Travel Day 5

What is it with the thing that you try to remember something and you don't remeber anything at all. It wasn't even something what happened 36 years ago, we're talking about days now. Anyway, all I can remember about that lost day was that we went to Karlsruhe and I saw a lovely Chinese screen with a moving image and my colleague ate an exploding Vulcano pizza. That's nothing much to tell you about, is it?

Definitely

I nearly forgot my Dad's 60th birthday.
I was eight years old when I saw him first time. Well, that was the first time I saw him and remembered it afterwards. He came with a shiny big car, which colour looked like a palomino to me. He had a cassette recorder in the car and we listened to something, which I can't remember anymore.

When he took me home, I asked him if he could come to my birthday party. He asked me what I would want as a present and I wanted Elwyn Hartley-Edward's The Pony Owner's Encyclopaedia. Definitely, he said.
The next time I saw him was ten years later. It was the same year when my Mum said she bought me the book, which arrived a week later and which I had kept as my greatest treasure.

Today I was sitting on a bench, enjoying of the sunshine and tried to keep myself awake after a sleepless night. I watched my sons driving bicycles.
Suddenly I saw them standing still, giggling and then screaming loudly: "It's coming! It's finally coming!"

They were running towards an ice-cream van, which was playing it's teasingly jolly melody. I had forgotten I had promised to buy them a box of ice-creams when it would arrive next
time and there it was now. I had one Euro and twenty cents, two stamps and some bad tasting Easter candies in my bag. The kids watched how the mother next door bought two boxes. Our neighbour's son came to me and asked if I could buy him an ice-cream. I watched him to go at the end of the line, watching how the mother next door carried his two boxes of ice-creams.
Next time boys, definitely, I heard myself saying. Next time, definitely.

Dust

I have been feeling relatively snappy these days. Not energetic, just have had that snappish tone in my voice and in my actions. In fact I have been so snappy, I fear I'm soon going to snap.
I can't stand waiting. Well, maybe if I love someone, I can a bit, but otherwise I become first tensioned, then irritated and finally saddened, especially if I can see I am constantly promised something I can't get, and even more if I can see that someone who promised me something isn't busy doing something, but just doesn't care. So that's when I start to be snappy.

Today, when I started to decide if I'm just like one of the Jill Greenberg's teased kids or just sad, I stepped on a dog shit with my new shoes.
Are the new shoes making me lively like Carrie Bradshaw? Could they make me finally write some quirky blog posts? No, they made me feel more like Leo Johnson. I made a drooling comment about my new shoes to myself and thought what to write.
As always, my mind was empty, as vast as the field nearby.

At the end of that field was a car park. At the end of the car park was my car. Behind my car were some Uni students dancing without music. They were wearing bright green overalls. They danced on the sand, happily. We had a snowstorm on Sunday, but quite suddenly it is spring now. The students just went on dancing happily when I thought if I should write about the fact that today is the spring equinox.

I also thought should I mention the fact that we used to look down on everybody wearing those bright University overalls. We wore black. We celebrated annoyingly, faking young intellectuals by drinking cheap Chianti and re-acting famous contemporary performances, until I reacted to the excess cheap Chianti drinking. But never dancing on the car park. Never.
Once we were making a performance of Da Vinci's Last Supper.
I was Jesus. When the press came, I was having a cigarette outside and it read on the paper: Jesus wasn't having the last supper, because she was having a fag outside.

I looked at the sky where six swans crossed the field and I felt so dusty and chained. I was picking up the kids from the daycare and wondered why my mind was suddenly so empty, just looking for more troubles and impossibilities, when I could just be happy with everything I have. I should be enjoying of all that, not be saddened by everything I won't have, but there I was, so desperately much wanting to try flying, feeling lonely and bit damp and watching how the last swan flew away.
Suddenly I wanted to have a friend to whom to tell all that there was, inside my blank mind. I wanted to have a walk and a talk, but my shitty shoes just seemed to be stuck on the field.

I was wondering should I write about all the lost friends, who just have disappeared somewhere or about the ones, I can't ever talk to. Few days ago I counted all the people I used to know and who had committed suicide. Five. All young men.

I thought about the boy who was sitting next to me when I started school. We were having almost similar names and were the only ones who could read. I read The Famous Five and he read dictionaries and I couldn't get him at all, because he didn't have any sense of humour, but I sat there next to him, because we did have almost similar names and he was shy and so bright, even when I always turned my head away from him.
After 10 years time he was my dancing partner when we had a high school ball. He was shy, so bright and had still no sense of humour, but he had chosen a wonderful white suit, which matched my blue dress perfectly. Five years later I saw him standing on the railway station. I walked away quickly and hoped he wouldn't have recognized me. I wish I had said he wasn't that bad at all.

