Hurricane Milton

As I sit on a park bench in my local park in Melbourne, the sun rests warmly on my shoulders and everything feels calm. The sky stretches above me in a wide, endless blue. Birds sing from the treetops, and nearby I hear the bright, carefree laughter of my granddaughter as she plays. It is…

Bless Your Heart

At the moment, our home feels like a linguistic smoothie, with accents from all over the world blending together under one roof. Our friends from Florida are staying with us for the month of November, and their presence has turned our home into a lively little orchestra of voices, tones, and rhythms. It is not…

Bedtime Story

When I was a little girl, about six years old, living in Helsinki, one of my mother’s dearest friends came to our home for supper. Her name was Eila. She lived nearby and had known our family since before I was born. She belonged to that rare kind of friendship that seems to outlast the…

Timeless Treasures

When I was a little girl living in Finland, I had a friend who was woven deeply into the fabric of my childhood. Her name was Tiina. We lived only a few hundred metres from each other, and we were in the same class at school. Hardly a day seemed to pass without us together….