A pleasant re-encounter with myself

February has never been my favourite month of the year. I'd quite happily leave out November and February from the calendar and have 2 Junes and 2 Julys instead. The further up north in the world you go, the darker and more miserable these months get. You go to work in the morning in the dark and come back from work in the dark. November is miserable because you're exhausted by work/study and the Christmas holidays seem too distant. February is dreary because it's the month between the festitivites and spring. When T.S. Eliot claimed that "April is the cruellest month" (The Waste Land, 1922) he was horribly wrong. The only good things about November and February are candles, hot drinks and if you are lucky, cuddling by the fireside with someone lovely or a good book.

February 2010 was a tough one for me for various reasons, but I'm sure the mere fact that it was February didn't help. But the real reason I had the longest shortest month of the year this time around was because somewhere between my Christmas holidays and spring, I had lost myself.

I had lost my essence a little and one February evening I found myself again, or the part of me that had gone missing for a while. How did it happen? I was with some friends for an evening of sushi and singing. We made sushi rolls, had some wine, some ice-cream, some potent black liquid I had brought back with me from my brief visit to Finland, and we sang, played the guitar and all sorts of percussions. We sang beautifully, we played badly, we sang so loud that the neighbours came to knock on the door, we played more quietly. Or, as my French teacher used to say, we made a joyful noise.

And in that joyful noise I re-encountered myself - I felt much more normal again, much less anxious. I remembered what my priorities were, what I enjoyed doing, what I wanted to experience and try out in the near future. And after that evening I went and did those things.

That evening has been followed by a couple of other similar evenings that have reminded me of some of the things that are important for me in life: good food, good music, the company of friends, absolute relaxation, laughter, forgetting yourself and remembering who you are at the same time.

Taas kaikki kauniit muistot

Those of you who remember me as a teenager may recall my acute sense of not belonging there and my adamant vows of never returning to Finland once I had left. I still don't know if I could spend the rest of my life there, and at the moment it's not even an option I would seriously consider. But the older I get the more I miss it. Sometimes I miss my family dreadfully. I miss seeing my little niece grow up. I miss speaking and writing in Finnish (so why am I writing this in English? I have no idea). I miss the scent of cold, cold air, the kind that you can feel in your teeth. I miss the unpresumptious trees that watch over you as you wander in the forest. I miss seeing my mum cooking in the kitchen, always with a tiny sense of stress but always willing to stop and do a little dance with her eyes closed if a good song comes on in the radio.

I miss Finland especially at Christmas. Today is the first Advent, and in my family that means going through a little ceremony of listening to "Hoosianna" the first thing in the morning. Someone will light the first of the four candles that count the weeks until Christmas, and we sit in devotional silence until the song is over. Sometimes I feel awkward listening to the song in religious silence, but I still think it's a beautiful tradition. Listening to "Hoosianna" permits you to listen to Christmas carols for the next four weeks leading to Christmas, and the anticipation in the air helps you get through the weeks of darkness and exhaustion that prevail at the end of the year.

I don't think I have a favourite Christmas carol, but I am starting to like the very traditional Finnish ones with allusions to snow and darkness. "Taas kaikki kauniit muistot" is one of my dad's favourites along with "Me käymme joulun viettohon". The former is the recollection of an adult thinking back to his childhood, going to the Christmas church service early in the morning, clad in his best outfit, and sleepily placing their head on his mother's shoulder, probably didn't understand much of the sermon, but recalling those precious moments and the snowy fields and parks that no-one can take away from him.

Growing up, I thought the carol was too earnest and too slow. But today the song reflects my sentiments...thinking back to my childhood, treasuring those moments of Christmas with my family.

So, I'll shed a little tear, light a candle and listen to "Hoosianna" all day.

Despedida - Celso Machado

Suzanne

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

Leonard Cohen

A Night at the Opera - Le Nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata - Liceu, Barcelona 22.11.2008

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OZCyp-LcGw