The Finnish autumn is setting in again, and with it, the usual feeling of emotional desolation, fear, loneliness and despair come creeping inside me morning by morning, more intensely with each passing day. What is it about the dark morning chill that seems to torment me with my solitude and fill me with emptiness? What is it about the Nordic autumn that leads my thoughts to the edge of dying and overwhelms my once love-filled heart with a desperate fear that all society, all family, all humanity has left me behind and forgotten me?

I wake up alone in my bed morning after morning, like every day of every season, but only with the onset of autumn does the full reality of my alienation and estrangement in this world come crashing down on me, filling me with ever-increasing despair and loneliness, replacing my hopes and sense of meaning with a desperate sense of futility and abandonment.

The dawn comes later and later, the darkness extends ever-farther into the day, ever-so-gradually snuffing out the light of life…and the chill in the air…how do these things bear with them these tragic emotions and place them into my heart? And why am I always alone? Why always excluded on the outskirts of lives?

This time last year, I sunk into a deep depression for weeks. I cried profoundly, every day, I don’t even know why, there was no logic. I could not control my tears and, of course, being alone, there is never a need to even try.

This year I am so much better. My depression was so severe last autumn, and my inexplicable crying so frequent and intense that it drove me right into the arms of my fiancé, at least in my imagination. Still now, I am only in his arms in my imagination, but at least we are close in heart and in mind. That is the only thing that keeps me from falling apart again. Still, I am left with an intense loneliness, a yearning to be with him that is tearing at me more and more each autumn day, and the fear growing in me of the autumn’s foreboding of a cold, dark and wintry death.

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A man of silent dignity. You carry yourself with an air of wisdom that commands respect of others.You have a strong determination in your eyes and poetry in your soul. You are virtuous, serious, deep, self-controlled (a master over yourself). You have a strong mind. You have the power of determined focus, of mind over matter, of mind over body and over mundane enticements. In your wisdom and love, you know the folly and perpetually unsatisfying nature of earthly pursuits and desires, thus, you reject them. Truth and Wisdom form the true north by which you navigate your life. Thus, you are a man; you are a master over earthly desires—you love, reach for and understand the Divine, above and beyond the earthly. You will never suffer yourself to become a beggar or a clown, a fool or a puppet, by any earthly pursuit or distraction, nor allow yourself to reduce another to such a lowly state; you are a man.

And beneath this noble exterior, you hide a gentleness, a softness, a loving nature … and sensual passions, which, alone, you know not to think of.

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you are; one day we will meet; you are the man I love—my husband. Your wisdom is glorified in my heart and uplifting to my spirit. Your understanding of Truth and unfaltering devotion to a life of Righteousness and Goodness is a beacon to my feminine soul, which is overwhelmed with love and admiration for you.

You know me. You find the sweetness and compassion of my spirit a divine beauty in which your soul delights, and my deep and tender love for you is as your own breath.

A worthy man, you come inside me and you know every flowing contour of my supple soul. You see my intuitions and you give them words. You understand me; you understand my blessing and you lovingly guide me in the wealth of your wisdom. Through your knowing and your love for me, you cradle my fragile heart within the fortress of your masculine mind. You touch me at profound depths, penetrating my virgin soul with your loving, masculine strength and I shudder at your firm and guiding hand, as you caress my softness.

Mind’s eyes meet, man, woman from afar. Across the distances their glances lock. His eyes, a penetrating and sincere blue, hers, a deep and soft-warm brown.

Slow… Affection, understanding grow in their eyes. The unutterable nuances of his soul she sees in his eyes…In this silence, the steadfastness of their mutual stare, so fixed upon one another, forms an unseen bond between them, existing together in an unearthly realm, they are thousands of miles apart; only their mind’s eyes have met.

Together in space and time, see, face-to-face, their hands touch, one finger to the other. Again their eyes meet…slowly…turning her gaze downward, closing her eyes, her finger moving on his, she can feel inside her, how heavy, how strong his finger, she feels her own as a feather; he feels her flutter lightly down, ever-closer to his palm. How solid, how strong his masculine palm; she feels and senses there on him a scar and her heart is touched with his past pain, and with such gentle love, holding his pain securely in her soft hand, she caresses his scar tenderly, gazing upon it, pondering the affliction that might have caused it. Turning her expressive eyes up to his, she finds his gaze on her; again they meet.

Slowly their bond grows, in respect, in love, understanding, trust, yet only their eyes have met, hands touched.

She looks to his face. Their eyes meet; at deeper and deeper depths, their eyes delve into one another’s soul.

