Travel(l)ing: privilege and pain

I’ve been traveling a lot this year. For example, I just made two trips from Finland to the US in the space of three weeks. You might not know it on the basis of the miles I log, but I am a very nervous flyer. You wouldn’t guess that my dad was a pilot during World War II, at Guadalcanal. In his typically unsentimental way, he once scoffed at my fear of flying, saying that it was the fastest way to go. Not really that comforting a thought, Dad. Thanks.

My first experience flying was probably the catalyst for this neurotic quirk of mine. Two younger sisters and I were to fly from Los Angeles to Cleveland, alone. Dad walked us onto the plane, made sure our seatbelts were fastened, and left us in the capable hands of the stewardesses. However, Dad never told us what flying would actually feel like. Over Denver, it became so turbulent that our cups started hopping on the trays. Kristy and Kelley asked me, “Kathy, are we going to die?” Ever the responsible oldest sibling, with adult assurance at 14, I said, “Oh no, we’ll be fine.” Meanwhile I had no idea and was actually terrified. I recall that there was a pall over that entire visit with Grandma, and it wasn’t just her new husband’s cigarette smoke. It was knowing that we had to get back on a plane to return home.

The second experience that left its mark was a flight from Corfu to Copenhagen. I had been visiting a good college friend and was on my way back to my boyfriend in Sweden. I noticed a group of three cool-looking Danes get on the plane, sun-tanned and laughing, their ring-leader a gorgeous man with sandy hair and a straw hat. As it turns out, they sat in the row behind me. It was a night flight, and I remember looking out the window wondering why everything was so bright all of a sudden. It was a lighting strike. The plane dropped suddenly (probably not very far) and as Pee-Wee Herman would have said, I screamed real loud. The stewardess came over at the same time as the sandy-haired man behind me reached his arms forward around me and said, “Er De bang?” It turned out he was a doctor, and he sent the stewardess for some medicine: a strong beer. He made me drink it and spent the entire rest of the flight holding me and stroking my arms, explaining in Danish how planes worked in storms. I didn’t remember most of what he said, but I was (terribly) distracted by his soothing voice and hands, and by the medicine, which worked very quickly. At the end of flight I laughingly thanked him and apologized for my foolishness, and he proceeded to invite me to come along with his friends and spend the weekend at his summer cabin. What would have happened if I had decided to tell my boyfriend I was taking a detour? I’ll never know.

There have been other frightening flights, and over the years my fear of flying only got worse, until finally it became a three-month rehearsal of all the things I was doing for the very last time whenever I knew I had to fly. I flung myself headlong into magic thinking and started creating small rituals, like kissing my right hand and pressing it against the outside of the plane as I got in. While in the air I became a frightened animal, curling into a ball, and I was convinced that I had to look out the window to make sure we were still in the air. For a while I tried drinking three shots of whiskey before boarding a plane. That only helped to put me in a state of composed heightened awareness while remaining completely sober during the flight. After disembarking I would feel dehydrated and sick.

Of course, while my children were small, I had to try to hide my fear so I wouldn’t pass on my neurosis to them. I was lucky that they are such excellent travelers, though I do remember the five-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles when my toddler son refused to sleep. I walked up and down the aisles after him for hours on end, it seems. I don’t remember being scared on that flight.

A couple years ago, a doctor prescribed Xanax for me. I have to say that it has changed my life. I’m not a person who enjoys mind-altering drugs of any kind, but this little tablet has given me back months of my life. I don’t count the days until I will be packing my suitcase for the last time anymore. I wonder if I could have taken this job in Finland – with all the flying it entails – if I hadn’t made this discovery. I can actually experience turbulence now as ‘normal’ people do – oh, interesting, the air currents must be acting in this way or that, soon it will be over. I used to be sure that if I 1. read a magazine, 2. closed my eyes or 3. failed to look out the window, the turbulence would get so bad that the plane would be shaken apart.

Alright, that’s enough exposure of my neurotic quirk. I really wanted to talk about my odd trip to Pittsburgh. My daughter had the first of her two Master of Music Performance recitals and they are a big deal, so I really wanted to go. I so seldom get to hear her play anymore – anything that is webcast is generally orchestral, and it is not possible for me to pick out the viola line, never mind her own part in it. 

