AmaranthMB

sometimes sitting
home, alone
unmade bed, cell phone dead
a million thoughts inside, unsaid

sometimes waiting
poised, alone
fingers trembling, dissembling
all the doubts I'm now remembering

dare I ask to hear your voice
with nothing to give back?

except hello today
you're half a world away
and I can't chase away this gray
hello today
can't I just say?
or does even that small cry betray me?

sometimes yearning
numb, alone
lost at sea, never free
to admit how much you mean to me

dare I yearn to hear your voice
with nothing to give back?

just hello today
you're half a world away
and I can't chase away this gray
hello today
can't I just say?
or does even that small word betray

what I'd give to close this gap
what I'd give to know
to see inside those precious eyes
the love I daren't show

please can't you tell me

hello today
you're half a world away
and I can't chase away this gray
hello today
can't I just say?
or does even that small cry betray me?

within the dull sheen
of mirror and endless aching hours
when clamor and cacophony crash
incessant against the senses
forever breaking

when the ink soaks, blurring
out of the lines
and the words fracture between your fingers and the page
it seeps away
it seeps
and the wild taste of magic fades from tongue and memory



one note, one line
like one thirsty sigh
within a body parched for something beyond this monotone existence

you aren't the only lonely soul who feels it
who misses it
who remembers

the magic still exists
it still exists

Go back to: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Friday

iPod:
While Your Lips Are Still Red- Nightwish

sweet little words made for silence
not talk
young heart for love
not heartache
dark hair for catching the wind
not to veil the sight of a cold world

I wander into our building's common room the next morning to discover that a spontaneous birthday celebration for Jay is underway. There is a donut with a candle, and cake, and Frozen hair bows…and I wish I'd gotten to know this particular group a little better. Plamen comes and hangs out with us for a while, and there's talk of what will happen next year.



I went for another walk around Kitee and decided to go in the other market, the one with the apple graphics in the windows. I expect it to be less of a supermarket and more of a proper grocery store, but there are still non-food things. I contemplate getting a Finnish crossword puzzle or word search…but can't find one I like. They also have CD's and just for the heck of it, I paw through them. And what do I finally find but Uneni Kaunein, which is what looks like a greatest hits album by Johanna Kurkela! On the last day; how fortunate can you get?

But...this is my last full day in Kitee.

kiss while your lips are still red
while he`s still silent rest
while bosom is still untouched, unveiled
hold another hand while the hand`s still without a tool
drown into eyes while they`re still blind
love while the night still hides the withering dawn


iPod:
(*Fin)- Anberlin

feels like you're miles from here
in other towns with lesser names

We go as a group to find a flower for Eeva and then decide to take a picture of all of us holding it. There's this grassy hill on the school grounds with a few boulders on it that's just a naturally good place to pose for photos. In the midst of this, Dmitry gets bitten by the photography bug and we end up doing an impromptu shoot. It was wacky and marvelous, and there are even a few pictures that I think I look okay in. At one point we all laid in a circle on the ground, and so of course everyone is picking grass off themselves (and each other) for the next hour.



(photos by Dmitry Kalinin)

Friday afternoon those of us left in our building have to all move our stuff over to Aurinkosali for the night. I've not yet been in there. It's this big, open room with beds all along the walls, a big table in the middle, and a piano in the corner. Looks like the last night in Kitee is going to be kind of like a big sleepover…which, honestly, I kind of like the idea of.

But once we're all there, and there's really nothing left to do but wait as people leave one by one… I think it really hits everyone that this really is farewell. The atmostphere is so somber that it actually becomes difficult to walk into that room. Emil messes around on the piano for a bit, and there's talk. Nobody can stand it for long, though; people start scattering.

The Dimovs have apparently concocted something "to cheer us up" in the evening. We guess it's probably korvapuusti.

Magda and I go to the lake one last time.


iPod:
On My Own- The Used

see all those people on the ground
wasting time
i try to hold it all inside
but just for tonight
the top of the world
sitting here wishing
the things I've become
that something is missing
maybe i...
but what do i know

The walk through Kitee feels so familiar now. And I know after we move nothing's going to look familiar again for however many months it takes for us to "get settled". The last two weeks are already starting to feel distant and dreamlike, and we're still here. How will I remember the sound of birch trees when I'm surrounded by palms and road construction again? How will I remember the feel of the wind over the lake? A year is such a long time and there's no guarantee I'll even make it back here. That any of us will.

Right now it feels like I won't forget but I know what real life is like.

and now it seems that i have found
nothing at all
i want to hear your voice out loud
slow it down, slow it down
without it all
i'm choking on nothing
it's clear in my head
and I'm screaming for something
knowing nothing is better than knowing it all
on my own…

But there's this moment. There's the wind and the wild water and the steely gray of the waves. For the moment…we are still here.




iPod:
Rannalla- Indica

laiva lähtee, rannalle jää neito suremaan (a ship leaves, a maiden is left to mourn on the shore)
pois matkaavaa (for the one traveling away)
kaihoisasti katsoo purtta kauas kulkevaa (longingly gazing at the vessel sailing far)
pois kulkevaa (sailing away)
haaveissansa uskonut ei että armaan vie (in her dreams she never believed that her beloved would be claimed)
aaltojen tie (by the way of the waves)
mieli matkalaisen liian levoton kai lie (the mind of the traveller too restless, perhaps)
aavalle vie (taking to the open sea)

I loved this song when the lyrics were still beautiful gibberish to my ears. I loved it even more once I knew enough Finnish to understand it. You can feel the blue and sky and loneliness of the waves and the fairytale sadness all woven through it.

Right now, on the shore of the Kiteen järvi, I think I know what it feels like to be that maiden. Having walked down a street called Uimarantatie, is it not fitting that on the last day, Rannalla should be the song that needs playing?

rannallansa vaan, kultaansa neito odottaa (on her shore, the damsel waits for her darling)
kai merten myrskyt rantaan kantaa (the storms of the sea will carry to the shore)
vaan ei milloinkaan rakkaintaan tyttö tapaakaan (but never will the girl meet her dearest)
kun aallot onnen vain voi antaa (when only the waves can allow happiness)

This time it's Magda who writes "we were here" in the sand.



kun aallot onnen vain voi antaa…




iPod:
Utopia- Within Temptation

why does it rain, rain, rain down on utopia?
why does it have to kill the ideal of who we are?
why does it rain, rain, rain down on utopia?
and when the lights die down, they're telling us who we are…

There are pastries in the dining room, and singing happy birthday…and the final reckoning of who is leaving when.

After that there is watermelon in Dmitry and Alexandra's building, because of course. We play crocodile again and it's just…seriously, why have we not been doing this the whole time? For a while I can sort of forget that everyone is leaving tomorrow and just enjoy spending time with this strange and random and wonderful assortment of people who have become so dear to me.




iPod:
The Space- Craig Armstrong

Eventually Adrian, Kate, Magda and I have to head back to Aurinkosali to sleep.

A melancholy sort of peace has settled over the room, one I find both heartbreaking and soothing. It is a night for headphones and organizing playlists and snuggling with a Finnish lion. And trying not to memorize faces, though I really can't help it.

This feels like sacred space.

“good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
that i shall say good night till it be morrow.”


Saturday

iPod:
The Last Sled- Tuomas Holopainen

I wake up to hug Lexi goodbye, and then again for Flor. It crosses my mind to go out and say goodbye to all the others who I know are leaving at that same time…but I'm in my pajamas and really tired. I wish I'd gotten to say a proper goodbye to Daniella and Ivana…and Elena…and Melissa.

Breakfast is a small and quiet affair. We're all trying very hard to keep the mood a bit light, but to me the inside jokes have an edge of pain to them. After today, after I get home, nobody except me will understand them. Nobody at home is going to really understand what this entire trip has meant to me, and that's going to be lonely.

I remember things with music. Playlists are how I keep emotional records of important things that have happened to me; some span a few weeks, some a few years. It's easier than journalling and it spares me having to wrestle feelings into words where I know they'll lose most of their power anyway. If I attach a song to a moment, I can listen even years later and be able to recall everything I memorized about that moment quite clearly. Sometimes I choose the song after the moment, and it's difficult to find the right one. Sometimes the moment chooses the song right then and there, and it could never have been any other.

I've never had someone else choose exactly the right song, in the moment, because they're feeling the same thing and because it fit.

There we are sitting at the table together and Adrian decides to start playing The Last Sled from his phone. And there's that moment when all the lyrics flash through your head and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up because that's the song. And I have the urge to either hug him or strangle him or burst into tears and none of these is an appropriate reaction, so…

farewell, white agony creek
farewell, the three spring thaws
one day i will return to you

So I have to get up and walk my tray across the room. Because of course it would be someone from this group. Who else would even know that song, let alone know why it works for what we're all feeling right now? If Röskö is our Walden, then Kitee is our White Agony Creek.

things we lost
the things we couldn’t share
another rainbow’s end
another memory
fortuna favet fortibus
hold on to all that’s dear to you
as the last sled to dawson finally arrives

I am spurred to finally look up what "fortuna favet fortibus" means, and I'm almost floored a second time. "Fortune favors the brave." I've found that patterns can hold meaning. When you keep seeing the same phrase, over and over again, in different contexts and different ways but always more or less the same…listen. I do. I've got a strange list of them:

37
Scotland
Run
Don't blink
Remember
Be brave

Fortuna favet fortibus. Be brave, again, in a context I never expected to see it.

I still don't consider myself a brave person, but maybe this experience has made me a bit moreso.


iPod:
The Sound of Silence- Simon & Garfunkel

hello darkness, my old friend
i've come to talk with you again

Now it's Alexandra, Dmitry, and Kate's turn to go.

We walk in a group to the bus station. I had considered taking the bus back to Helsinki while planning this trip, so I'm curious to see where the station is. Turns out it's not far, though it's on a route through town I've not taken before. Rositsa and Bruna come with us and again; I think we need Bruna there to voice the things we aren't saying.

It is quiet.



There's some messing around once we get to the station, but all too soon the bus comes and there are hugs and you realize that was probably the very last time you'll get to hug that person until next year. Even though all three that are leaving have done this before, every year practically since Nightwish Days got started, there are still tears.

And if I thought the walk there was quiet, the walk back is doubly so.

because a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while i was sleeping
and the vision that was planted in my brain
still remains
within the sound of silence

We go back to Aurinkosali, and I get out my Tarot deck for the first time on this trip.

I'm honestly not even sure why I brought it; I haven't read cards in, oh I don't even know. Years. One thing people commonly misunderstand about Tarot: the cards cannot tell you anything you don't already know. They only tell the "future" in the sense of "if you continue your current path, this is the likely outcome". Nothing you don't, somewhere in your heart, already know. Since I'm an introvert and already spend a great deal of time in my own head, I rarely need the cards to untangle my thoughts. I can do it on my own. And I've only read for other people a handful of times.

I've brought my Dragon deck, which I suppose is good. It reads both shrouded and honest…a bit like me. My Rider-Waite deck tends to be the clearest, but it's blunt and unsubtle (and I hate the artwork). My Thoth deck is big and loud and I don't actually like to read with it.

I start with three pretty simple past-present-future hands. And yeah, nothing I don't already know. Then I do a Celtic cross reading. This one tells me something I know but don't want said, not even in a card spread only I can read. Really? Crossed by the Fool? This isn't even the Rider-Waite image and I know exactly what that represents. Like I don't know how that ends! Did Phoenix teach me nothing; did Nightingale? I've worked through this already.

At that point I get annoyed and put the cards away. This is why I don't do Tarot all that often.

“the words of the prophets
are written on subway walls
and tenement halls
and whispered in the sounds of silence”


iPod:
Always With Me- Spirited Away

呼んでいる　胸のどこか奥で (Somewhere, a voice calls, in the depths of my heart)
いつも心踊る　夢を見たい (May I always be dreaming, the dreams that move my heart)

After Kate and the others go, there's nothing left to do but wait.

We have to go out to get lunch. I eat french fries for the first time in two weeks.

