Text: Sal­la Pät­si

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

I was wai­ting for mail from the edi­tors of on­li­ne Päi­vä­mies, won­de­ring that the staff must be very busy not to have time even to ack­now­led­ge the re­cep­ti­on of the blog post that I had re­cent­ly sent! Fi­nal­ly, I went through my sent emails, but could not find the text I thought I had sent. It was not even in the drafts sec­ti­on.

Hmmm...

I am qui­te sure I wrote that post and sent it. I cle­ar­ly re­mem­ber wri­ting it on my tab­let, sit­ting in my bed, and sen­ding it right away. It was night, of cour­se, be­cau­se I am most cre­a­ti­ve at night­ti­me. I did not write a draft by hand be­cau­se I was pres­sed for time and wan­ted to send it off as soon as I got it done.

Where on earth has that text file gone? Or did I not write it af­ter all? Ma­y­be it is in the cloud, where so many things seem to be these days. Ma­y­be, one day, it will come down as gent­le, ca­res­sing rain that ma­kes my hair go all cur­ly, or as the first snowf­la­kes of the win­ter, brin­ging com­fort to the lo­ne­ly pe­op­le who are ti­red of so­ci­al dis­tan­cing and long for hugs. Or ma­y­be it will con­so­le those who feel ex­haus­ted by their work and ot­her bur­dens, their need to cons­tant­ly care for ot­hers, and their de­si­re to have just some lit­t­le time for them­sel­ves. As far as I re­mem­ber I wrote so­met­hing like that in my text, pon­de­ring that bur­dens and dif­fi­cul­ties are not di­vi­ded equ­al­ly.

Now I have bulk can­dy and some nice her­bal tea to help me write. And the kind of exer­ci­se book that kids use at school. So my text will stay there and not di­sap­pe­ar like a dream in the mor­ning! Alt­hough I am at my most cre­a­ti­ve at night, it is pro­bab­ly good to stay awa­ke if I want to get so­met­hing done.

Li­ve­ly ima­gi­na­ti­on is a sour­ce of great joy. I speak to my­self, so I do not even need so­me­o­ne to talk to. And tra­ve­ling is re­al­ly ea­sy – I can go on fan­ta­sy trips anyw­he­re I want.

But I must con­fess it is fun to talk to real pe­op­le on­ce in a while. My sum­mer job at the mu­seum al­lo­wed me to meet in­te­res­ting pe­op­le and to dis­cuss many kinds of things. It was like going so­mep­la­ce far away, though I on­ly nee­ded to run ac­ross the yard to the neigh­bo­ring lot. And af­ter the work­day I was of­ten dead ti­red. As if I had re­al­ly gone on a trip. I won­der if I am a so­ci­al int­ro­vert af­ter all?

I of­ten feel that I need to deal with so many things that I can on­ly see a short dis­tan­ce ahe­ad, like one of our hymns says. All things seem to press down on me. Things come in­to my dre­ams and even night­ma­res. I feel like crying for no re­a­son at all. But when the day is over, I find the com­for­ting things that are so near: the be­au­ti­ful co­lors and smel­ls of the bog where cloud­ber­ries grow, the ber­ries I have pic­ked, the soft and ste­a­my warmth of our sau­na with my best friend sit­ting next to me, and the dip in the coo­ling wa­ter of the pond. A short mo­ment away from the bust­le of week­day life is like a mi­ni­va­ca­ti­on. Af­ter that I feel se­re­ne and hap­py, con­tent with what I have right here right now.

I have been lis­te­ning to re­cor­ded sum­mer­ti­me ser­vi­ces. It has been so good to hear the fa­mi­li­ar voi­ces of my unc­le and god­fat­her and ot­her re­la­ti­ves who are spe­a­kers. They have spo­ken com­for­ting and ref­res­hing words to a per­son inc­li­ned to ir­ri­ta­bi­li­ty. The fa­mi­li­ar voi­ces give a spe­ci­al fla­vor to the speec­hes be­cau­se they arou­se so many me­mo­ries. I find that hu­man voi­ces are re­al­ly per­so­nal. Alt­hough there are so many of us, each has their own voi­ce! And it is ea­sy to re­cog­ni­ze voi­ces even af­ter ye­ars.