The adventure started when Lufthansa went on strike and my flights were cancelled. I couldn’t get through to the Lufthansa operators in Finland, and I was starting to give up hope that I would get to go. My brilliant son thought to call the Lufthansa operators in the US with his free minutes from Switzerland, and so, miraculously, he got me booked on a British Airways flight to London and then on to JFK and finally Pittsburgh, with a scheduled arrival time four hours earlier than Lufthansa’s. Of course I lost my good seats in the mix-up and was crammed between two (admittedly pleasant) men for eight hours, but my good friend Xanax helped me to not mind, and I actually slept in that odd position. I got my rental car without mishap and found my DaysInn hotel in Southern Pittsburgh without getting lost (which in Pittsburgh is miraculous). That’s where ‘without incident’ stopped. My first clue that I hadn’t made a wise choice was the fact that the hotel had no elevator, and, as jet-lagged as I was, I had to drag my 45-pound suitcase up the stairs. Then I couldn’t find my room so I leaned against the wall and tried not to cry. A friendly gentleman asked me what was wrong, and I explained. He said he thought there were a couple rooms behind a door that said “no exit”. He was right: my room was outside the motel proper and on an outdoor corridor with a pungent odor of Indian food and a scary-looking stairway that led down into a dark, ominous tunnel. I thanked him and got myself settled in.

There must be something about the first jet-lagged night in the US for me now – in New Haven, there was a 3 a.m. fire alarm my first night there – because I was awaked by a fight in which I heard the words “weed” and “beer” along with choice expletives. All of a sudden a glass object was smashed against my door and I could hear the shards showering the corridor. My first impulse, which I am glad I did not follow, was to get up, open the door, and yell at the people to be quiet because I needed my rest. Instead I lay wide awake the rest of the night, wondering if there was going to be a repeat performance and how sturdy my door was.

In the morning I had a substandard breakfast on a styrofoam plate, reported the glass bottle incident (the helpful front-desk response: “Oh, your neighbors are checking out today. I’ll send someone to clean up the glass”), and tried to get online. After 15 minutes of nothing, I called the front desk. After 45 minutes of nothing, I’d had enough. I reserved a room at another hotel, packed my bags, and checked out, simply leaving my keys on the counter as the clerk called after me “You won’t get a refund, you know.” (The last straw was when he suggested we could try out the Internet in different rooms. Like I would want to drag my suitcase up and down the stairs some more?)

Fortunately I had directions to my new hotel – which was as wonderful as the old one was dreadful – but unfortunately I did not have a very good map of Pittsburgh, and if you know anything about Picksburgh, as the natives call it, it’s that there is no grid, and the streets tend to go north for a while, then east, then change into something else…I almost got lost on the way to Maija’s recital, but then all of a sudden, the building appeared. Her dad and stepmom were setting up the reception for afterwards, and I joined in. The recital itself was magical. I am enormously privileged to have two children who are musicians, and the thrill of seeing them onstage creating beauty is something I never take for granted. When did that little girl who didn’t like practicing become this poised, competent, sensitive violist?

We had several meals together with her boyfriend, dad and stepmom, and then everyone left except me. I got two days with Maija that felt like one long slumber party. She moved into my hotel (which was too luxurious for just one person) and we took full advantage of its comforts. We had a manicure and pedicure, went out for Mexican food one night, ordered Chinese food to go on the other, and watched movies and TV. We slept in, she played hooky from school on my last morning there, and I helped her do some research for a paper on Black American music. I went with her to a baseball game in the downtown stadium and got sunburned, and I went to another student recital, this time Baroque music with period instruments. I shopped in a supermarket where I was one of the few white customers, and I got lost more times than I can tell. But I got to know Pittsburgh a little bit, and I got to spend precious time with my daughter.

So travel: it’s a double-edged sword. It’s a necessity, now that I’m living so far from my family members and from just about everything else, including my cabin. But the rewards make up for it. Maybe someday I’ll lose my fear of flying completely so I can actually work and fly at the same time. For now I’m content to not feel terrified – though I still kiss the plane.

