To find something positive instead of whining, the sun is out. Has been lately, except for that storm and some snowfall yesterday too. But even yesterday the sun came out before going down. This morning I woke up to see snowflakes nonchalantly fluttering around again, giving the trees yet another frosting, and the merciless thermometer announced a cruel -12 degrees Celsius. By the time my bus had reached Hakaniemi, the outskirts of the city center, sun was shining through a crack in the clouds, making my mood brighter immediately.

I was almost going to write how at this time of the year, my mind is oocupied by the weather. But while that is true, it’s not the whole truth. My mind is occupied by the weather all year round. Mostly because up here north, it most of the time is not to my liking, making me dream of something else. Dream of warm and sun. Going through life being unhappy about the surrounding weather is hardly my goal in life, or the way I intend to live, but to be happy about it – frankly, I live in the wrong climate. Cold and dark affects my moods in a deeper way than being decidedly unhappy. They depress me.

At this point of the year, it is at its worst. Finns know the consept of “kaamosmasennus”, roughly translated to polar night depression since even the word “kaamos” (allday darkness) does not even exist in English. Finns also know about “kevätväsymys”, spring fatique, that in used to puzzle me (because spring makes me feel alive again) until I realized that 1) I had a different definition for spring than the calendar and 2) it takes time (maybe the longer the older I get) for the winter-drained batteries to collect the sunlight energy into the system again.

So while I start to wilt by mid-Novermber, my mental fatigue is actually worst right here, right now, in “spring” (my definition of true spring would be when the birches get their leaves) when the sun is starting to shine again and the world is seemingly a brighter palce again. Especially if the winter still drags on, despite the sun. Snow keeps coming in instead of melting away and the temperature dips below zero, takes dives to fierce freezing levels (ah, the English language does not know the word “pakkanen” either, the below zero freezing weather) instead of climbing up to defrost the world.

It’s snowing again. It puts me down. Where did the sun go? I want summer! I know it won’t help much to stomp my feet and through a fit. But I feel like doing it anyway. Or crawling back under my blanket and getting up when it’s +30 degrees – which would probably mean several years of huddling in my bed, since many summers the quicksilver never climbs that “high”.

Have I complained enough? More than, I guess. Aside from the sun, all’s well under my (cloud-covered) sun. We Finns say “siitä puhe mistä puute”, roughly “you talk about the things you don’t have”. Sun sweet sun! Sun is essential to life and by all standards, this country gets too little of it. I am sun-deprived.

Snow has been coming down in Helsinki again for days and again. Today the temperature climbed somewhere slightly above zero, though, making the world wet and the downcoming snow sleet, almost rain. Somehow more familiar than these heavy snow winters, that sleet is, even though I can remember winters like this from my childhood too. But my own kids needed to wear some “tecs” when they were small, to avoid being soaking wet all the time.

I had the idea to walk to the store today. But when I stepped out of the door and took a look at all the snow hanging from the roof right above my car again, I knew I needed to move the car to a safer place. So while I had to start the car anyway, we rode it to the store too, wondering on the way, where the h*ll to put my car again, anyway. Our driveway is kinda problematic with all this snow.

For the lack of any better ideas, I left the car on the side of the street, thinking that since the snow was pretty much melting as it landed, ther probably wouldn’t be any snow plows and my Honda would be safe right there. But as it often happens, the temperature started to drop again towards the evening and snow piling on the road, as well as of course on the driveway where it actually had more or less stayed on the ground all day long, on top of the old snow and ice. I needed to come up with a plan B.

In the meantime we had heard the neighbor start pushing the snow on the driveway, and feeling a bit guilty for not shoveling the snow at all for a couple days now, I went out to help him. Except that he wasn’t there anymore, he’d only done a little bit behind our house. So anyway I started pushing the hellishly heavy snow, did as much a I could before I was down with an asthma attack. It gets me every time.

A couple hours had past since this clearing the driveway when I started to think about that plan B. At first, I simply tried to park my car as much to the side as I could so that the neighbors still had enough room to pass. But as soon as I had done that, I noticed that it didn’t really work, so I tried to manouver my car away and maybe take my chances with the snow plows. After all, I am leaving bright and early (what a silly idiom to be using right here and now; it definately is not bright yet at seven, this time of the year).

But. What happened next was what I sort of had been afraid would happen next. My car skidded and slid and slipped until it was diagonally in the uphill driveway, its butt in the snow wall. And not moving to any direction anymore. So I had no other option than to go ask my down-with-the-flu man to help me. And of course he did ❤

So together we shoveled and pushed away a load of snow from all around the car, and then he pushed the car enough for me to get it out of its icy shackles. Then, with the car in the middle of the driveway, we dug into the snow big time. I cut the snow wall on the side of the driveway into chunks of snow and we pushed and shoveled it away to make more space in the yard.

