Quantum leap

I can think of at least five meetings I’ve been invited to sit in just because I am Finnish. Not that I didn’t enjoy sitting in – I’m pretty fond of the Swedish meeting culture with the coffee and the bullar, the cinnamon buns – and not that I took it as an insult or so, I just thought it was pretty obvious to everybody that I was there just so our company could show the prospective (Finnish) client that we had intimite knowledge of Finland, and Finns. We had one sitting right there in the office. Me.

OK, so she does look a little bored. But I got the shot.

Obviously, every now and then, my friends and friends of friends ask me things about Finland, too. Places to go to and restaurants to visit in Helsinki. (And sometimes, a Finn will call from Göteborg and ask me how to drive to Malmö).

And I’m always happy, and proud, to help.

But let’s face it. It’s stressful.

I need to know everything about two countries.

So, what may seem like a vacation to an outsider, is actually a huge research trip. I cover miles and miles every day, making mental notes of new restaurants, new bar/cafés (if it’s a bar/cafe, it’s always a bar, never a café, free tip to visitors to Finland), what the new words are, how people dress, and what the general atmosphere in Helsinki, my old city, is.

While doing that, I also have to make sure my two bi-national kids get a good dose of my old country, and, well, the son’s country of birth. That’s why I take them to the same park I used to play in as a kid, and that’s why, on the way there, I drive by the house where my family lived when I was born, point to the windows, and tell stories of how I didn’t have a real bed but instead, had to sleep on two chairs facing each other.

In the park then, I spend a good 15-20 minutes trying to coax my 3-year-old daughter into walking through a playground tunnel so I can take a photo of her. Not because I think she’d look good – but hey, you know she did – but because my dad took a photo like that of me some, um, decades ago.

I also promised the kids we’d go for a tram ride tomorrow because it’s exciting, and because I love trams. I used to fall asleep to the sound of the trams outside.

I would love to add another photo shoot to the trip, and snap one of her doing long jump at the track where my dad took a photo of me in action, and where J and I used to go skating with the son’s stroller.

Somehow, I’m somewhere in-between my old Helsinki, up to the 1990s, the Helsinki of Jessica and Risto (2002-2004), and the Helsinki of today, which is still mine, and ours, except people keep changing it.

The clock that was on the wall of that building where I lived the first five years of my life is still there, as is the store it belongs to, but the grocery store right next to it is not. Across the street, there’s no movie theatre anymore, instead, there’s a gym. But not the gym that J went to, but another one.

On the roof of the building at the roundabout by the square there’s still a neon sign. It used to belong to an insurance company. Today, it’s a beer ad. Well, there’s no police directing the traffic in the middle of the circle, either.

But there’s still the sound of the trams.

Even if they seem to have changed all the tram routes, dammit.

4 thoughts on “Quantum leap

  1. I remember when I was six and my Mum wanted to take a picture of me sitting on the stairs of the school in northeastern Savo where she used to live as a kid. Now I take pictures of my children in the same park in Töölö where I used to play.

    Think I recognize the clock and the movie theatre and the neon sign.

    Damn, wish I had Your ability to tell a story.

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