悲しみは　数えきれないけれど (So many tears of sadness, uncountable through and through)
その向こうできっと　あなたに会える (I know on the other side of them I'll find you)

When I was planning this trip, I spent a lot of time trying to decide which train to take back to Helsinki. In particular, I wavered between one that left around 4 and one that left around 7. I ended up choosing the earlier one because I knew I'd have to find my hotel once I got there, and I didn't want to be doing that too late at night.

But damn, now I'm wishing now that I'd picked the later train; the one apparently everyone else picked. Because now not only do I have to go, I have to go alone. At least Adrian, Magda, and Bruna are coming to the station with me; I felt absolutely no hesitation in insisting upon that.

繰り返すあやまちの　そのたびひとは (Every time we fall down to the ground we look up to the blue sky above)
ただ青い空の　青さを知る (We wake to its blueness, as for the first time)
果てしなく　道は続いて見えるけれど (Though the road is long and lonely and the end far away, out of sight)
この両手は　光を抱ける (I can with these two arms embrace the light)

There's a bit of time before my train comes, and I'm not going to make it out of here without crying, am I?



Adrian is as ridiculous and precious as always; he steals my shawl and completes his transformation into Legolas. And if I thought I'd gotten overly attached to Magda over these two weeks…turns out that was mutual. There are lots of hugs and lots of tears.


(photo by Plamen Dimov)

さよならのときの　静かな胸 (As I bid farewell my heart stops, in tenderness I feel)
ゼロになるからだが　耳をすませる (My silent empty body begins to listen to what is real)



They have to leave just before I do, as Plamen has to get back. And now I feel like everyone else at the station is staring at the crazy crying girl and probably wondering what the hell is going on…but part of me doesn't care. Luckily the train pulls up maybe thirty seconds after the car leaves, so I don't have long to stew by myself. Then there's the rush and business of finding the right car and the right seat. I'm not going to cry on the train; I'm bloody well not.

生きている不思議　死んでいく不思議 (The wonder of living, the wonder of dying)
花も風も街も　みんなおなじ (The wind, town, and flowers, we all dance one unity)

"farewell, White Agony Creek…"

And I leave Kitee behind.


iPod:
Your Gravity- Arrows to Athens

this is my goodbye

this is a moment
this is my only chance
til i leave the ground and break through these clouds
your gravity holds me

I've been moving this song around for a week, trying very hard to pretend it doesn't belong here. It does, though; of course it does.

It's just as well I'm on a train…if I had to physically drive away from Kitee, I don't think I'd be able to see the road. I spend a great deal of the ride back to Helsinki tinkering with my playlist, because it's more or less the rough draft of a journal and I've got to iron it out before I start losing moments. I also have a seven hour plane trip coming up, which is a nice solid chunk of time with which to listen to it most of the way through.

My Facebook page is full of pictures I want to look at and find I can't bear to yet. Not if I want to stay dry-eyed on this train.


iPod:
Georgia- Hanson

i don't want to let you go
and i don't want to lose you slowly
i just want to let you know
that it's only just a little back and forth lately

Of course, I know Adrian and Magda are on the train just behind me, along with Rositsa, Teodora, and Dobrin. Which means I will already be in Helsinki when they get there. There's no particular reason why I couldn't come find them. Just one more night, why not?

On the train this becomes less of something I might do and becomes something I'm absolutely going to do.


iPod:
The Heart Asks Pleasure First- The Piano

If I thought the train ride into Kitee felt long, this one feels like forever. Coming in I was anxious, and excited, and a bit scared.

Now I'm just…heartbroken.

It's not that, exactly…but I can't think of another word. "Depressed" doesn't quite do it, "grief" is overwrought.


iPod:
Ikävänkantaja- Indica

taivaalla loistat kun musta on maa (you shine on the sky while the ground is black)
voi kuinka sinua kaipaankaan (oh, how i miss you)
jos rakkaus on ikuinen ei aikakaan (if love is forever not even time)
voi lohduttaa ikävänkantajaa (can comfort the carrier of yearning)

This was my first Indica song, and the source of a lot of the first words I could recognize in Finnish. The name itself, Ikävänkantaja…"carrier of yearning"…is still one of my favorite words. Beautiful and sad. The thing is, to me the song isn't about a person who's looking for the one they're longing for…it's about the person who has chosen to stay where they are despite their longing.

"that is yours. treasure it."


iPod:
Alone- Heart

i hear the ticking of the clock
i'm lying here the room's pitch dark
i wonder where you are tonight
no answer on the telephone
and the night goes by so very slow
oh i hope that it won't end though
alone

I make it to Helsinki in one piece, and it's strange to be back in this train tunnel. The hotel where I'm staying has a bus that runs to and from the airport every twenty minutes or so. I get on along with this rather large Finnish family who are all talking animatedly. I understand bits and pieces, far more than the family at the airport back in NY when this all began. I must have chuckled at an opportune moment, or my "terve" must have been pretty convincing, because the older woman in the party turns to me and starts chatting. In Finnish. And oh crap, I've already smiled and nodded like I know what she's saying because I'm an idiot in social situations and I have no freaking idea what she's saying. But amazingly, fortunately, we reach my hotel before the penny drops and she figures that out…so I "hyvää yötä"ed my way off that bus with her none the wiser, I hope.

I think I just got mistaken for a Finnish person, which is both awesome and really scary. When I get home, I am going to learn this bloody language if I have to listen to nothing but Finnish radio for the next year.



The room isn't bad. It has this couch that wraps around the wall under the window, which is interesting and not something I've seen before. I drop off my stuff and rest for a bit, but I'm too antsy to stay. I have more or less confirmed with Magda that I'll be there when they get off the train, but there's still part of me that's afraid I'll miss them. So I catch the bus back out (after triple-checking the times), and confirm that yes, for the most part, airport buses seem to run on time.

til now i always got by on my own
i never really cared until I met you
and now it chills me to the bone
how do i get you alone

Vantaa airport is a bit of strange place at night. For one thing, there are people sleeping everywhere on benches. For another, all the shopping and food places seem to shut down around 10PM. Of course I discover this after I realize I've not eaten dinner, well after 10. I get a soda because I haven't drank one in like two weeks and if I'm here, I may as well be a bit wired.

I sort of wander around the airport for a while. I got accosted by a Finnish woman as I'm coming out of the shop I bought my soda in. I think she wanted to know when the place closed (like, right now), but she was talking very fast. Finally I said, "Puhun englantia!" in a sort of helpless tone, at which point she threw her hands up and stalked away. I was tempted to call "anteeksi" after her, but figured that would be, I dunno, patronizing or something. I did empathize with her frustration.

It's cold in the train tunnel and the wifi doesn't work, so there's no point in waiting down there. I determine the exact spot on the stairs where the wifi fails. My husband is boggled that I'm actually attempting to be social on purpose. Well, I wasn't expecting to make friends I'd miss this much. This is such a ridiculous adventure and yet it's perfect; why should the last night go the safe, boring way I'd imagined it would?

I see them before they see me. Stepping up just behind them and watching their faces made every second I spent waiting worth it.


iPod:
Viimeinen Tanssi- Indica

niin lasta vie laaksoonsa tie (so load up and take the road into the valley)
käy kautta kauhu metsien synkkien (go through the fearful dark forests)
niin lasta vie rosoinen tie (so load up and take the rough road)
kerran vain kotiin löytää (just this once find the way home)

The next question is…what to do?

They've all got their luggage with them, so going on into Helsinki proper would be difficult. Adrian and Magda's plane leaves at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, anyway. I get the feeling they haven't planned much further than "get to the airport", and it sounds like they were going to just crash on a bench for the night like all the other Vantaa ghosts.

Well now, that won't do.

Which was how I unexpectedly ended up with five people in my hotel room for a few hours.





No one bats an eyelash when we all walk across the lobby at like 1AM, which I take to be a good sign. Honestly, as long as we're relatively quiet and don't make a ruckus or a mess, why should anyone care if I have guests? Teodora and Dobrin have sandwiches. Adrian tries to make tea or coffee or something with the hot water in the bathroom sink. Rositsa or Teodora, can't remember who, makes him try salmiakki and his reaction has us all in stitches for ten solid minutes. (Oh gods, I think, is it really that bad? I haven't opened my package yet…)

It's a nice little last hurrah.

We decide to watch a show called Vikings, which I've not heard of. It's good, but the fact that we've turned all the lights off and it's pushing 2:30AM now means everyone pretty much nods off after the first episode or two…at which point we give up and turn it off.

viimeinen säde auringon laskettu maahan on (the last ray of the sun has fallen to the earth)
se taipuu rytmiin hiljalleen (it yields to the quiet rhythm)
käy tanssiin viimeiseen (comes to the last dance)

In less than an hour I have to see Adrian and Magda off, for real this time.

I don't sleep.


iPod:
Dust & Gold- Arrows to Athens

it’s down to me and you
in this cold and empty room
forgotten what we’re dying for

just tell me what to change
just tell me what to say
’cause i can’t feel it anymore

3AM. Their plane leaves at 5 late-ish something, so they need to be on that first bus of the morning. We gather stuff in the dark; there are hugs in the doorway. I'm half out of it; they probably are, too. I walk them down to the lobby in my socks; again, nobody says a word.

but
why are we so incomplete?

There's still a little time. We sit on a bench to wait.

it’s down to you and me

in this cold and empty street

forgotten what we’re living for
just tell me what is right

’cause it’s more than what’s inside

’cause i can’t see it anymore

I know we talked a bit but I honestly can't remember a word I said. I think staying up really late has the same effect on me as drinking has on other people: I get quiet and weird and say random shit and then don't remember much of it the next day.

The sky was that deep cerulean blue between night and morning, just a bit lighter than its darkest, and Helsinki was quiet. I've not even seen Helsinki proper yet; there was just never time on this trip. I remember thinking, what if I just…started walking and never looked back? Down this road, past all the hotels…so what if I'm not wearing shoes?

all i see are kings and thieves
when all i own is just dust and gold

I can't. Obviously I can't, but that was the first and only time I was really, truly tempted.

don't let go yet
don't settle for less
and everything you are...

why are we so incomplete?
all I own is just dust
just dust and gold

when all I see are kings and thieves
when all I own is just dust and gold

Do you ever look at someone doing something completely normal, something they do all the time, and yet in that moment they become so absurdly precious to you that you can't imagine loving them more than you do just then? Before there were hours; now there are minutes. Hours and minutes I've stolen, in a sense, because by rights the train station in Kitee should have been the last hurrah. I've nudged the universe to carve out this time, which goes against every Taoist instinct I still possess…all because I'm still unwilling to let go.

I'm not sure this stolen time has made this parting any more bearable, but I don't regret it.

so rescue me…

"We will meet again."

I haven't cried yet, not the way I feel like doing. After the bus comes and goes, I go back to the room where Rositsa, Teodora, and Dobrin are still sleeping. I think exhaustion finally dampens everything else, because I fall asleep as the sun came up.


Sunday

iPod:
Cover My Eyes- The Birthday Massacre

all that we are
never the same
all that we know is all that remains

remember the sun
remember the rain
they're never gonna touch me again tonight

Rositsa, Teodora, and Dobrin leave to catch their plane around midmorning. I probably could have taken the bus over there with them…but I need to repack my bag for plane travel and honestly…I need a bit of time alone. To reorient myself. I have to get home today and I can't do that if I'm distracted.

When it's my turn to catch the bus for the last time, Alone by Heart is playing over the radio. Oh for fuck's sake, universe, really? It's funny, that song never felt sad when Kristina and Dean performed it…but it is a sad song, isn't it?

I unexpectedly have to check one of my bags this time around…apparently jam counts as a liquid, who knew??… and have to go through security twice. The passport control guys are such Finns.

Passport control officer, looking at my NW shirt : "So you're a fan of Finnish music."
Me: "Yep."
Other officer: *completely deadpan* "It's so cheerful."

Then, later at the airport Starbucks, I discover I've left my shawl and NW hoodie back in security. Which means I have to go back through passport control and backtrack to the security area I went through with less than an hour before I need to be at my gate. But I did it, and got them back, and went back through passport control (they've got to seriously be wondering what's wrong with me by now)…and discover that my headphones were in my hoodie pocket. Boy, I would have had a boring flight without those.

