"If you were a relationship-type of a person, you would already have one." said my teen-age daughter some time ago. "You would become a marriage-breaker, if you did that." she said some other time when the man´s status would have been the famous not-totally-free.
I have committed myself to a special long-term project. There are several practical matters I can do to ensure its success. One of them is to define my dreams, to collect them as pictures into a special book or folder.
Making a dream book sounds a bit strange, but I know the process to be reasonable. Dreams keep projects alive. Without a dream it becomes impossible to change the status quo of the current life, especially so if you have passed the wild and adventurous years of your life. Dreams help us to define the goals and objectives and they in turn help us to decide what to do next. Just think how many times a day you decide what to do next!
Planning does not make anything concrete. Decisions do. Since June I have been planning to tidy up my car. However, until this very moment those plans have been pushed aside by my decisions to do something else - writing, for instance.
I have cut pictures of my dreams from old English and Spanish magazines. I have found out that defining dreams is easy as far as they are big enough and far-away enough. When they get closer to what I normally consider to be attainable I start to hesitate: "Do I really want that? What would it mean in practice to reach for this or that dream?" The step towards decisions starts to look frightening.
Obviously the process goes down to the question: "Who would I be if I did all that? Would I recognize myself?" In other words, dreams question your identity. When consciously defining your dreams, you start thinking who you are now and who you could also be - in the future. If the the possible identities look and feel too strange to you, you are not yeat ready to reach for them.
Being a marriage-breaker was not a tempting identity. It was very easy to cut the sprouts and roots of that relationship at the very beginning. If I now had an opportunity to become a relationship-type of person, what would I do?
I found a picture for my dream book that would have represented a relationship. I decided to put it aside. It is not in included in my folder.
The other day I had a nice talk with my book keeper. She asked if I have considered selling the house and moving into a flat. It would lower the housing costs.
She is not the only one to ask about selling the house. My normal answer is that the house is my children´s property. "And you are just a janitor." one of my friends commented on that.
Well, I´m not a very good janitor, as the house would need continuous repair. Anyway, what my book keeper was suggesting was what we normally do: We rather diminish the dreams than start changing the situation to correspond the original dream-size. Rather than selling the house I want to create ways to increase the income. And that needs to be fun!
What size are your dreams now? What is happening to them in the long-run? - Dreams are the stuff the future is made of. What have you decided to do next?
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
August Nights and Newton´s Head
This year my apples have a special character and a specific interest. They are looking for Newton´s head. In the dark and warm August evenings you can hear a soft ´thummmp´ when they drop themselves down one by one. After that they hide among the grass. That makes it impossible to mow the lawn.
It is not normal to have empty apple trees at the end of August. Letting the grass grow wildly under them is normal, but unreasonable. The amount of work gets multiplied. However, simultaneously the undone work is bridgeing the empty space between the present and the future. You know that one day you have to take measures and mow the lawn - or cut the grass.
If we think that the present needs to be bridged via concrete events with the future, then it is not unreasonable to accumulate predictable matters as a bridgeing material. The only risk is that there might be some other events wanting to enter your life and these delayed activities might push them aside and prevent their materialization.
Anyway the garden smells apples and the falling apples make a nice and soft ´thummmp´ when not hitting Newton´s head. If you were a composer, you could have a theme and variations: Darkening August Nights in Finland a) Apples hiding in the grass, and b) The apple hitting the head.
Today I got a phone call that hit my head. Normally we bridge the empty inexistence between the present and the future with concrete every-day obligations and maybe spice and decorate the path with some dreams. Some of us prefer big dreams to normal obligations. Maybe most of us are content with obligations only, until they - slowly and surely - become boring. When we have accumulated enough of the boring items we might realize - suddenly and surprisingly - that life has reached a Wendpunkt, a turning point. All you need is a sparkle to intitatite a change. Sometimes the sparkle is you. I´ll give you an example of this:
A friend of mine called in spring to ask if I knew somebody who could come and teach German in her school for a while. Of course I knew somebody. I had just recently met an old friend of mine and heard that he had started studying German at the university. Of course, he was happy to work as a subsitute teacher. Of course, he enjoyed the job. Like all fresh teachers - he is fresh, but not exactly young any more - he started to re-develop the educational system, or at least the language teaching part of it, and especially German language teaching. And equally of course, he fell in love with the person he was substituting.
Here you can add another layer of of-course-events: the reaction of the wife, moving away from home and moving back again etc. However, the present situation may perhaps not be classified among the most frequent solutions.
