Dear Lauttasaari island, you have been good to me. You have been my safe haven for years. A place to hide and to just stare at the (mostly windy) sea.
It is difficult to live in a landlocked place, away from the sea. I have done it twice and I will be doing it again. All three times have also been the three times I have lived abroad.
I have also lived in two relatively rainy, wet places: the UK and the Netherlands. Now I intend to try out another rainy (and this time windy, too) place: a little town in the middle of Denmark. For how long? For now.
Dear Lauttasaari, I will miss your sea, sunshine, and the vast open space. The ships leaving for various Baltic port cities, and the sound of broken ice blocks floating on the water in spring.
But life plays out in seasons and no matter how well one plans, the beginning of the next season always comes with a twist. Growth does not take place when we feel comfortable and set in our routines. And so I intend to break my routines big time, hoping that growth will follow with equal measure.
(Helsinki, Finland; August 2018)
The long, wooden house stood by itself in an overgrown meadow of high grass and flowers, shyly exhibiting brand new walls painted red, sparkling white corner posts, and a sturdy, new roof. Why shyly? Because its exterior was nearly 300 years younger than its timber construction. It is not with complete comfort that one bears new clothes after loving one’s only outfit for centuries. 
My great-grandfather and great-grand uncle were born in this house. They were not born in this meadow though. Before the house was dressed in new clothes, it was dismantled, every log and plank numbered, carried a few dozen kilometers further, and built up again from scratch. Why? Because someone thought it was a valuable piece of history and should be kept under a watchful eye.
(Pernaja, Finland; June 2018)
No, it’s not a fur ball. It’s a cat. With four legs and a tail – somewhere. In something that looks like a sideways-modified balasana or child’s pose.
“Cat days” in this household are often defined as “belly-up days”. No other cat I know spends as much time belly up as madame Cassandra. I think today I will have a cat day, too. It may well be the last one for a few months to come.
This is what happens when you buy a couple of yellow primroses for your garden and leave them to flourish over 20 years, remembering each year not to mow the lawn until their bloom is over. Among the primroses are white wood anemones, blue scillas, and the offspring of a few purple corydalis that I planted as a kid. I found them in the local woodland and knew they were endangered – but I wanted them anyway. Well guess what, they are far from endangered in the garden of my parents.
Dear guesthouse, thank you for proving yourself earthquake-worthy. Dear Canggu beach, thank you for no tsunami. Dear Bali, thank you for softening the shockwaves shooting off your sister island. We had a proper scare here on West Bali, but it was nothing compared to those in Ubud and on the East Coast. Not to mention the unfortunate ones on Lombok and Gili Islands, who bore the main burden of our planet rearranging its scales.
(Canggu, Bali, Indonesia; August 2018)
”Instead of focusing on developing beauty, society focuses on chaos because it is more profitable” said Irene Kostas at Helsinki PechaKucha Night.
For just one day I checked out of my own life. I reconnected with the person living that life instead. Under the skin of the person who travels 2-3 days a week for work, and consciously has to carve out time for life beyond a job she loves, are ants running around. The trick is, one only discovers them when one stops for a moment.
“I was a normal teenager until 9/11. After that I had to become an expert in terrorism, the Middle East, and ‘being oppressed'”, said Sara Salmani.
This blue marble 