I've long since entered that hyper-focused state of "I just have to do this one thing before I crash"…where that one thing is get home.

I remember lifting off from the ground, but I'm a middle seat this time around and can't see much.

Might be just as well.


iPod:
Kauriinsilmät- Johanna Kurkela

on metsäkauris ihana, sen katse sielun vie (roe deer is delightful, it takes your soul by a gaze)
niin ilman vaihtoehtoja käy lehtoon neidon tie (so without alternatives the maid’s way leads to the grove)
vaan kaurista et tavoita, et sitä enää nää (but you can’t reach the deer, can’t see it anymore)
vain varjot puissa vaeltaa ja lehdet väräjää (only shadows wander in the trees and leaves are moving)
 
sä miksi minuun katsoitkaan, kauriin silmilläs (why did you gaze at me with your eyes of deer)
oon pelkkä pala paperia sinun edessäs (i’m only a piece of paper in front of you)
sen rypistää voit kasaksi ja heittää liekkeihin (you can crumple it into a pile and throw it into flames)
tai aivan hiljaa puhaltain sen nostat pilvihin (or just by quietly blowing you rise it upon the clouds)

I wasn't planning to sleep on the plane, but apparently even 600mph and a time warp isn't fast enough to outpace how tired I am. (Due to the time-fuckery of flying west across time zones, my plane takes off around 2:30PM local time and is due to land around 3:30PM local time in NY.) I don't dream; at least nothing I remember. They have a map of the plane's route, which I watch when I'm awake.

I can't help but begrudge every centimeter the little plane moves across the screen.


iPod:
Beyond These Shores- Iona

beyond these shores
into the darkness
beyond these shores
this boat may sail
and if this is the way
then there will be
a path across this sea...

I start thinking I could do this again. I managed this on my own and nothing major went wrong, and now I have a much better idea of how to pack next time and trains and…yeah, I could totally do this again.


iPod:
Seasons of Love reprise- Rent

I land in JFK and yes, it is absolutely as weird as I thought it would be to be surrounded by American accented English again. All that's left is to exchange money, and find my last gate, and wait. Again.

And to think of something to post on the KIMAF Facebook page, because that seems to be the thing to do.

it's time now, to sing out
though the story never ends
let's celebrate
remember a year in the life of friends

remember the love

Sometimes what needs saying can't be said in words alone.

Sometimes they are a poor substitute.

And sometimes…they are all you have.




Hymns and Secrets- Mariah Dennison

midnight light
cool and bright
i stayed and drank and strayed away
on the night-sweet taste of music

where song wreathes each endless skip of heart
and birches whisper secrets to the ever-sighing wind
i stayed and ran and strayed so far
on paths few feet have ever dared to tread

and i looked aloft
i looked aloft
and couldn't see the stars in the haze of midnight sun

indigo night
cool and bright
i strayed and pined and watched the sun
dip below the black horizon

where streetlights and footsteps and the cold kiss of rain
caress hearts drunk on hymns and secrets
i stayed and drowned and strayed away
on paths these weary feet had never dreamed to tread

and i looked aloft
i looked aloft
and never missed the stars in the haze of midnight sun

i was here
we were here
and i walked among them instead

Kiteen playlist

Go back to Part 3 here.

Wednesday

iPod:
Star Sky- Two Steps From Hell

burn the page for me
i cannot erase the time of sleep
i cannot be loved so set me free
i cannot deliver your love
or caress your soul so
turn that page for me
i cannot embrace the touch that you give
i cannot find solace in your words
i cannot deliver you your love
or caress your soul

I did NOT get up at 7AM again, although I recall waking up briefly and telling my idiot self to go back to sleep.

Wednesday afternoon, we go to Röskö.



There's no way in hell I'm passing up the opportunity to spend a whole night in the same place Nightwish recorded their last two albums. What surprises me is how few other people seem to feel the same. Maybe they've all done it before? Oh well. As much as I'd love to spend every remaining moment with the friends I've made here, I can't not do this.

I bring apples and chocolate and bug repellent. I forget to bring pajamas.

Watching the road signs as we drive to the place quickly proves pointless; there are just too many turns. And here I thought the Holopainen house was in the middle of nowhere. Röskö is more like Nowhere's far lakeside edge. It's a single main building, a few scattered cabins, a stage area…and wilderness. That's really about it. It's fantastic.



Everyone is drawn to the lake. I am too, at first. Willow trees line the bank, and two docks, and the lake itself is lonely and peaceful. There are feathers in my pocket, picked up during my wanderings in Kitee. I take out the one I found way back on Thursday and let the wind take it; it belongs here in Röskö. It flies quite a long way out over the water until I can't see it anymore. It feels like a good beginning.

Everyone else lingers at the lake, but I want to get a sense of the whole place before the concert and dinner and whatever else gets started.


iPod:
The Lighthouse's Tale- Nickel Creek

i am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves
i keep my lamp lit, to warn the sailors on their way

i'll tell a story, paint you a picture from my past
i was so happy, but joy in this life seldom lasts

The first, most spectacular, and most unexpected thing I encounter on my first walk are the rocks. I take the path past the last and largest cabin and all of a sudden there's this cliff in front of me.



What? What? I must get to the top at once. A weaving path and dozens of pictures later, I find an odd structure nestled in the rocks. It looks maybe like a small canoe shelter; just a pointed slatted roof over a slatted floor.



Of course I must go inside. There are spiders, which is fine as long as they stay where they are.



I can see the lake from here. It's isolated and melancholy and a perfect little hiding place. I put on The Lighthouse's Tale, because that feels appropriate for this spot.



It's one of the saddest songs I own (and I own some tear-jerkers), but I find it comforting when I'm out in nature alone. Honestly, I feel like I've been that lighthouse in far too many of my relationships. I'm like a harbor…the ships I love never stay long, but they do tend to come back when they need a safe place to rest. I know you won't stay, but you can always come back. I will keep the lamp lit.

I could see the story of the keeper and his love playing out here, with the rocks and birch trees as witness.

I'm starting to feel the slip of time and the absence of others again, so I head back to where I hear them.


iPod:
Elan- Nightwish

leave the sleep and let the springtime talk
in tongues from the time before man
listen to a daffodil tell her tale
let the guest in, walk out, be the first to greet the morn

It had to be done. I had to know what Élan would sound like in Röskö. We went up to the top of the rock ridge and stood on the place where you can see out over the lake.

the meadows of heaven await harvest
the cliffs unjumped, cold waters untouched
the elsewhere creatures yet unseen
finally your number came up, free fall awaits the brave

My mind does not create melodies. I do think in music, but it's always music I know, music I bring from somewhere else that fits…not music I create on the spot. If there's one place where I am artistically blind, it's here. I love music but I am not a musician. For the sake of writing characters, though, and also for my own curiosity…I do wonder what that's like. To hear a tune in your head that's new, that hasn't been created yet.

Hearing Élan, in this place, I can almost imagine what that would feel like.

come
taste the wine
race the blind
they will guide you from the light
writing noughts till the end of time
come
surf the clouds
race the dark
it feeds from the runs undone
meet me where the cliff greets the sea

The most magical part of playing Élan on that cliff was how the wind in the birch trees blended with the music. Birch leaves already make this distinctive soft sighing when they rustle that I've not heard in any other type of tree. Tuomas, in a documentary, once talked about his "strange obsession with the sea". Well, I've lived my entire life near the ocean and let me tell you, birch trees in the wind sound very much like ocean waves on sand. If I'd grown up listening to those trees every night, an obsession with the sea would make perfect sense to me.

But then you add Élan's flute, and guitar and strings and harmonies and it's like, the wind in the trees fits right in with this. It both makes it wilder and grounds it. Makes it part of the land. I don't know. Élan, to me, was always meant to be played outside to the water. Maybe even to this particular lake.




iPod:
Disappear- Jars of Clay

i watch you smile
you steal the show
you take a bow
the curtain falls in front of you
you're magical, on display
i gaze into your eyes and
you turn to look the other way

The odd group of us wanders all over those rocks taking pictures. (I keep wanting to call it an island…it kind of felt like one). I show them the canoe hut (or whatever it is). There's a cross and a boat-shaped podium at the very top, like a little open-air church, and I remember thinking Jon would like this if he was here.



The inside joking and commentary amongst us feels so comfortable and old hat now.





We sit in the slightly precarious swing for a while and watch Dean make a vase out of a piece of birch and some flowers.


(photo by Rositsa Delieva)

There are knots of people everywhere, just sitting together.



It is too peaceful here to feel sadness. Yet.

Plamen takes us up to the main building where the recording studio is.



There's Nightwish paraphernalia on the walls, of course…and again, there's that sense that I should be more impressed than I am. But…what I feel most is the presence of the people here now. Yes, Nightwish was here…but they were here like we're here now. Just people doing what they love. Just fellow humans in the wilderness. That's what Röskö feels like. When I listen to Edema Ruh now, I feel like we've become part of the "we". We're just as much Edema Ruh as Nightwish is…we are Edema Ruh because they were first.



Eventually there is makkara, and pork steaks, and music.



This is the very last concert, and it's the most relaxed and casual one yet. A surprising number of people (at least to me) show up to watch. Did Plamen invite them all? Who knows. It's also a bit rainy and kind of cold. We've got a canopy over the sound and video equipment and the "stage" is a hut on wheels (very much like in Kitee), but everything and everyone else is out in the open.




iPod:
My Walden- Nightwish

I can distinctly remember looking around at some point and thinking, "Why is everyone wearing jackets?" Understand that "cold" in Florida is generally anything below 21C-ish. The outside temperature just hasn't registered yet in my mind…like being hungry or tired. Can't blame jet lag anymore; maybe it's a result of being so mentally and emotionally invested in events? Of course then I start thinking about it, and yeah, it is kind of chilly, and rainy, and maybe I should put my hoodie on.

Adrian and Kate go on a tea hunt again in the main cabin. There is a little kitchen where they attempt to boil water in a pot on the stove…and then can't find the sugar. I still get the Finnish words for sugar and salt mixed up, which I'm sure is going to lead to culinary disaster one day, and so I'm not much help. It's too rainy to sit outside and watch the concert, but it's kinda boring inside…I want to watch the concert but not by myself…so I end up sort of wandering back and forth.

This is the first time I've heard anyone sing My Walden, and it feels very appropriate to debut it here.

i will taste the manna in every tree
liquid honey and wine from the distant hills
an early morning greenwood concerto
greets my walden with its eternal voice



How many of us are going to leave this place with an extremely specific image in mind when we hear the words "my Walden" now? I'm quite sure mine is going to look a lot like Röskö. Or Finland in general.

weaving my wings from many-colored yarns
flying higher, higher, higher
into the wild
weaving my world into tapestry of life
its fire golden
in my walden

Everyone is kind of quiet. There is a peace in the air here, I think, encourages a soul to just sit and think about things. Where you are, where you're going. How nothing's going to feel the same after you leave.



Glass Angel- Mariah Dennison

i watch you through this window pane
and think
for a moment
that nothing could be more beautiful
that i could hold you here like a picture frame

you don't have to look my way
just stay there
just stay
let me have my stolen moment
let me call you beautiful, just this once

because tomorrow i will look again
outside these same four walls
through this same glass
without you there
without you

and i will have to learn what that feels like


iPod:
Etiainen- Nightwish

pakkasyössä tunturten (in the frosty night of fells)
tanssii tulet leiskuen (fires dance brightly)
elo ammoin mennyt on (life has gone ages ago)
tunnen sen (i feel it)
kutsun pohjanneitojen (the call of the maidens of north)
yllä lapin (above lapland)



There is, I think appropriately enough, a most amazing sunset over the lake. Pictures really can't do it justice. Given that, one might think Sleeping Sun is the obvious choice of song…but Etiainen is the one I hear. No words, just voice and emotion. Old, raw Nightwish feels particularly right in this place.


iPod:
Bare Grace Misery- Nightwish

oh, bare grace misery 

just a child without a fairytale am i 

dark but so lovely 

a little match girl freezing in the snow

love lying, enticing 

bare grace misery

crowning the moment 

bare grace misery

this is what i am 

bare grace for the end of days

The concert winds on. I am so ridiculously glad to hear even a tiny bit of Bare Grace Misery played here. It's one of my top three favorite songs off Wishmaster (behind Dead Boy's Poem and Deep Silent Complete), and I so rarely hear it except in my own headphones. It's not a song most people request, you know?


iPod:
Amaranth- Nightwish

caress the one, the never-fading
rain in your heart
the tears of snow-white sorrow
caress the one, the hiding amaranth
in a land of the daybreak

Amaranth, on the other hand…but what was special about Röskö's version was the young girl on the piano who had memorized the whole song and just got up there and played it because why not.