The Finns and joy

It’s finally time to come back to the topic of religion. I’m kind of surprised that it is: so much else is going on in my life right now. I just got back from a trip to the US, where I attended a conference in which my dissertation advisor was honored and where I got to see other old friends from Yale. Later I’ll probably write about that. I could write about my new home, a place that has raised my spirits because of the light wood floors, the proximity to school and town, and, perhaps most importantly, the friendly neighbors. I could write about a new friend from Syria who has taught me so much about the Middle East. Or about teaching in Saarbruecken and the trip to Prague with my wonderful friend Cynthia. Or about yesterday, the first really sunny day with roads ice-free enough to take a long bike ride.

No, I think I’ll write about church again, because I promised, and I always keep my promises unless it is utterly impossible to do so. And actually, I do want to write about it, in case there was any doubt.

Now that I live closer to town, I can go to church regularly again. And now I am in the parish of the beautiful main church with the arched ceilings covered with paintings of local flora. On Ash Wednesday I met a colleague from work there for the evening service. It was surprisingly poorly attended, and Heli then told me that it was the first Ash Wednesday service she had ever attended. You’re going to think I’m a glutton for punishment, but Lent is actually my favorite season, more favorite than Christmas. It’s the season of contemplation, of inward-turning, and nobody expects you to be happy – and so it is a more realistic season in a way. If you think Finns are a dour people, you might have expected them to turn up in droves for the beginning of the dourest of seasons. But that wasn’t the case.

This morning I went back to that church and had a very revealing experience. I finally saw the joy I had been missing. It had probably been there all along, but I hadn’t lived here long enough to be able to see it. Now that I’ve gotten more used to the understated (I mean: what in my culture would seem understated) way people show emotions here, I’m more attuned to less obvious clues. Today was Assumption of Mary day (the day she found out she was going to have a baby, Jesus), and so the pastor – whose eyes twinkled – said that even though it was Lent, there was a holiday tucked into the calendar today because of her. I think his smiles and his eye-twinkling were the first sign of joy today. Another event, a more local one, was that one of their staff – I think it was the choir director – was retiring and it was his last Sunday at work. There was a ceremony of blessing during which the pastor praised the man for his service and urged him to continue to serve in other ways. The man appeared to be moved, nodding his head at the congregation to acknowledge our appreciation, and I heard a few sniffles. He stood impassive as the choir sang to him from the loft, but that’s when the sniffling increased. 

It was then I realized that this is, in fact, a community. I think I can do something here. In fact, as I watched the choir go up to the rail for communion and saw how few of them there are – and, judging by their age, there will probably be fewer in the not-too-distant future – I knew I could join them and perhaps make a little joyful noise of my own.

While sitting in the pew and listening to the twinkly-eyed pastor preaching, my mind wandered during the parts where I had lost the thread. I started thinking about language and faith. Do you have to worship in your own language to get close to the divine? I don’t think so. Perhaps this is where ritual is important. I know what is being said because I know what part of the service we are on. And I know even better now because I finally found the ‘cheat sheets’ in the front and back of the hymnal. They don’t use bulletins at this church and it’s definitely a service for the initiated, not for the visitor. But in Finland, if you’re Lutheran, you probably know all the parts of the service and just need to find the bits of melody and specific prayers and you’re set.

A couple weeks ago I thought I come across as a bumbling foreigner, not knowing I’m supposed to curtsey after communion, not knowing where to stand to wait to kneel at the railing, not pronouncing all the words in the hymns correctly (how on earth, for example, do you follow both unfamiliar music and pronounce the word ‘nöyryytti’ with the correct number of consonants and vowels at the same time when you’re in a verse that’s not printed right under the music?) But today I realized yet another thing: this is an accepting community. There is a ski-capped man with some kind of disability who wanders the sanctuary pretending he is the pastor, offering prayers and blessings at the same volume as the pastor. At times you think it’s part of the service. I don’t know what he’s saying. But this is the third time I’ve seen this fellow. And nobody tries to stop him. He’s another worshipper, just like the crying babies and the sniffling ladies, making the noises, joyful and other, they are moved to make.

I’m not sure I’m ready to do all the paperwork and join this church. There’s no rush, and I am still so attached to my church in Eugene. But I’m heartened and happy that there may be a place for me in a congregation in Joensuu. 

Rereading this, I see that haven’t organized my thoughts very well, but I think I’ll leave it at that. Religion and faith aren’t neat little packages, and neither is this post. 

