Holy Land

Every time I come home, I'm a different person than when I was last here. I exist, change, and grow older on a track that runs parallel to this one, the one on which my loved ones travel.

Although, maybe the tracks aren't parallel after all. They intersect when I come to visit.

During these visits, I remember who I was - who I am. My loved ones see and hear me, and note the little ways in which I've changed. I return the favor. I am a full-fledged member of my environment. It's hard to say whether or not I still belong (not quite?), but I am strangely capable of interacting with  and influencing the world around me. I feel fully human.

My friend Melis and I agreed before I arrived that we would explore weird places in Connecticut (they are numerous). Yesterday, we climbed up a hill that was covered in overgrowth and brush, and we laid our eyes on Holy Land USA. Holy Land is an abandoned religious theme park. It was strange before it fell into disrepair (or so I've heard); it's downright creepy now. We weren't prepared for how hard it would be to get to. I made it in sandals and a skirt, my purse flung across my shoulder. There were times when I lost my balance and feared I might not find it again, but I managed, and managed well.

 And I realized that, if I could, I'd spend every day trespassing. 

Maybe that's why I moved to Finland in the first place. Maybe I just saw an opportunity to trespass. Maybe I intended to search for answers in places I don't belong.

Maybe I need to stop fearing the consequences and just enjoy looking around.

The Meeting Places

I'm back to work. I no longer have a limp, and I'm able to walk long(ish) distances. I'm able to write fairly normally, with maybe a hint of uncontrolled messiness in my handwriting. The fatigue lasted what seemed like a long while; it was only about a week and a half ago that the constant exhaustion started to subside. It was around then, too, that I started being able to control my emotions again. Needless to say, I cried a lot. I'm crying less now, which I consider a triumph. My balance has remained kind of weird, although it has improved a lot and doesn't seem to affect my mobility. I mainly notice it when I get some rather crazy vertigo for a few seconds if I'm in a car that suddenly accelerates. Other than that, I just kind of notice that something isn't right, that it's not always easy to find my center again if I'm thrown off balance. Nothing dangerous or outwardly visible. Oh, and I start feeling drunk after even a little alcohol. Drinking less is far from the worst thing in the world.

I'm on a new medication (which is a pill rather than an injection!) and you can bet that I won't be missing any doses ever again if I can help it.

In dealing with all this, I've realized that there are certain issues I haven't been dealing with head on. I'm telling you this because I think they're directly related to my life and integration here. I figure it might be of interest, if that's what you're here for.

I've put a lot of work into fitting in, into being unremarkable in the context of Finland. Recently, I've come to realize that this is an impossible goal to achieve. I'll always look different. I'll always talk funny. I'll always be different. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is an inescapable fact.

I'm perfectly conversational in Finnish, yet I feel as if I'm impossibly bad at socializing. I'm incapable of being funny or charming (not that either of these things is my forte in English either), and sometimes I even feel as if being sufficiently polite or sympathetic is beyond my ken. A student's mother called me last week to tell me that her child has been ill. Comprehension went smoothly both ways. Yet I felt as if there were something more she wanted from me - some appropriately reassuring words, perhaps. I couldn't really go off script, so to speak, in order to provide that.

I have it on good authority that some people find me closed off and hard to engage. It's just that small talk is somehow harder than deeper, more abstract conversation. And, often, when I do try to insert myself into the kind of conversations I'm okay at, people often smile at me politely and then move on, or else talk over me. I don't necessarily fault anyone but myself for this; I should talk louder, with more confidence and, most importantly, more often.

In truth, though, the isolation that results from all this is very painful. For five years, I've anticipated that my ability to communicate would improve at the same rate as my language ability. In truth, it has developed much, much more slowly.

The Meeting Places is a band whose pretty, shimmery music has been comforting me lately, in part because it reminds me of when I felt better and more like a human. I also hope that you and I can find places here and there in which to meet in the middle.

Edit: I want to make it clear that I appreciate and thank those who have been kind to me and tried to make me feel welcome. Thank you.

Five

Saying goodbye at 26

I'm coming up on my fifth year here in Finland. I started this blog in February of 2011, in anticipation of my move. I was about to turn 26. I'm 31 now.