Amaranth is one of the few NW songs I managed to over-play so much I made myself tired of it. It become a sort of personal theme song for me, because I really love the mythology behind the amaranth flower.

"An amaranth plant, whose flower never fades, had sprung up next to a rosebush. The amaranth said, 'What a delightful flower you are! You are desired by the gods and mortals alike. I congratulate you on your beauty and your fragrance.' The rose said, 'O amaranth, everlasting flower, I live for only a brief time and even if no one plucks me, I die, while you are able to blossom and bloom with eternal youth!'" ~ Aesop's Fables

In a world that loves roses, I will always strive to be an amaranth. In beauty or grace or popularity we may be nothing special, but what we leave behind will live forever.


iPod:
Last Ride of the Day- Nightwish

As has become customary at the end of concerts, there's that span of time when whoever's on the piano doesn't want to stop playing just yet, so they just start playing whatever and people sing along. Dean played Sweet Home Alabama, and OH EMBARRASSMENT how does someone from Croatia know the lyrics to THAT SONG better than I do? My Southern relatives would disown me in shame. They also did Bryan Adams'  Summer of '69, which I DO know every line to, and several others I recognize but don't know…and the fact that I do recognize so many should tell us something about the universality of good music.

The last ride is winding down.

riding the day, every day into sunset
finding the way back home

once upon a night we'll wake to the carnival of life
the beauty of this ride ahead such an incredible high
it's hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead
this moment the dawn of humanity
last ride of the day


iPod:
We Are the Others- Delain

Even after everyone has cleared the stage, there is still music. I recognize Emil's Northern Lights. They play the Macarena, and isn't it weirdly fortunate that we just happened to be practicing it in the sauna only a few nights ago? And the fact that all these people from all different countries (who probably haven't heard the song in ages, like me) all still know the dance.


(photo by Iiris Mäki)

Towards the end we're all standing around at the top of the bleachers, watching the sunset. They put on this crazy song that everyone…or maybe just us crazies…dance around to. I attempt to headbang without balancing first and end up nearly falling down the bleachers as a result.

Later, the moment would put me in mind of this:

we are the others,
we are the cast-outs,
we're the outsiders
but you can't hide us
we are the others
we are the cast-outs
you're not out there on your own

if you feel mistreated
torn and cheated
you are not alone
we are the others

But now it's time for everyone who isn't staying to leave for the night.


iPod:
Run, Run- Arrows to Athens

look out on the night, lit up through the air
kiss me across the room again

Magda hugged me before she left, saying something like, "I know I'll see you again before we leave, but…" Up until this point, hugging has not been a thing amongst any of us. It feels like giving in to the fact that these minutes and the people in them have grown unbearably precious. All of a sudden, the fact that we're all leaving in a few days comes crashing down. And I'm staying here tonight, because I know it's something I need to do, but…now I desperately wish I didn't have to do it alone. Not alone alone, but…

and hold onto my hand, but only long enough
to slip away into the evening wind

Kate and Adrian are the last to leave. We all wait together for their ride and quite honestly, kidnapping crosses my mind. Can I just keep them? They can sleep on the floor or something… but my reasonable side keeps reminding me it's one night and I'm being ridiculous. We play darts, which we're terrible at except for a few spectacularly good throws. (Tero, on the other hand, is very good.) I write "we were here" in the dirt road, because it feels appropriate. And again with the hugging. I could get used to the hugging.

and run, run, 'til you can't run far enough
'cause I will love, love, 'cause i can't love anyone
the way that i love you


(photo by Iiris Mäki)

The air is blue and breezy and it's dark as the nights get when the car leaves at last. I take my overnight stuff up to a bunk in the main cabin…a bunk that, aside from the rustic wood decor, looks remarkably like the one I've been sleeping in all along in Kitee. Out comes the chocolate. Veronique wants to build a fire in the hut outside. In time that's where all those of us who have stayed end up.


iPod:
The Forever Moments- Nightwish

the ticktock of time allows me to see
an authent to an echo
new butterfly to a cocoon
the swan to ugly duckling
the lake to an ocean

It's only myself, Lexi, Veronique, Bruna, Teodora and Dobrin, and Tero here…and Bruna is the only one I've really spent much time with. Veronique is leaving early in the morning to get married, which adds a beautiful romantic feeling to the night. There is liquor and two guitars and a fire which Veronique coaxes out of the cooking remains.


(photo by Veronique Meeuwsen)

People are missing from me and I'm still not used to this feeling. Yet I couldn't be anywhere but here. I am both restless and at peace.

the deep times awake
as i can calm myself to yesterday
the flower has fallen its petals
out of the petals a cradle i will

This is Röskö as I want to remember it. A band of disparate people…maybe not even friends yet, maybe closer than the word "friend" can encompass…and a campfire, and music. These are the little hideaways where secrets and old pains can be brought into the firelight, and examined, and cried over without judgment. This is Ohana in the purest sense.

my cradle rocks with the waves of time
the time of beauty will never be the same
falling again has no man's knowing
please take me, take me with thee

Some of the most peaceful and poignant moments in my life have happened around campfires. How different, how much better would the world be if humans took the time to do this more often?

now i hear my mother from the deep
sing me a lullaby of eternal sleep
with thou replant the plaster call
this and silence we seek to reborn

I wish again that my little Ohana was here.

It starts to rain.


iPod:
The Islander- Nightwish

As the night grows older, a thunderstorm rolls in. My first proper Finnish thunderstorm, you know, with actual thunder and lightning flashes. It is glorious…but it also puts me in mind of home. In three days this will all be just another memory…and in seven more, much of the life I have there will be as well. It's like I have to go home but at the same time, I can't. But I suppose none of us are going straight back to the life we had before, if only in our minds.

an old man by a seashore
at the end of day
gazes the horizon
with seawinds in his face

I think I understand how the Islander must have felt.

this is for long-forgotten light at the end of the world
horizon's crying the tears he left behind long ago

It's after 3AM now and the sky is getting lighter; dawn comes so quickly to Finland in summer. Veronique dances in the rain. I'm not sure I'll sleep now, even though I know my brain has entered its "you've been up too long" fugue state. These are the witching hours, when everyone else I know is either asleep or out of contact. There's nothing left to be done but wait until the world wakes up again.

"be the first to greet the morn…"


iPod:
Shekina- Blindside

vattnet svart (water black)
som månen full (as the moon is full)
varm nattbris viskar (warm nightbreeze whispers)

i'm naked and new (att jag är naken och ny)

i know you're always throwing kisses from the sky
well, tonight i caught one

I know we started going back inside after 3, and I know I finally laid down around 4:30AM…but I have no memory of that hour. None. I suppose I went inside and sat on the couch for a while. I've only had a sip or two of whatever it was we were drinking, yet I feel drunk on the magic of this place and I have nowhere to channel it.

Eventually I can't form coherent thoughts anymore, go upstairs, and go to sleep.


Thursday

iPod:
Satojen Merien Nakija- Johanna Kurkela

runotar vastasyntynyt (a stillborn muse)
haavelaivalla tuonen laineilla (on the imaginary ship on the waves the netherworld)
mikä on tää hiljaisuus (what is this silence)
sineen katoava (that disappears to blue)
rauha kodittoman (peace of the homeless)
tähdenlennon ajan vain (only for the moment of a shooting star)
kaunis, tyyni (beautiful, tranquil)
 
valitsen yhden meren ja oudon veneen (i choose one sea and a strange boat)
joka soutais mut pois (that would row me away)
saari odottaa elämän leskeään (an island is waiting for it's widow of life)
satojen merien näkijää (the seer of hundreds of seas)

I wake when I hear Veronique leaving and then again an hour or so later. Only Tero is awake in our cabin, and he's gone somewhere. It's too bright to feel like morning and too still to feel like anything else. It's like time is still stopped and there's just the sun and wind in the birch trees, and the space between moments. Silence between the notes. Even the thunderstorm of only a few hours ago feels like it never happened.

I go outside and back up to my little canoe hut with Satojen in my ears.



It wanted to be sung to the lake. I oblige.


iPod:
Islander- Falling Up

i'll close the door
there's no one home (everywhere I go)
i'll catch my breath (things get stranger)
but why half live?

alone, isolation, half live

Walking turns to meditation. Where nature and my music and my thoughts all align so I can see what needs to be seen clearly. I can only do this when I'm truly alone.

I follow the same path the art group took the evening before, up across the top and then down into the old bleachers and makkara hut. Finland is such a strange mix of landscapes, especially here in Röskö. It's like someone took the flat marshland and swamps I'm used to in Florida and dumped them on top of Tennessee rocky hills. And added birch trees. Familiar and strange.

Today, I go around back through the marshy tall grass and rocks and stumble upon a ditch full of cattails and an idyllic meadow beyond. And I think, "If I had the proper shoes, I could hop this water and go out there…"



"If I had the proper opportunity, I could stay here."



Jos hurma on ikuinen…

…but maybe the spell of Finland would fade with time and familiarity, like anything. Already I cannot fully immerse myself in Röskö because the people I've grown closest to aren't here to share it.

I find a feather. That's an acknowledgment that yes, I am where I need to be...whether I like it or not.


iPod:
Motorcycle Drive-By- Third Eye Blind

summer time and the wind is blowing outside
in lower chelsea and i don't know
what I'm doing in this city
the sun is always in my eyes
it crashes through the windows
and i'm sleeping on the couch
when i came to visit you
that's when i knew i could never have you
i knew that before you did
still i'm the one who's stupid

I sit in the swing for a while. Here I know I'll find no feathers because I am thinking things that aren't true. Or things that are but shouldn't be. The longer I'm half a world away from anything familiar, the more I lose the ability to tell the difference.

and there's this burning
like there's always been
i never been so alone
and i've never been so alive

Most of it I push it back under the general melancholy of so few days; that's allowed, right? I can feel sad about that. I can pretend this feeling of attachment is more general and less intense than it actually is. I can hide behind nouns to avoid saying names. My tongue has always been better behaved than my mind.

visions of you on a motorcycle drive by
the cigarette ash flies in your eyes
and you don't mind, you smile
and say the world doesn't fit with you
i don't believe you, you're so serene
careening through the universe
your axis on a tilt
you're guiltless and free
i hope you take a piece of me with you

Kaipaatko minua kuin kaipaan teita? Five words, and only one is a lie.




iPod:
Let Her Go- Within Tempation

well you only need the light when it’s burning low
only miss the sun when it starts to snow
only know you love her when you let her go

only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
only hate the road when you’re missin’ home
only know you love her when you let her go

and you let her go

At least we're going back to Kitee today, right? Last night wasn't goodbye, not yet. But if this is how leaving will feel in three days, then I am royally screwed. I can't stand it. Now I have to get up and walk again because I don't want to cry here.

I go toward the other cabins this time, up the rocks, so that I can see the whole of Röskö.



I've probably just taken more pictures here than I have the entire rest of this trip, but I want a thorough visual record of this place. There are at least two Nightwish drawings I have in mind that will have Röskö as a backdrop now. Plus when I get home, pictures and music are all I'll have to remember this by.

