers to come up with a name. They gave plenty of suggestions, and the name was found.

Having got the name, I made some sketches for the book cover, and made a poll.

Doing all this, has left me very little time to visit your blogs, less leaving comments. Sorry about that.

The novel’s name is Valkoiset talot, White Houses, and it’s a story about four white houses and their residents. There’s going to be a lot of misery, hope, love, every day life in the book. It’s a novel about us, here and now.

Hopefully, the novel sees daylight in June. 

On The Bus

picture by Mick Mather

***

Buses are the worst. At first, everything is alright, you step aboard, pay your fare and sit down. The driver starts the engine, your eyes seek for the familiar landscape through the window. Forests and meadows melt into a swirling ribbon, blue, green, occasional sunny, yellow spots. The ribbon unwinds when the bus rolls to a stop, the doors sling open, new passengers mount to the bus.

The journey continues and suddenly you hear the change. Voices of people mumbling to their mobiles get sharper, words come closer, but you can’t hear what is said, you don’t recognize the words. The air is filled with sharp mutter. The ribbon behind the window turns muddy, the window becomes a glass wall, it falls on you, and you’ll be imprisoned into the transparent material.

The bus moves faster. You dare not look at the driver, you’re afraid he’s having a seizure, maybe he’s drunk. He drives more rapidly and you tremble in your glass cube, there’s no air. You struggle for breath, you want to get out, but you’re not able to lift your hand and push the stop button. You can’t move your body. Not before the bus stops for the next time, the doors open, and you feel the cool breeze pulling you out of the bus.

Your feet are shaking. There’s no bench by the bus stop, you’d like to sit on the ground, but you know there’s no way of getting up if you’d do so. You hold on to the pillar of the bus shelter, you lean your forehead and feel the jagged, cold surface, and you try to remember how to breathe.

***

I wrote this short story first in Finnish and published it in my Finnish blog earlier this week, and on the same day Mick published in his blog the pic you see above. I asked for and got the permission to use Mick's beautiful picture to illustrate my story which I translated into English. Mick's work suited the feelings of my story more than perfect. Thank you, Mick.

The Sky

One day she noticed the sky was blue. It happened quite suddenly, she was pushing the wheel chair up a very steep street, she was sweating and panting. She heard the beat of her heart in her ears, bum, bum, bum the heart drummed in frenzy.

-Are you angry? You don’t say anything.

-No, I’m hot, she said. -It’s heavy to push uphill.

-It’s the sun. It makes you warm.

Finally they reached the top of the street, and she stopped to take a breath. She put the wheel chair’s brakes on, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, se saw the blue sky. It was amazingly clear, almost like a blue shelter arching way up high. She felt dizzy, and she grasped the handles of the wheel chair.

-What is it? Are you all right?

-I’m fine, she answered. –I’m just so happy to see the blue sky. So, so happy.

The winter had been long.

 

Hope

Bigger version here.

Rebirth

She had always been alone. Growing up with her parents didn’t make her less lonely. Her parents didn’t seem to notice her; they strolled along here and there, partying, working, and travelling. On Christmas Eve they gave her presents and for her birthdays she got a load of parcels wrapped by good smelling and elegant shop assistants.

They were her parents, they cared for her, but they didn’t need her.

In school it was the same. Other pupils didn’t tease her, she was left alone. She was invisible for others. Teachers were amazed when they returned her exams, they looked at her wondering if she was a new pupil or had they seen her before.

She had no friends to be with after school, so she returned to her empty home, took a book and started to read till it was time to go to bed. If she got hungry, she went silently to the kitchen, opened the fridge and ate what she found. This didn’t happen often, because she didn’t know what hunger was. She had no needs, no desires.

After graduating she moved to her own flat and got a job. Living on her own didn’t make her visible, and her life went on the same way it had used to go. She seemed to melt into shadows.

Her parents died, but she didn’t miss them. She didn’t long for their presents, brightly wrapped parcels. She sold their house, her childhood home, but kept the books that had belonged to them.