Slowly, tranquilly she reaches out to touch his face. Her fingertips move across his rough skin, slowly. Such harshness her soft, delicate fingers have never touched. He feels the sensation of her fingernails and soft fingers as they lightly graze over his rugged face. Deeply touched, he maintains a steadily deepening breath—she hears it— with the light caress of her fingertips, his heart beats stronger—she feels it. Then with the fullness of her curious hand, she touches his face, his cheek, runs her finger over his moist red lips, she feels every contour of his face, finding his roughness, his softness, and loving all of him. Gazing at her hand moving against his skin, seeing him, feeling him, his irregularities, his masculine beauty, his firmness, she looks up to him; again their eyes meet. Seeing deeply into her, piercing through her with his deep-probing eyes, he penetrates her virgin soul; overwhelmed with a slow-swelling wave of passion, tears come to her eyes, as he exhales, a long, steady sigh; closing his eyes, feeling her on him.

My very best friend calls me “big-little girl.” This is because no matter how many years I live, no matter what experiences I go through, deep inside where I don’t let everyone see, I am still the girl I was when I was 6 or 8 … and I relive the same fears and tears that I did when I was so young.

On Friday morning I woke up from a dream, which led my mind back to a time when I was 10 years old and my father had taken his girlfriend, my brother and me on a trip to Maine. We were all staying in a nice little cottage there by the sea. The cottage had just two bedrooms and a bed in the pull-out couch in the living room area. The first night, I had chosen one of the bedrooms to sleep in. My brother slept in the other bedroom, while my dad and his girlfriend slept in the bed in the living room. I remember I felt scared being alone in the bedroom, so the next day I asked my dad if I could sleep out in the living room. I felt scared and alone and that is the only reason I asked to change rooms. So, the next night my dad let me sleep in the living room; he and his girlfriend slept in the bedroom. I hadn’t understood they would leave the living room. That night, as I lay in the bed in the living room, I cried; I cried like a small child standing alone in a crowd after losing its parents. I wanted to go back into the bedroom again and my dad got angry at me. I didn’t want to be alone. All I knew was that I was scared and left on my own…and that is why I was crying – I didn’t have the solution.

After I had been crying for some time, my brother spoke from his bedroom to my dad “Dad, Lucia’s crying…” and I heard my father shout angrily in response “I really don’t give a shit!!” and I cried even more.

As I lay in bed recalling this moment on Friday, I felt that too-familiar scared loneliness again and I began crying – a 10-year old girl all my life, to this moment, and all the world, my father.

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What’s in a drawing?

What do you see beneath the surface? What do you see in the drawing…?

Close eyes … feel … find peace … poetry …… love ….. look … dream … disappear …. see … sigh …… write …

I see a heart, the aging of a bounteous love, fruits of passion over-ripening, never won, never touched, waiting. A window, open to any who will see, yet never once seen. Chamber walls, worn with time and abandon. Emptiness in the chamber of a heart, deserted by its own soul.

I see a heart, not dead, in slumber. Fruits of love, not rotted, imperishable. But not the soul in sight. It is his heart, as he drew it. Sad, dejected. My love – he was the deserter of a wealth his downcast eyes denied to his sight.

This picture was drawn by the one I loved above all others in life.

*Finland-220905

One Man

I had believed all my life that somewhere in the world there was one man that God was saving for me and I had this dream of love and what it was…

because I had seen it in my dreams and written it in my poems and felt it inside myself…

and then I went out into the world and tried to find it…

and all I found was the deceit and manipulation of self-serving love, cowardice, denial, a proud feebleness for vulgar, carnal indulgences, narcissism, soul-devastation and plundering of hearts…

and after too much suffering, I conceded that the love I had dreamed lived only inside of me and in my poetry…and only when I died would I find that love…maybe

and I gave up

I stayed alone, left with just the tattered remains of my used up heart and mind, fragile, disillusioned, devastated, irreparably out of order…

and then, one man came along…he came along and I heard words come out of his mouth–the very words that I had written in my poems so many years ago–and they reverberated faintly in my mind like ancient echoes excavated from the core of my own heart

and he unwittingly spoke to me of things that I used to dream and imagine a lifetime ago in a forgotten existence

and I could even feel how he loved me and it felt exactly like the love I had inside myself and he was as crazy and intense in his love and passion as I was

he was so close to me that he spoke my words as I felt them and he felt my thoughts as they came

but not even merely because he loved me so much that he could come inside me, but because we are the same, our love is the same and there is no distance between us to travel, in heart or in mind, for us to be inside one another

because he is the mirror image of my soul.

*Finland-230605

I am shy. I don’t talk a lot in the company of people and I don’t normally stand up for myself in public situations and I let people treat me as their conscience will allow. Many people don’t understand shyness in general, or why I am quiet and I have constantly been told I should change, which I do not like. Today I was able to articulate one cause for my shyness:

I was waiting at the bus stop on my way to visit someone. As the bus was approaching the bus stop, it appeared that the bus driver was not going to stop to pick me up, although it was obvious I was standing there waiting for her bus. Sometimes the bus drivers here do that, giving you the feeling that they don’t want to pick you up and that you are burdening them by “making” them pick you up. I think if you would not stick out your hand to flag them down, they would drive right past you – in fact, on a rare occasion, they have been known to drive right past you even when you try to flag them down.