I'm regularly astounded by how much weight is placed on that particular decade shift. Although I'd like to think I've matured, there's little difference between me as a person in her 20s and me as a person in her 30s. I still have the same interests and desires as well as comparable flaws and insecurities (aside from the added neurosis derived from hearing and reading that I'm suddenly old). I still love shoegaze, video games and NPR, I still laugh (a lot) at poop jokes, and I still don't want children.

There, of course, have been a handful of life-changing events that have served to demarcate the before and after. Among them are my move to Finland and, I believe, this relapse. 

I'm still fighting my way through it - if I focus on relaxing my leg, my limp is only slightly noticeable, and I'm able to produce scrawl enough to mark exams - so I'm not really sure yet how and in what way these changes will take shape. Except, I know this: I will never again walk, climb stairs or write without a sense of thankfulness. 

The fact I'm no longer in my 20s might be obvious in that this happened at all; it's only now, in my 30s, that my motor skills have suffered. And that's what I'm most afraid of - that this is the ushering in of a new, less-mobile normal. That it's all downhill from here.

In the meantime, that thought is hereby banished from my mind.

Selfish

I opened my last post with a metaphor I've often had in mind: MS as an abuser. The weird thing is, this relapse, while mostly something I wish never, ever happened in the first place, has also been something of a friendly slap in the face or a bucket of ice water over the head.

When this happened, I was treating myself, well, like shit. Did you happen to catch when I compared myself to a Podling, drained of her essence? "Oh, yeah, I haven't been able to write or whatever, but I'm pretty sure it'll be okay."

It, as I well knew, was not okay.

So, here is what I must do from now on:

1. take my medication. Before, whenever it might have decreased my productivity, I didn't take it. Medication will now take top priority in this equation, without exception.
2. listen to music more. It keeps me in touch with who I am, which is someone other than an expat, immigrant, imperfect speaker of Finnish, 'different' or somehow unable to fulfil (mostly my own) expectations.
3. read more books (of my choosing). I can't teach if I don't learn. I can't learn if I don't take the time to do so.
4. write. I'll hate my life if I don't.
5. find a way to ditch the anxiety at any cost, save my motor skills.
6. rest. Relax.
7. be prepared for it to show. Up until the first of this month, revealing the fact of my MS was always met with surprise. It may well not be so anymore.
8. be selfish, and make more selfish decisions. If you want that in self-help speak, I should work on prioritising my own needs.

tl:dr, Some things have to change.

Untitled umpteen

Well, the brute (MS) backhanded me sometime around March 31st. At least, that's when I first noticed that something was wrong.

I decided to go into work a little later - 8.30 rather than my usual 7.30 -  that morning. I drank my coffee a little more leisurely and I eschewed my ride to work in favor of walking. On my way, I noticed that navigating the terrain was difficult; for some ineffable reason, I was afraid I might fall.

I almost fell straight backwards a couple of times throughout the day. My balance was noticeably off. This might be very bad, I thought. But I put in a full day's work and then some at home, too.

The next day, I had promised myself a day of working remotely. I'd been feeling immensely stressed, and I had no lessons or exams that day. I wouldn't say the day did much in the way of relieving stress, but I did manage to accomplish a lot, and I suffered few distractions. Typing, however, was strangely tiring.

At 2 or 3, I decided to take a break and go for a run. It would be a treat. I donned my workout clothes, took a last-minute phone call and was out the door.

It was only after five minutes or so that I noticed I was running with a distinct limp. This is just psychological. This is not happening, I told myself before giving up.

That weekend, things worsened. I went in for treatment the following week, and they worsened still. At my worst, I was unable to do much other than walk myself short distances (My foot crumpled up and dragged beneath me, my right arm was out of commission, and my balance was awful - I'd say I was at major risk of falling.) shower, eat and sleep. This lasted almost a week, during which time I tried to distract myself in my waking moments by streaming TV shows on my laptop. All I could think, watching those people on the screen, was how easily they moved, how effortlessly they walked.

Today, I seem to be improving. Physical improvement has brought hope, which, I must admit, was only desperate sadness not two days ago.

I'm lucky to live in Finland, where doctors prescribe sick leave for a bad sniffle. Still, I'm American, and missing work makes me feel anxious and guilty. I'm doing my motherfucking damndest to return to work on Monday. (How does one use crutches?)

