Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day in Helsinki.. As I was walking through my favorite neighborhood in the city; along the shore; sitting on the rocks, watching the sea, it really dawned on me what a special place this is. Why then, have I been so out of sorts all week? I have been struggling through my days, with enormous anxiety.... And I totally knew I would, even before I came here.

I believe that the answer to my question has dawned on me now, with a little help from a new friend, who crystallized it to me earlier today: I've been associating Finland with many of the negative experiences of my past. It is no coincidence that I've lived abroad for the last 15 years. One of the reasons is that I've been trying to run away.

In my twenties, I used to come here, get all shit-faced and then leave after a couple of weeks. Finland was a place for FUN!, i.e. hanging out in bars and not much else... Most of my experiences here were covered in a haze: either drunken, or hungover. In that way, I didn't really have to face the fact that I had a complicated relationship with my home country.... Now, the sober me has been dreading coming here like the plague. My demons were all here, waiting as soon as I landed at the airport, attacking me with full force.

It is a healing thought to me, that none of my problems have anything to do with the city itself, or the country. The truth is, it has less to do with the people here too... Instead, it has everything to do with me. The demons are within me, not in my surroundings. It just so happens that I have issues, heightened here, that I haven't learned to deal with yet. I believe that in being more understanding, and kinder to myself, lies the key. It will set me free.
It is a beautiful city, and a beautiful country.

As I write this, I am 'sitting back, relaxing and enjoying' my flight from New York to Helsinki.... The cab driver who dropped me off at the airport, asked me if my trip is for business or for pleasure, to which I quickly replied that it is for both. Later, I thought to myself: wow--that's a bit of an over-simplification, isn't it..? I hardly think of concerts as business, and "pleasure" does not come close to describing the rest of my planned trip, which I'm expecting to be as emotionally challenging as I'm hoping it will be fulfilling...

Last summer I wrote in my blog about building a renewed personal relationship with New York; connecting to the city through its nature; through museums, streets, parks... Now, I find myself also wanting to connect to Finland and Helsinki, the country and the city where I'm from, in a new way.

I have lived abroad for over 15 years now, (almost half my life(!)) yet in some ways, to me it feels like I haven't been away at all. In many aspects, I feel so utterly Finnish! Though I'm sure that once again, in a few hours, I will be confronted also by those aspects in which I no longer fit in at all.... Even though it pains me, I can't change the fact that in Finland I am often treated like an outsider these days.. What is in my power though, is to control my own perspective and my own relationship with the country and my heritage.

I can easily name a thousand extraordinary people, things, places and foods right now, which one is only able to only experience in my home country. Some of them can only truly be appreciated by a Finn, (due to language barrier, cultural barrier, taste barrier, etc.) That said, I AM a Finn, and I CAN truly appreciate those things! On this trip, among other things, I am reclaiming my emotional and spiritual citizenship, and can't nobody do anything about it! Perkele!

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

I received the above quote this morning in an email from the New York Times, and it struck me how fitting it felt to where I'm at in my life right now. For a long time, my life was extremely unhealthy, and ultimately unsustainable. Yet I had learned to navigate that universe; I had learned to find whatever relief, happiness and passion was to be found in it. The new universe I inhabit is simpler, more bare bones, more honest, more raw.... But it is also excruciatingly, gratingly painful at times. The realities of this world are plain to me now. The truths of our existence get under my skin in a real way. I am no longer running to a bottle of any sort for solace; I'm facing the shit head on. And it's fucking hard, man.

Echoing the quote--leaving behind even unhealthy behavior has its melancholy. I find myself wondering sometimes, that perhaps it was easier in the past,
not being so aware of my emotions... It was certainly easier to socialize indiscriminately; to get into relationships, to do various things that are expected
of us in this society... Now, I find myself resisting and resenting, kicking and screaming at every turn. Even though I'm more at peace with myself, I am by no means peaceful.

I'm saying goodbye to a lot of dark times, but there were bright and shiny moments scattered throughout. Perhaps that is indeed the hardest thing to come to terms with; that with almost everything in life, there is a distinct 'both are true.'
The light and the dark coexist, always, in varying degrees. Though I desperately want to, I can't label things and people, and put them in a box, because reality is more complicated than that. The only thing I know for sure is that I can't go back. And however much I reflect on it, in the end, my present looks a whole lot better anyway.

I am in absorption mode right now, and find my head a bit scattered.
Therefore, instead of rambling about something I have not entirely grasped,
I will again share with you a passage from Diane Dreher's book, The Tao of Inner Peace, which I have been immersing myself in.

There's an old story of a man who approached the Buddha, asking the secret of happiness.
"Did you eat breakfast?" asked the Buddha.
"Yes, master," answered the young man, wondering if the answer was so simple.
"Did you wash your bowl?" the Buddha continued.
"Yes, master," the young man answered again.
"Did you do a good job?" the Buddha asked.
Then the man realized the answer was in the present moment. Happiness comes from attending to whatever we're doing, knowing that in our smallest action we affirm our beliefs.

