I have only ever had one white Christmas as an adult, and it was truly special. My family and I were living in a small country town in eastern Finland, just 60 kilometres from the Russian border, called Savitaipale. This is where my paternal grandfather’s side of the family is from. The town is very…
Tag: belonging
Homesickness
I was struck by a feeling of homesickness this afternoon. Most of the time, I move through my life without feeling it too sharply, but every now and then it comes over me with such force that it stops me in my tracks. Being Finnish-Australian, I try to weave small threads of Finland into my…
Rustic Wisdom
During our last visit to Finland, I had the privilege of staying in my late mother-in-law’s childhood home, in a small village in the Finnish countryside. These days, that ancestral homestead belongs to one of the cousins, Hannu. The moment I stepped across its threshold, it felt as though the whole earth had paused for…
Harvest Time
I grew up in Helsinki, Finland, in what felt like a very typical Finnish way, with both a winter home and a summer home. When the end of May arrived, our family of six would leave the city behind and move to our summer cottage, where we stayed until autumn crept in and school began…
A Few Words
If I were asked to name one thing that lies at the heart of Finnish people, I think I would say this: Finns place great value on words. That is something I have carried with me all my life, perhaps without even realising it fully when I was younger. There is something in Finnish nature…
Outside Finns
There is a word in Finland for people like me, for people like us — those of us who were born there, but live somewhere else in the world. We are called ulkosuomalaiset. Ulko means outside. Suomalaiset means Finns. We are the outside Finns. Even in the word itself there is something that moves me….
Afternoon Tea
I recently had my grandson stay for a couple of nights during the school holidays, and as always, the house seemed changed by his presence. It felt fuller somehow — livelier, warmer, threaded through with movement, laughter, questions, and that particular energy young people carry with them so naturally. And then, almost as soon as…
Music and Dance
As a thoughtful Mother’s Day gift, my daughter took me last night to an evening of candlelight, music, and dance. It was one of those gifts that reaches far beyond the moment itself. My tired soul received it with gratitude and drank it in slowly, as though it had been thirsty for beauty for a…
Baking with Grandma
There are certain smells that do far more than drift through a house. They open doors to the past. They loosen memories that have been sitting quietly in the heart for years. For me, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, rich with butter and cardamom, does exactly that. It carries me straight back to…
One Day in September
The morning after arriving in Australia from Finland, my family went for a walk from our new home at the migrant Midway hostel in Maribyrnong. I suppose we wanted to see this strange new country we had landed in, to step out into it for ourselves and try to make some sense of where life…
Apples of Gold 