She grew old, and one day she died. She was found, when neighbours complained about the smell coming from her flat. She lay in her bed, still holding a book in her hands. It was a book about rebirth. She had always been peculiar, the neighbours told to the police. No wonder, reading such books.

The Smile of the Sun

The sun reappeared after some days of rain. No, it has been pouring. Day and night, but yesterday the sun decided to take a look at us.
She’s still smiling. She looks approvingly at the leaves, bitten my frost during the night. Bites have been strong, the leaves have bled.
It’s burgundy, cherry, all kinds of red everywhere, and where the icy teeth of the winter-to-be haven’t bitten; there are spots of orange, yellow and green still to be seen.

The sun continues to beam. It’s going to be a cold night, the prologue of an everlasting season.
The sun knows it’s her time to take a nap, to sleep for some months.
No wonder she is grinning.

Think twice

Do you want me to be your wife, to be loved and worshipped by you, to be cared for, to be wanted and needed by you, to be desired by you?

Do you want me to be your friend; do you want me to listen to you, to comfort you in despair, to drive away the demons of your mind, the shadows of your nights, the phantoms of your days?

Do you want me to be the mother of your children, do you want me to carry the fruit of your semen for months to come and go into labour to make you father?

If you answer you do, remember: it’s a promise, an oath never to be broken, never to be forgotten.

Think twice.

Brighter

They had been waiting for hours, waiting for the rain to stop. The hotel room felt damp and miserable, outside it was no better. The unpaved streets of the little town had turned into a swamp of mud, big puddles speckled the empty street corners.

There was nothing more to say. All had already been shouted in the air during the long days and nights of their pitiful visit, their sad attempt to remake their relationship by taking a vacation. They felt empty inside, fatigue and bored. There was no more need for hatred and even bitterness felt a waste of strength.

The need to make the other understand had lost its meaning. The desperate urge to justify the decisions they had been making, seemed now pathetic and ludicrous.

They just wanted the rain to stop. They fantasized about leaving the hotel room, stepping outside, going separate ways, never looking back.

If it only would get brighter.

***

The weekly theme for Thursday Challenge is bright

The Outsider

It happened again.
She had been waiting for the night out with her friends. She had been enjoying the thought about long drinks, soft talks, and easy-going moments on the cosy sofa in the darkness of the bar.

It all had happened. The drinks were icy and cooled the heat of the throat. The murmur of her friends cuddled her and she found herself laughing at their witty remarks of utterly meaningless matters.

Then it happened. She felt it painfully. The feeling was familiar, felt so many times before, in so many places. So many years, always the same.

She was an outsider. She had no need to reveal herself. She had no desire to know more about them. The chitchat and the small talk made her feel dizzy and the meaningless of everything hit her hard in the face.

She left, no, she escaped, and she knew that once again they stayed on, maybe speculating a bit of her whereabouts, but finally forgetting her. That was she, they’d say. Not a social being, but pleasant enough.
In small bits. For a while.

I'm Still Leaving You

The Dark of the Night

The girl didn’t want to sleep. She feared the dark hours of the night, the long minutes filled with restlessness and uncertainty. She tried to stay awake, pushed her lids with fingers, and tried to keep eyes wide open.
It was important not to sleep.
If you fell asleep, you might never wake up.

That had happened to Granny, who had never opened her eyes one morning. They said Granny had died peacefully in her sleep. They sounded pleased despite their tears, and the girl thought they were horrible, just awful.

She couldn’t understand them, and she was certain they wanted her dead as well.

She missed Granny, and that made her even more afraid of the dark of the night.

No connection

She lived in her own private world of make believe. She had furnished her rooms with wishes, hopes and dreams, and the thick carpet woven of fairy tales offered her a safe path to walk on.
The corners of her world were smooth and had no shadows. She yearned for light and warmth, and the mere thought of anything undesirable, ugly or cold, made her shiver of uneasiness and disgust. She despised darkness –the darkness of mind, the darkness of the night.

