Emotions Are Stupid

Here's another picture of Riley. Again, she's not really relevant, but she's cute.

I woke up this morning having slept well. I made myself a pot of coffee, did some reading, some music listening, showered, and eventually dressed. Rami woke up and I made him some more coffee. When we got hungry, we decided to go out for lunch.

Overall, it was a lazy, pleasant, and unremarkable morning.

It's slippery out there, since the temperature has risen above freezing a few times in the last few days, and the sidewalks are coated with a firm layer of ice that was once snow. We skidded a little on our way out. When we arrived at the restaurant intact, we paid for the lunch buffet, served ourselves some rather nice looking salad, and sat down. I chose the table. It was one of the smallest tables, and since there would be only two of us, it seemed the best and most considerate choice. There was an elderly man sitting at the table next to us. What happened next can really only be explained by a bit of stream-of-consciousness.

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Me: That old man is really well-dressed. But he's alone. I wonder if he's got any family. Oh, stop it. You know perfectly well the joys of eating alone. Why should he be any different? Yes, but he seems so weak.  He shakes a little when he brings the fork to his lips. Why isn't someone with him?

[At this point, tears begin to well up in my eyes just a little.]

Oh for god's sake. Don't cry over it. He's just a well-dressed elderly man. The guy wants to have a nice lunch out without some stupid woman feeling sorry for him. Besides, maybe he's an asshole. Yeah! Maybe his family doesn't want to be around him because he's been such a monumental dick to them over the years.

[And at this point, the man gets up slowly but steadily with his plate in his hands and places it carefully in the tub of bussed dishes behind us. He's just cleared his own table, even though I've always seen people leave their dirty dishware to be cleared by a member of the waitstaff at this restaurant.]

Okay, well, he's probably not an asshole. Actually, he seems sort of lovely. Why has no one taken him out to lunch? Why should he have to take himself out to lunch?

[The tears are getting harder to manage now. Rami touches my hand and asks, "Are you okay?" I nod and say, "Of course. Totally fine." We go to the buffet and serve ourselves some lunch.]

Eat your lunch now. It's salmon and beef and some yummy looking potatoes. Forget him. He's fine. Why do you assume he's lonely? Mmm, these steamed vegetables are good. He's getting dessert now. He's so frail and so gentlemanly. Fuck, I'm going to lose it right here in this restaurant.

[I look down into my plate of food in the hopes that no one will see that my eyes are beginning to overflow. Rami quietly whispers, "Seriously, are you okay?" "Yup. Nothing to worry about. Ignore me, please. I'll tell you later," I whisper back. The man gets up and clears his dessert dish as gingerly as he had his dinner plate.]

Well, isn't that nice. I won't have to salt my food. What the hell is the matter with you today? Get a grip. Cry over something that matters. Syria. Sweatshops. ...Syrian sweatshops?

[Now I can scarcely manage to stop the tears from falling. I try everything. Rami asks me once more if I'm okay. I say yes. "Well, do you want to get some dessert?"]

Should I tell him that I just want to book it and go home? Nah, I can make it. I can control myself for another ten minutes.

[We go and spoon out some rum raisin pudding for ourselves. We sit, and the man is gone.]

Okay, are you happy? He's on his way back home, wherever that is. He'll hang his coat at the door. He'll probably kiss his wife and tell her he had a nice lunch. He enjoyed the solitude, just as you used to back in Connecticut when you felt comfortable in your surroundings and you didn't shudder at the thought of someone asking you for the time.

[But the man isn't gone. He's at the coatrack, struggling a bit to put his arms through the sleeves of his coat. The tears are streaming now. I sniff as if I've been sneezing in the hopes that people will think I'm just horribly allergic to something. I say to Rami, "Let's go." He nods and we walk out.]

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"Okay, now tell me what the matter is," Rami says, concerned. "Is it your stomach?" 

"No, no, let's just go home. I'll tell you there." 

"No, now." 

And so I tell him. We rush to a secluded part of the street and I'm spitting out sobs as I'm chuckling at myself. 

"This is the stupidest thing ever," I say. 

"Yeah, it's pretty stupid," Rami says as he clutches me. 

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Oh, and it was stupid indeed. To cry even as you're aware -- even as your rational mind is churning in an effort to stop your emotions from showing outwardly -- well it was just about the stupidest thing I've ever experienced. It was also incredibly embarrassing, but Rami assures me that no one noticed but him. 

Fortunately, the guy wasn't facing me. In fact, I never even saw his face. What was it about him? I can't be sure. Did I simply misdirect some sort of abiding sadness? Is the winter getting to me? Maybe, but I don't think that's terribly likely, either. Nope, I'm just going to chalk this one up to a particular brand of "temporary insanity." 

What Not Being Able to Communicate Reveals (Guest Starring: Riley)

That's my family's dog, Riley. She is, of course, still at home in America. I miss her terribly, and nothing tugs, no, strums my heartstrings more than this grainy photo that my dad took some time last fall. Trust me when I say that this dog is special. Beautiful, fiercely intelligent, an incredible athlete, and so, so neurotic. For instance, as is well known to many of my friends and family members back home, she absolutely hates the word "fart." Cannot stand it. If you say it in her presence, she will usually jump around and bark indignantly, as if to defend herself against any accusation that she may have let one fly.