I'm not going to end this on a positive note just yet; I am too wary. Let's just say, I hope beyond hope that things can return as closely as possible to the way they were.

I think it's time

It's funny -- I've unable to write lately. And I don't mean that I've been too busy or lazy or tired or uninspired (although all those things have been true, too). I mean that every time I resolve to write something, even if it is a cathartic outpouring in my private journal, I've been unable to write more than a few words. It has felt impossible; it has felt almost as though I've forgotten how.

Except for today. The spell was broken today, and I wrote a poem.

I think it's this business of teaching. I love teaching, but I also feel as if I'm one of those Podlings from The Dark Crystal who've had their essence drained. That's a far more negative image than I hope to paint, but I suppose it's a common feeling; the very nature of the job demands lots and lots of essence.

Not only that, but it demands an altered formula. It's not as if simply being myself will do the trick. I've got to pretend to some extent, at least enough to portray myself as someone with a tiny modicum of authority (an attempt that likely fail in any case). I do try to be as genuine as possible with my students, and I truly believe that I forge strong relationships with them as a result -- but, even so, the formula's been altered.

I'm fairly sure that keeping connections to my own interests, of which writing is one, would go a long way to helping this. And I've tried, oh, how I've tried. The very fact of this post, though -- as I sit here with wet hair and a coffee -- is a damn good sign. Perhaps it's the increase in sunlight. You know what? It's definitely that.

But I should also probably think a lot less about "being myself" and what that entails. In other words, I should detach from my ego a little. Then, I'll probably be okay.

Land of The Free

I arrived on U.S. soil (after not having been back for two years) about three weeks ago. I'll be back in Finland by this Sunday morning.

I've experienced reverse culture shock in ways that I never would have anticipated. I thought I might find food-related things surprising - the overflowing supermarket shelves, the enormous portion sizes, tipping culture - and of those things, it was really only the last that gave me pause (the other two delighted me, actually).

The real shock, though, was the idea that I can't simply go anywhere I'd like, within reason. Since taking up running, I've become kind of outdoorsy, and I love exploring any road, street or path that looks as if it will lead somewhere interesting. There is absolutely no lack of natural (or even industrial) beauty around here, but much of it is off-limits to me or to anyone.

This is Collinsville, an industrial village that once housed an ax factory. In the last 20 years or so, it's gone from a decaying northeastern town to a genuinely nice place to explore and spend time. Some of it, though, is still very much in decay (see above). When I stole this picture, I was technically trespassing; as the sign indicates, people certainly aren't allowed to traipse through these old buildings, but even setting foot on the property is something I ought not be doing. 

Fortunately, no one seems to give a shit, and the illegality of my being there is about as serious as jaywalking (jaywalking in the U.S., that is). 

However, there are vast and wild forests everywhere, full of crude paths, overlooks and stunning vistas. Some parts are state-owned and accessible to everyone. Others (some near my childhood home, in fact) are owned by people who feel very much violated by hikers and explorers. 

In Finland, we're protected by the concept of "freedom to roam", or jokamiehenoikeus. From the Finnish Wikipedia entry: 

                              "Jokamiehenoikeuksilla tarkoitetaan jokaisen oikeutta nauttia luonnosta ja                                            hyödyntää sitä riippumatta alueen omistussuhteista."

which basically means that everyone has the right to enjoy and make use of (I assume this means to pick berries, collect mushrooms, etc.) nature regardless of who owns the land. As I understand it, this has some very reasonable limitations, like picnicking in someone's yard or "enjoying" nature through the act of destroying it. 

As I was trespassing in the woods the other day, I thought about how, in Finland, there'd have been other people there, too, enjoying the wilderness and experiencing no hesitation in doing so. On one hand, I wished more people were able to make use of those woods. On the other hand, I was glad that I didn't have to share the space with anyone else. 

Now, when I think about the fact that I'm not allowed to enter privately owned forests in which no one ever steps foot, I feel sense of indignation. I don't know that I thought much about it before moving to Finland, other than to knowingly engage in some good old trespassing every now and again. Now that it's a part of me, I'm fairly sure that every man's right is a thing I'll never renounce,