Text: Kirs­ti Wal­le­nius-Rii­hi­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

A ye­ar ago, I was in­vi­ted to start blog­ging for Päi­vä­mies. Op­ti­mis­ti­cal­ly, I ex­pec­ted that, gi­ven a full ye­ar, I would find 12 fair­ly good ide­as for blog posts. Well, I didn’t. De­ad­li­nes came and went, and I of­ten did not even touch the pen in the me­an­ti­me.

Last ye­ar, pe­op­le un­der­going a cri­sis were re­pe­a­ted­ly inst­ruc­ted to take it ea­sy. I took that inst­ruc­ti­on se­ri­ous­ly and for­got even the smal­lest pro­mi­ses that I had made. My wor­king life used to be struc­tu­red by the sche­du­les of the aca­de­mic ye­ar. Even va­ca­ti­ons had pre­de­fi­ned slots in my ca­len­dar. And my va­ca­ti­on ti­mes of­ten had more de­ad­li­nes than my te­ac­hing sche­du­le. Now it seems that my ca­len­dar has been get­ting emp­tier by the week.

I so­re­ly miss many of my rou­ti­ne ac­ti­vi­ties: book circ­le, se­ni­or club, gym exer­ci­se, Bib­le class, knit­ting club and, more than anyt­hing el­se, live ser­vi­ces. All of these used to re­qui­re some pre­pa­ra­ti­on, at le­ast to the ex­tent of dres­sing up a bit and ar­ri­ving on time. Now we can lis­ten to on­li­ne ser­vi­ces whe­ne­ver it suits us and dres­sed in wha­te­ver we hap­pen to be we­a­ring at the mo­ment. Many pe­op­le ap­p­re­ci­a­te lis­te­ning to ser­vi­ces on their own sofa. They en­joy the free­dom of ma­king a cup of cof­fee while lis­te­ning or knit­ting a sock – or even res­ting in a re­la­xed po­si­ti­on and wa­king up to the clo­sing hymn. But if you at­tend real ser­vi­ces, you al­wa­ys have ot­her pe­op­le around you, lis­te­ning to the same ser­mon. I miss the fa­mi­li­ar pew and the pe­op­le sit­ting next to me. I could al­wa­ys say to them: ”That is how I want to be­lie­ve, too. Can you pre­ach me my doubts for­gi­ven.”

Ins­te­ad of es­tab­lis­hed rou­ti­nes, we have a huge num­ber of new chal­len­ges. At the be­gin­ning of the co­vid ye­ar, I con­si­de­red my com­pu­ter skil­ls qui­te ade­qu­a­te: I was ab­le to use the word pro­ces­sor, scan pic­tu­res, and com­mu­ni­ca­te with both my phone and my com­pu­ter. Now I am trying not to mix up my mo­bi­le, my lap­top, my por­tab­le (or are they the same?), my desk­top, earp­ho­nes, spe­a­kers, and the smart watch on my wrist, which re­cords my step count.

I seem to be shrin­king all the time. Tab­lets are no lon­ger in a bot­t­le, ac­counts are not in the bank, and the tube is not on­ly for tooth­pas­te. In the old ti­mes airp­la­nes flew in the clouds. Now my pic­tu­res and wri­tings are flo­a­ting there. I as­ked so­me­o­ne about pod­casts. The per­son gave me a si­de­wa­ys glan­ce and said in a hus­hed voi­ce, “It’s a bit too dif­fi­cult to exp­lain”.

With the help to two pho­nes and a few pa­tient pe­op­le, I have oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly had some re­mo­te inst­ruc­ti­on. But it has al­so hap­pe­ned that the ot­her per­son has en­ded up sig­hing, “Let’s just make an or­di­na­ry call”.

Dark­ness is al­wa­ys dee­pest just be­fo­re sun­ri­se. Each win­ter sols­ti­ce is fol­lo­wed by new light. I ag­reed to con­ti­nue as a blog­ger for anot­her ye­ar. I hope I will be ab­le to come up with 11 more ide­as.