She was happy in her own world, but to maintain her happiness, she had to close her eyes and shut her ears from the world outside her perfect little universe. She could have stayed like that forever, but the strength of the outer world grew more powerful everyday, and the milky like windows of her whereabouts began to tremble by the force.

She tried to fight against the outer world, but the battle was useless. She possessed no powers; she didn’t have the strength to defeat the enemy who lurked its way into her mind.

Finally she gave up. She left the Net, closed the computer and faced the world in real.

Trustworthy

I’ve been waiting for you so long. Day after day, week after week. Years have gone by, but still I long for you to come.

The sea is never the same. Waves move constantly and they bring soft winds on me. Salty drops cover my aching skin.

The sea is never the same, but you can rely on me. I’ll be waiting for you.

Cherry Blossom

She didn’t know when she had become this bitter and ugly woman, who stood there staring in the mirror. She bent and washed her face, splashed heavily cold water on her face and tried to make the blood run and bring some colour to her shrunken cheekbones.

She stood up, dried her skin with a hard towel, and rubbed her eyes a while, but nothing helped: she stared at her mother in the mirror, and she realized that everything had been in vain: her vicious rebelling and finally running away from home, years of silence, living in distance places, trying to escape from what now seemed evident.

All in vain. Her whole life had led her to the dead end she had tried to break away from, and though she knew that inside, she wasn’t her mother, she couldn’t be absolutely sure.

Life had an odd sense of humour, she realized, and she didn’t smile. All in vain, she murmured to herself, grabbed her lipstick, and started to fill her thin lips with Cherry Blossom, the same shade her mother had used years, years ago.

The Real Book

1.

-You should be a writer!
-But...I am a writer...?

-I mean a real writer!
-Is there a thing called a false writer?

-You should publish books!
-Should I?

-Yes, absolutely! Then you would be a real writer.
-Just wait a minute. Do you mean my writing isn’t now for real?

-Well, you can hardly call writing to blogs writing, can you?
-I can.

-Anyway, it isn’t real writing. Only books matter. Only if you’ve published a real book, you’re a real writer. Blogging doesn’t count. Anyone can blog. It’s for amateurs, mainly. Not professional writers.
-Hmmm. Books doesn’t sell very well, not in Finland anyway. If I’d publish a book, would I get as many readers as I do with my blogs?

-That doesn’t matter. Not the readers nor the sale.
-Only the book matters?

-Yes.
-But if I’d write a book, I wouldn’t have time to write to my blogs!

-That’s my point. Instead you’d be doing something worth while.
-A book.

-Yes.
-That no one would buy. That no one would read.

-Yes.
-Life is weird.

-You are. You lack passion.

2.

-Have you been thinking about that publishing?
-OK, I’ll humour you. I’ll publish a book. A collection of poems.

-Which publisher?
-I’ll publish it myself, there are plenty of that kind of service. You just send your manuscript via net and home comes the book. Would you buy my book?

-Self-publishing is not real publishing. How much?
-How much what?

-Your collection of poems?
-Don’t know. Maybe twenty euros.

-Are they any good?
-You should know, you’ve read them.

-What? Where?
-In my blogs.

-Forget it. You do lack passion.

Not like the other girls

She sees things we don’t know about.
She hears voices we can’t hear.
She stays in her own world, her own place where no menace can enter.
The world outside her mind is too dangerous, too complicated and she wants to be safe.
She has no other possibilities than to run away from the real world, its demands, and its stress. If she’d stay, she’d be broken. Like finest china, like ice in the spring.

She’s too fragile for real world.

In her own world, she’s got everything: courage, power and strength. All skills that is required for survival. She’s afraid of nothing, she’s never alone, and she’s able to do anything she wants to. She copes with the stress, with the cruelty of other people, because in her own world the facts of real life don’t exist. In her own world she doesn’t have to be on guard all the time, she can breathe more easily, she can enjoy life without fear.

She’s not like any other girl. And she wants to stay that way.

******

The weekly theme for Moody Monday is Solitary