Normally they are the children who are in the focus of the mutual time sharing and practical life arrangements of a divorcing couple. In this case it is different. What my friend tells me is this:
"In my household the time sharing arrangements are not focused on the children, but on the newly arrived partners. Now it´s my turn to spend the night with my lover. Your turn will be tomorrow. - There is also another special feature in this situation. Instead of having one black sheep and quilty person in the family, we now have two. It means a kind of balance."
They say that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. Any of your bright and feasible ideas may have consequences that may or may not be revealed to you. In spring I felt happy helping my friend to find a subsitute teacher in a two days´notice. I was especially happy, because the school was content with his work. But what should I feel now, when we have four middle-aged adults listening to the soft ´thummp´of the falling apples in the warm and darkening August nights? It is totally out of the reach of my imagination to think of all these events may - or may not - ignite and be a sparkle for.
We can pretty exactly track the consequences of the apple having hit Newton´s head. But the absolute majority of apples fall on the grass just saying ´thummmp´.
It is not normal to have empty apple trees at the end of August. Letting the grass grow wildly under them is normal, but unreasonable. The amount of work gets multiplied. However, simultaneously the undone work is bridgeing the empty space between the present and the future. You know that one day you have to take measures and mow the lawn - or cut the grass.
If we think that the present needs to be bridged via concrete events with the future, then it is not unreasonable to accumulate predictable matters as a bridgeing material. The only risk is that there might be some other events wanting to enter your life and these delayed activities might push them aside and prevent their materialization.
Anyway the garden smells apples and the falling apples make a nice and soft ´thummmp´ when not hitting Newton´s head. If you were a composer, you could have a theme and variations: Darkening August Nights in Finland a) Apples hiding in the grass, and b) The apple hitting the head.
Today I got a phone call that hit my head. Normally we bridge the empty inexistence between the present and the future with concrete every-day obligations and maybe spice and decorate the path with some dreams. Some of us prefer big dreams to normal obligations. Maybe most of us are content with obligations only, until they - slowly and surely - become boring. When we have accumulated enough of the boring items we might realize - suddenly and surprisingly - that life has reached a Wendpunkt, a turning point. All you need is a sparkle to intitatite a change. Sometimes the sparkle is you. I´ll give you an example of this:
A friend of mine called in spring to ask if I knew somebody who could come and teach German in her school for a while. Of course I knew somebody. I had just recently met an old friend of mine and heard that he had started studying German at the university. Of course, he was happy to work as a subsitute teacher. Of course, he enjoyed the job. Like all fresh teachers - he is fresh, but not exactly young any more - he started to re-develop the educational system, or at least the language teaching part of it, and especially German language teaching. And equally of course, he fell in love with the person he was substituting.
Here you can add another layer of of-course-events: the reaction of the wife, moving away from home and moving back again etc. However, the present situation may perhaps not be classified among the most frequent solutions.
Normally they are the children who are in the focus of the mutual time sharing and practical life arrangements of a divorcing couple. In this case it is different. What my friend tells me is this:
"In my household the time sharing arrangements are not focused on the children, but on the newly arrived partners. Now it´s my turn to spend the night with my lover. Your turn will be tomorrow. - There is also another special feature in this situation. Instead of having one black sheep and quilty person in the family, we now have two. It means a kind of balance."
They say that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. Any of your bright and feasible ideas may have consequences that may or may not be revealed to you. In spring I felt happy helping my friend to find a subsitute teacher in a two days´notice. I was especially happy, because the school was content with his work. But what should I feel now, when we have four middle-aged adults listening to the soft ´thummp´of the falling apples in the warm and darkening August nights? It is totally out of the reach of my imagination to think of all these events may - or may not - ignite and be a sparkle for.
We can pretty exactly track the consequences of the apple having hit Newton´s head. But the absolute majority of apples fall on the grass just saying ´thummmp´.
Friday, August 17, 2007
What Type of a Fairy Tale?
"My life is a fairy tale." says the young man. "It´s not easy, but it is like a fairy tale." he repeats. He has his own business. Its name is Menestystuote, Success Products. He tells to me that he cannot invite recently met girls to visit his home. The luxury they would see there could tempt them to like him more than they otherwise would.
Sometimes you meet people you´ll never forget. I met the above young man years ago on a train from Tampere to Oulu. If I now saw him somewhere I wouldn´t regocnize him any more. Anyway I remember him every time when my own life starts to get somehow strange.
It is quite interesting to think when exactly that going-strange happens. When life somehow gets out of phase we know it automatically. Something points it out. We have specific indicators that identify deviations from the normal state of affairs. My personal deviation indicators talk. They use the young man´s sentence: "My life is like a fairy tale. It´s not easy, but it is like fairy tale." When I hear that in my head I start looking back at what has happened lately.
In the morning I had a business appointment in town. The weather was sunny and warm. It´s only about three kilometres to the city centre. I chose the luxury way of travel and decided to cycle there. Never have I arrived so totally soaked and wet at a business meeting as today.