 

Finally I managed to back my car up right beside the wall in a way that still left room for the neighbors to come and go. I needed to climb out from the passanger side.

After this whole ordeal I was wet and cold to the core, chilled to the bone. I dried my hair as best I could and crawled under my nice thick blanket to defrost. My hair seemed to like the moisture though: it went all perky with corkscrew curls – the only good thing I could come up with about this sleety business… Did I ever mention how much I hate snow and cold?

 

Some sort of uneasiness and restlessness has parked itself inside of me but I can’t really pin it down. I woke up again from strange dreams, somehow disturbing yet not really bad dreams, several times in the course of the morning hours, starting at five or so. By the time it was seven o’clock and time to get up, I was tired and unhappy. Cappucino and some fried “eggwitches” (with cheddar cheese) made me feel slightly better, boyfriend’s reassuring and empathetic hug and kiss even more so.

Halfway to work the USB drive in my car was done with Aerosmith and started playing Alanis Morissette, the old album Jagged Little Pill that I used to listen to back when I was working on my Master’s and used to go to this gym in our appartment building for a midday workout. The lyrics came flowing from the back of my head even though I haven’t listened to those songs for at least ten years, probably more.

Somehow Alanis’ Hand in My Pocket fit my morning mood quite well. The world’s not ready yet, I’m not ready yet, life is in constant change and I don’t have to have everything figured out just yet.

I’ve got one hand in my pocket, and the other one is holding a coffee cup 😉

[grrr… I couldn’t even figure out how to embed the video here; the embedded iframe did not work!]

We went to Ikea yesterday, just to look around. And to dodge people, it seemed. The place was packed. People were parking cars illeagally by the loading docks and you could barely walk inside the store. Shopping carts should be banned in Ikea anyway. We made our rounds, found a couple small things to buy, and decided that the current style of lamps and quite a lot of the furniture simply was not to our liking. Luckily, we weren’t in need of anything, really, we were just passing time.

After Ikea we needed to visit a grocery store, a big one, unfortunately, for the smaller ones don’t carry our favorite breakfast juice. And I needed a couple things from some clothes store, namely these special leggings from Seppälä and optionally new jeans from some other store to replace my favorite jeans that got ripped last week. I contemplated on driving all the way to Klaukkala Citymarket, with a Seppälä right there by it, just to avoid the crowds of Jumbo. But the necessity to have a bite of something for lunch drove us to Jumbo anyway; there’re no proper diners in Klaukkala.

I haven’t always minded the crowds, just like I haven’t always minded the heavy(ish) traffic around Helsinki in the rush hour (compared to the big world, they’re pretty mild, but I’m not in the big world, I’m in Finland). But lately I have started to crave for a more peaceful life. Going to smaller stores (if only they would carry the nicer stuff too and not only the basic bulk), walking to places, avoiding crowds, enjoying the quiet peace of a suburb.

Except that it’s only a start. Only a piece of a more slow paced life. I still work 40 hours a week, am tired in the evenings, use up the weekends to recharge my batteries for the next work week. Oh, it can be good! Weekends can be awesome! Last weekend with the girls was pretty great, and despite the crowds of yesterday, this one has been pretty wonderful too, Star Wars movies and good food and such. Carpe diem, be happy with each moment you have.

Usually, I do, and I am. But today I woke up cranky and craving for a different kind of life. Maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the (too slowly passing) kaamos, maybe it was the restless dreams of last night. And maybe grass is simply always greener on the other side. But I would like to live in a place like Tinos. Have a goat and a lemon tree, be a writer, live a dream. Utopia even, maybe. An overly romantized fantasy. Life is life there too, I know, and people need to work for their daily bread there too.

This takes me back to my age-old notion that I was born to the wrong class. I don’t really crave for a lazy life, though. Just for one where money isn’t an issue. So maybe I’m not after quiet? Maybe I’m simply after freedom. To be free of the must to work. I’ve never been good with musts and control. But I’ve also never been good with uncertainty, especially financial uncertainty. And uncertain it would be, to step out of the basic working life.

Bottomline is, anyway, that I have a dream and it involves quiet and peace, a slower pace of life, the Aegean Sea and the sun. It’s good to have dreams, right? Still, they shouldn’t cripple the ability to enjoy the now. Is that the point when a dream becomes a quest?

I hope some day I can make my dream my real life. Until then, I’ll get back to making each moment matter as it is. And I promise to get a bright light lamp for next winter.