I realize I've not yet talked to the willows. Suddenly, in my bones, I know I need to.


iPod:
The Lotus and the Willow- Phantasma

a tree and another tree
each by their own but underneath
a heart shaped knot of roots
connects entire woods



There is a bit of land that extends out into the lake from the shore in a little peninsula, not far from the main dock. I've been out here once, yesterday. What I really wanted to do then was sit down, but this particular bit of land is also apparently where all the local raccoons or hedgehogs do their business…so even walking is a bit precarious if you don't want a surprise on your shoe. So I didn't linger.

Today is different. Today I'm here for the trees. I've never been this close to a willow before; they aren't common where I'm from. Will the trees in Röskö be content like the trees in Kitee, I wonder? There are two; one near the water, one near the land. I go to the one nearest the water first.

it’s a fine line between
solitude and being lonely
like a flower and a tree
that were never meant to be

Of course right now, I'm not in a state to be a particularly good listener. I start by thinking about how beautiful Röskö is but there are just too many thoughts, too many feelings tied up in even such a neutral line of thought. But this willow is…eh, it's hard to explain. Receptive, but a bit standoffish. He tells me in no uncertain terms that he's not the one I need to talk to; she is. The other tree.

‘cause he told me…

Okay, honestly, that's a first. There have been one, maybe two trees in my life who've communicated something that clearly. And it wasn't so much a "you should talk to her"; it was more like "she wants to talk to you". There was also an uncomfortable vibe, like "I don't have any idea how to deal with you, human, but she does so just…go talk to her and leave me alone, yeah?" It was…weird. But I'm not about to argue.

I go to the other tree. What follows is not something easily put in words. Trees don't properly speak; you can't dialogue with one, exactly. It's more like, you have your thoughts and the space between them…that's where you'll find the thoughts that aren't quite yours just before they meld into yours again. It's like they use your own mind to communicate with you. But if it was a dialogue, it went something along the lines of this:

"hello."

"hello."

"the other one said…you wanted to talk to me."

"yes."

"ok."

Silence. Wind. Lapping water.

"what is this, that lays so heavy on your heart?"

"love."

"tell me."

"it hurts. like my heart strains against my chest. like it could fly away and find the ones who've become so precious to me and just…stay there. like this body is too small to contain the whole of this affection. like i cannot possibly bear to let them go, bear to be apart, and yet in so few days i must."

No tears yet, but close.

like the lotus and the willow
at the river by the meadow
come the fall she will sleep
and the willow it weeps

"oh, you humans."

"what?'

"so narcissistic."

"…what?"

"you spin yourselves around half mad chasing nonsense. you, you, you, who am i, what do i want? you spend so much time fretting about one little you apart from another little you that you fail to see that you are none of you apart at all."

At this i'm a bit stunned. She's…not wrong, and all of a sudden my missing friends and not wanting to go home feels…trivial, on the whole of the Earth. I become aware that I've been feeling sorry for myself and that's really a rather pointless thing to do. This is not what I expected or wanted to hear, but that's probably because it's what I need to hear.

"you don't disagree?"

"no."

Silence. Lapping water. Birch leaves.

"what am i supposed to do?"

"you already know."

"let go."

"let go."

Silence. Tears. Feeling my chest ache so badly it's hard to breathe.

"…I don't know how. tell me how to do it, because i just…don't know how."

"the bird, there."

A little bird has landed on the rocks near the water. We both watch it flit around until it flies away again.

"i will likely never see that particular bird again. does that make you sad?"

"yes. how are you not sad?"

"that bird is unique in all the world, and for a moment in time it sheltered here. does its leaving make that untrue?"

"no."

"then what have i lost in its leaving?"

 Silence.

"you're saying that because that particular bird still exists in the world, and it was here…that is enough?"

"is it not?"

"it…should be. but knowing that doesn't make absence hurt less."

My chest aches again.

and like all the star-crossed lovers
say goodbye to one another
like the willow I weep
like the willow I weep

"see, now i'm crying."

"your tears, what do they feel like?'

"…what?"

"on your skin. what do tears feel like?"

"cold. the wind dries them."

"focus on that."

I do. I feel the coolness on my cheeks, the breeze. The birch trees, the water. The sun. And I get it. If I am here, completely present, right now…there's no room for anything else. When I try to be in the future, that's where people and things are absent, so it hurts. But if I'm in this moment, then I am here and they're there and we're all still…here. On this same earth. And I can be without them because I can see that I'm not. In the space of a moment there's only room for love and memory.

"that is how you let go."

"that is how you let go."

"i'm still going to miss them when this is all over."

"you are not without them. are they not right there, inside your heart? do you not carry that which is both yours and theirs?"

"i suppose."

"that is yours. treasure it."

"i…thank you."

And I can sense that we're done. It's only been maybe a minute or two but I feel like the world has shifted sideways. The other feather from Kitee, the one I meant to keep; now I know I need to leave it here with her. I do.

I also promise that I'll find a way to back and come see her again. I think she finds that amusing.




iPod:
The Moment In Which You Must Finally Let Go Of The Tether Which Has Held Your Hope Airborne- William Ackerman

I don't really want to walk anymore after that encounter, so I go back to the main cabin. Everyone is up now. As it's completely obvious I've been crying I admit I've been having an emotional moment. There are more of those, and some sort of bread and more chocolate to eat, and…completely unexpectedly…wifi.



Suddenly I'm no longer completely out of contact and out of the loop. That helps.

Bruna has the lovely idea of each of us writing down our experience at Röskö, how it made us feel, memories…and leaving these here for others who come after to read. I have a clear memory of sitting down to do that but no memory whatsoever of what I wrote. I hope it wasn't too cloud cuckoolander weird.


iPod:
Love Song- Hanson

the wind it blows
through the trees
claiming those
innocent leaves
and the thunder rolls
these crashing seas
like a tender kiss
holds its heart
in me

When you're thrown together with thirty people for two weeks, there's no way you're going to get to know them all…especially when you're all busy for most of that time with your own activities. I'm doubly glad for that night at Röskö now, because it gave me a brief chance to spend time with some different people; people I might not have gotten to know otherwise.

Sometimes my first impression of someone is spot-on…and other times it's not. But every time I get to know a person and find my impression of them was off, I try to learn from that. I'm less likely to be misled when I meet someone else who talks or acts a certain way in the future.  I love people in a weird, introverted way: I will watch you, analyze you, be endlessly fascinated and amused, and bits of you will probably end up in a character in one of my stories. We are complex and baffling creatures and as a writer, it's my job to try and capture that. Just…don't take me to a party and expect me to socialize.

Everyone has a story, and part of the privilege of KIMAF is hearing stories from all over the world. Not the big, obvious things, the headliner stories that manage to break their way through the isolated American bubble…but the common, everyday, "this is just how we do things" kind of stories. Things only a person from that particular place would know. There are similarities across cultures that I'd never expect…but maybe that's because people who tend to like Nightwish already have interests and ways of looking at the world in common.

And some things are universal. Love, heartbreak, scars, struggle, hope.

in this life long
love song
you can love right
you can love wrong
in this love song
you can love long
but if you love wrong
it doesn't mean love's gone

In the afternoon, first Teodora, then I, then Lexi go swimming in the lake.


(photos of Lexi and I taken by Bruna Christine)

And it is freaking cold. But it's the kind of cold you don't feel after the first thirty seconds, which makes it actually more bearable than the pool in Kitee. Except when your limbs start slowing down and you think, "Hmm, maybe I should get out now…"

It's been a very long time since I've gone swimming in a lake, and I don't think I've ever swum in one this big. (Swam? Swum? My native ear says "swum", and it was right, but I had to look up why. English is ridiculous.) It was a teeny bit scary, to be honest, being immersed in this cold, open body of water, not really knowing what's in there with you, not knowing how far down the bottom is, with only your own strength keeping the black from swallowing you up…

But at least I don't have to worry about alligators.


iPod:
Last of the Wilds- Nightwish

I have been eyeing the wild berry bushes ever since I got here, but now I finally have the chance to get a cup and go pick some. I'm in Finland; how can I not go berry picking? The wild raspberries in Röskö are small and super sweet, much better than what you can get in a store.



I feel like a child in the best possible way and don't care if I'm being ridiculous.



People start contemplating staying another night, and normally I'd be right there with them…but there's only three days left now and I want to spend them with my friends. So, only Lexi and I are heading back to the school today. Tero can only take us one at a time because he has his family in the car with him. Lexi goes first.

In the half-hour I have left to kill, we decide to take a rowboat out on the lake.

I'm not unfamiliar with boats. I've gone sailing on the schooner Lewis R. French in Maine six or seven times now, and one thing you do a lot of is getting into and out of rowboats. I've been in a small boat being launched into the water from land, but I've never actually done it. But with lots of false starts and rearranging of people and determination, we manage it. I'm in the bow, Bruna and Teodora are in the middle, and Dobrin is in the stern with the oars.



I must be more used to what "normal" boat motion feels like (as opposed to "oh god we're going to tip over" motion) than I realize, because I'm perfectly fine with all the little dips that are making the others reflexively grab the sides of the boat.



We row out toward the island to the left of the dock. I have my phone and play all the water and ocean-based Nightwish songs I can think of, plus Moondance and Last of the Wilds.



We see a gull on a rock, just standing there like he's guarding the island, but we don't get very close. His presence seems like a good omen.



Growing up on the coast, Nightwish and my experiences sailing in Maine means that the ocean has always played a dominant in my inner mindscape, as it were. It's not an obsession for me the way it is in Tuomas' lyrics, maybe because I know her too well. But when I stand on a shore and look out over the water, or venture into the waves, I can feel the sea's call. A lake isn't the sea but they do feel similar, especially from a boat on an overcast day, when the water is stormy gray and the air is cool and fresh.

I wish we had more time out here. But I'm still anxious to get back.


iPod:
Full of Grace- Sarah McLachlan

if all of the strength
and all of the courage
come and lift me from this place
i know i could love you much better than this
full of grace
full of grace
my love

The drive back is uneventful, except for briefly getting to see Tero's house along the way. I wish my Finnish was better. Tero seems like one of those quiet people who always turn out to hiding an amazing personality if you can just get them talking, but that's hard to do with a language gap. His kids are in the backseat chattering away…and I'm eavesdropping and feeling bad for eavesdropping and thinking Finnish sounds adorable in a child's voice and reminded of my own son all at the same time.

All the people that have helped put this event together and make it what it is: the Dimovs, Eeva, Tero, the workers at the school, the Holopainens…they've all been so amazingly good to us. It's like we've all been adopted into this strange and wonderful extended Finnish family. There aren't words to describe how that feels, or how grateful I am for everything.


iPod:
Feel the Light- Jennifer Lopez

Have you ever wanted to see someone so badly that you turn a corner and there's just no way you won't see them? Of course they will be there; you can feel it. The moment we pull into the school parking lot, there are Adrian and Kate walking across it. You seriously can't time it any better than that.

That was a good moment.

do you remember when we fell under
did you expect me to reason with thunder
i still remember when time was frozen
what seemed forever was just a moment
hurry up, hurry up
there's no more waiting
we're still worth saving


iPod:
Closing Time- Semisonic

closing time
open all the doors and let you out into the world
closing time
turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl
closing time
one last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
closing time
you don't have to go home but you can't stay here

The hours between coming back to the school and sauna are hazy. The only thing I know I did was walk to the lake, because I have the picture to prove it…that was the time I ran into Magda just before starting the trek back. Trust two introverts to have the same idea. There was wind and rough water and a good talk.

I find another feather. This one stays with me.



And I know I must have gone to night snack, because I hadn't eaten much and would have been hungry. I do have the vaguest recollection of a sandwich.


(photo by Plamen Dimov)

Some people have already left, and others are leaving tomorrow. The group already feels a bit incomplete.

i know who i want to take me home…


iPod:
Deep Silent Complete- Nightwish

the age will say “this poet lies”
heaven never touched earthly face
the age will say “this night was ours”
blessed with the deep
the silent the complete

Last sauna night of the trip. I realize I'm going to miss having access to a pool every day…but the place we're moving to will have one so maybe I could actually make swimming into a habit. This was the second "attempt to hit the ball around the pool" game, and I think this was also the night my vertigo gave me trouble. It would make sense…I'd stayed up past 4 the night before and eaten very little.

