Shy Light

 11/25 Flight from Helsinki to Paris

I am so very deeply in love with the rosy sunset and the awaiting dawn.

I feel the tug of my heart. I didn’t take plum tarts and I feel the regret – pathetic but I know its really just I don’t want to leave any part of that country behind. The people were so kind, the land so beautiful, everything so full of nature and health and life and spirit. The family was just beyond generous, it makes me want to cry. They have seen so many things and places and work so diligently; they are intelligent, cook together, play board games together, laugh and watch Jane Austen and play Seven Wonders hundreds of times and take walks and go to saunas and love their dogs and have such pride in their home and hometown.

They want to share.

I ate so many berries I reeked of them. I wore wool socks and ate sesame seed desserts from Israel and dates and gloggi and plum tarts and avocado pasta – made by my awkward hands – and strawberry cereal and porridge with litchenberries and strawberries and cinnamon and peanut butter pancakes and salads and beet cakes and bean salad and berry graham cake with yellow custard and teas of all flavors and strengths, and vegetarian lasagna at a restaurant with a famous man from Finnish TV and carrot cake with thick frosting. It wasn’t even all the deliciousness of the food and drink – berry juice in the sauna – but the company and warmth and laughter.

They cuddle with blankets and cocoa and donuts at 4 pm when the sun goes down with wool socks and the click of Anne Marie knitting and Sufjan Stevens singing while they cook. Victory songs – Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” – when they win a game. Sarcastic jokes and witty remarks.

Churches in Tampere, a man carrying a fallen angel, Josh Graban piano music, a nativity scene for the young to play with. Locks of love and a Christmas donkey and sheep in a stable yard. Running down slippery steps in the bitter wind to splash in ice-cold waters with the moonlight stretching across miles of pine forests. Sweat and steam and waves of heat, laughing at each other with games of 20 Questions by candlelight and feeling so very not self-conscious.

There is nothing more liberating than that split decision to do the seemingly irrational. That moment when the barriers and claws of your mind are ripped away because the heart finally just wants to be released. And a weight is lifted and you take the next step with a brighter smile and a lighter spirit and you are happy. I didn’t want to go into the lake, thinking it was a ridiculous notion. Then when Juho and his friend Stefan went out running, diving, hollering into the darkness and splashing through waves, I thought of the ridiculousness of my resistance. Life is made up of the moments where we resist and when we release and when we take hold and when we let go. Here was one where I just needed to break away, and so I did. And with a crazed grin I rose from heated wood planks and dripped sweat down onto the warm floor, stepping onto hard damp earth and down into the waves.

The heat, the cold, the numbness felt so alive. And after, how cleansed and renewed and awakened I felt was incredible. I would sauna everyday if I could. And just knowing that that is an integral part of their lifestyle shows the ease of the people, the comfort of this home away from home.

Their bright eyes. My desire for more, forever more words and forever and ever more time.

The language as well. Rolling r’s and long phrases and a fluid gentle rocking of sentences. Like putting sprinkles on a warm, chocolate-frosted gingerbread cookie. Warm, mellow, a cushion. A language sounding in love.

Rolling pine forests and soothing plain chapels and Christmas twinkling light. Homemade and natural always more appreciated. A church built from the rock. Ships in the harbor. The cool, fresh, crisp air. No haste. I want to return to the museums, the cafes, the little boutiques. I want a knitted cap and to cut a pine by the lake for a tree for Noel. I want to play rounds and rounds of board games and listen to Nathan speak to the dogs in Finnish. I want to hike and cross-country ski and snowboard in the mountains and have a summer sauna and eat ice cream and glimpse the Northern Lights.

Nathan mentioned my dad growing mad during an intense game of Monopoly they had played years ago. That moment I yearned and ached for my dad. And seeing Christmas things and smell the cinnamon and tea and coffee and just the spirit of the air made me want my mom’s embrace.

Yet there is so much to see.

To Krakow next weekend, which will be life-changing. To see Auschwitz. To hear the tongue of Irene and nana again. To feel wrapped up in her culture for just a few short days. To see a mass in Polish. Buy my mom something else beautiful.

Then in Paris, the museums, the exhibits, the Christmas market, the music, the dancing and drinking. Nicole to speak with, to hear about the war. To study, to read, to write, to see.

The father next to me rubs his daughter’s feet as she falls asleep, after they have eaten and decorated a doll together. Sweet love. 

I want to cry from the beauty being collected in my soul. I never, ever want to lose a drop.

 

Of course I will be different. I will ache for art and activity and culture. I will ache for new friends in distant places. I will look at a map of the world and feel invincible, capable of seeing and loving it all.

Collected beauty, bundled memories, quiet stars above and twinkling lights below. Tears. God, you have blessed me beyond what I thought was possible. I am yours, and forever grateful.

Love selflessly this breath and this moment amidst the soft blinking away of tears.