Having come back home I had to prepare marketing material and collect the addresses of this special target group. Now I understand why the person looked so happy when I promised to do that. If one of the addresses doesn´t work, you don´t know which one it is and the message never leaves your own computer. Little by little your eyes and neck start to protest for looking for the error.
We have a Finnish fairy tale called The Birch and the star: A war has been destroying the country. Children have been sent abroad to live there. Everything in the new country is nice and peaceful, but the boy and the girl miss home. They want to go back. They walk and walk and walk. One day they come to a small humble cottage. They see a birch growing at the gate and they see a star in the foliage of the birch. This sight, the birch and the star, is all they remember of their former home. Now they know that they have arrived back home. They know they will feel happy here. They need not search for anything more. - If you mention The birch and the star, all Finns know what you are referring to.
Dogs´meaning making system seems to work in the same way as ours does. Both of us can make things insignificant by just ignoring them. My dog Uffe streched this quite to the extreme. Moving cars were in no way important to him. He had decided to ignore them and might have lost his life because of that decision. Moving cars had no meaning, but cars standing still were worth paying attention to, because they could be used as a means of transport and tourism.
While walking down the hill to meet a neighbour of mine I met another neighbour. We spent some time talking about Uffe and the evanescence of life. Her dog was the only one that Uffe considered important enough to pay attention to. Uffe insisted on being the king of the quarter and so did her dog too. I think that they just showed mutual respect by heavily barking at each other a couple of times every time one or the other passed the other one´s house. Obviously the message was: "I bark at you, because you exist. If I did not bark at you, you would not exist in my world. I prefer that you exist."
What made my life look like a fairy tale today? Something in the above events? All feelings are triggered by something special. Today´s trigger event was embedded in the business meeting.
Now I have a very interesting project to manage for a pay that has no reasonable relation to the amount of work already done for its success. For such a low pay, it had better turn out to be a long-term investment. Anyway, it is one of my long-term professional dreams come true. Shimmering stars are becoming beams of light. Instead of individual impact training we´ll now have processes. They are initiated by the client organizations, but controlled by those people who really do the work. And you know how empowering that is. Long live Internet!
The young man on the train had a successful and profitable business. "Are you now more serious with your business?" my newly re-found Chinese friend asks. Maybe I should learn not to mix up a way of life and business. Maybe the looking-for-the-birch-and-the-star as a strategy has become outdated and insufficient. Perhaps I had better change over to some other fairy tale to get some luxury items around me. What would you think about Simbad the Seafarer?
"Simbad zarbaba rumbo a islas habitadas por desconocidos de conducta imprecedible y por aves extrañas/... / Lo único predecible de los siete viajes que realizó Simbad fue que, gracias a que entabló comunicatión con otros extraños, ya fuesen humanos, aves o monstruos marinos, el marino se enriqueció y fue cada vez más feliz." (Fatema Mernissi: Un libro para la paz, ISBN: 84-7669-663-9)
If life every now and then reminds you of its fairy tale character, why not choose the type of fairy tale you want to be in. So far, I´m not surrounded by luxury nor haunted by abundant income, which in Finland means that you can invite anybody to visit you. That is the positive in it. But if using the-birch-and-the-star-strategy means that you´ll be haunted by the lack of income, it is certainly more clever to change the fairy tale. Simbad the Seafarer does not sound bad, does it?
What kind of imaginable - and profitable - opportunities can you find in the triangle blue oceans, your expertise and the Internet? Who do you need to co-operate with to make the opportunities become true?
Sometimes you meet people you´ll never forget. I met the above young man years ago on a train from Tampere to Oulu. If I now saw him somewhere I wouldn´t regocnize him any more. Anyway I remember him every time when my own life starts to get somehow strange.
It is quite interesting to think when exactly that going-strange happens. When life somehow gets out of phase we know it automatically. Something points it out. We have specific indicators that identify deviations from the normal state of affairs. My personal deviation indicators talk. They use the young man´s sentence: "My life is like a fairy tale. It´s not easy, but it is like fairy tale." When I hear that in my head I start looking back at what has happened lately.
In the morning I had a business appointment in town. The weather was sunny and warm. It´s only about three kilometres to the city centre. I chose the luxury way of travel and decided to cycle there. Never have I arrived so totally soaked and wet at a business meeting as today.
Having come back home I had to prepare marketing material and collect the addresses of this special target group. Now I understand why the person looked so happy when I promised to do that. If one of the addresses doesn´t work, you don´t know which one it is and the message never leaves your own computer. Little by little your eyes and neck start to protest for looking for the error.