It's going to be weird to be surrounded by people who speak only English when I get home.

I'm pretty sure this was also the first night we stayed in Alexandra's and Dmitry's building until like 3AM, playing a game they call "crocodile" but which I would call charades. I have a slight advantage in this; being the only native English speaker, I don't have the extra step of mentally translating my guesses. I have never actually played charades before and with this group, it's particularly fun.

Why did we wait until nearly the last night to do this?

Kiteen playlist

Go on to Part 5

Go back to Part 2 here.

Saturday

iPod:
Edge of the World- Within Temptation

i'm gonna run to the edge of the world
run to the edge of the world
feel that i'm gonna get home if i try
i'm gonna run to the edge of the world
run to the edge of the world
need to find my way home

Joensuu day.

Kitee is nice but I'm anxious to see a bit more of Finland than just the airport, a few train stations, and one small town. It's an hour drive, so there's plenty of time to put on the headphones and listen through the songs I've collected for this trip so far.

The street lines are wrong. Odd thing to notice, but I do all the same. What's weird is that I can't quite put my finger on why they look "off" to me. I want to say the edges are too square, but no, I think they're just thinner than I'm used to seeing on American roads.

See, this is why I hope we as a species never spontaneously develop telepathy. The random inane crap that cycles through my head on a regular basis, oi.




iPod:
Godspeed- Anberlin

burning down neverland
scatter the ashes
white lines black tar the matches
is this another death by misadventure
tell me what you got, what you really got

Sometimes my phone has this one song it keeps shuffling to. Today it's Godspeed by Anberlin; one of the handful of Christian bands I can still stand to listen to. It's a good traveling song and seems to fit especially well for the approach into Joensuu. The city is not unlike the downtown areas of, say, Jacksonville or Tampa: lots of small shops and curious places hidden in block-long, several story high buildings.



Today is another open air concert day for the music groups, part of an overall larger festival that's been happening in Joensuu for the last couple days. Once we get off the bus we have some time before they perform, so we're allowed to go exploring. Magda and I split off from the main group to try and track down a little bookstore we spotted from the bus coming in.

Joensuu is full of oddities. I don't know if that's true of all Finnish cities…Finnish people do have a certain odd, wry sense of humor…but where else would you find a bronze sculpture of a smirking wolf in a suit on a random bench?



Or a wooden fish.



Or a giant nest with a giant blue-green egg at the bridge…



Lots of walking and many pictures later, we find a bookstore. Not the one we were looking for, but eh, books are books. There's also a rack of CD's, which I paw through hoping to find something by Johanna Kurkela. (This is also one of my goals while in Finland. Her music is danged difficult to get hold of in the States). I don't, but I do find a copy of Hanson's Middle of Nowhere…appropriate, yeah? I also find lots of Oasis music. Oh, does that bring back high school memories. I guess someone was a fan.

We walk farther and finally find the bookstore, and I score a copy of the first book of the Belgariad in Finnish. I've always loved that series and I own it in English, so, this will definitely be one of my practice books. I also find a copy of the second half of the first book of the Wheel of Time, which I also get. We then happen upon a game shop. They have Magic cards, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me, and a few lovely maps of worlds that neither of us recognize (that all the place names are in Finnish doesn't exactly help). We walk to the bridge and take more pictures.

Finnish dumpsters are weird looking. I spot a cat sculpture that looks strangely like one my husband and I acquired in North Carolina. Finnish flats don't seem to have curtains on their windows.

But now it's time to head back to the music square.


iPod:
Escapist- Nightwish

a nightingale in a golden cage
that's me locked inside reality's maze
come someone make my heavy heart light
it all starts with a lullaby

By now, I've heard most of the Nightwish renditions that our group has done. That GSoE/SBtB medley, in particular, does not get old. But the interesting part to me now is watching how other people react; people who haven't heard them yet. Is the average person in Finland familiar with Nightwish music? Hard to tell. If not, do they appreciate the songs on their own merit? I think so. They damn well should.

Nobody has attempted Escapist yet, though…

Tangent time again.

I can distinctly remember when Escapist became one of my favorite songs, because it helped me solve a character problem in a story I was working on at the time. A girl who was chosen by a black owl to enter a forest and marry the forest king. In my dream, the king was this sort of Peter Pan-like character, but in order for the actual story to work he needed to be something slightly less whimsical. Problem is, I didn't know what.

I had most of the book plotted out: I had a whole opening scene where my protagonist, Lily, is in her house at night and can't sleep. The black owl comes and taps on her window; she goes outside and follows it into the morning; she wakes up and the forest king is sitting there with her, playing a flute. But I was having a difficult time breaking this mysterious character out of the Peter Pan stereotype he grew from. Who is he, what does he want, what stake does he have in this story?

Meanwhile, sometime after my first Nightwish concert (and thus me still in a NW 24/7 mood), I'm reworking this story in my mind and I turn on Escapist…

who's there knocking at my window?
the owl and the dead boy
this night whispers my name
all the dying children

virgin snow beneath my feet
painting the world in white
i tread the way and lose myself into a tale

…and I just about fell off the couch, because that was my story. Almost image identical to that first scene. And my forest king, Auru…he's like the Dead Boy. Reluctant ruler of the last wilderness. Plays the flute = songwriter. Musician. Mysterious and sad. A dreamer hemmed in by the world. Now I have a character I can work with, because I know the Dead Boy very, very well. Suddenly I have a set of strengths and, more importantly, flaws to work with in refining Auru.

“i’m a puppet on this silent stage show.

i’m but a poet who failed his best play.

a dead boy, who failed to write an ending to each of his poems.”

“a nightingale in a golden cage

that’s me locked inside reality’s maze”

“blame me, it’s me

coward, good for nothing scapegoat

dumb kid, living a dream

romantic only on paper”

“sing what you can’t say

forget what you can’t play”

“get away, run away, fly away

lead me astray to dreamer’s hideaway”

“you told I had the eyes of the wolf

search them and find the beauty of the beast”

“so much more I wanted to give to the ones who love me…i’m sorry”

I can combine the idea of a reluctant ruler with an escapist and get a struggling character who’d love nothing more than to go back to the days where he didn’t have to care about anything, where he wasn’t responsible for the last of his people and the last Forest…where he wasn’t failing everyone he loves, but who feels he can’t give up.

And Escapist is full of other imagery I can use.

There are very, very few voices I can imagine doing justice to that song, which is why I always get a little nervous when someone says they're going to cover it.

Minniva has one of those few voices that's powerful and clear and innocent enough to pull it off. I am impressed.

come someone make my heavy heart light
come undone bring me back to life


iPod:
Winds of Change- Kutless

do you feel the winds of change
soon this weight will fall away
and take you to a place
only found through these winds of change

a breeze that's new and free
new and free

After the concert we have a bit more time, so Magda and I go into the nearby mall looking for lunch. We end up at a Subway…and as I remember from my trip to Europe fifteen years ago, big chains are pretty much the same no matter where in the world you find them. This is the most time I've spent with just one other person during this whole event, and I think my first impression of Magda was pretty accurate: we are a lot alike.

What is that meme? "Friendship is so weird. You just pick a human you've met and you're like yup I like this one and you just do stuff with them."

In the mall again, and we find the most perfect store in existence: a bookstore with an art supply shop right above it. Aaaand we've only got like fifteen minutes left before we have to be back at the bus. Which might be just as well…less temptation to spend money. I can remember how badly I missed having a palette knife when I was painting Aino, and am tempted to get one…but I have one at home and I don't know that I'm going to be doing any more painting while I'm here.

We get back on the bus and a unicorn hunt unexpectedly pays off...




iPod:
Star Sky instrumental- Two Steps From Hell

Most people sleep on the ride home. I'm lucky I can't, because I know exactly how utterly ridiculous I look when I fall asleep in an upright chair. (I have a horrible picture from high school to prove it.) So on come the headphones again.

Ever had a feeling you daren't name, because speaking it will make it real?

I know the words to this song but I can't sing them yet. I'm not…quite ready.

This trip is testing me. I've made one major step, but I can sense another on the horizon. It's like holding the tether on a bird…I want to hold it close because it's beautiful, but at the same time, I know I have to let it go because its freedom is exactly what I find beautiful about it.

Not to mention the uncomfortable truth that the tether never belonged to me in the first place.


iPod:
Lasienkeli- Indica

pysy paikallasi hiljaa (stay quiet on your place)
silloin kaunis oot, lasienkeli (then you are beautiful, glass angel)
pidä suusi kiinni (keep your mouth shut)
sillä koskaan totta eivät ole sanasi (because your words are never truth)

Somewhere in the space between Joensuu and Sunday, I have a fantastic idea for a drawing. I want to depict the Oceansouls and the Wishmasters…not so much as they are but as I hear them when they perform. On a seashore like sirens or in a deep forest as wizards, respectively. Very fantastical. But…there aren't many days left. There's no way in hell I'm going to finish one drawing like that, let alone two. Yet I also can't bear to just wait until I get home. The inspiration bolt does not strike like fire very often, so when it does, you go with it.

Joensuu is also a turning point in that suddenly I feel like I can ask where people are and what they're doing and do they want to do this other thing? This is something I have trouble with because I have this stupid, unreasonable need not to seem needy or clingy. It's not that I don't keep track of people…I do, rather obsessively at times…or that I don't care if they're around or not. I do. I care too much, which is what makes me afraid to need people. Now I feel like we've been through enough together, we've forged something real here, therefore I am allowed to miss you. Where I have always noticed your absence, now I am allowed to verbally comment on it.

This is freeing.

This is also precarious.
 
sinun läpi nään kun suunnittelet (i see through you, when you are planning)
kuinka avaat siipesi (to open up your wings)
siksi vahdin (that's why i watch you)
ettei lentoon pääse enää lasienkeli (so the glass angel won't get to fly)


iPod:
Champagne Supernova- Oasis

wake up the dawn and ask her why
a dreamer dreams she never dies
wipe that tear away now from your eye
slowly walking down the hall
faster than a cannon ball
where were you while we were getting high?

I know I must have gone to sauna…in fact I'm almost sure I did every night from Saturday to Röskö…but now I can't remember each separate night. Again, my mind is full of little moments, but I can't place them in order.

There was the night…Saturday night, I think…where Plamen had me try Tennessee moonshine for the first time (never again!). Someone dropped a glass. It was good that I had shoes on.

There was the night Dean brought a ball to the pool and we played this ridiculous game of passing it around and making noises. I fell in trying to catch the ball at one point and bruised my toe.

There was the night we sang Turn Loose the Mermaids with Veronique.

There was the night I came out of the steam sauna and managed to sing a piece of Deep Silent Complete and not sound horrible, which I had never been able to do before and haven't been able to do since.

There was the night Emil slipped and cut his back.

There was the night I stayed three hours because people kept showing up right about the time I'd been about to leave.

There was the night someone made the sauna so hot everyone cleared out in a panting horde, after which every time I came out of a hot sauna and Adrian was around, he would splash water on me. I think that was the same night Dmitry showed me the shower with the disconnecting head and I got my revenge…and then Dean found the hose and mild chaos ensued.

There was the night my vertigo started acting up again so bad I had to sit in the shower room for a long while.

Some of these things probably happened on the same night.

I can't remember.

some day you will find me
caught beneath the landslide
in a champagne supernova in the sky


Sunday

iPod:
Sabra Girl- Nickel Creek

lonely the life that once i led
strange the paths on which we tread
led me to you, unlikely but true
sabra girl, clouding my view

rainy the day, the first time we met
deep was the talk, forever my debt
it didn't seem wrong, to sing a sad song
sabra girl, soon you'd be gone

Sunday, I think, is the day time speeds up. Up until this point, we've done so much that it hardly seems possible that so few days have passed. Now we've hit the midpoint. This is the day of the last major concert.

I spend the morning planning out the Oceansouls drawing and gathering source images. At one point I had to go snap a few photos of Dean at the piano, because I couldn't find any that were close enough to what I wanted. I hope I didn't embarrass him too much, but I did get the shot I needed.