Since the bus driver today did not want to pick me up, I realized she must be in a foul mood. The feeling I got from her lingered in me after I got on the bus. As the bus approached the stop I was going to get off at, I pushed the button which lets the driver know I wanted to get off there, however, as it was, someone had already pushed the button. I personally don’t normally make this mistake, but it is nonetheless a regular occurrence that someone may push the button after it has already been pushed – normally nobody notices or cares. However, this bus driver not only noticed, she scolded me. She just spoke out loud to me in a stern, annoyed tone telling me that if the button has already been pushed, I don’t have to push it again. Inside of me I was stung once again by the cold harsh feeling of living in this country.

As I got off the bus, I felt so bad. I thought to myself, “What did she get out of that? Did it make her feel better? Did trying to make me feel bad make her feel better?” After getting off the bus, I began walking. Having completely forgotten about where I was going and what I was doing there, in my mind I began trying to understand the usefulness in her behavior and I suddenly became aware of how feelings linger in me after I have an interaction with a person. This is one reason why I am shy and I don’t like to interact with people, if it can be avoided.

I realize that it is incidents like this that bring much of the emotional stress I experience to my daily life. The feelings from interactions I have with people linger in me and I ponder the incident long after it has occurred. I ponder my part in it, I ponder the other person’s behavior and I ponder their words, I ponder the feelings I felt from them – and I ponder these things because their feelings linger in me, like a bitter aftertaste on the tongue. This is why I don’t like to leave home or be among people. This is why I prefer my solitude and I keep myself safe from people in my home.

*Finland-280505

When you are invisible, you write and people don’t see your words. When you are invisible, you speak and people speak over you, you cry and no one hears you, you take your stand and people walk on you. When you are invisible, you can enter into a room of people, unobserved, and listen and watch. You can read other people without them knowing, you can know them and see inside them, through their words, through their behavior, into their heart, without them even knowing that they are laying themselves bare before you – they can’t see you, they can’t feel you, to them, you are not there.

When you are invisible, unperceived, you can feel a man from across the room, looking into his face, you can feel his pain – you can be moved to tears by his sorrow and yearn to comfort him, but you cannot move, you cannot even speak to him, because you don’t speak his language, because he is a stranger, because he has no idea what you know about him, things you should not know – and he cannot see you.

When you are invisible, you can see a small boy being tormented by the misguided comfort of an adult. You can hear in the boy’s cries, you can feel his tears, he wants to be left alone, but the adult relentlessly “comforts.” Inside, you cannot understand why the adult persists and all you want to do is shout at the adult to leave the little boy alone, to relieve his escalating stress and the overpowering frustration that gives rise to his wailing and tears, but you cannot, because you are no one, not to be believed, you are invisible.

When you are invisible, you can sit in a classroom as the sound of students’ chatter, the squeaking of chairs, the rustling of papers lulls your mind to sleep, until you sink completely into the depths of the sea of your mind, inside of you, where your thoughts carry you very far from your body, in complete serenity, in stark contrast to the loud chaos of the world around you; all of the voices and the noises become as a soft and distant drone. You sit and look around you – you can see the other students, the teacher – you can see from your depth what they are doing “on the surface.” Although they are sitting so close to you, you are looking upon them from so far inside, contemplating the phenomenon and silently asking yourself in your mind “Where am I?” They carry on chatting with one another as if you don’t exist and you are as a spirit hovering in the room.

When you are invisible, you can see all of the things that the visible people can’t see in one another; hidden evils, veiling façades, false pretenses, unperceived misunderstandings, intimate shames, secrets, sorrows…but you must keep it all inside, because since you are invisible, no one believes in you.

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Why do I fall apart when he stays away for days and days? More importantly, why does he stay away from me, why does he leave me…alone…wondering…writing…

“I sit alone here in my dark, silent room, writing to you by candlelight and staring out the window at the falling snow; each little snowflake living its brief moment in the light of the street lamp, lingering or hastened through this limelight at the whim of the wind, passing thus away, back into the dark space of night, becoming again invisible, forgotten.

Here I wait for you. I’ve waited for you all day. You said you would come. You did not come. I ask myself in my solitude ‘Did he forget me?’ I ask myself ‘Why does everyone forget me?’ like a small girl left waiting alone outside in the cold after her school has closed for the day and all her classmates have long since been picked up and taken back home to the warm embrace of a family. The small girl stands alone, shivering in the cold, unclaimed, abandoned, orphaned…scared. Nobody wants her, nobody remembers her – not even her own parents.

As I stare into the night, white with falling snow, deep inside me I feel this pain – my brief time in the light of your love is done.

I ask myself, ‘How many days will he desert me for this time? How many weeks?’

I ask myself, ‘Why did they forget me? Why did they leave me alone, waiting?’ Time after time, I only find one explanation – I am not worthy.”

*Finland-050505