We have a Finnish fairy tale called The Birch and the star: A war has been destroying the country. Children have been sent abroad to live there. Everything in the new country is nice and peaceful, but the boy and the girl miss home. They want to go back. They walk and walk and walk. One day they come to a small humble cottage. They see a birch growing at the gate and they see a star in the foliage of the birch. This sight, the birch and the star, is all they remember of their former home. Now they know that they have arrived back home. They know they will feel happy here. They need not search for anything more. - If you mention The birch and the star, all Finns know what you are referring to.
Dogs´meaning making system seems to work in the same way as ours does. Both of us can make things insignificant by just ignoring them. My dog Uffe streched this quite to the extreme. Moving cars were in no way important to him. He had decided to ignore them and might have lost his life because of that decision. Moving cars had no meaning, but cars standing still were worth paying attention to, because they could be used as a means of transport and tourism.
While walking down the hill to meet a neighbour of mine I met another neighbour. We spent some time talking about Uffe and the evanescence of life. Her dog was the only one that Uffe considered important enough to pay attention to. Uffe insisted on being the king of the quarter and so did her dog too. I think that they just showed mutual respect by heavily barking at each other a couple of times every time one or the other passed the other one´s house. Obviously the message was: "I bark at you, because you exist. If I did not bark at you, you would not exist in my world. I prefer that you exist."
What made my life look like a fairy tale today? Something in the above events? All feelings are triggered by something special. Today´s trigger event was embedded in the business meeting.
Now I have a very interesting project to manage for a pay that has no reasonable relation to the amount of work already done for its success. For such a low pay, it had better turn out to be a long-term investment. Anyway, it is one of my long-term professional dreams come true. Shimmering stars are becoming beams of light. Instead of individual impact training we´ll now have processes. They are initiated by the client organizations, but controlled by those people who really do the work. And you know how empowering that is. Long live Internet!
The young man on the train had a successful and profitable business. "Are you now more serious with your business?" my newly re-found Chinese friend asks. Maybe I should learn not to mix up a way of life and business. Maybe the looking-for-the-birch-and-the-star as a strategy has become outdated and insufficient. Perhaps I had better change over to some other fairy tale to get some luxury items around me. What would you think about Simbad the Seafarer?
"Simbad zarbaba rumbo a islas habitadas por desconocidos de conducta imprecedible y por aves extrañas/... / Lo único predecible de los siete viajes que realizó Simbad fue que, gracias a que entabló comunicatión con otros extraños, ya fuesen humanos, aves o monstruos marinos, el marino se enriqueció y fue cada vez más feliz." (Fatema Mernissi: Un libro para la paz, ISBN: 84-7669-663-9)
If life every now and then reminds you of its fairy tale character, why not choose the type of fairy tale you want to be in. So far, I´m not surrounded by luxury nor haunted by abundant income, which in Finland means that you can invite anybody to visit you. That is the positive in it. But if using the-birch-and-the-star-strategy means that you´ll be haunted by the lack of income, it is certainly more clever to change the fairy tale. Simbad the Seafarer does not sound bad, does it?
What kind of imaginable - and profitable - opportunities can you find in the triangle blue oceans, your expertise and the Internet? Who do you need to co-operate with to make the opportunities become true?
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Pigeons and hens
"As human beings we we only see what we remember." the lecturer says.
My hairdresser has returned from her summer holiday. It is a pitty I do not have one specific picture of her hairdressing saloon from last summer. The door was open to the street. I entered. She was washing a client´s hair. On the floor there was a saucer, some seeds and a pigeon having a nice lunch. The pigeon was not expecting any more clients to come, but that being the case, she moved by side to let me in. Then she went on enjoying her lunch.
At that time I had just been reading Number One Ladies´ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. What I now saw with my own eyes here in Tampere, had been seen by Alexander McCall Smith in Botswana.
In Tampere the scene was a hairdressing saloon housing one experienced hairdresser with her long-established client. In Caborone the events take place in the office of Mma Ramotswe, the first female detective of the country. The other person is Mma Makutsi, the manager of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the assistant detective at Number One Ladies´ Detective Agency.
In Tampere we have a pigeon, while in Caborone the animal life is represented by a hen. However, there is one thing in common in these two pictures and that has to do with the author who describes the event. For one reason or another, both of them find the incident worth mentioning.
Maybe McCall Smith mentions it because seeing a hen walking somewhere in the outskirts of Caborone is something you could expect to see. It is more or less normal. Here in Tampere seeing a pigeon anywhere indoors is an absolute exception, seeing one enjoying her lunch in a hair dressing saloon is a once-in-a-life-time event.