Spring. The time when the most of the suicides are committed, except maybe in November. I love light and wondered why this season makes us so depressed.
For months we can just hide, be like some grumpy old bears, sleeping inside in the darkness. And suddenly the light, revealing everything.
All the dust on the tables, pale faces, dog hair stuck on the black trousers. We have to take our winter jackets off and let the others see what is left there after the long winter. Was it just the heavy jacket keeping us not falling apart?

Cemetery of the Living Bed

July 1994
Amsterdam

We all were feeling quite tired; me, Mr Fox and our friend "Muzzy". For two days we had been travelling, first by a ferry to Stockholm and then by a train across Sweden and Denmark.
Because we were young and extremely thirsty, we had eaten just some crackers, cheese snacks and chocolate cakes.
Because we were busy eating crackers, cheese snacks and chocolate cakes we hadn't had time to think about sleeping, until we wanted to just sleep forever and have some dreams of cheese cakes. Because we just wanted to sleep, we didn't think it was July, which was funny, because it was +30°C outside during the night, my lips were dry and my black short skirt had turned to be light brown because of the heat. Possibly because of the heat we hadn't booked any accommodation and it seemed like everyone else had done so.
Clever bastards.

Mr Fox: Where are we going to sleep?
T Fox: Can't we book a hotel room from there? [points towards the Cinderella's castle type of building with red carpets and elegantly waving flags]
---silence---
Muzzy: Last time I was here, we were sleeping in a rather nice youth hostel. It takes just about twenty minutes to get there... by train.


So we went to the Railway Station, only to notice there was just one local train leaving at that time of night and it was going to the right direction. We jumped in and had a lonely ride to a place called Bussum Zuid. What we found in the darkness, was a sleepy dormitory town, but no place to sleep. The owners of the posh buildings were dreaming of their rectangular lawns, where the worms were at deep sleep, dreaming about whatever that is the worms dream of.

Mr Fox: Where exactly is that youth hostel?
Muzzy: Well, I think it was somewhere here or there.

The direction there led us to a bigger rectangular lawn, where the weeping willows silently whispered over the stone beds for the eternally tired ones.

T Fox: This isn't a youth hostel. I think it is a cemetery.
Mr Fox: So, besides you are beautiful, you really are bright too.
Muzzy: Stop it. I think I know that path there.


So there we were, silently walking our way, heavy backbags increasing our joyful mood, when we saw a flat warehouse on one curve of the track. Three men standing near a dented Chevy van, looking at us, climbing inside the car. Suddenly we were standing in the spotlights.

T Fox: What was that noise?
Mr Fox: Did they start the engine?
Muzzy: I think they are after us. Run!


To be continued

At the age of 22 T. Fox makes a courbette

Mr Fox: How much time do we have left?
T Fox: Half an hour, just and just. Our train leaves at five. Track two, Südbahnhof.
Mr Fox: So we have time to buy... Südbahnhof?
T Fox: And this is Westbahnhof. Run!
.... Hey, man there, yes you! Is the Südbahnhof far away?
Hans-Jürgen Huberübergrueger: Sehr.
Mr Fox: Take the map! Hurry!
T Fox finds the map, runs, reads, speculates, jumps, turns right and left and whines.
Mr Fox: You can stop the whining [edited version], I can see the station. Unbelievable! We did it!
T Fox: I am quite good at reading maps.
Mr Fox: Wait... let me see that map.
T Fox: Sure.
Mr Fox: This is a map of Florence, not Vienna!


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Words in Finnish:

Kartta = a map
Juna-asema = a train station
Hypätä = to jump
Valittaa = to whine

When the Fox was Fourteen, She Watched a Sci-fi Film in Margate

Last Monday it was + 10 C degrees outside. Nicely warm, damp and dark.
Today it is -12 C, crispy and white. Unfortunately I didn't see anything behind my frozen windscreen. But I knew it was all there: slippery pavements, blue skies, snowflakes on your lashes, taste of the wet mittens, kids' tongues stuck onto frozen metal.
No wonder we're on the Lonely Planet's "Go List" amongst Antarctica, Central Bulgaria, Northern Patagonia and Cornwall.

Whilst scraping on my screen I thought about my own Want to Go List and it's irritating impossibleness, but also the places where I had already been.
Like Isle of Thanet. What made me travel there when I was 14? Of course now, twenty years later, I know it really isn't an island like Isles of Scilly or Isle of Man.
But I have never been that good with directions and instead of Isle of Wight I ended up living in Ramsgate with my best friend Katarina, a butcher, Avon lady and two Swedish girls. [Hej Carin och Susanna, om du läser det, hälsningar!]

