After weeks of helping care for my elderly parents, I have been carrying a kind of tiredness that sinks right down into your bones. And yet, this morning, in the very early hours, I found myself wide awake. Melbourne was putting on quite a show outside, with lightning flashing across the sky as a fast-moving…
Tag: family
Good Morning Twenty Twenty-Four
I find myself waking up, or perhaps more truthfully, trying to pull myself into a new year. It feels like a tug-of-war between the sweetness of dreamland, which keeps calling me back, and the quiet desire to get up and savour the very first chai of twenty twenty-four. The temptation to sink deeper into sleep…
Cardamom Spice
There is a place in my childhood memories sweeter than almost any other — my grandma’s kitchen. There was nowhere on earth I would rather have been than in my mummi’s warm and welcoming kitchen, learning to bake pulla, that beautiful sweet Finnish cardamom bread whose scent alone can carry me straight back to childhood….
Childhood Summer Cottage
Although Helsinki’s cobbled streets and majestic architecture formed the backdrop of my early life, my world was anchored in one small, precious place within that city. In the northeastern corner of Helsinki, where the pulse of the city softens and nature quietly takes over, lies the lovely neighbourhood of Itä-Pakila. It was there, in a…
Life is Short
Have you ever received news that leaves you wandering through the day in a daze, your mind so full and heavy with thoughts that, no matter how much you want to be productive, you simply cannot gather yourself to do anything? Today is one of those days for me. This morning, I woke to unexpected…
Let me Tell you a Story
In the midst of this busy and noisy modern world, storytelling feels to me like a quiet place of rest. It is more than a way of remembering. It is a way of holding close the people, places, and moments that have shaped us, while keeping us connected to our family history, our sense of…
Love at First Sip
Allow me to share a little secret with you. Every morning, without fail, I begin my day with a steaming cup of Masala Chai tea, lovingly made and brought to my bedside by my husband, Peter. It is one of the small but deeply cherished pleasures of my life. This is no ordinary cup of…
White Christmas
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…
Childhood Home
Written by Jaana M. H. JokinenTold by my mother, Mirja AnneliSeptember 1949, Kallio, Helsinki, Finland Slowly but surely, the days were growing colder and darker. School had started again, and autumn had arrived. I have always been a summer person, so even as an eight-year-old, I was not at all pleased by the changing season….
The Fire
Written by Jaana M. H. JokinenTold by my grandmother, Hilja MariaMarch 1913, Joroinen, Finland It was a cold early spring day in Joroinen, in Northern Savonia in the eastern part of Finland, where my family lived. Joroinen is often called the “Paris of Savonia”, because in the 1700s the noblemen there mainly spoke French. Even…
Apples of Gold 