During my visit to the hospital to see my mum today, I shared the elevator with an elderly couple. They got off one floor before me, and as I watched the gentleman gently take the lady’s hand and lead her out of the lift, my whole world seemed to pause for a moment. I found…
Tag: resilience
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…
Learning to Dance in the Rain
Life is a continuous learning experience. One of the questions I most enjoy asking older people is what life lessons they have learned along the way. It is also a question I return to often in my own heart. In Finland, when people talk about shopping, they sometimes jokingly ask each other how much “stuck”…
Changing Seasons
The seasons come and the seasons change. Time keeps moving, steady and unrelenting. Life can feel long when we are walking through it, yet deep down we know it is not endless. The last days of summer, of youth, of early strength and lightness, are behind me now. They belong to another chapter, another self,…
Fabric of Life
When you look at the fabric of your life so far, what colours do you see woven through it? Which shades have been the most dominant? What patterns have emerged in the tapestry of your days? If every experience has been a stitch in the intricate fabric of your life, then how have you been…
Keep Calm
Have you ever carried a fear so private, so difficult to name, that even whispering it to yourself feels dangerous? The kind of fear that seems to gather strength the moment it is acknowledged, as though giving it words might somehow invite it closer? And so you tuck it away, deep in the hidden chambers…
Kintsugi
Kintsugi is a 15th-century Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The word comes from kin, meaning gold, and tsugi, meaning joinery — to join with gold. The more I think about it, the more deeply it speaks to me, because it feels like so much more than an art form. It feels like…
Life Defining Moments
There are some moments in life that do not simply live in our memory. They mark us. They sear themselves into us so deeply that no amount of time can soften their edges. Years may pass, whole seasons of life may come and go, and still those moments remain startlingly near, as if they happened…
Hope
Have you ever wondered why, in the very worst moments of human history, hope so often seems to rise most clearly? It is one of life’s great mysteries. In the midst of war, natural disasters, sickness, grief, and all manner of human sorrow, when everything appears broken and the future feels uncertain, hope still finds…
Wait a Minute
There is something in me that longs to find joy in every single day. I know, of course, that some days make that easier than others. Some arrive carrying lightness, offering up small gifts almost without asking. Others feel heavy from the moment we open our eyes. They ask us to endure more than we…
Apples of Gold 