thoughts on the wind

(I wouldn't mind it right now if someone whisked me off my feet and took me someplace by an ocean.) 

glass in the park

we sing to bless the morning

silly things

This feeling dropped into me like a stone while I was wading knee-deep in snow, 

this longing for warmth and summer. 

(Also: oh my goodness Ben Howard.) 

amsterdam

My mother took a picture of me talking about the architecture, hence the Silly Hands of Enthusiasm.

Example of aforementioned architecture.

Me trying on the most beautiful shoes in the existence of time. (Far, far, far too expensive. Unfortunately.) 

Amsterdam was everything I'd dreamt of and more. My first day was spent in consistent awe. (I've seen beautiful cities before, but this? I was not prepared to lose my heart so fast and so permanently.) My mother and I kept stopping every few metres to sigh at the beauty of everything. Winding our way through narrow streets, incredible winds and the incessant tolling of church bells, dodging the most reckless cyclists I've ever seen. It was, in short, spectacular.

(Now it's all school and studying again, long days spent girding my loins for revision. It was the best thing possible to get away from it all for a few days, to visit Van Gogh and Anne Frank and then return feeling a bit more like a person than before.)

(My mother took all the pictures, I was too lazy to bring along a camera. 

So thank her, that is if you indeed wish to thank anyone, for the visual evidence.)

amsterdam

Tomorrow my darling mother and I head off to Amsterdam.

(Things I'm most looking forward to: seeing all that Van Gogh up close and authentic, ambling about the streets and enviously looking at all the houseboats, visiting the Anne Frank House, stuffing my face with food every chance I get and maybe doing some shopping too.)

Oh, Amsterdam. Don't you just love the way the name rolls off your tongue?

a confession

(I really do wish it were Christmas already.)

just for a while

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. 

No need to be anybody but oneself.

Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own

kind of blue

ramblings

This past week has seen Helsinki ambushed by endless rain and strong winds. Winds that make tin roofs rattle and dry maple leaves sweep the pavements in waves.

Oh, October. All I feel like doing is curling up in an armchair inside and drinking Earl Grey and reading and maybe watching Downton Abbey. (I'm telling you, that show is dangerously addictive.)

Luckily for me, I'm on holiday for the week. So that's exactly what I'll do.

(And once I've slept enough and consumed my own body weight in tea, I might venture outside and slink into the nearest café with some friends. And maybe really relax, for the first time in months.)



Also, am I the only one who's been feeling kind of Christmas-y lately? I've had this song on repeat for the past three days and I have to exert all my willpower to keep from watching Love Actually. 

a bit of wanderlust

Oh if only all commercials were romantic, wanderlust-inducing short films.

kisses are a better fate than wisdom

e.e. cummings

autumn

Here we come to the turning of the seasons, like they sing in that song by the Decemberists. And though the roses in our garden are still in full bloom, I wear jumpers and scarves every morning when I go to school. And I drink tea and read and appreciate the novelty of not waking up at four in the morning to the sunrise.

seasides

Because that's where I'd rather be now, somewhere far away and summery and revision-free.

(Although last night was nice, taking the ferry to Suomenlinna, ogling tall ships on the way, and ending up at a folk gig at Korjaamo. Nights are still so warm sometimes, warm enough for t-shirts and running.)


I've lost the source of the first photo. If you know, please tell me!

windows and rooftops

Some pictures to get me writing something lengthier than fragments or blog posts. (About summer and bicycles and endings, I think.)

Incidentally: I would like to sleep in a hammock. I would like to have the sea just outside my window.



(Also, there is this. A video from the London riots. Sky News reporter Mark Stone approaches looters in Clapham Junction to ask them if they're proud of themselves. This whole thing is so sad and fucked up I can't even.)

move

One of the most stunningly beautiful videos I have ever seen. (And oh, the things I'd give to go travelling right now.)

road trips and midnight escapes

A sublime weekend, driving up with friends to a red house by a lake.

Blasting our music with the windows down, pitching our tents on the perfect lawn, laughing too hard to breathe, going for a swim first thing in the morning, finding a ukulele and adopting it for the night, going to the sauna around three in the morning, falling asleep with the sun rising, brewing tea over a blue flame, singing until our voices grew hoarse.

How lucky I am to be able to surround myself with the people I love, the people who make me feel safe.

(Maybe this is one of those times I'll remember for years and years to come. Maybe this is what it really is to be young and to be happy, unguarded moments like the one below, captured on our journey back home.)

Soffulle kiitos kuvasta!

ilman sinua olen lyijyä

too far

(Excerpt from a poem by e.e. cummings.)