Finding value in the everyday requires self-discipline. Moving in harmony, sitting
up straight, listening intently, speaking honestly and being present in all we do, takes consistent concentration...
Man, I'm so not there yet. But it's something I aspire to, and will work toward, one day at a time... I mean, what's the alternative?

Every now and then, I get dragged down by negative voices in my head, judgmental and regretful of some of the choices I've made. There's a perfectionist side to me, that wants to be doing everything in a neat progression, with clear vision, tying all the
loose ends as I go, everything in its right place; never hurting anyone, including myself. Unfortunately, life tends to not be as simple as that. The reality often is this:
I make messes of different sizes, and then I clean them up, learning to not make the same mess next time. (Though even that's debatable.) Perhaps the trick is that we learn to clean up quicker? Or clean up as we go...?

I sometimes forget that this is all a process, and that we're all going at it at our own pace. At times I look at other people with some envy; those who seem to have put it all together at a very young age. Successful, visionary people, living a prosperous life, doing what they are here to do, giving the illusion that they are not making any of the aforementioned messes.

I've been reading a book by Diane Dreher, called The Tao of Inner Peace. It puts a slightly different spin on this:

"Our lives, as well, have their cycles. Some people are early bloomers, at their peak in high school and their early twenties. Springing up like corn stalks in the hot summer days, they come to harvest in one short season.

Others grow more slowly. Watching the corn stalks shoot up above them, they lose heart, wondering if they'll ever harvest anything of value. The seventeenth-century poet John Milton wrote a sonnet despairing of how little he'd accomplished by age 23. Yet at 59 he published Paradise Lost, the greatest epic in the English language.

While a corn stalk comes to harvest in one short season, an oak tree takes years to mature. But then it towers above the cornfield, its branches reaching towards the sky, bearing fruit for many a season."

A corn stalk is no better than an oak tree; an oak tree is no better than the corn stalk. They're just different, with a different purpose, and there's a place for each. The way I see it, the messes I'm making, (and the clean-up afterwards) are the growth rings in my oak tree. However painful the experiences were, they end up becoming a part of the beautiful whole. Judgment and regret are needless here.

I have spent most of this last year avoiding people. No joke.
I guess I just had to get my head straight, after so many years of listening to others instead of myself. But I believe my reclusive phase is gradually ending now. How so? I joined the fuckin' YMCA!

Because of the way I grew up, I had gotten into a dynamic of submission with pretty much everyone in my life. It never even occurred to me that I had a right to voice my feelings, or stick up for myself... So much so, that I eventually stopped recognizing my emotions. I did what I was told to, I went where I was told to; The Nothing had taken over me... I'm still learning to kick this pattern of behavior, but I'm Very aware of it now.

I find it almost impossible to watch videos of myself, from even a couple of years back. Who is this girl with the blank stare--disconnected, scared and sad? I don't recognize her at all, anymore. Considering the convictions and the fire that I have these days, I find it excruciating, that I can't shake that girl into waking up. Watching myself, it looks like nobody's home. And unfortunately, having lived through it, I actually know that's mostly the case. I was suppressing my whole persona.

I am going to quote the frickin' United States Declaration of Independence here, written primarily by a dude named Thomas Jefferson:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Though we are still, as individuals, and as a whole, in the process of learning what the above statement really means, (Thomas Jefferson didn't even fully comprehend it himself....) I believe we are moving in the right direction.
And as for me personally, I will no longer be scared of people. I know that I can stick up for myself. Now that I know I have the right to.
Off to the YMCA; back into community.-->

I'm finding such joy in art right now; in being an artist. I look at my guitars, hung up on my wall: my Hofner bass, my Fender Telecaster, my acoustic Epiphone guitar, and I feel a deep connection to them. Although I am new to playing these instruments, I feel like I have a sensibility, my own style of doing it, much like I have my own way of singing. It is very gratifying--having those hypnotic moments of being in the zone--playing music; creating a beautiful sonic tapestry and just feeling like I want to lie down in it...to wrap myself up in it..

Even though I've been a professional artist over half of my life, I was always encouraged to think that mine is not a real job. I was even brainwashed to think, that I would never measure up to the real artists, who "actually know what they are doing." (What?) I always had this nagging feeling in the back of my brain, that I should be studying to be a _______ or a(n)________. Probably because I was told, again and again, that I should get that aforementioned "real job." What the fuck in this world is a real job, if mine isn't, I ask you?
"We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. " -Carl Sagan
Keeping that in mind, can anyone please explain to me, why anyone should be doing anything other than what they love to do???

While I never did go to school to study _______, thinking that I was doomed trying to be an artist was painful and paralyzing. It was only last year that I finally gathered up the nerve to declare to myself and to my family, finally, that this in fact who I am. I Am a fucking artist. Goddammit.

Since then, things have changed for me. I have taken control of my destiny, and dedicated myself to the pursuit of art, as much as has been humanly possible. I'm still pissed off at myself for having allowed others to steer me off course. I'm even more pissed off at them for trying to do that in the first place! But I'm grateful that I had the courage to make the choices that have put me back on my path...

"I have spent my life learning how to choose to do what I had no choice but to do." -Ursula K. Le Guin