But she's not what I had planned to write about. She's merely a cute visual addition to this post in the absence of a more relevant photo.

As I was sitting in class today, the last before our hiihtoloma, I found myself trying to explain (in Finnish, of course) to my classmate why I don't properly speak a language other than English. I told her that I'd had an abysmal German teacher whose primary goal was to feed us German food. I also told her that language learning is, regrettably, not a priority in American schools. Or at least, those are the things that I tried to tell her. I'm fairly certain I succeeded, but, you know, I can't be certain.

But it got me thinking. When one of the most basic tools available to you -- speech -- is utterly blunted, it can really help you to abandon any self-consciousness that you might otherwise feel. When you're focused on the content of your thoughts and on the vocabulary and grammars that you must implement to express even simple concepts, it can be extremely disarming. You're forced to forget your defenses. In your desperation to communicate, any thought of etiquette, what your hair looks like, whether you've just said something stupid -- it all becomes kind of irrelevant. Whatever it is, you simply don't have the mental space to consider it. And, as for saying something stupid, you absolutely will.

This has been a pretty good exercise for me. I'm glad that learning Finnish has disarmed me, at least within the confines of class time.

And, perhaps even better news is that I sort of feel as if I've hit a new peak in terms of learning and understanding Finnish. Tonight we celebrated the upcoming birthdays of Rami's sister and father, and there were a few other family members there. I think I caught at least 50 percent of what was said. Now, is what I perceive as understanding actually misunderstanding? I don't know, but I don't think so. I felt just the tiniest bit competent. It was a pretty amazing feeling -- one that I may not feel again for quite a while yet.

I think Riley would be proud. 

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite (and often inappropriate) tidbits about the Finnish language:

1) "Rintaliivit," the Finnish word for bra, literally translates as "breast vest." How I wish they really were called that in English.

2) "Pussi" means "bag." It might be funnier if it meant "box," but what can you do?

3) "Ymmärrätkö?" or "Do you understand?" is just about my favorite word/phrase. Have fun wrapping your lips around those vowels, drawing out those double consonants, rolling those "rs." (A lesser favorite of mine is "äyriäinen," or "shellfish," but it just doesn't have the consonants to compete.)

4) While I think Finnish is quite a complex language, (I'm still trying to find a good source for rules on forming the monikon partitiivi, and suggestions are welcome) it's not without its blessed elements of simplicity. a) There are no genders. This is sort of well known, since Finnish doesn't even have gendered personal pronouns. No "he" or "she" to bother yourself about, as "hän" will do just fine for either. b) No articles. It's the little things, right?  You could argue that this makes things more complicated in the end, but I won't. And besides, you wouldn't need to worry about their genders even if they existed.

5) The first word I ever learned in Finnish was "vittu." After that came "paska," and Rami ruthlessly criticized my English-directed aspiration of the "p" + vowel. I'm proud to say that I no longer aspirate. And I owe it all to Finnish curse words.

6) Speaking of fun words to say, curse words, and aspiration-avoidance, "perkele" is also among those I most relish.

Well, I've got to get some sleep if I'm to study this language tomorrow. Hyvää yötä  ,*  kaikille. 


I have not yet learned where to place commas in Finnish.* 

Of Finnish Nicknames and Finnish Bars

Is it lazy of me to number unrelated paragraphs in an effort to excuse a pretty blatant lack of cohesion? Maybe. And yet I'm still going to to do it.

1) Ever since about the end of last semester, I've been called exclusively by my Finnish lempinimi  in class. Rami and his family have called me "Ellu" for ages now and, when we were asked in a much easier stage of the course what our nicknames were, I said something like, "Ellu Suomessa ja Lane tai Lena Amerikassa." That lesson was forgotten for a few months, until our teacher suddenly began calling me Ellu. It has turned out to be incredibly useful; the class topped out at 4 Elenas, and dropped to a measly three sometime before winter break. As an added bonus, it makes me feel a bit like an honorary Finn.

2) Last Saturday, we went with some of our family to Teerenpeli Distillery and Brewery. It's a chain that opened a branch in Lappeenranta 6 or 7 months ago. They have a greater variety of booze than most bars here in LPR. The atmosphere is just cool enough to be pleasing, and not quite so cool as to make you want to punch hipsters. I particularly enjoy their dark beers, though I cannot claim to know much about what constitutes a "good" dark beer. I only know what my taste buds like. Now, please take under advisement that my taste buds appear to be, ahem, "insensitive," so one should rarely take my advice regarding anything that involves flavor. That said, I think beer connoisseurs will enjoy what Teerenpeli has to offer.

There were fewer people there than usual that night, I think because it was nearly -30 C. Luckily, I was moderately yet deliciously drunk during much of the time that I spent outside.

Well, I must forego the English language for a while now, as I have homework to do.