Sorry, I do not have any picture of this, but I think that by now you have a picture, or a series of pictures, describing the event in your mind. Environmental art is like that. It exists in a visible form, it has spatial characteristics and an effect on the space and surroundings where it is located, it refers to change and movement, it is multisensory and it calls for a spectator reaction. As time passes an individual piece of environmental art fades away from where it was located, but it stays in the spectators´mind. You carry it with you and you can refer to it.
Maybe you now have a pigeon-hen; hairdressing saloon-detective´s office; two Finnish ladies - two African ladies event constructed in your mind. The African ladies are traditionally built and so are the Finnish ladies too. The sun is shining and the room is hot. The activity is directed towards a specific achievement. There is an outsider - an author or an artist - looking at the event, registering it for a later use.
We have pictures in our mind. We can change and mould them. We can connect them with anything else in our mind. Anyway, as far as I know, the result is not any environmental piece of art for one simple reason - the artist did not announce publicly that he or she is now starting to make piece of art. In that sense a piece of art embodies ownership, the artist has to take responsibility for what she wants to do. She also needs to be prepared to explain, defend and interpete the choices made.
All right. Let´s go back to the beginning: seeing is a learnt. Practically we see what we expect to see.
My hairdresser has a five-year old granddaughter. She was visiting her grandparents. All of a sudden she started crying, was in a total panic and wanted to go back home. Grandfather felt totally helpless with a reaction like that. Grandmother - my hairdresser who has for years actively worked for the Catastrophe Centre for Abandoned Cats, who normally has a couple old dogs and occasionally twelve to sixteen cats in her home - did all her best to find out what was wrong with the panicing child. The question "What happened?" resulted in a not-too-clear explanation that the child had been on a balcony. "What happened there? Did you perhaps see something?" revealed that the child had really seen something strange. "What exactly did you see?" "I saw a very small lady."
The grandmother finds out that the child had seen a small lady walking away from the house. She had fair hair like grandmother. Only the hairdo was different. She was the size of a big doll. And the frightening element was that the child did not know, if what she had seen, was a real event or just a fairy-tale.
A normal, five-year-old is an intelligent person. Maybe you know some of them. He has just found out that there was some life in the family before "you found me." A five-year-old wants to take part, he wants to help others and organise things. Once I found brand-new gloves and one of the finger tips had been cut open with scissors. I was astonished and asked what had happened. "I cut it out just to mark whose gloves they are." my five-year-old son explained in his very matter-of-fact way of those days.
A five-year-old has just recently learnt what is normal. She knows that normal life is made up of concrete events and it is performed by people and animals of a certain size and form. Now, all of a sudden, she sees with her own eyes something that is totally out of proportions. A picture of a small fair-haired lady of the size of a big doll does not correspond to the reacently learnt idea of the normal life. It is a message from somewhere not-real. To panic in situation like that to react normally.
When the child´s story comes out, the grandmother slowly finds out what must have taken place. In their neighbourhood there lives a lady who never grew up to reach the same size as the rest of us adults have done. Grandmother had simply frogotten to tell the child about this special family. The approximate explanation did not help. The child did not calm down until hearing that the lady in question has recently got a baby and she and her husband live happily not too far from the grandma´s.
What could we learn from this? Firstly, it is not before we learn to know enough similarities in one another´s life that we can stop fearing each other. Secondly, what we percieve needs to be connected to something we know beforehand, preferably with something we feel to be safe, nice and normal. Thirdly, it is very difficult to be prepared for all the exceptions that life offers us.
My hairdresser has returned from her summer holiday. It is a pitty I do not have one specific picture of her hairdressing saloon from last summer. The door was open to the street. I entered. She was washing a client´s hair. On the floor there was a saucer, some seeds and a pigeon having a nice lunch. The pigeon was not expecting any more clients to come, but that being the case, she moved by side to let me in. Then she went on enjoying her lunch.
At that time I had just been reading Number One Ladies´ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. What I now saw with my own eyes here in Tampere, had been seen by Alexander McCall Smith in Botswana.
In Tampere the scene was a hairdressing saloon housing one experienced hairdresser with her long-established client. In Caborone the events take place in the office of Mma Ramotswe, the first female detective of the country. The other person is Mma Makutsi, the manager of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the assistant detective at Number One Ladies´ Detective Agency.
In Tampere we have a pigeon, while in Caborone the animal life is represented by a hen. However, there is one thing in common in these two pictures and that has to do with the author who describes the event. For one reason or another, both of them find the incident worth mentioning.
Maybe McCall Smith mentions it because seeing a hen walking somewhere in the outskirts of Caborone is something you could expect to see. It is more or less normal. Here in Tampere seeing a pigeon anywhere indoors is an absolute exception, seeing one enjoying her lunch in a hair dressing saloon is a once-in-a-life-time event.
