Before & After

What is it exactly about sitting in an airplane which is about to take off that gives me a rush of adrenalin? It gives a little lurch and then starts pulling back from the gate, and suddenly we’re rushing past many other planes carrying so many other small people to anywhere on the globe. The next minute, the clouds are not above us but beneath us and everything looks different and we are moving faster than I can imagine. I glue my feet to the floor of the plane but this seems ridiculous since there is only air under me anyway. The grey rainy weather is replaced by the bluest sky with a floor of fluffy whiteness. I am nowhere and everywhere at once.

South African Airways flight SA235 to Johannesburg cues right behind us for takeoff.

As a perfect soundtrack to these thoughts of mine, the sopranos of the Rodolfus Choir are soaring high above the rest of the ensemble in a heavenly a cappella transcription of Wagner’s “Im Treibhaus”. I am the only one in the house who can hear them through these headphones. The week has already brought work with it, ranging from phone calls from over-enthusiastic doctors dreaming of a creative hobby: (“You know, nothing serious… just some fun with the colleagues… it doesn’t have to be every week… How many singers? Oh, the choir doesn’t exist yet!”) to jobs which sound slightly more realistic. I’ll have to keep a firm hold on my neck on the coming days so as not to be sucked into a vortex of lots of yeses, of courses and this sounds goods and finding myself with an impossibly packed schedule. Actually, strike that. I already have.



A postcard from Italy (the third this month) arrived the other day from Petra, and by pure coincidence, Thomas dropped me a line by email as well. Actually, it was pretty much more than a line – or what do you call a long sausage of 193 words with hardly any punctuation thrown in? They both seem to be doing fine.

This temporary residence at the family’s is coming to an end and I will be moving to my new home in Kallio (actually Harju, but these definitions tend to get quite vague in those parts of town) in just over a week. I'm really excited about living in a different region of Helsinki! The flat is completely fine, except for the walls, which will get a proper makeover from J, me, and our near-sighted, small-sized landlady next week. I will also definitely have to get a new lamp for my room (somehow a blazing red pattern of light and shadow on my walls doesn't quite suit me) and bookshelves. The nearest metro station is just two blocks away, and there are nice views onto Helsinginkatu. As we will be on the fifth floor, our neighbours (an extremely run-down bar and two seedy sex stores) probably won't bother us too much.