Year's end

It seems I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write anything for a while, and now New Year’s Eve is here – and I’m quite certain I’m not the only person who feels this compulsion to somehow tie a ribbon on the year as a whole on December 31. But 2013 hasn’t been a compliant rectangular package, easy to decorate – wrapping this one will be more like trying to put a golf club, a CD and a cashmere sweater into a neat box. Impossible!

So what to do? Reading other people’s stream-of-consciousness is rarely entertaining, at least for me. So I think I’ll focus on twelve different things that left their mark on me in 2013, something like the Twelve Days of Christmas (which an alcoholic aunt or family friend, Marion, used to make us girls sing in its entirety at Christmas every year. I wonder whatever happened to her?).

1. New status: I’m a Finnish property owner. The twists and turns of how this happened are being put into a book, so I won’t say much about them now. But when I think about how I first saw the family cabin, built in 1857, when I was 22, and how I am now its owner all these years later, I am filled with awe and gratitude. For the first time in my life, I own a piece of land outright, and my head is filling with plans, possibilities and projects. I was interviewed for the local paper because the notion of an American coming back to roost a century or so after her forefather/mothers left makes for good reading here. And none of this would have happened without the support and love of my relatives. More on this later, I promise.

2. Friendship: I have such amazing friends, and they’re all so different. I couldn’t have made it through this year without them. The ones who helped me move out of my house. The one who has driven me around countless times to look at places to live in Joensuu. The ones who won’t let me lift a finger when I come visit in St. Wendel. The one I talk to on Skype every Sunday and who helps me keep my head on straight. The one who took me on my first mushroom hunt and who patiently looks through inspection reports in Finnish. The ones in Helsinki who take such good care of me when I prepare to leave Finland and who welcome me so warmly upon my return. The one in Tampere with whom I once again become an adolescent and with whom I laugh so hard I’m hoarse the next day. And the list goes on. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I couldn’t have made this move without friends. Period.

3. Music: In line with Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs, now that my life is working a little better, I’m hungering for more music in my life. First a disclaimer: I am fully aware that I am probably the most privileged mom in the world. I can go to Zurich to hear my son sing. I can go online and hear my daughter playing in an ensemble or orchestra, through the miracle of streaming, from Pittsburgh. I’m so grateful for these opportunities. However, greedy me, I want more. Maybe my Finnish is now good enough to get involved in a community choir. Perhaps I can find an inexpensive piano somewhere. I’m still dreaming of buying a keyed fiddle again and spending a month at a workshop in Sweden. Or maybe I can just go to ‘my’ cabin and sing my heart out for a weekend. In any event, if I believed in New Year’s resolutions, one of them would be to have and make more music.

4. Love: This year has shown me that I can survive, and thrive, without a partner. It’s a small miracle. OK, a mid-sized one. I find myself less opposed to having one than I’ve felt for the past three years, so we’ll see what happens in 2014.

5. Religion: My church life has had a rocky year. Perhaps I’m still angry about having to leave my United Lutheran family in Eugene. This is something to work on for 2014: coming to terms with that loss. I was confirmed there this past summer, so I can join the church in Finland if I can wrap my heart around that. However, I’m still resisting a kind of fellowship that reminds me of bureaucracy more than anything else. I’m going to be going on a mission trip to Mexico in the summer along with our pastor. Maybe I can steal some time to talk to him about this while we’re there. Stay tuned.

6. Language: I can’t let this year go by without saying something about Finnish. I’ve been taking the class that is required in order to become a Finnish citizen (not because I have definite plans about that), and I am, amazingly, at the head of the class. It’s made me think that a lot of my difficulty with Finnish has been a lack of confidence more than anything else. So the best result of the class so far is that I’ve become more ‘self-starting’ when it comes to using Finnish. I conducted all of the business regarding the cabin, for example, in Finnish (though I did check things out with a Swedish-speaking attorney before actually signing any papers). True, I can’t read Facebook comments in Finnish and understand the dialect/puns/cultural references with 100% accuracy. That doesn’t mean I’m not trying, and my Finnish friends and colleagues are so kind when I do.

7. Home: I’ve spent a lot of energy this year looking for a place to live. I still haven’t made up my mind. This amuses and perplexes me. I know it’s a function of not really knowing what I want (see previous blog entry). However, when I bought my first house in 1993, I knew it was mine the moment I stepped through the front door, and it was a wonderful place to live for 20 years. I have a feeling I haven’t found ‘my’ house yet. I’ll keep looking.

8. Home?: This year I’ve still, with surprising regularity, stopped in my tracks to say, “What the heck am I doing in Finland??” Even so, touching down in Helsinki yesterday after spending Christmas in St. Wendel, it felt more like coming home than it has before. Being in Finland feels right, somehow. Of course I’m not alone in my apartment yet, back in the work day. But I feel like progress is being made.

9. Winter: we have some talking to do. I’ve decided that I’m not going to risk riding my bike in the snow, so it was put away in my storage locker until…uh…May. But I bought some second-hand skis and poles, and I’m going to get boots next paycheck. I want to get modestly proficient at some kind of winter sport. I took an ice-skating class in college and really liked it. I wonder if I can still keep my balance. In any event, winter isn’t so scary anymore. Last year I obsessively looked at the temperature to plan my wardrobe. I’ve gotten a bit more casual about it now. (Of course, the ‘winter’ so far has been rather warm and snowless. We’ll see how I fare when it gets truly cold.)

10. Health: a few days ago, someone I hadn’t seen for a while exclaimed when he saw me, “But you look so young! What happened?” He brought it up several times, so I think there must have been something to it. He mentioned the pure Nordic air; I'm inclined to think it’s the fact that I experience less stress. My stress level on an average work day is lower than what I've had for many, many years. I loved teaching high-school German, believe it or not. But it was a part-time job fraught with insecurity that required my full-time presence. So I worked in the evenings as well at my translation business. My work hours are more sane now. I also don’t have a car, so I get more exercise. And my eating habits are more regular – a warm meal midday and light food (sandwiches or yoghurt) the rest of the time -- probably because I actually have time to think about what I'm putting in my mouth instead of simply finding whatever calories are lying around.

And I have to admit, I love intellectual challenges, and having to speak Finnish is, in a way, just the kind of challenge I need. I don’t think I had enough intellectual stimulus as a high-school teacher. Creative challenges, logistical and emotional ones – more than enough. But in terms of pure thinking and puzzle-solving and abstraction, not quite enough.

11. Family: It doesn’t get any easier to live far away from my family. Thank heavens for Facebook, where I can go ‘see’ my family from time to time. But my mother hasn’t been well, my sister’s attempt at rehab failed, and there are new babies that can’t be hugged from a distance. On the bright side: Zurich isn’t terribly far away, and I’m scheduled to see my son next month again. My daughter is having a recital in April, and I’m going to tuck away money to make that trip. And summer will mean another trip back to Oregon to pack up the things in storage for their voyage to Finland. That will mean I’ll get to hug all those babies, and their parents/grandparents.

12. Blog: This year has also meant kind and encouraging comments from YOU about this blog. It started out as a way to let family and friends know what I’ve been doing, but it’s been sent on to others, and I’ve heard the nicest things from people I don’t even know. Several people have urged me to work it into a book. I’ve listened. I’ll start putting my copyright mark on the pages. We’ll see what happens. For now, I’m planning to keep writing, if for no other reason than to try to wrap my thoughts – occasionally in neat boxes, more often in lumpy bundles. Happy 2014 everyone!

©Kathy Saranpa 2013