Sorry, I do not have any picture of this, but I think that by now you have a picture, or a series of pictures, describing the event in your mind. Environmental art is like that. It exists in a visible form, it has spatial characteristics and an effect on the space and surroundings where it is located, it refers to change and movement, it is multisensory and it calls for a spectator reaction. As time passes an individual piece of environmental art fades away from where it was located, but it stays in the spectators´mind. You carry it with you and you can refer to it.
Maybe you now have a pigeon-hen; hairdressing saloon-detective´s office; two Finnish ladies - two African ladies event constructed in your mind. The African ladies are traditionally built and so are the Finnish ladies too. The sun is shining and the room is hot. The activity is directed towards a specific achievement. There is an outsider - an author or an artist - looking at the event, registering it for a later use.
We have pictures in our mind. We can change and mould them. We can connect them with anything else in our mind. Anyway, as far as I know, the result is not any environmental piece of art for one simple reason - the artist did not announce publicly that he or she is now starting to make piece of art. In that sense a piece of art embodies ownership, the artist has to take responsibility for what she wants to do. She also needs to be prepared to explain, defend and interpete the choices made.
All right. Let´s go back to the beginning: seeing is a learnt. Practically we see what we expect to see.
My hairdresser has a five-year old granddaughter. She was visiting her grandparents. All of a sudden she started crying, was in a total panic and wanted to go back home. Grandfather felt totally helpless with a reaction like that. Grandmother - my hairdresser who has for years actively worked for the Catastrophe Centre for Abandoned Cats, who normally has a couple old dogs and occasionally twelve to sixteen cats in her home - did all her best to find out what was wrong with the panicing child. The question "What happened?" resulted in a not-too-clear explanation that the child had been on a balcony. "What happened there? Did you perhaps see something?" revealed that the child had really seen something strange. "What exactly did you see?" "I saw a very small lady."
The grandmother finds out that the child had seen a small lady walking away from the house. She had fair hair like grandmother. Only the hairdo was different. She was the size of a big doll. And the frightening element was that the child did not know, if what she had seen, was a real event or just a fairy-tale.
A normal, five-year-old is an intelligent person. Maybe you know some of them. He has just found out that there was some life in the family before "you found me." A five-year-old wants to take part, he wants to help others and organise things. Once I found brand-new gloves and one of the finger tips had been cut open with scissors. I was astonished and asked what had happened. "I cut it out just to mark whose gloves they are." my five-year-old son explained in his very matter-of-fact way of those days.
A five-year-old has just recently learnt what is normal. She knows that normal life is made up of concrete events and it is performed by people and animals of a certain size and form. Now, all of a sudden, she sees with her own eyes something that is totally out of proportions. A picture of a small fair-haired lady of the size of a big doll does not correspond to the reacently learnt idea of the normal life. It is a message from somewhere not-real. To panic in situation like that to react normally.
When the child´s story comes out, the grandmother slowly finds out what must have taken place. In their neighbourhood there lives a lady who never grew up to reach the same size as the rest of us adults have done. Grandmother had simply frogotten to tell the child about this special family. The approximate explanation did not help. The child did not calm down until hearing that the lady in question has recently got a baby and she and her husband live happily not too far from the grandma´s.
What could we learn from this? Firstly, it is not before we learn to know enough similarities in one another´s life that we can stop fearing each other. Secondly, what we percieve needs to be connected to something we know beforehand, preferably with something we feel to be safe, nice and normal. Thirdly, it is very difficult to be prepared for all the exceptions that life offers us.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Taxis and Grandma´s Candles
"Everyone of the eleven taxis that passed the lady at the roadside without stopping to help her should be prosecuted for exposition." my friend says to the taxi driver. The taxi driver stops the car immediately. He tells her to get out of the car.
"You were exposed as well!" I say to my friend. "Yes, but it did not matter, because it was so near my house." "Did you inform the police?" "No, I didn´t. It´s not worth doing. The taxi driver would have said that I had been making trouble. If you are alone, the taxi driver always wins. Had there been another person with me, I would have called the police."
Today I remembered the above conversation from the end of June. I went to see a friend whom I hadn´t visited before. We meet every now and then in the department store where she works. For a long time now she has been one of the important persons who make the life worth living and the town feel my home.
You certainly have some people in your life that are important to you because of the profession they have. In her professional role she says to me: "You need not waste your time now. We have nothing for you to wear." or "Come here. This jacket suits you perfectly." But what has become much more important to me are our conversations - how is your daughter, where shall you travel for your holiday etc.
