diamonds falling from grace.

three years ago i was quite in tune with my inner bookworm judging from a little note i wrote about admiration. nevertheless, being the one-click addict that i am, my amazon shipments have lately included a couple of memoirs – literature i knew to steer clear of before.

judging from how i feel right now, i probably should have kept on avoiding them.

since i never really discuss books here, this may seem an odd way to start – although i am not promising any continuance – but here goes nothing.

i adore beth ditto. i love the gossip. one of my most memorable starstruck moments was when i met her, post-show and after complimenting her singing she gave me the warmest, squishiest hug in the world.

it might have been the single incident that promoted a feeling that i already somehow was connected to her, that despite my overall hesitation to indulge in autobiographical storytelling, that regardless of my understanding of the perilous nature of stories describing subjective facts, that now, here, somehow it would be different.

her memoir, coal to diamonds, started as a light read that i trudged through. the unfastidious language annoyed me throughout, but it was really the structure – or lack of – that became increasingly irritating towards the end. it would be kind to describe the narrative as stream-of-consciousness or circular. truthfully, it was just a messy turmoil with no shape and time-leaps that were nothing short of confusing.

i will try to avoid the potholes of creating a mental image of beth as simple, actually i refuse to believe it, but the memoir's insights offer very little substance with heights such as – and excuse me for paraphrasing – not all people who look like punks embrace the punk mentality or queer people do not all share the same political agenda. the more interesting, complex personal-is-political issues – riot grrl, fat-positive thinking – were merely touched upon and not explained to the uneducated reader.

perhaps a good editor could have pulled this one up from its sad state that was, quite honestly, a waste of paper and time. far better queer coming-of-age stories come from jeannette winterson and, for example, ivan e. coyote – but they happily call them semi-autobiographical.

you can imagine the dread i felt yesterday afternoon when i picked up grace coddington's memoir grace. compared to the ditto version, her's is at least double the length – comparable with their respective ages – and i was afraid i would not finish it. my time is more precious than that. this morning over my cup of coffee, i turned the last page.

it was clear from page one that this was an eloquently written and well-edited story. nevertheless, after a few more pages, i already knew why my literature of choice stays on the fiction side of things: made-up stories are so much more real and insightful than actual life lived and described...

grace was a collection of entertaining dinner party anecdotes suitable for a night with acquaintances; the stories revealed only the surface of their protagonist although providing insight into the world of fashion  editing. the amount of dispensable namedropping at times felt rather ridiculous, but otherwise the accounts of adventures with famous household names provided a peek into a life normally hidden from mere mortals.

perhaps i will stick to fiction from now on then.

here.

i took the two required minutes to read my blog posts of last year. 19 in total; more pictures than text, so unlike me.

i was not here. i was hardly present anywhere.

2012 started in the limelight at the senate square and my year was boosted and shadowed by the blue ball wherever i went. a rewarding ordeal of a year workwise. the hours put in taught in many ways more than the miles of books i read for my dissertation: if i ever was, now i am pragmatic and practically prepared for any ordeal to come.

otherwise i shattered, collected myself, crumbled again, reassembled what i could find of myself with a clingwrap that muddled with its thick layers but still managed to reveal everyone around me how broken i was.

pieces are lost forever. new ones will surely caulk even the most gaping holes.

nonetheless, there were moments of happiness, many of them. i traveled, alone and with friends. i shared meals and moments of drunken exhilaration. i read books on which i wasn't able to concentrate for the past years. i danced for hours.

blowing off some steam.

midsummer and one of the best guarded secrets near my summer cottage.

ruisrock with silver.

sleepyhead.

boldly go wherever i want.

lavender in stockholm.

roxy in stockholm with bff.

kumpula.

reminders, part one.

fountain and flow festival.

flow festival.

restaurant day and hillbilly haystack.

reminders, part two.

new pups.

city happenings: laughs, speed and tight curves. this time with my little sis.

crazy, impromptu fun.

new puppies.

everyday discoveries at suvilahti.

farmers' market at teurastamo.

lovelies moving to their dream home.

london. sitting in a fountain.

dear friends getting married. love.

iceland. a dream come true. freezing.

muru pops down in tytyri and finlandia vodka platinum launch.

williamsburg, brooklyn, right after sandy.

i did not make promises for the new year.

i decided that i would just concentrate on being. being present. being here.

saved by sustenance.

moments with friends become all the more precious the more fragile your foundation is.

i have been allowed to sit silently, forget what i just said, change the topic, mumble inexplicably, and everything and anything that can be expected from someone barely solid.

most importantly i have eaten with friends.

sharing a meal is an intimate gesture, a kindness that requires very little but nourishes by filling whatever gaping holes require a fix for another day. sometimes that little makes a tremendous difference.