One day In Kent:
T. Fox: Oh, I'm so glad it's Sunday and we don't have to eat those horrible pastries.
[Every day our small Tupperware boxes were stuffed with small pastries filled with some brown, unidentified meat and gristle, which was stuck between the teeth and possibly made me vegetarian in the long run.]
Katarina: Do you know where Emma and Steven are?
T. Fox: No.
Katarina: So, let's have a feast! [opens the food cupboard]
T. Fox: Mmm... hungry...
Katarina: Do you want to eat Weetabix or Weetabix? We don't have any milk though.

The cupboards were empty. Jut half a box of Weetabix.
After five hungry hours we still had that half a box of Weetabix.
T. Fox: Have you got any money?
Katarina: Nothing left, I'm sorry.
T. Fox: I have just the amount for the t-shirt...
Katarina: You've got money, you little [censored]!


So, we took my money, went to the shop near the fish & chips, where I got a love letter from a shy school boy.
[Hello Simon, I saved your letter.]
We bought ten Twix bars and four bottles of Fanta, and I didn't have that pink "is that your banana in your pocket"- t-shirt, which might have been a good thing after all.
Now, twenty years later I know I should have invested in property.


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Words in Finnish:
tuulilasi = a windscreen
ärsyttävä = irritating
matkustaa = to travel

I hoped my blue kicksled had been a pony

That was a typical January morning. Sky was so dark blue, it was nearly black. Faint lights made blue, long shadows on the pearly snow.
There were few cars parked behind the old T-Market, which scruffy surface would be bunch of wooden sticks in couple of weeks time.
But I didn't know and wouldn't have cared less. I felt burning cold wind licking my face. I dried the ice away with my wet mitten. Silent sound thumb, thumb, thumb of my grey feltboots, hitting the thick snow.

Nothing peculiar happened.
After few weeks I had turned to be a woman. After few months I didn't wear feltboots or mauve colored winter jacket, but was thinking about dieting and Duran Duran.
Next summer I had lost my trust in people.



Today we had finally snow here, but just the ordinary, wet, white, soon to be melting and turning brown type of snow.
The icebreakers are still in the harbours, it's really warm and nobody goes at school with a kicksled.

I also thought I might teach you few words of Finnish in each of my blog posts.
Words in Finnish:
potkukelkka = a kicksled
lapanen = a mitten
lumi = snow

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A tiny word on Kicksledding

During early spring, when the road has become too slippery and the snow too rough for skiing, and when the air is perhaps yet too fresh for running, then it is the best weather for kicksledding. It is the time to conquer the road and cover journeys with a kicksled. Anyone who has once made a kicksled trip on a spring winter night will renew it whenever suitable and shall use his dear vehicle on all possible errands.

Really, how jolly it is even to observe such a kicksledder. Tranquilly, sparsely crackles his foot on the road; shoulders bow lightly as gathering speed, and despite the easy effort it soon makes you swoon. The skiing man and horse carriage are easily overtaken, not speaking of the pedestrian, who just flickers in the kicksledder's eye like a telegraph cable pole. How skillfully the sled turns in curves; you need not fear any tumbles or collisions. Like a slender twig the kicksled bends obeying the will of its master.

Whilst the kicksled rides boldly on flat land, its speed in downward slopes is quite astonishing indeed. A freshneck driver gets almost confused and the heart of a weak-headed spectator begins wavering. For what so wizardly keeps meandering down the hill, yet honourably surviving such incredible bends, as a skilled kicksledder while tackling the steepest of all slopes. There is a certain enchantment similar to descending down the rapids, no less alert can a kicksled steersman stand on his runners. May neither an eye blink nor a limb deceive its contraction, being neither too timid nor too violent, if one desires to happily reach the level land.

You need not only stamina in your arms and strength in your torso, but perhaps most of all sharpness of sight and vigilance of thought as well as a heart that doesn't swerve for nothing. Kicksledding improves manhood, boldness and courage mentally as well as physically. Therefore kicksledding in fresh air during pictoresque springwinter nights is extremely advisable.

Let it become here mentioned, that our Federation has included kicksledding into its competitive events and eventually there might be even a possibility of participating in the Championships. All counties with a general interest in kicksledding are strongly recommended to arrange races in this practically beneficial and even more merry sport.

Column written by nickname "Tossu" was published in "Työväen Urheilulehti" (Labourers' Athletic Magazine) in 1915.

Five things I've heard

Today is the official ending of the Christmas season, so we threw the tree from the window and ate the delicious ginger bread house after dusting it. What then? A perfect time for doing Annie's Twisted Meme.

Five things somebody's said to me or about me:

1. You could be a model if you hadn't that ass.
A stranger on the street when I was 18.

2. Have you been part of the DDR shot put team?
A man after two years of dating.

3. I think I haven't told you, but you've got a brother.
Dad, when I was 19.

4. Look, Mum, is that Santa?
A small girl when I was 15 and wearing a trendy pink, furry coat.

5. You have such a voice it makes me sleep. Are you a news reader?
A stranger on the train when I was around 25.