The Trouble Is

I love living in Finland. I truly do. For me, life is immeasurably less stressful than it is in the United States. I have found that I love the winter, the people, the food, the language, etc. And Finland has been good to me. Its institutions seem to facilitate integration. I have felt safe and welcome. I realize a lot of other people have had profoundly negative experiences here, but, as yet, those experiences have not been mine.

And I hesitate to complain, because Finland as a place has done nothing but good for me. My complaints, therefore, are my own fault. Why outline it here, then? Well, it's sort of an important portion of the truth. You didn't think immigration was entirely without its struggles, did you? And I know you're sick of hearing about how beautiful the winter is and how much I enjoy slogging away at the Finnish language.

You see, I've always been a sort of neurotic person. I worry about all manner of rational and irrational things (in a decidedly irrational way). But the thing I worry about most is whether or not I am good enough. Beautiful enough, smart enough, nice enough, strong enough, surly enough, sweet enough, thin enough, tall enough, blonde enough, brunette enough, deferent enough, direct enough. I also worry, incidentally, about whether or not anyone can tell that I'm worried. It's a problem. It's probably my worst flaw. Because when you're so concerned with who you are, how you look, and how others see you, it tends to make you self-centered. That's the ugly truth of it.

Which brings me to the trouble: here in Finland, I feel out of place. I feel out of place -- not because I don't speak Finnish very well or because I'm not always adequately acquainted with the customs here, although those things are true -- because I don't look like a Finn.

For simplicity's sake, let's call me Irish-Italian-American. It's an ethnic mix that occurs a lot where I'm from. I have blue eyes, thick and curly dark blonde hair (no, I'm not mistaken; I dye it brown and straighten the hell out of it), pasty-white skin that tans in the summer, a roman nose and a long, angular face. All in all, I'd say I look more Italian than Irish, though I probably just look like an amorphous European with a semi-aquiline nose.

The nose, the face, are what I agonize about most when I go out. My features are too pronounced. I must look like a stretched, schnozy, small-mouthed freak. The things about which I've always harbored the most anxiety are the very things that make me stand out here. I don't much like it, as it turn out.

I know what you're thinking. "How do you think you'd feel if you weren't white? You'd stand out quite a bit more in Lappeenranta, Finland. Stop fucking whining!" And I have to say that I agree with you. No caveats come to mind; you're right and I agree with you. It's just a feeling I have, and I've been unable to switch it off yet. I told you I was neurotic.

I write about this in the hopes that other expats will feel as if I've expressed something of what they too experience. I also hope that I'll soon stop agonizing over things that are of relatively little consequence. Whatever the result, I hope you enjoyed this bit of "social porn," as I've heard a few Finns aptly call it.

Miesten vuoro

It is easy to forget, in the midst of our battle for gender equality, about the enormous pressure placed upon men in the name of stoicism, rationality, and masculinity.

Miesten vuoro is a Finnish documentary about Finnish men. The English title "Steam of Life" is no more a direct translation than it is an appropriate summation of the film.  "Miesten vuoro" really means "men's turn," and I don't think anyone, English language distributer or otherwise, could think of a more lovingly descriptive title.

In it, a series of men, for lack of a better cliché, "talk about their feelings" in a bunch of different saunas. Sounds rather vaginal when I put it that way, doesn't it? It's not, though. What the men say to each other in the heat of the sauna is well articulated and (seemingly) utterly genuine. While some painful topics are covered, the film does not come off as the least bit exploitive.

Finnish men are known for being quiet, reserved sorts. In that sense, they are archetypal men; their emotional lives are internal if (we wonder) they exist at all. If they choose to alter their stoic exteriors, they do so through the expression of anger and violence. Finnish men have had a stereotype superimposed on them, and this is it.

But the men in this film, a few of them laborers or army veterans, open up for each other and for the film crew. They recount painful experiences, life changing events, and what it is they felt and continue to feel as a result They are not blubbering babies, or even men looking to impress women with their emotional intelligence. They are men who maintain their sisu even as they rely on one another to listen -   even as they cry.

When I read a bit about the theory of gynocentrism in school, one article claimed that "male values" -- things like intellectual achievement, scientific thought, rationality, what have you -- had overshadowed so-called "feminine values," like nurturance and more nurturance. That male values were ascribed more importance. That female values ought to be the basis on which society functions. That we should all go out and nurture the shit out of each other. When I was asked to comment on the subject in class, I said, "But intellectual achievement, science, and rationality are inherently valuable. So is nurturance. The trouble comes when we are prescribed values to possess and roles in which to act." I know it seems obvious, but second-wave feminism can be truly dense sometimes.

Miesten vuoro was made for men and, in particular, for men who feel burdened by the constant stoicism that is often expected of them. That's not to say that women can't enjoy it or won't understand it; in fact, it's pretty difficult not to be moved by it. It's just that, when you're watching it, you get the sense that you're suddenly privy to a very personal type of male camaraderie. The film is itself a bit like the sauna -- a place in which acknowledgment of these emotions is permissible.  And if you're anything like me, it'll remind you why you love men so very much.

Well, if you happen to think this lil' lady should stop blabbing so much, you can find a much more succinct and informative review here. But seriously, if you have the chance to see it, do.