notes to self (on rainy days and mondays)

Yesterday morning, as I put my daughter's new rose pink parka jacket in the wash for the second time in a couple of days, I cursed myself for the things I'd set myself up to do on a Monday that seemed like another gloomy, rainy October day.

It was not the laundry that annoyed me; in fact, I can think of no happier reason to do laundry than washing a ten-year-old's jacket for the simple reason that she had again been rolling on the ground with a friend and also almost fallen into a ditch in the forest while playing. I cursed because I had promised to go and buy tickets for my friend and I for an event in November, an event that tends to sell out quickly and that you can't buy tickets to online. It looked nothing like an ideal bike-ride-to-town weather outside, and I really really didn't want to go.

Fifteen minutes before I had to go it started snowing. First it seemed like a drizzle, just slush falling from the sky, but it soon turned into fluffy white flakes that looked quite lovely. I got dressed and decided to leave my glasses at home, for I knew in a matter of minutes they'd be so wet with soft melting snow flakes I wouldn't be able to see in front of me. In the mirror, without the glasses, I glimpsed at someone who looked uncannily like my old October self in former October self-portraits. (Like this one, or that one.) It was like I was my own doppelgänger. It made me smile, just a little, but it was a smile that lasted all the way into town as I rode my bike through the snowfall.

When I got to the old, restored house they were selling the tickets at, there was a line of about thirty people in front of me. The trees around the magnificent house were all shades of autumn, and the people in the line were talking about reality TV, a Finnish photographer everybody found amazing, and how slowly the line was progressing. Nobody was cranky about it though, except maybe the guy just before me -- he had cycled thirty kilometres from the neighbouring town to buy a ticket, and had brought lunch with him to eat somewhere before cycling back, but had forgotten to bring a spoon with him. Upon hearing of his self-imposed misfortune, everyone in the line was helpful, suggesting places where he might be able to borrow a spoon. Finally the ticket office ladies secured him a space and a spoon to eat on the premises, and he seemed pretty happy.

As I chatted to an old now-retired colleague of mine about the concerts we intended to buy tickets for, I suddenly started feeling more and more like my old self, the pre-2016 Instagram craze period person. I don't know what it was; whether it was about the atmosphere of the small-town line slowly progressing towards a common goal of purchasing tickets, or the whole doppelgänger thing, or my week-long Instagram break, or the fact that I had read through all my previous October blog posts in the morning, all of them, stretching from 2009 to 2014. It had been a beautiful trip down the memory lane, and I had really appreciated the easiness of navigating the archiving system. (Just imagine trying to find all of your previous October posts on a more modern application of the social media concept.)

I don't know what it was, but it enlivened me. Instead of riding my bike straight back home like I had intended, I decided to make a stop at the craft shop on the other side of town to pick up some wooden beads and show the owner the woolly hat I had made with the yarn she helped me choose. Then I figured I might just as well pop into the charity thrift shop next door to buy some candle-making equipment, and I was glad to discover that a) on Mondays, they had everything 50 per cent off, and b) they were happy to keep my glassware haul until the evening when I could pick it up by car on my grocery round. (I later went back with my daughter and we made some pretty awesome discoveries, like the Gardenista book at the price of 2 euros.)

I felt increasingly pleased for having actually gotten around to going into town on a Monday. I also felt like this was a story worth telling, even before I went to the coffee shop on my way back home. I don't know at which point exactly I started thinking blogposts had to be about something, something specific like a how-to or a recipe or a capsule wardrobe, but I suppose it was right at the time when we started thinking blogposts were articles and blogs simply an extension of our online presence on other, faster ways of communicating and sharing with people. But what about stories, my soul suddenly seemed to be screaming. Stories! Opinions! Philosophies! With unlimited space! 

So anyway, it was pretty much lunchtime so on to the coffee shop I mentioned. Because I couldn't decide which one I wanted more, I had a serving of both croissants and cheesecake with my green tea, the name of which could loosely be translated as Lapland lust. (Which was why I picked it.) To my utter delight and great surprise, the coffee shop happened to be giving away free loaves of oat bread -- of the kind they used to sell before they discovered that around here you really can't compete with the supermarkets when it comes to selling bread, no matter how delicious and real your bread tastes like.

I couldn't remember the last time I had gotten some bakery-made bread, and it brought out the hidden inner city girl in me. I told myself to remind myself that it was definitely worth it riding your bike into town on Mondays sometimes. In fact, I felt I was worth it, and therefore, before taking off, I bought a copy of my favorite Finnish fashion magazine in the kiosk next door, because I do love fashion magazines and all things frivolous occasionally.

No, scratch that, I love them like all the time. Doesn't mean I buy into them, I just love browsing them. I'm large, I contain multitudes, as Whitman would say. Sometimes it's just too easy to lose those multitudes in the ocean of boxes that social media tries to contain people in. I used to belong in several boxes in the past, I used to feel conflicted about that sometimes, but I didn't try to shove and squeeze myself into just one. I feel like I might be done with that? At least until I log back into Instagram, haha.

Back at home, I had two large cups of coffee with my fashion magazine, and then me and the girl enjoyed some beautifully fluffy, tasty oat bread as an afternoon snack. (It didn't taste anything like plastic, unlike some of the "real" "bakery-made" supermarket varieties we've had the displeasure of acquainting ourselves with.) In the distance, the sky looked wild, like it might start snowing again, and the rose pink parka jacket looked like new again.

There was a curious sense within me, of somehow being both an old and a new version of myself at the same time, like myself 2.0, and I told myself it was a story worth telling, even if it wasn't about anything specific like a newspaper article or didn't have a point to it like a how-to. I thought I'd write one that'd be like a doppelgänger of all my previous October posts, and yet nothing like them, because no day, month, or year in one's life is like any of the previous ones, which is why we continue to evolve, to change, to bear within us the days of yore and the days to come, our ancient selves as well as the people we hope to become.

The sky looked wild, the parka looked like new, and I was in love with all of it, the all-encompassing allness of everything all at once and nothing in particular at all.