The key gets locked in the cave sometime after lunch. I get Plamen to open it again. I keep working.

In the back of my mind I'm starting to feel the tiny grains of sand ticking down.


iPod:
Army of Dolls- Delain

how do you look into the mirror
when you’re too tired to fake a smile
your misery won’t make you look thinner
reality is bitter
it’s your hand and yours alone that has opened
the door to let their voices in
into your head, under your skin
fix your face or you will never fit in

In looking through pictures of an event that you're part of…as I'm doing for this drawing…inevitably you're going to find pictures of yourself. Even as camera-shy as a person as I am, there are still a few.

I admit I've never much liked how I look on camera. I envy that little worldbuilding aspect of the Matrix, where your Matrix body is not quite how you actually look, but how you think you look. Of course, if that was reality I'd probably look like a different person every single day, so…

It's funny, I don't have this issue with the mirror. I can look at my own face and see that my features aren't unpleasant to look at. But every time I happen across a photo of myself I can't help that treacherous little voice in my head that goes, "Ugh, is that really what I look like? Is that what people see when they look at me?" It doesn't help that in practically every photo (if I'm aware of the camera), I'm wearing this "mildly perplexed to find myself in the picture at all" uncomfortable smile.

Obviously it doesn't matter; it never has. If I'm going to earn someone's respect or admiration, I want it to be for my art or writing or something I've done, something worthwhile…not how similar my face or body is to some subjective ideal standard of beauty. I've had this talk with myself. Hell, probably everyone has; we even had it in the sauna one night. "If I was beautiful, what would I do with it? What purpose would it serve in my life?" And I can never think of an answer that gives me any sort of satisfaction. I don't need to attract that sort of attention, being married and all, you know?

Outer beauty fades, looks don't matter, it's what's inside that counts. We keep saying these things to one another because they are true…even when deep down they don't feel true. Perhaps that's when it's most important to say them…when they don't feel true.

Some things are true whether you believe it or not.

But still.

Still.

A certain love affair with the beautiful comes with being an artist. I still see it in people; I'm still pulled toward it. And there's always going to be that secret wish for the pull to be reciprocated. We are all such vain little apes in the end, I suppose.


iPod:
Scarlet- Delain

like a flower, grows on intentionally towards the sun
i grow towards the one that hurts me most

To choose a road is to to forsake all other roads, else you hesitate so long at the crossroads that the sun sets and all the paths become closed to you. You can't spend so much time looking back that you neglect to move forward.

As Dumbledore says, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

It is not regret, to admit to yourself that those other roads still appeal to you. It is not betrayal, to look back and wonder where another road might have gone. Or maybe it is…and if so I stand guilty as charged.

So much of what I love about this place lies on roads no longer open to me. And the longer I'm here, the clearer that becomes to me. And the more it breaks my heart.


iPod:
The Heart Asks Pleasure First- Nightwish

silent night surrounding me
on the shore of wistful sea
a kindest heart made me believe
the world as i wish it to be

wind in the wheat
kiss by a hearth
little hideaways for a lonely heart

I remember Sunday as a melancholy day, though it was really no different than any other "typical" day. Maybe it was the familiarity of it all. I am becoming accustomed to this routine of meals, art, concert, sauna, and whatever happens in between. I know everyone's face and most everyone's name (that's how horrible I am with names; even as late as Sunday, I can still positively name only like three-quarters of the group.) I've gotten used to the campus, to the little bit of Kitee we've walked over the last week.

The thing is, always in the back of my mind is the knowledge that a week after I return from Finland, we've moving across the state. I likely will not recognize the state of my own house when I get back, and then we throw all our crap in a truck and leave it behind forever. It's not like I've never traveled…but I have never lived more than 20 miles away from the place I was born.

In Kitee I am as far away from home as I have ever been in my life, and it feels very much like I'm never actually going home. And so I feel a bit cast adrift, with only the friends I've made here to anchor me.

And I've only got one more week with them.


iPod:
Turn Loose the Mermaids- Nightwish

oh, how beautiful it used to be
just you and me far beyond the sea
the waters, scarce in motion
quivering still

The concert is a Nightwish love fest, music-wise. And thanks to Dmitry's computer wizardry, we're able to project images that the art group has made onto the curtain behind the stage during the performances. So it kinda feels like everyone is part of the last big musical hurrah.

They perform a lot of songs that I've drawn. So…I have quite a number of my pieces shown over the course of the concert, and I don't quite know how to feel about this. I have so many dry spells where I just can't seem to get anything done that I lose sight of the fact that, yes, I've actually done a hell of a lot of Nightwish art over the last three years.

I remember drawing Turn Loose the Mermaids. That was my first properly difficult one, I think, because I just could not nail down a unifying theme. I scrapped two different layouts before deciding to tie it in with the Lady of Shallot mythology. I call Mermaids my "magic song" because such odd things seem to cross my path whenever I listen to it. Like the morning I awoke to find our apartment lake full of huge white pelicans (which I had never seen in Florida before). Or like the night I saw a single paper lantern floating down US1.

I'm glad they did Mermaids. It's gorgeous and melancholy and so under-appreciated.




iPod:
The Greatest Show on Earth- Nightwish

Oh, so this is the concert during which we're going to sing the Toolmaker? I had started to wonder.

And poor Andrew has the KIMAF plague.

I think it was a lovely idea to both start and finish the concert with The Greatest Show on Earth…it's like a full circle. Us few brave souls in the art group got to join in for the Toolmaker bit. I wish I'd had a bit more time to learn the alto part properly, but again, nobody is really going to hear me, so eh, I do my best.

I miss choir.

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of those stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

This song. This massive, absurd, incredible song. You can't even just sit down and listen to it from beginning to end unless you've got half an hour to spare. It was this quote, however, that really caught me the first time I heard it. It just…didn't go where I expected it to at all. The first line alone is so ridiculous that you have to stop and listen.

Most people in my life would find that quote depressing, or hopeless, or proof that atheists have nothing to live for. I feel quite the opposite. If by chance I am here, in place of so many who aren't…how can I do anything less than strive to make that chance mean something? Those words make me want to live up to them, if that makes any sense. I will die but by all the gods that may or may not exist, I will have lived before I do.

Coming to Kitee never made any sense in the context of my nice little responsible life, and it's possibly that I may never be able to come back. But what the hell is the point of jobs and money and school and living, if you never let yourself do the things you just love to do, for no other reason? Join your voice and talent and time with other likeminded people just because it's beautiful and magical and you can?

I am alive here. That should be reason enough.


iPod:
Storytime- Nightwish



i am the journey
i am the destination
i am the home
the tale that reads you
a way to taste the night
the elusive high
follow the madness
alice you know once did

After the concert, Plamen takes a few of us who haven't yet been down to the studio under the school. This is, we're told, where Nightwish recorded their first two albums. We then get to sign the wall, which is an amazing privilege.



Coming back up, we stumble upon a spontaneous sing-along of Élan. Remember how I said I love hanging around with musicians? This is why. This is exactly why.



Storytime is my "muse" song; the one that describes who I strive to be as an artist. "I am the voice of never never land"…as a fantasy writer, that's exactly what I perceive my task to be. All the crazy poignant amazing worlds I see in my mind, I want other people to see them too.

It's a good end for the day.


Monday

iPod:
Askeleet- Indica

On Monday we finally get to go inside the Nightwish museum. Well, those of us who haven't been yet, that is…I think it's one of those things you do once or twice and then you're like, "Okay, I've seen this; don't really need to see it again." The Nightwish section is actually a room within the much bigger Kitee museum, which is full of all sorts of old, dusty, curious Finnish things. I'm pleased to finally see the place for myself…I've heard so much about it…but I wonder if the experience would have been different if we'd done this at the beginning of last week.

I think I've become a bit…inoculated to the constant barrage of Nightwish related music and trivia and doing what most fans only dream about. The things in that room are extremely interesting, but the fact that this is Tuomas' first keyboard, or this jacket was worn by Tarja at such-and-such concert…eh, it's all just stuff, you know? Things are just things in the end, and it's not the things I love. But on the other hand, that is kind of just how I am. I've never been much infatuated with collecting famous signatures, or with touching something just because a person I admire once held it, or owning something of theirs just because it was theirs. It's not their touch that's magical to me.

Okay…I admit I do like getting my artwork signed. But it's because that feels more like an exchange of respect.

The absolute closest I came to a heart-skipping moment was seeing the actual physical demo tape of the first three Nightwish songs, because that's literally where it all started.



The figurine shelf is precious.



Somebody carved a Wishmaster sword, because why not.



I take pictures of the photos from Tuomas' young days and feel utterly skeevy about it…but one drawing I have planned for the future is of the Dead Boy, and I know I'll need a face to work from. I don't particularly want to have to scour the internet looking for pics like that; I'd rather just have my own references if I need them.

There's a fantastic old organ that still works, and manages to make any song you play on it sound like a track from a classic horror film.



I collect more Finnish reading material.



anna olla (let it be)
aio en (i won't)
nousta vastaan (rise against)
vaikenen (i'll stay silent)
 
vain katselen kun menet pois (i'm just watching as you go away)
vain katselen (i'm just watching)

anna olla (let it be)
aio en (i won't)
viedä muilta (take it away from others)
vaikenen (i'll stay silent)
 
vain katselen kun menet pois (i'm just watching as you go away)
vain katselen (i'm just watching)
ne häviää (they disappear)
vain kuuntelen (i'm just listening)
askeleet vain kuuntelen (i'll only hear the steps)

I kinda wish the whole group was here. I've gotten to a point where I can imagine how the inevitable running commentary would go.

I'm going to miss that.


iPod:
Comalies- Lacuna Coil

slegami (unleash me)
dal mio rimorso (from my remorse)
sei diverso (you are different)
mentre muoio e poi (while i am dying and then)
risorgo dentro te (i'm rising again inside you)

finchè vivrò (as long as i live)
ricordarti così (remembering you like this)
sarà una colpa eterna su di me (will be an eternal blame on me)

I also spent a lot of Monday working on the Oceansouls drawing.



I've already decided that I'm going to finish it with my Copic markers at home, and all too soon I get to a point where I have to say, "I can't take this any further while I'm here." Getting each face right has been a challenge and I love it, although I've also been fighting my aversion to drawing people I'm fond of.

I guess that needs explaining.

I'm both an extremely visual and tactile person. I think in images and I like to touch things: trees, banisters, railings, furniture, animals. It's why I walk barefooted any time I can get away with it. It grounds me, makes me feel connected to wherever I am. This translates to my art in that when I'm drawing an object, in my mind it feels very much like running a hand over whatever I'm putting on paper. I am, quite literally, capturing it. It's one of the things I find soothing about drawing; the time you spend studying and wrestling with your subject; the way you have to brood over every line, every curve, every angle; the way you feel like you know that object (or person) so much better when you're finished. It's probably the closest sensation to an act of worship as an agnostic can get.

I can draw, say, a chair without feeling weird because the chair, being inanimate, doesn't care if I run my hands all over it. I don't need its consent. I can draw other people's pets because I know I'll do them justice…I will learn in petting them how they like being petted, in a sense. I can draw my family, my cats, people close to me…because in my mind, they already know and welcome my touch.

It's drawing people that I like but whom I don't know well, or know at all, that messes with my head. I feel like I'm caressing every line and shade of their face with a pencil and I simultaneously feel like I do not have permission to do this. It just feels weird in a way I can't quite explain, and it's worse when drawing guys. (Guess why.) It's why I so rarely draw the members of Nightwish, and Tuomas in particular. I love their music a little bit too much.

I can do the music groups if I just don't let my brain get started.

I'm honestly not sure if drawing the art group would feel weird…or it wouldn't.


iPod:
Hello Alone- Anberlin

is this where the interstate ends?
in coastal towns like this
waiting for my world to cave under
we seem to invent ourselves
in the places left unknown
if hope could only find me out

is this the end of everything we've known?
this is the end of everything i am

is anybody out there?
hello! hello!
broken hearts like promises are left for lesser knowns
is anybody out there?
alone! alone!
cause the coldest winters thrive...

