Because all what we have is now
She is Kirsti. She is the mother who took care of me during the most important years of my life. She taught me kindness and most valuable things in life (especially humour). How lucky I am.
To be mother might be the greatest thing on planet. Congratulations! May this world be yours.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to my home country. I went there in last November and met my now 90 years old grandma. It was one big return for me which I did alone.
Now I will be spending two weeks in the great green Finnish summer, smelling the distant forest flowers, taking sauna and swimming in my childhood lake.
It’s always almost a shock to realise how different Finland smells. The smell is so different, it’s another world.. and trees look and sound different too. The sound of leaves of birch trees make when wind touches them.. it’s the sound of my childhood. I used to climb on one of those and fell more than once.. (maybe that’s why I became like this!)
My biggest desire now is to take off my shoes and walk on the green grass, looking at the Finnish summer clouds.
Being happy might not be so complicated. It might be very simple. Just breathe, and open your arms.
Visiting Finland was in many ways a kind of emotional trip for me. I met my grandma who is approaching her 90’s. Her condition has been up and down lately, and she is now living in a care house in Kiuruvesi. I also visited my birth place, the old house where I was born some 34 years ago, before I was adopted.
I took a lot of photos during my travel and as I get the negatives properly scanned, I will share the photos here and in my Flickr. One of the photos however was above others, it is the only photo that’s in the front page now, the photo of Sanni, my grandma.
I realized, once again how taking photos of something really important is actually kind of self-measuring your level of maturity.
During my visit in Finland I caught this terrible fever which then turned into a nasty tonsil infection that totally knocked me off my feet for the last weeks. I’m however getting better now and getting ready to return back to this world. I will be uploading more photos now that I’m in better health.
Embassy of Finland in Tokyo is so cool!
Since I was a kid, doctors concluded that my heart was “a little different”. There was an extra beat in there, and I had to go to these rather clinical tests where they put sensors in my body and tried to research the abnormality. Because I had to stay away from school those times, and my “a little different” nature; I was constantly bullied.
But somehow in my adolescence, the doctors concluded that my heart will continue beating just fine even if placed under heavy stress. Therefore I was not allowed the exception; I had to join the Finnish Army.
Somehow, in my environment I really had no choice of civilian service. So I decided alone that I have to bite the bullet and go through the service like everyone else.
I was recruited as an engineer; one of the hardest jobs in the army. It includes carrying heavy mines on your back.
Because of my little different heart, my physical strength just didn’t match the others. Within one week from the start of my recruitment, I fell into a hole in the obstacle course and hurt my back.
I was in pretty bad shape. My disc in my back bone got ruptured and caused infection in the spine. That caused high fever. In addition all kinds of other ailments came up during the time when I was in the hospital, including gall stones which required surgery within a year of that event. I had awful pain in my back and I screamed at night.
They shot morphine-derivative in me.
It was like a crazy dream, which only got worse. I was lucky enough to be repatriated after I signed the document in which I stated that my mental condition wasn’t good enough in order to operate in the force.
When I returned my home five months earlier as others, I was a minority.
Even today I depend in my “little different” heart.
I don’t think I’m such a brave person, but I am very proud that I discovered my difference, and my sensitivity.
I continue to call myself as minority. Not a world citizen but world foreigner.
It is a status I intend to keep.
This photo was shot with Canon Powershot G9. There’s some noise but it isn’t so bad, considering that it is a compact camera. My G9 suffered crash landing when I was climbing on Takao, so she won’t be with me anymore.
However, this is one of the photos I shot with her in 2008.
I have never really done any serious plane spotting. But since I’ve always been interested in aviation, shooting planes fascinates me.
Some years back when I was still living in Finland, I went to the Helsinki Vantaa airport for plane spotting. What an adventure it was!
Since I only had EOS350D and cheap Canon zoom lens I didn’t have any serious gear. But I was surprised that even with such equipment I was able to get some usable shots. The lens was only 200mm but with crop sensor that was reasonable magnification.
I took a path which lead into the forest that surrounds the airport, and walked about an hour crossing small river and a bigger one, and all the time I could watch passenger jets landing, KLM, Finnair, Air France.. The forest was pretty thick and there was barbed wire and all kinds of things.. I decided to take my route so that I would end up somewhere in the end of the runway where the planes fly over.
I finally was able to find the famous plane spotting location Lemminkäisen kallio, on which I climbed. There were couple of people with DSLRs and binoculars, observing the air traffic.
I had enough courage to try my luck and went through the human-sized hole in the surrounding fence to get a better shot of the Finnair passenger jet on final. It didn’t take long until a suspicious looking vehicle started to approach by the runway, so I soon retreated to the allowed location.. But I was able to catch this shot though (which was purchased by Ilmailumuseo, thanks Cartina Finland!)
I would love to do plane spotting here in Japan. Anyone know some good locations?