even before i uttered words of finalization to anyone, my somber being was unquestionably welcomed at communal tables. after it all poured out, i was handed a piece of bread to nibble to sooth me.

one of the people who has always cleared a place for me in her table is hanna. we do not know each other well enough to be in tune with whatever goes on in either of our lives, but there's warmth and caring extended in our sporadic catchup meetings.

in addition to a glowing presence, hanna loves her food passionately. talking about it, sharing it, getting excited about it, talking about it a little more.

now she has shared her passion in a book written with her husband. approachable, easygoing and flavorful recipes – just like the people behind them.

shared. chanterelle and aubergine pasta at maxill. 

alone. avocado pasta at my new home.

safkaa is out and available in bookstores and online.

new horizons.

my morning view has changed.

not only did i let go of a life once so stabile and precious, i had to abandon the neighborhood i so dearly loved.

had to? well, no. not exactly.

i was offered a rope and i jumped: my sister's other apartment was free and she suggested i take it. a natural leap towards something familiar in a novel environment.

it's a view of lush green with fall foliage just creeping in, open skies and a landmark that seems almost like a beacon to guide me towards the new.

i guess this means my neighborhood recommendations also need a new chapter. ok then.

transformation.

two and a half years ago i shaved my head perhaps for the last time.

since then there's been the reappearance of pixie cut, the helmet head, the justin bieber bob and several other stages of growth that sort of went unnoted even by my friends. just recently when i started wearing my hair up and actually doing it, it has been obvious what i am aiming at: a long mane.

moreover, it's been over two decades since my coif was its natural color.

wait, how old does that make me sound, huh?

it was long and black (with a white shaved section on both sides, go figure...) for a brief time about a decade ago, but has mostly been very short throughout my adulthood.

don't get me wrong, but i tend to associate long hair with the sort of timid femininity that i find annoying and, quite frankly, boring. the longer the hair, the more certain i seem to be that there is a serious lack of personality going on.

obviously, my future as a psychologist might fall short because of unjustified generalizations.

another part of me obviously refuses to think that an undercut somehow is a sign of personality or the edgier the hair, the more impressive the quirkiness inside. such evident failures need to be tackled if not just inside my little head. thus, going long and au naturel was the thing i needed to try.

and there are perks:

at shoulder length i am starting to like it. it's a hassle sometimes, but quite a bit of fun to work on. i can actually have it twisted in more ways than one.

moreover, i like the way it allows me to go further into the depths of masculine styles – and have found myself wearing increasingly many garments from the men's department. androgyny has always been a thing i'm attracted to, but personally i need to keep a glimpse of the femme there somehow to balance things out for me.

last, but so definitely not least, it gives me the freedom to stop worrying about whether it is manageable at any given time in the future. there is no root to color, no form that is lost, just a bunch of hair ready to be wrapped up and go. which is mostly what i do.

inke and i going amish.

let's see if i can hold on to the positive note. my goal is still quite far away, but here is where i am at at the moment. freaky, huh?

leather necklace from cos.

moving on.

wrapping a material life in obituaries puts perspective into how things could always be more definite.

at times like these, i can be obstinate in thinking that causally explanatory traces can and must be found before turning pages in my own life. the sort of stories that make sense, have culprits, actions that lead to reactions and a sense that folds neatly into boxes.

my perseverance in trying to find meaningful paths unfolds as an almost infinite understanding that slowly eats me inside leaving behind an echo of a motion fueled only by caring and worrying. overwhelmed, things shut down around my little universe only to whisper in muddled thumps as if reminding me that there is a world outside my preoccupation.

nevertheless, in order to move on, i am trying to learn to live by the surrealism i so dearly embrace otherwise. letting the crickets walk on empty plates.

it takes an eternity to fill a box after box.

it is a relief to realize that unwrapping feels – if only ever so slightly – less of an ordeal.

it all takes time.

sugar rush.

a long-awaited friday night with dearly missed friends demanded some special attention. it seems our lives get overwhelmed by work so easily, and the time we find for each other diminishes inconspicuously.

or life just happens.

although i'd say we're naturally inclined to effortless entertaining – meaning showing up at the door with a bottle of wine would be totally acceptable – there were lengthy and rambling facebook and email threads dedicated to planning the menu and the evening.

my contribution was sweet.

and it was good.

chocolate hazelnut pie in a jar.

life happened.

despite my firm efforts, my return to writing did not go according to plan.

it was life that swept me off my shaky feet, bounced and twirled me around while gasping my breath and left me panting face down on a cold slab.

it's spring. the light brightens things up. new life emerges.

it'll all be ok.

cherry blossoms.

on relativity.

my mentor had a poignant suggestion to people who insisted that everything is relative: "just try jumping off a ten storey building and see how relative things are." naturally, his little remark was as beyond the point as the original suggestion was hasty, but there was a brief reminder of some things being universal.

