songs for road trips

A summary of the past few days: homemade ice tea, charcoal-coated fingers, missing a bus, missing a train, getting lost on our way to a museum, finding said museum ten minutes before it closed for the night, thrifting clothes, sewing late into the night, essay-writing, playlist-making.

Here is the result of said playlist-making. Those of you who have Spotify can find it here. Those of you who don't can go the YouTube route below. (They aren't completely identical though, due to Spotify and YouTube not being as omnipotent as could be hoped for.) Enjoy!

songs for road trips

1. Noah and the Whale: The First Days of Spring
2. Scandinavian Music Group: 100 km Ouluun
3. Phoenix: Summer Days
4. Regina: Jos et sä soita
5. Gomez: See the World
6. The Moldy Peaches: Anyone Else But You
7. Angus & Julia Stone: Mango Tree
8. Anna Järvinen: Götgatan
9. Charlie Winston: Soundtrack to Falling in Love
10. Noah and the Whale: Blue Skies
11. Death Cab for Cutie: Passenger Seat

i'll walk you till your fears are numb

a hand to hold

 

Some days it almost destroys me. Some days the disappointment settles into my chest with the weight of several anchors, dragging me down.

Some days I need a hand to hold and a tummy to lay my head on, and some days I need other people to believe in me.

Because although I'm trying to learn to feel better without needing to constantly rely on other people, some days are too heavy with tears. Some days I just need to be told who I am and why I am worth keeping around.


(Also, this Noah and the Whale thing is getting out of hand. How can a band singing I do believe that everyone has one chance to fuck up their lives and accompanying that sentiment with violins expect me not to fall head over heels in love with them?)

hands / seaweed

Seaweed from Tell No One on Vimeo.

Today I'm in need of some solid ground. A few things to make me feel human again: this spectacular video (25 seconds well spent), soaking in the sun for hours after school and getting to see my little brother (he is one cute kid).

Happy Monday!

i'll do anything to be happy

In the middle of all this progress I've been making, a bad spell. A blue spell. A smattering of maddeningly slow and sad days, days that make me wish I were invisible.

It creeps back, silently, the hopelessness I've been curbing. (Everything I dream of seems too big and unachievable and I want to forget it all and live in a state of no dreams. But then the not-dreaming turns out to be impossible and even worse than the original hopelessness.)

It creeps back, and all I can do to control it is to lie on the floor of my room in a slice of sunlight and stare at the ceiling. Maybe read a bit. Slow down my existence, my heart rate, my too-quick thoughts. Write silly lists to keep my mind off things, sit in class and doodle, lie down on the grass during recess and tilt my head back to look at the sky.

It creeps back and I don't notice it at first. I chalk it down to another bad day, because bad days come and I try to welcome them and believe in tomorrow.

But then comes the time when I'm on the train going into town and suddenly a tear drops onto my lap. And then I'm crying silently but uncontrollably, stuck in public without a single tissue, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands and trying to calm down. Embarrassed and kind of scared.

Eventually I do calm down, tears still running down my forearms. I cradle my head in my hands and just breathe. (My therapist has told me to focus on my breathing and I'm finding he's not just being New Age, there's some truth to it.)

These things happen and I just have to weather the storm. At least I'm learning that there are far worse things than breaking down in public, there are far worse things than my body telling me something is wrong. I will feel better, at some point. Until then I'll listen to this song and try to believe.

äiti

My mother and I picking rhubarb near our summer cottage circa 1999.

Today is äitienpäivä (Mother's Day) in Finland, so my mother and I digged through some old photos and reminisced. (I cannot believe my parents' hairstyles and clothes. Shoulder pads, really?)

My mother is the singular most important person in my life. She has been my rock throughout my childhood, the most stable and present thing in my life. She raised me as a single parent - there are so many things to be grateful for.

Growing up is difficult and it's such a relief to know my mother will always be there for me. Kiitos, äiti.

My mother and I three and a half weeks after I was born, a lazy morning at our home in Reading.