Häid Jõule, Merry Christmas, & Frohe Weihnachten

No matter how you say it, may your holidays be bright and contain the magical touch of Christ this season! I wish you all a cozy holiday full of peace, joy, and love!

Merry Christmas!
Feliz Navidad!
Veselé Vianoce!
Craciun Fericit!
Häid Jõule!
Frohe Weihnachten!

I really don't know life at all

Tonight, I went to a brilliant concert by an Estonian jazz vocalist, Liisi Koikson -- a tribute to Joni Mitchell. Listening to her renditions of songs about community and conflict and living, I was drawn to the lyrics and the emotion of the music. Raw, funny, philosophical... I realized that I also don't really know life at all, but I do know how to appreciate a nice evening in pensive musical atmosphere.

Both Sides, Now
by Joni Mitchell

I've got a flat

I suppose it is both literally and metaphorically true at the moment. I came home tonight to see my beautiful red bicycle devoid of air. Some tricksters must have targeted my pretty wheels that were parked downstairs while I was at work and liberated their tires of air. A sad sight, indeed, as the bike can nearly not stand up on its own kickstand at this point. In my mind, a pretty harmless prank but one that reflects a bit of my own energy level at the moment. Someone must have also sneaked in when I wasn't paying attention and stolen some of my air too.

I try not to dwell on the darkness, but in tiptoeing around the very obvious reality that there is an absence of light at this time of year in this part of the world only drives me yet further from any illumination or chance of sunny disposition. When the sun does shine for a few hours (2 days so far in December) and I am faced with all the brightness of the sky, I am reminded of the Allegory of the Cave we read in my 12th grade English class with Ms. Bierbaum. I feel a bit like one of the cave dwellers emerging from a world of mere shadows. The honesty of the sky and the sun seem shocking and overwhelming -- one has to squint to look into the blueness of the sky overhead. On these days when the light appears, my urges to run outside and plaster myself somewhere, anywhere in the light feels a bit absurd (I'm quite certain the locals would stare). I have probably been too spoiled by an abundance of this truth of natural beams of light around me in the past. Only now can I appreciate what is missing as I emerge from the shadows to see reality basked in sunlight. If I had to rewrite one of my essays from 12th grade English answering the question What is truth? I would most definitely write that light is truth. (Yes, Ms. Bierbaum, I have finally progressed a little on that particular quest!)

Faced with these truths in the forms of absence of air and light, I understand why I feel flat and a bit lifeless these days. The bears have got it right; the only solution is to hibernate.

Signs of winter

Lately, I've been focused on the dulldroms of late fall and early winter in Estonia. It's a bit gray around here, and it doesn't help that the sun rises at 8:49 and has already set by 3:21 (December 10). As I write this, the filmy cover of clouds slowly turns from ash to a seamless back in color. Someone from a year-round sun-drenched climate, I struggle with feeling sleepy and a bit grouchy. In Wyoming we endure blizzards, windstorms, tornadoes, and an occasional rain; we have violent weather, but we also have an abundant amount of sunshine, with the glowing red orb reappearing after each tempestuous interruption. After a mere one or two days without seeing the sun, Wyomingites begin to complain of the oppressiveness of the weather. Estonia is perhaps a good test of character for those of us from the sunny prairie.

A student of mine recently gave me a copy of Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson after she discovered with horror that I had never experienced the Finnish children's popular series about Moomins. Cute, fuzzy creatures captured by Jansson appear misshapen and a bit strange, but I was delighted to find the books such an accurate description of Nordic humor and perspective on this dark time of year. In this story, Moomintroll awakes from his winter slumber and cannot return to sleep. He ventures out amongst the creatures of winter and the strange landscape of the season. In a sudden outburst, he shouts this angry summer song:

Listen, winter creatures, who have sneaked the sun away,

Who are hiding in the dark and making all the valley grey:

I am utterly alone, and I’m tired to the bone,

And I’m sick enough of snowdrifts just to lay down and groan.

I want my blue verandah and the glitter of the sea,

And I tell you one and all that your winter’s not for me!

“Just you wait until my sun’s coming back to look at you, and then you’ll look silly, all of you,” Moomintroll shouted and didn’t even care about rhymes anymore:

Because then I’ll dance on a sunflower disk

And lie on my stomach in the warm sand

And keep my window open all the day

On the garden and bumblebees

And on the sky-blue sky

And my own great

Orange-yellow

SUN!

From Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson, 1957, pp. 39-40

I have no problem relating to little Moomintroll and could stand outside right now and shout nearly the same thing at the VERY gray sky! However, I restrain. I am not a Moomin. I am an adult. Focus on the positive. Think brightly (after all, the sun did shine here yesterday).

