Fickle April

How did April creep up like that? Maybe it’s the snow still lying on the ground – retreating with so much sun (15.5 hrs/day) and temperatures finally above freezing, but still hanging in there – that made me think it was still March, or at least still winter. But now there’s just a week left in this month, and after Vappu (April 30, the Finnish version of Walpurgis) I sense that it’s a downhill race to summer. However, with any luck, there won’t be enough snow left for it to be a race by downhill ski.

I don’t really have a theme to this post. I’ve felt I had to have one up till now, but this will simply be a check-in, partly motivated by the fact that I will be going “home” (where IS home, by the way?) for a brief visit in a week. People will ask how Finland is/was. What will I say?

1. The jury is out. Definitely out. I thought by now I’d know for sure whether Finland was my new destiny, the homeland that’s always been waiting for me, or a huge mistake, a well-intentioned but ultimately foolish detour from what I should really be doing. But I am nowhere closer to knowing the answer to that question than I was in August. Of course, I told everyone I would give it a year, and it’s only been 8.5 months. Surely I will know in the next three months…I think…

2. Life in Finland has been healthier. I don’t own a car, so all my local transportation has been by bike, by foot or by bus (and taxi or car trips that I can count on both hands). I feel fitter, less sedentary. The air is very clean. Apart from my own self-imposed work stress, people are much more relaxed about getting things done. Health care is free. Health care is free. (That one counts twice.)

3. Loneliness is more palpable. Most of my colleagues live two hours away, and this makes weekends very quiet. I’m used to at least having Sunday dinners with my friend Cynthia. We’ve been Skyping instead, but it’s still too quiet. And my language abilities aren’t yet good enough to scour the papers for local activities – and I don’t have the money to participate in them anyway. I guess I didn’t realize that all those evening committee meetings in Eugene were serving a social function as well as my need to save the world.

4. It all feels so temporary. I live in an apartment with hardly anything on the walls, with mismatched furniture and a crappy bed. I have a very small, low shelf as my only bookcase. I have no garden. Most of the apartment seems like vast, echoing space. Maybe this is what pioneering is about. But it makes me feel like everything is on hold until I fish or cut bait and either sell my house in Oregon to buy something here or give up and go back to the US.

5. The Finnish language is hard. I’ve always known this. It’s been a struggle since trying to get my dad to give me a vocabulary word each day. I’ve made progress, but I still worry that I will say something terribly obscene by not remembering the right combination of double/single consonants. And teaching English means I don’t get the immersion experience that would boost my Finnish into more fluency. Plus I have a Canadian colleague whose Finnish is so much better and he always goes around apologizing for it. This doesn’t exactly instill confidence. And trying to translate my Finnish friends’/ colleagues’ Finnish from Facebook? Forget it. It’s dialect. So learning Finnish may not help anyway.

6. It’s so awesome being able to get to Europe so quickly. Since arriving here, I have made three trips to Europe (as opposed to the Scandinavian peninsula). That sounds so extravagant in the US. How amazing is it to be able to travel in so many other countries without vast outlays of money or time? And having Erik in Switzerland – what a wonderful coincidence. If I weren’t living here, I wouldn’t get to see any of his performances.

7. The perks of my job are substantial. I’m not getting paid as much as I thought I would. Finnish taxes are high, and there are several other deductions from my wages I hadn’t counted on, including union dues. However, I get to work in a modern, private office with a very good computer. I get to choose my own hours. My classes only meet once a week. usually for two hours. A class hour is 45 minutes. My largest class was 19 students, but most are more like 10. My students are highly motivated, polite, obedient, interested in what I tell them. The library system works well. You get extra vacation pay. There is a bistro just downstairs, and most people take an afternoon coffee break. You get funding for two conference trips per year, and you have the chance to do an Erasmus teacher exchange. What this means in my case is that I will go to Brno in the Czech Republic and Torun, Poland, each for one week. Paid. You can also get discount coupons for the local swimming pool.

Oh, and this job is permanent.

8. I get to eat weird and sometimes good foods. Yesterday I had a glass of ‘sima’ (fermented beverage with raisins made only this time of year, something like mead) together with a reindeer sandwich. This morning I had yoghurt with apple and cloudberries for breakfast (the yoghurt actually came with the cloudberries). I still adore Karjalan piirakoita, though I have stopped buying them every time I shop. I’ve learned to like what amounts to hamburgers with chopped-up beets in them. I am constantly aware that I’m living in a foreign country and get to have these interesting, if not always successful, culinary experiences.

9. Starting over is a privilege/punishment. Sometimes I believe this 'redo' is a privilege, sometimes I think it’s a cruel joke. At times I’m in awe that I get to be in this new country, and I could go back to my own country anytime I want to – especially when I see the Somali women in skirts and veils that can’t possibly be protecting them from the cold. Unlike me, they can’t go back. At other times, I wonder what I did to be punished by this exile when friends are winding down their careers and talking about cool things they’ll do with their husbands in retirement.

I think I’ve covered a lot of my rumination tracks, though I know there are more. The weather continues to fascinate me. The ice is melting in the river though there’s still snow on the lake. The sun comes up at 5:15 a.m. and sets at 8:45 p.m. Nothing is blossoming or leafing out yet. I have a feeling that when spring comes, it will be fast and furious, and then it will be summer. This combination is so odd. I think I understand the Saami calendar better – this must be winter-spring. The weather, then, is of two minds, just as I am about Finland.