(c) Kathy Saranpa 2014

Happy Val-Ain’t-Mine’s Day

Ahh, February 14. Hearts and flowers, chocolate, cupids and dinner in a restaurant. Pink – my least favorite color. This is one U.S. holiday I can seriously do without. The Finns have it right. Here it’s called “Friends’ Day”, and it’s not particularly romantic. Everyone wishes each other a happy day, not just couples, though I suspect the more Americanized version is catching on.

This day has always been disastrous for me, starting with the first one I can remember. It was 5^th grade and I had a crush on a boy named John. I got my parents to take me to a store where I could buy him the biggest  valentine available – covered with flowers and delicate script -- and I had my dad sign it from ‘your secret admirer’ so my handwriting couldn’t be detected. I snuck it into the school coatroom during lunch, though someone probably caught a glimpse of the huge envelope. John’s face burned red as he opened it, and immediately after, the most obnoxious boy in the class said, “I’ll bet it’s from you, Kathy!” My face must have given me away. After that, all I remember is that I somehow got home and lay on my bed in tears, trying to figure out how I could arrange it so I never had to go back to school again.

What was I thinking?

It’s not gotten any better since then. Valentine’s Day builds up so many expectations: the perfect gift, the perfect mood, the perfect outing. Perfect communication. Wonderful memories. No wonder reality can’t compare. When I was first dating the man who would become my husband, we were on a trip together on Valentine’s Day. I could tell he was already regretting being together on such an important couple’s holiday when we weren’t really a couple yet. So when we exchanged cards and gifts – the SAME cards and then the SAME gifts, as it turned out – I think he acted coldly and distantly for the rest of the weekend just to get some room to breathe. I suppose the fact that I can’t remember any other Valentine’s Days spent with him is significant.

 

There’s something that really bothers me about Valentine’s Day, and I think it’s this: if love is a wild force or, as some philosophers have claimed, an illness, one that makes us crazy and irrational and able to commit murder out of jealousy, how can you possibly dedicate one day of the year to celebrating it in fairly prescribed ways – going out to dinner, for example? Shouldn’t these celebrations be more crazy and irrational themselves? And above all spontaneous? 

I dislike Valentine’s Day so much, I’m going to switch topics, though I suppose you will draw connections between them. I wanted to talk about loneliness. But before I do, I should explain this entry’s title. When I was in college, I briefly dated a man named Val. Our relationship ended a few days before Valentine’s Day, and I was relieved, so my roommate at the time and I wished each other a happy Val Ain’t Mine day. We still do.

In the U.S., I was fairly certain that I was the person in my circle of friends who needed more alone time than anyone else. It didn’t seem to matter how much time I spent by myself – I was never lonely. Perhaps it was the perception of the wide circle of acquaintance in the town I lived in for 20 years, the knowledge that I could end my solitude at virtually any time. And – probably not insignificantly – I had pets around all the time. At the height of their population, there were six animals in my home, three dogs and three cats. In addition, I had neighbors whom I knew, and I could see them working in their yards or eating meals on their decks. 

Here in Finland, I live in an apartment building in which almost no one says a word to the other residents. The one exception is the older gentleman with a gentle dog who lives one floor below me. I live far enough from downtown (a 40-minute walk) that it’s not convenient to come see me, so I haven’t done much entertaining, not wanting to inconvenience people. The bus runs between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays, so going out to do something in town takes planning, energy, and/or money. Added to this, many of my colleagues live two hours out of town and are not even in Joensuu on weekends, so the pool of potential activity buddies is small.

This all adds up to a lot of lonely.

But I am not wallowing in my sad little diaspora. I’ve signed a rental contract to move to a neighborhood closer to the university and downtown. The best part about this neighborhood, I’m told, is that it’s more like a community than other places. There are work parties, sauna nights and impromptu gatherings. And two of my colleagues live there. I have a feeling there will be less lonely and more activity in just a month or two.

And I’ve given myself a strict talking-to. Solitude is a gift. I’ve always been very good company for myself, so why don’t I simply enjoy this good company a little more. The only constant in life is change, so they say, so this phase won’t last forever.

So – Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Friend’s Day, or just plain Happy Day. Really, February 14 is simply another calendar day, and cultural expectations don’t have to be yours or mine.

Though I have to admit: I wouldn't mind if George Clooney -- or his Finnish equivalent -- knocked on my door this evening and asked me out to dinner.

(c) Kathy Saranpa 2014

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