There are pretty holiday lights,



and fancy university balls



and sometimes snow



and good friends to visit with over mulled wine (feuerzangenbowle)



and don't forget Grandma Bea's Christmas cookies!

The Christmas season has begun here and that brings some brightness. I can throw myself into this time of year, even if the days are dark and a bit lackluster. After all is said in done, I will learn, just like Moomintroll, to appreciate some of the finer points of this wintry season (Jansson, 1957, p. 151):

“Do you know, when the snow comes, it falls down from the sky like tiny and very cold stars. And up there in the blue sky you can see fluttering blue and green curtains.”

…

“Yes, and even if you can’t walk on the snow you can slide along on it,” continued Moomintroll. “It’s called skiing. It makes you rush ahead fast, like lightening, in a cloud of whirling snow, and you’ve got to look sharp or else!”

Ever wonder how the world sees you?

You may just be too frightened to recover once you've answered this question. See some of the action shots taken while I was giving a presentation last week, below. Captured as a still life, I am not sure how attractive my expressions are... What exactly was I saying? I'll let you be the judge (I just can't remember and am too shocked to comment further).

A Finnish Thanksgiving

This year I spent turkey day stuffing myself with good food and great company! I celebrated in Finland this year. It was an excuse to visit Vaasa, catch up with a good friend, and, even more so, to share an important American holiday.

Don't be mistaken -- Thanksgiving is not a Finnish holiday; if you want to know more about the day, visit The History of Thanksgiving to watch an illustrative video and read more.


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Taking the duty of being good American cultural ambassadors while abroad quite seriously, we initiated a large group of Finns, Estonians, and Germans to the rites of Thanksgiving by preparing and eating loads of traditional foods: Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, scalloped corn, cranberry relish, cranberry bread, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, squash rolls... It was a really cozy and fulfilling (or rather filling) cultural exchange. Take a look at the resulting pictures, below!





Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Popsid goes global

The wind band I play in was featured in a brass band podcast yesterday. Check out Popsid, including three of our songs and an interview, at Brasscast. You can either listen or download the podcast for November 18, 2007 here.

Enjoy the music!

Talgud

I had a chance to take part in something especially Estonian, a Talgud or collective work day. An Estonian friend who lives out in the countryside near Tartu invited friends, students, and family for a day of work at his rural home. The idea is that the more hands, the quicker and more fun the work to follow. Our group of eight worked to pull down three trees, strip them down, move them, and clean the area by burning the extra wood. (Estonia is in no danger of running out of firewood and forest fires are of little concern in this area of bogs and wetlands.) Not too much work with so many to help out. We enjoyed a crisp day of team work and fresh wintry air followed by time in the sauna, beer, and plenty of feasting in the evening.



In tandem with this festivity of work was the celebration of St. Martin's Day or Madripäev in Estonian. Marking the end of fall and beginnings of darker wintry times ahead, Madripäev is preceded by St. Martin's Eve when children dress up in dark costumes and go door-to-door to perform a song or dance and ask for treats or money. The day of Madripäev is a feast day that happened to fall on our Talgud. Together with a few families and our Talgud workgroup, we enjoyed a special beet-based salad and tasty hani, cooked geese filled with cabbage, apples, and prunes. I was so distracted by the delicacy that I lost interest in pictoral documentation after the salad... you can imagine how mouth-watering it must have been.



All together, it was a fantastic day demonstrating the incredibly warm collaborative and celebratory faces of Estonians and Estonia. In the face of the country's grayest month with days diminishing quickly to an almost constant enveloping darkness, I felt surprisingly warm and bright. It's a tradition that I may have to keep once I leave this place. A talgud and feast should perhaps be a part of my own collected fall traditions.

Just another piece of paper?

This week I went to a thank you party for all of those involved in the University of Tartu's 375th Anniversary celebrations. Much to my surprise, I received a certificate of participation. As a teacher, I often give certificates and am surprised by how much adults enjoy getting them. I guess that I now better understand (I guess we don't really get certificates so often), and I must say I am rather proud of my certificate as a symbol of my involvement in a local group and participation in the Tartu community. Rather than tossing it in with other papers and odd items, I have decided this one definitely isn't just another piece of paper. Cool, isn't it?

Motorcyclists rev up Tartu

Last Sunday I was lazing around when suddenly I heard an approaching rumble coming from outside. Sticking my head out of the window, I discovered a motorcycle run in progress. The throaty sound of pipes made me homesick for my own wheels... For your enjoyment, here are the captured moments!