Reminiscing

I wonder how many times exactly I have been here? Certainly at least three times a year since, probably, about 1997. Over the years, the landscape has changed a little (due to the cutting down of trees), the main building has been expanded, the oldest two buildings where I spent countless nights as a soprano have been shut down due to mould, and the reception staff has changed – but it’s still the Raseborg institute, where Cantores Minores comes twice a year for an intensive couple of days of rehearsals. We used to come her a lot with the choir of the German school, as well. By the way, the pressure in my room’s shower hose is so strong it could probably be used as a murder weapon.

Now that I start to think of it, some of my memories from this place reach back to days which now seem ridiculously distant yet still make me smile like the small boy I was then – rowing with Miska and Ville to the far end of the Kvarnträsket lake and getting stuck in the weeds, inventing countless ways of dodging the bedtime wardens and sneaking into other peoples’ rooms, definitely also some private teary moments because of something stupid a friend had told me, and – can it really be – one of the first times I ever conducted a group of singers. I remember rehearsing parts for all the greatest oratorios, from Bach to Brahms.

And now I myself am one of the teachers at the course, drilling sixteenth-note coloraturae (coloraturi?) into the heads of adolescents, telling the younger boys off for throwing garbage on the floor and discussing teenage mentality with people who used to be my teachers and now are my colleagues. It’s actually a pretty impressive feeling, but it also makes me feel a little old. Yesterday, I swam in the lake, which was wonderful. Today I spent the afternoon break sun-bathing on the grass, reading a good book, hearing and seeing airplanes making their approach to Helsinki’s airport.

Leaving J in charge of our apartment hunt and reluctantly separating myself from Prison Break’s 1st season DVD box, I took the train to Karjaa on Tuesday afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll have to be back in Helsinki to make it to Dominante’s rehearsal in Hämeenlinna – we’re off to London next week. I’m pretty excited about the trip. It will be great to perform in Albert Hall, and of course London is simply a city one has to visit regularly, if only for the Waterstones bookstore. My last visit was in 2005 and I’m looking forward to navigating the Tube again, having fast food at Camden Town, visiting some fantastic museum and just taking in the multicultural atmosphere.

Well over a month has passed since leaving Graz and, although adapting back home was easier than I expected, I am still missing it and probably, in some way, always will. Last night, I dreamed I was on my way there on the train, but somehow I never got there. I got stuck in Frohnleiten and suddenly going to Graz just wasn’t possible. A friend gave me an understanding smile. I wonder whether she would like to tell me something. It made me want to go there right away.

I can imagine our empty home, with the kitchen and bathroom walls gleaming with a fresh layer of paint. I wonder whether Petra gave my weights to anybody or whether they are still in my room. I wonder whether there is anything left there – if it were only a stray piece of garbage - to indicate that somebody has lived, laughed, sung, written, grown, eaten, read, cried, loved, talked and slept there for what seems like several years. The next person to move in to the flat and to take my room – will that person feel something special in the air when he opens the door, something almost magical? Did I feel anything the first day I entered that room? I seem to remember feeling something. But I’m just being melodramatic now, as always. Probably the only thing left in the room is that stupid yellow unexplained helmet stuck on a high shelf in my cupboard. But, yes... I’m pretty sure Petra left the weights.