Some time ago I realised that not only my personal well-being but also my personal existence is totally dependable on my own presence and existence in other people´s lives. If I do not exist in anybody else´s life, I do not exist anywhere else either. Having realised this, it was very alarming that even the Finnish Taxation Office had left me out of their registers. As I am a very happy tax-payer, I felt worried and perplexed. You know this feeling: I´m a useless outsider, nobody needs me, even my income is not worth anything. - That is exactly when I decided to go to people and tell them that I appreciate my own presence and existence in their life. This project is still going on. Yes, you, too, are important to me.
Last time when I met Tuula there were customers around. We could not talk much. She hardly had time to tell me: "No, you haven´t seen me, because I have been on a two months´ sick leave. My daughter was murdered. You remember the newspapers told about a young lady having been found by side of the road in X. It was my daughter. She has three little sons, a nice husband, a happy marriage. It was the first time for seven years she had gone out with her friends... Sorry, I need to go. We have to see later..."
Normal life in Finland - or anywhere else - does very little to prepare us to events like that. You realise that there is very little to say. You start thinking of what could be really important after any tragic incident. Maybe you think of the children that are hurt. And when you are thinking of the children you are thinking of the future.
Today we had time to talk. So far, practically nothing is known about what took place that night. She was a beautiful, young fair-haired lady. She would never have left her handbag and overcoat in a restaurant in winter-spring when we still have some snow everywhere. Obviously something was put into her drink. Cameras show that she was followed by two dark men. However, emphasizing that piece of information is risky as the police will immediately be accused of racism if they do so. As far as I know, eleven taxis passed her daughter later on when she was somewhere outside the town. They cannot be prosecuted either.
My friend in the taxi is a highly qualified professional in restaurant business. She knows the rules of night life. When she referred to this special case, the driver refused to drive further and left her at the roadside. Why did he feel so deeply offended? Does collective guilt hurt as much as individual guilt does?
If you leave anybody out without proper winterclothes in the Finnish winternight, you practically murder him or her. Everybody knows it. All taxis know it. Every one of them has the duty to stop and ask what is going on. Nobody did.
There are too many things here that are out of the range of the normal. My friend Tuula is going to inform the police about what happened to the other friend of mine. Maybe it helps them, maybe it doesn´t. The basic question Tuula and her family have now is: When does the individual guilt hurt much enough to break out as confessions?
While waiting for that, the eldest son will start school, the middle one will become prescholar and the youngest one knows that of the two tall candles they always lit at their grandparent´s house the taller one is for mother. She has a taller candle, because she was so much more beautiful than the father is.
"You were exposed as well!" I say to my friend. "Yes, but it did not matter, because it was so near my house." "Did you inform the police?" "No, I didn´t. It´s not worth doing. The taxi driver would have said that I had been making trouble. If you are alone, the taxi driver always wins. Had there been another person with me, I would have called the police."
Today I remembered the above conversation from the end of June. I went to see a friend whom I hadn´t visited before. We meet every now and then in the department store where she works. For a long time now she has been one of the important persons who make the life worth living and the town feel my home.
You certainly have some people in your life that are important to you because of the profession they have. In her professional role she says to me: "You need not waste your time now. We have nothing for you to wear." or "Come here. This jacket suits you perfectly." But what has become much more important to me are our conversations - how is your daughter, where shall you travel for your holiday etc.
Some time ago I realised that not only my personal well-being but also my personal existence is totally dependable on my own presence and existence in other people´s lives. If I do not exist in anybody else´s life, I do not exist anywhere else either. Having realised this, it was very alarming that even the Finnish Taxation Office had left me out of their registers. As I am a very happy tax-payer, I felt worried and perplexed. You know this feeling: I´m a useless outsider, nobody needs me, even my income is not worth anything. - That is exactly when I decided to go to people and tell them that I appreciate my own presence and existence in their life. This project is still going on. Yes, you, too, are important to me.
Last time when I met Tuula there were customers around. We could not talk much. She hardly had time to tell me: "No, you haven´t seen me, because I have been on a two months´ sick leave. My daughter was murdered. You remember the newspapers told about a young lady having been found by side of the road in X. It was my daughter. She has three little sons, a nice husband, a happy marriage. It was the first time for seven years she had gone out with her friends... Sorry, I need to go. We have to see later..."
Normal life in Finland - or anywhere else - does very little to prepare us to events like that. You realise that there is very little to say. You start thinking of what could be really important after any tragic incident. Maybe you think of the children that are hurt. And when you are thinking of the children you are thinking of the future.
Today we had time to talk. So far, practically nothing is known about what took place that night. She was a beautiful, young fair-haired lady. She would never have left her handbag and overcoat in a restaurant in winter-spring when we still have some snow everywhere. Obviously something was put into her drink. Cameras show that she was followed by two dark men. However, emphasizing that piece of information is risky as the police will immediately be accused of racism if they do so. As far as I know, eleven taxis passed her daughter later on when she was somewhere outside the town. They cannot be prosecuted either.
