life – MAIINLY VISUAL

I will spare you from rambling: this year was exceptionally… warm. Grey. Lonely. Sinister. Stressing. Overwhelming. Uncreative. Asocial. Unreal. Hard. Teary. Depressing (as in putting me into d*pression).

But also it taught me that, in fact, I have all I need. I’m grateful for all I have (and I have a lot), compassionate and for all I learned this year. I just need to get used to using the new skills and knowledge 😉 Soon this will be over and we will restart – yes, restart. For one, my way of looking at thing has changed and for second – the world will not be the same again. It will be better.

One of the reasons for the world becoming better is that 2020 saw so many new babies born to some of the most amazing people I know – so of course the world has instantly become better!

Stay well. You are dear.

Here, some of the prints I just made for this post. No kidding, I did. The first one is a little play – once I saw a pile of concrete chunks from the window, their flat shiny white edges were so oddly shining in the dark. I quickly drew the shapes (uneven quadrangles) and kind of expanded that aesthetics. How it is used: just flip the image upside down in your mind so that nothing is crumbling away, instead, everything is falling into its place.

The other image represents either the holy trinity – or my little family – on the way towards the light… or just some aesthetically pleasing curves.

(Please note that the prints are 1. wet 2. under construction 3. printed on the cheapest paper around and using some really basic water-based paint 4. most importantly, not done yet, missing the other colour etc. Now when I have proper tools I could also invest into proper paint – hey, look, the first resolution for 2021…)

This was probably it, our only week of family holidays this summer. Fortunately, it happened to be by the sea – in fact, as Lea said, by two seas, separated by a sandspit. We made it all the way up to Kalajoki, one of like two spots in Finland with real sandy beaches.

We did enjoy ourselves, but the situation remains bleak – I mean, the life goes on, children are being born (literally all my friends are expecting this year, which is a great thing of course but also reminds me of how few friends I have…) and start schools, people commute to work and shop, commuter trains are filling up.

Now, I’ve been trapped in mu loneliness pit for some time – studying on my own, working from home, looking after a baby/toddler, moving houses (and countries) – and the uncertainty of the current situation somewhat worsens it. I’m all for travelling responsibly, but how does one travel without putting the family and the wider society in jeopardy economy and health-wise? It feels foolish wanting to travel, explore, relax and do nothing somewhere else and take a break while we should take life seriously. It feels selfish to dream of a job that is not essential to the society in any way. It feels unimportant wishing I had more friends in times where we should not really be making that much contact with others. It feels strange squandering money on a film scanner (yes I did) when people are losing jobs…

… are we allowed to let go? Are we allowed to have fun? Is it appropriate? Or shall we just put on a face mask and a serious face underneath and act responsibly at all times?

(Which reminds me – yesterday I was like the only person wearing a face mask on the bus. For those of you who do not know, masks are recommended in public transport in Finland, yet not compulsory. I walked down the aisle (of the bus, not a church) and those non-believers not wearing a mask just looked aside. Every single of them. I mean I was not even trying to make eye contact, just listening to my favourite podcast.)

Of course I have not been sitting still. Actually, we have done a lot of small trips around, visiting various bodies of water, animals, berries, mushrooms and other places that are not Home. And that was great of course, especially when we were joined by some company, so things are not awful, they just could be more comprehensible.

Here, enjoy a few pictures of mushrooms. Because Lea loves them. And because I wanted to boast – they were in my first negative batch I developed by myself.