New shoes

As I was taking the metro to the entrance exams to the choral conducting class of the Sibelius Academy last week, I realised I needed new shoes. I decided I wouldn't postpone getting them any longer, because something told me that tomorrow there would be nothing left of my old shoes anymore. I needed new ones today. And so, after the exams were over, I walked into one of the shoe stores in Kamppi, picked up a dark brown pair, put the old shoes in the new box, carried them with me to Ruoholahti, and threw them into the garbage bin.

It was so easy. And yet – take a moment with me to think of these old shoes of mine. I had managed to wear them for two years. I wore these shoes on the ten-hour flight from Hong Kong to Helsinki. They were the only thing between my feet and the boiling ground during my five-day adventure through Eastern Turkey in 2006. I had these shoes on when I arrived at Merangasse 52, Graz for the very first time. They have accompanied me on countless conducting lessons and choir rehearsals, they have been on my feet on airplanes, trains and buses. I have felt them wear themselves out day by day.

And now picture these shoes all abandoned and alone in a waste basket, with nobody to see them off into oblivion but me, looking at two brown disfigured objects and finding my mind filling up with memories like it always does at the most improbable moments. I feel like striking a wild farewell dance in front of the trash, but then I remember I’m in the real world, where this would look somewhat suspicious. I turn around and leave them there.

A very exciting and busy spring is coming to an end. While March was dominated by preparations for the debut concert of Kamarikuoro Kaamos, April was the month of the Entrance Exams, which, in the end, went very well. The results will be announced in June, by which time I’ll be in Graz, spending a well-earned vacation which will eventually include Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic and Syria in six weeks.

Every year, I tell myself I want to spend most of the summer in Finland. Then, at some point, everything snaps and I find myself escaping abroad for a long stretch of time. However, there will be plenty of time to enjoy the Finnish summer when I return from the trip. I'm looking forward to having a Schlossbergtorte at Strehly with my Austrian colleagues, having a picnic with friends in the Stadtpark, taking the night train from Graz to Bologna, celebrating a wedding at a city outside Prague, flying Austrian Airlines flight 841 from VIE to DAM for the hundredth time, getting lost in the old city of Aleppo and lying on the sofa next to my grandmother and her cat.

And, what’s more, I’ll be wearing my new shoes all the way.

The pictures on this post were taken on the last days of winter in March 08.