It's overcast and drippy outside, and much of the music group is either sick or recovering from being sick. The KIMAF plague has been making its rounds through the school since last week. It's had its way with Alexandra and then Kate a bit later, but other than that it seems to have left the art group mostly alone. But even so, the school feels particularly lonely and deserted today.

The brightest spot that afternoon, and this sounds odd even to me, is when Dean tracked me down and pointed out that I had Dubravka's arm positioned wrong in my drawing. Okay but so, this means they've looked at it, they like it, and they want it to be right as much as I do. That's a good thing. Ten years as a writer has taught me to love criticism; that's how you find out where you can fix things, make them better. And it's an easy fix, even if I am a little embarrassed I didn't notice the oops myself.

Night…or what passes for night in a Finnish summer… falls a little too soon.

I go for a walk.


iPod:
Start Swimming- Delain

i'm waiting for another day
i'm waiting for the clock to reach the six and twelve
i'm waiting for a holiday
i'm waiting for myself

i'm waiting for another day
i'm waiting for the clock to reach the six and twelve
i'm waiting for a holiday
i'm waiting for myself

And wouldn't you know it, the one time I go for a walk and actually, honestly, truly mean to do so alone…not the aimless nonchalant wandering of hoping to run into someone (I am so guilty of doing this), but a thinking walk…I run smack into the very people I've gone off on my own to think about. And it's lovely. And I sort of feel like a stalker, even though for once this was just an actual random chance meeting.

and all i seem to hear is stop, stop
i'm catching up on you
don't leave me behind
i can't see a soul out here
it's dark, dark
i'm catching up on you

and all i wonder is why?
why do i try to start running
what am i running for?

And I still don't know how to walk within a group and not feel like the odd one out.

And I still feel like I'm not allowed to like this as much as I do.

And I'm starting to feel like time's running out.

I'm starting to ignore my own rules.

It's not like anyone except me would know it.


iPod:
The Crow, the Owl, and the Dove- Nightwish

I walk back to the school with the group, but…I am still restless, I still need to get away. So I essentially start my walk over again. I put the headphones back in and scroll around, and The Crow, the Owl, and the Dove jumps out at me as the song I need to hear right now.

don't give me love, don't give me faith
wisdom nor pride, give innocence instead
don't give me love, i've had my share
beauty nor rest, give me truth instead

I wish I knew Tuomas well enough to ask him what inspired him to write these lyrics. Was it personal or was it just a story in his mind? Why those particular birds?

In my mind, each bird represents a trial that the writer must take on and overcome. Each bird is its own temptation. Each time, the writer must learn the lesson that bird teaches before he can move on, before he can even acknowledge the need to move on: "…but needed nothing it had." Each bird gets a little closer to his heart, each one is harder to move on from. But since the beginning, the writer has known what he needs. Innocence, and truth.

I interpret the chorus as a plea and a confession. Don't give me love…because I won't be able to resist. Don't give me faith…I will abuse it. Don't pile wisdom and pride and beauty and rest and all these things between myself and the truth, because I won't be able to see around them.

Please don't tempt me to stay, because I cannot.

My birds are different…but I've also known three: Raven. Phoenix. Nightingale. Giving them a name is the first stage in acknowledging that I have something to learn from them. Taking that name for myself is my acknowledgement that I have learned the lesson. So much of what goes through my head on this subject probably wouldn't make any sense to anyone but me…but as far as what it feels like, Crow is the closest thing I can point at to describe it.

Raven started in college, when I fell into a major depression and a spiritual crisis. It taught me who am I and what I believe, and it took me four years to get through it. My computer hard drive is still called Raven's Nest. I took the name…and married the one who carried it first.

Phoenix was a very different trial, probably because Phoenix himself remains to this day one of the most uncommon people I've ever met. I fell and I fell hard, and there was never anything there except in my own mind. Some of the best poetry I've ever written comes from this trial, because it was a damned roller coaster of getting burned over and over again because I couldn't let go. He's the reason I know how to identify what a dangerous infatuation feels like, how to hold a person at arm's length, how to keep an open heart even after it's been broken a few times. I'm still Nightphoenix online in more than a few places.

Nightingale started when a Nightwish song carried me out an art draught to draw a panther in a forest…and it ends when I leave Kitee. His lesson has been all about learning how to let go of the paths you didn't choose. And learning to make the most of the paths you did choose.

The girl in my drawing of The Crow, the Owl, and the Dove is my own inner self, releasing a nightingale into the sky. Letting go of that which you can't keep.



"don't give me love…"

While studying Finnish, I happened to wonder what the Finnish word for nightingale was and looked it up. Satakieli, which means "hundred tongues". And…I knew that was the name I hadn't yet been able to find, because hundred tongues could just as easily describe a mockingbird.

That was three weeks before I came to Finland.

"…give me truth instead."

This will be a good ending to Nightingale. Going home, moving, starting all over again…that will be the start of something else. I have no idea what it will look like. It occurs to me now, on this second walk, that I've never been cognizant of a trial's ending before. Usually I figure all this out after the fact. Maybe…maybe that's a sign of growth?



I meet a hedgehog on the way back, and spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get its picture. (And fail; it's just too dark). I take grainy pictures of the moon, because as it's coming up over the trees, it looks sort of like the Eye of Sauron.



I then run into Adrian and Kate coming out of their room at like 2AM as I pass by, which is again remarkably good timing. Hmm, but my timing in only this good when my subconscious is awake and paying attention, which means…that I need to be around people right now, perhaps. They want tea and I tag along, as I'm in kind of a fugue-ish state and I'm not really ready to sleep. There's a crowd in the common room even this late. There's no tea to be found but Jay has some very good chocolate coffee. We sit and talk about gods only know what, because again, fugue state of mind.

It's very late when I finally get to bed.


Tuesday

iPod:
Incomplete- Phantasma

when I was a young girl
father said to me
life is nothing like a grand symphony

I wake up absurdly early Tuesday morning. Like, I went to bed at 2:30AM and it's like 6:45AM and I can't get back to sleep so I might as well get up. There's still an hour before breakfast even starts and goodness knows how long before anyone else wakes up, so what the hell do I do with myself? Of course, I go for another walk.

it's like when you know this one line
sing it and repeat
but you don't recall the rest of the song
it's incomplete

I go to the lake, because I have yet to see it in the morning. I feel less like a stranger here now; with so few days left, I'm finally getting truly comfortable in this town. It's deserted and cool and very, very bright. I climb up on the high jump-off point and watch the terns circle over the water for a while.



you can spend your whole life
trying to recall
or enjoy the sound you've known

I love this place. I love the way the air smells and the water tastes and the lake and even the stupid mosquitoes are nothing I haven't had to deal with in Florida. I don't even have the urge to look at my phone. I can just sit here and be.

all the words and the melodies
don't they taste sweet
why would you go and chase bigger dreams?

And it's all just a stopover place on the road of the rest of my life. I'm not like the others here, with every path still open to them. I'm not just starting out in my life; I'm fast approaching the one-third mark. I'm nearly ten years older than every friend I've made this week, and right now, in moments like this, I feel it. Maybe a ten-year age gap isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things…it's not like I'm old enough to be anyone's mother!…but I still feel it.

I feel it because I have spent every glorious moment in this place knowing, knowing that I cannot stay. I can't make this into anything more than it already is, and what it is will always feel incomplete. I can agree with the others about how nice it would be to live here, but I can't actually seriously entertain the idea. I have a husband and a son; I have a life I can't abandon. This could never be more than a glimpse of a dream.



I wish I was ten years younger. I wish I had found this place ten years ago, but then would I have been able to truly appreciate it?

you can spend your whole life
trying to break free
or enjoy the home i've made
oh our balance it can be disturbed so easily
why would you go and chase bigger dreams?

when I was a young girl
father said to me
life is nothing like a grand symphony
it's like when you know this one line
sing it and repeat
but you don't recall the rest of the song

it's incomplete

I cry.


iPod:
Lohtu- Live Aid Uusi Lastensairaala

leijailen sun luoksesi (i float to you)
mun omani kulkijani (my own traveler)
suklaapuodille opastan (guide you to the chocolate shop)
ja pahan sulta piilotan (and hide the evil from you)
miten tiedät musta kaiken (how do you know all about me)
vaikka katsot mua ensi kertaa (even though you're looking at me for the first time)

I crash sometime after breakfast, nap for an hour, and then decide to go to Kupiainen and find some gifts for people at home. I think I've gone in there maybe once since coming to Kitee, so it's still a bit "new" to me. When I get back, I discover that nobody is in the cave. Apparently the group has gone to a curious shop somewhere in Kitee, and I have absolutely no idea where it is.

Great. Very well, then, I will just go and hope for the best. Perhaps my good timing has yet to wear off. And Kitee's not that big of a place, after all.

Well…I do eventually find it. But it's a good thing I run into Bruna during my search, because otherwise I don't think I would have ever thought to check the door on the side of a store selling phone stuff. Timing, again. The place is called Kirppis, and they seem to have a bit of just about everything. Weird clothes and cards and figurines and CD's (but no Johanna Kurkela) and lots of things you just hold up and say "what the hell is this for?" while everyone shrugs. Magda and I had a small baseball bat vs. lightsaber battle. I found an adorable lion wearing blue and white Finland clothes.


(photo by Daniela Barbulescu)

I've had my catharsis this morning so I'm actually in a lighthearted mood. I'm just, at the moment, glad to be here in this place with these people.


iPod:
Summertime Sadness- Within Temptation

oh my god, i feel it in the air
telephone wires above
are sizzlin' like a snare
honey i'm on fire, i feel it everywhere
nothin' scares me anymore

Tuesday evening, we go to this…I'm not even sure. A small comedy sketch or theater group, but they meet in this little gathering place in the middle of nowhere. Well, to be fair, many important things in Finland seem to happen in the middle of nowhere, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. We're going to sing Finlandia before it all gets started.

Somehow over the last few days Adrian, Kate, Magda, Alexandra, Dmitry, and I have formed this little gang within the larger art group. Nobody wants to split up for even a twenty minute drive and nobody wants to admit it. This creates a lot of hesitation when it comes time to hop in a car, and a lot of eye rolling because seriously, everyone's going to the same place. I end up the odd one out in a different car because I think I'm the only one who's willing to acknowledge that this is what's happening.

kiss me hard before you go
summertime sadness
i just wanted you to know
that baby, you're the best

It takes an unusually long time to get everyone to this venue, because it's a fair distance away and we have to cart like thirty people in seven or eight cars that hold maybe three or four at a time. So, there's a lot of downtime when we reach the place. Lots of watching how this group looks and feels different now; how all the little gangs have fallen into place.





Singing feels more than ever like a band of Edema Ruh meeting for a moment around the perverbial campfire.

i got that summertime, summertime sadness…


iPod:
Ei Enaa- Indica

jos seuraat virtaa (if you follow the stream)
se johdattaa maailmasta toiseen (it will lead you from one world to another)
laaksojen taa (behind the valleys)

jossain on lehto (somewhere is a grove)
kuin unelmoit (you’ve been dreaming of)
haaveiden lehto (a grove of dreams)
sanoitta soi (echoing without words)

Last sauna night before Röskö. I think this was a night we actually all made a point to go at more or less the same time.

I can remember…feeling like I don't want to be without this. Feeling like everyone has just finally, finally gotten to know each other enough to loosen up. A few have abandoned swimsuits in the sauna. It crosses my mind but…nah. Not this late in the game. Maybe next year.

"Next year" is such a teasing phrase. But now it's almost expected. Of course I'm coming back next year; how could I bear to do otherwise? So somehow…somehow…I've got to figure out how.

ei enää ääntä (no more sound)
ei vankilaa (not a prison)
tyhjästä peiton (the softest blanket)
pehmeimmän saa (can be made from emptiness)
ei enää ääntä (no more sound)
ei vartijaa (not a guard)
saavuthan vielä (oh, will you come)
mut noutamaan (to pick me up)

Kiteen playlist

Go on to Part 4