My friend in the taxi is a highly qualified professional in restaurant business. She knows the rules of night life. When she referred to this special case, the driver refused to drive further and left her at the roadside. Why did he feel so deeply offended? Does collective guilt hurt as much as individual guilt does?
If you leave anybody out without proper winterclothes in the Finnish winternight, you practically murder him or her. Everybody knows it. All taxis know it. Every one of them has the duty to stop and ask what is going on. Nobody did.
There are too many things here that are out of the range of the normal. My friend Tuula is going to inform the police about what happened to the other friend of mine. Maybe it helps them, maybe it doesn´t. The basic question Tuula and her family have now is: When does the individual guilt hurt much enough to break out as confessions?
While waiting for that, the eldest son will start school, the middle one will become prescholar and the youngest one knows that of the two tall candles they always lit at their grandparent´s house the taller one is for mother. She has a taller candle, because she was so much more beautiful than the father is.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Hypnosis and Normal Scenery
My Spanish friend Eldha calls me: "Viene una amiga de mi amiga Paloma a Tampere. ?Puede quedarse en tu casa?" "Claro que puede. ?Cuándo viene?" "El sábado." "Muy bien. Díle que es bienvenida."
Eldha calls me on Wednesday. She has no further information. She does not know exactly who is coming. It must be one of the two very good friends of Paloma.
I´m very happy and hope she´ll stay at least a week. We´ll have time enough to plan something interesting and my Spanish gets activated.
On Friday I have to call Eldha to ask at what time I need to be at the airport. "Sorry, they are not coming on Saturday. They´ll come on Monday." Eldha explains. "All right. How many people are coming?" "Well, it´s Flavia and her two children." "Fine, I´ll meet them on Monday."
Children coming! They certainly want to go to the amusement park. The only problem is that there´s no room in the house, since Seela´s and Samuli´s furniture, loudspekares, books, boxes, plastic bags and sacks are spread everywhere. "This house is like a central warehouse." Samuli says, although all rooms can be entered carefully walking along a narrow path in the middle of all objects.
My mind starts scanning the situation: "I have to tell people that the house is so full of books, boxes and broken chairs that I can´t find a place for two children to sleep. It´s unforgivable. I have to do something."
On Sunday morning I start to work: books from the sofa and floor into bookshelves, broken chairs into the garage, piles of paper into boxes, boxes into the basement etc, etc. I work the whole day. By five-thirty I have one room empty and the basement more or less in order. Tomorrow I´ll have time enough to put away a sofaful of Seela´s clothes.
When some visitors come at six, the house is clean. There are no heaps of this or that anywhere. There is no smell of dust. I feel really satsified. Tomorrw I´ll go to the airport to meet the visitors.
At nine I get a phone call. It is Flavia, la amiga de Paloma. They are not coming until Friday and they are not planning to come to Tampere at all. They have reserved hotels and cottages, they´ll rent a car and go to Lapland and the Arctic Circle. That´s the normal tourists do.
What a disappointment! The room is waiting for them to come. I had also got used to the idea of going to the amusement park as well. Now Flavia says that her children are twenty-year-old young adults.
It is Thursday today. What is happening? Well, everyhting is getting normal. The house is starting to collect piles of paper, books, clothes and shoes here and there. The smell of dust is returning - slowly, but inevitably.
However, I still have some hope that Flavia and her children will choose the road number three from Helsinki to Jyväskylä instead of choosing the road number four that goes via Lahti.
The road number three is a bit longer, but what does it matter when you are on a holiday. Anyway, the scenery - the normal scenery in Finland - is green forests, a glimpse of a blue or grey lake, more green forests, again a glimpse of a lake and then more forests, green, forests, green, green and a glimpse of blue lake...
Yes, there are houses here and there, but my experience is that Spanish people get hypnotised by the abundancy of the green around them. They fall asleep looking at it. And just when they could see a couple of houses, you hear them snoring slightly. By the time they are awake again, they see some more green forests and an occasional glimpse of a lake...
And anyway, Tampere is worth visiting. You need to choose kesäinen Tampere on the page referred to to see what my city looks like just now. If you want to see the autumn we are very quickly approaching, your choice is syksyinen Tampere...
What have I learnt of this incident? If you want to make me happy, just inform me that some friends of yours are coming for a visit. That makes my mind choose a panopticon look at my own life and surroundings (see especially figure number 16). Expecting to see new friends in a more or less well-organised home is a real and concrete enjoyment! All social pressure coming from outside is not unpleasant at all. It´s interesting to see if Flavia and her children will change their route! They are very warmly welcome - bienvenidos!
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