talking about universals gives certain people the chills – and reassures some – but the mere acceptance of the existence of universal laws explains very little of the world. the thing is, once we start making sense of what happens around us, we start putting facts together and the glue we choose has an immense effect of what kinds of conundrums come about.

to put it simply, our explanatory stories – or narratives as the good old hermeneutic inquirer would say – are construed by us with whatever material we have at our disposal and the results are selective and biased in every beautiful sense of the words.

i have a paradoxical but loving relationship to moments when little details force me to reassess the storyline i put together. a challenge to my factoids which are built for self-defence or out of pure fatigue can illuminate where i picked the wrong jar of adhesive and give me a reason to reconstruct what i consider real.

lately i have found myself pondering the nature of being busy. my most common greetings start with oughts and shoulds, and i find myself explaining my absence from everywhere including the present moment.

or, to be honest, i feel like the artist faye mullen's model who chose bricks as her point of reference:

photo from series i am an artist and i weigh by faye mullen 2010.

whatever i give feels like a brick is lifted off my shoulders but provides the exact pleasure to the recipient that can be expected after being a given a solid block of clay.

to be honest, it ain't a great feeling.

thus, i have concentrated on doing things that give me pleasure. slowly finding time to browse the tubes of glue at my disposal and rearranging the bricks and bringing forward other elements that build up who i am and what my reality consist in.

i started with my nearest and dearest and am slowly moving towards friends and this blog. i refuse to let my narrative get stuck with beginnings like should've and ought, and will soon be distributing marshmallows and fountains of down.

the ultimate goal? i checked out that my weight equals about 9 spider monkeys and i think transforming my busyness from laying bricks into little monkey-gone-crazy is more like the narrative i want to believe in. i'm still not quite at handing out bananas, but trust me, i'll get there. i will still be more busy than i have ever been in my entire life, but it's all about finding the right relativity, right?

ff6600.

the warmth is gone and i am spending a few days inside trying to cope with a series of colds that have conquered me this fall. a small office with plenty of visitors and long days have attacked my immune system and left me defenseless with the viruses.

fortunately, nothing too serious that rest and plenty of liquids could not cure.

while i cocoon myself between the blankets and fall asleep watching yet another movie on apple tv, these photos from a couple of weeks ago remind me of the perfect shades of fall.

mushrooms. again. i promise these are different ones from last time.

tomatoes in four stages of ripeness.

suncherished.

pumpkins taking over the field.

perfect shades of fall.

i hope you're enjoying the ripening weather.

expiration

sharing life with animals comes so natural to many of us. our anthropomorphism fools us into thinking they share our complex emotional conundrums or that they love us with unconditional devotion. nevertheless, we often miss the more obvious similarities.

aging shows in our companios in a similar way to us but in acceleration. the signs are the same: greying fur and feathers, spots, warts, sagging skin, and so forth. cataract, hearing loss, aching joints and diminishing muscles. it's all there. terminal.

photographer isa leshko brings us a series of animals in their dusk. elderly and fragile, it is impossible to ignore them as beings with life experience. even when we're aware that they probably are not nearly as preoccupied with their demise and the collection of experiences they've gathered so far as we might be looking at them.

Rooster, Age Unknown

Marino, Bronze Turkey, Age 5

Handsome One, Thoroughbred Horse, Age 33

Violet, Potbellied Pig, Age 12 

Phyllis, Southdown Sheep, Age 13

all photos above © isa leshko

my dear little critter is showing so many signs of aging that every single time she takes more than half a minute (which is a long time, mind you) before waking up, i prepare myself for the worst.

she cannot see anything because of cataract, her hearing is almost gone and at her last vet's checkup her muscle mass had vaporized. she still has her smell and her appetite – and boy does she like to eat – and she loves going outside for walks and runs. everything's good so far, then.

but her grey snout reminds me that there is a day when a companion will be gone.

Jorma-Irmeli, Italian Greyhound, Age almost 13

crabbie festing.

warm fall weekends are the time to enjoy the company of family and friends, lanterns, a little vodka and lots of fresh crayfish.

our transportation.

stella.

a beautiful summer day.

jorma having a dip.

what little dogs dream about...

the tradition of crayfish parties is something rather novel for a vegetarian of two decades, but i've grown into dealing with the massacre, peeling and cracking the shells and enjoying my toast with a shot and some singing. i am not sure whether i should worry about my moral development or continue oblivious.

crayfish!

watch dog.

lanters watching over us.

islands receiving the fall.

this past month i had the chance to escape outside to the islands near sipoo. first with close family, second with plenty of friends.

in surroundings like these, it ain't half bad. gotta love the finnish archipelago.

gotta love life.