Ways to deal with emptiness

The birch on my front yard stretches out its heavy branches aggressively. It gulps up all the water that would otherwise go to the grass, rosebushes and dandelions. In the kingdom of my garden, the birch is exerting autocratic power over the midget plants, and sometimes its massive volume overwhelms me. Was it really this huge last year? Is this also a sign of the global warming? It’s only end of May, the birch is now in full bloom and in a month’s time the first yellow leaves will already appear. Everything happens so early these days. Buds, leaves, branches – our lives here and now, filled with premature beginnings, fast forward festivities, Christmas in October, Easter in January, Midsummer in May - parties that end before they were expected to start.

But not all is gloomy. After academic duties, I did some flâneuring today in the city and took myself to the extremes of boredom in my own company. I was done with a café writing session in five minutes (following Julia Cameron’s idea of arranging “writing dates” with oneself), and it didn’t take me much longer to pick up a new plant (Easter cacti) from a flea market to decorate the less thirsty backyard. I was done, absolutely bored with everything and ready to go home in less than a half an hour. There was no expectation in the air, no willingness to run into someone, no willingness to change plans, to let loose and go astray.

It feels good to notice that I can now deal with existential boredom with more style than some months back. Some of the newly found patience must emerge from Paulo Coelho’s newest texts (especially the non-fiction collection "Like a Flowing River") – he is a champion for empty time, the human need to tolerate the fact that some days there may be nothing of importance to be done immediately. The art of making oneself useless for a day.

Let’s invite here the black sociological grin and heavy rectangular spectacles. I make fun of myself as a reader of Paulo Coelho – he is the most “iconic” lifestyle author I can imagine, whose texts seem to find the same kind of middle-aged, female, soul-seeking crowd in all countries I’ve ever travelled. And I’ve read him in many countries, carried his books in many forms of transport. Coelho is one of the most perfectly branded authors I have encountered lately, each novel marketing the next. His adult fans seem to mark in their calendars the arrival of the latest one, just like kids do with Harry Potter. Coelho’s novels are perfect to read in trains and bars as conversation openers with strangers – he is a household name, of whom almost everyone has an opinion, whether or not they have opened his books. Anyone who considers oneself as a serious reader or a potential writer must articulate their critical standpoint to ruthless populists like Coelho – but then, why does his name give birth to so much passion, whether we love him or hate him?

I have to thank Paulo Coelho for something, which I might have discovered later without him, but he has enabled me to realise it now, sooner than later. If I have trouble with early beginnings and fast forwarded lives, Coelho’s writings have strengthened my opposition to early bird-thinking in all walks of life.

There are days when I don’t want anything new to happen, when all things are well as they are, when arranging laundry can be the only thing I can manage, and that’s alright.

Darling buds of March

They are everywhere, even here in the vicinity of the North Pole, the darling buds of March.
How to tell about it so that it wouldn’t sound like a weather report?

In a state of exhilaration, I put out the garden table and chairs today, then rescue them from a blizzard tomorrow. The snow melts again the day after, slish slosh. An army of heavy-booted boys runs through the apartment, disappearing to the forest before I manage to call them for a severe interrogation. The whole universe is a run-through existence, muddy footsteps all over, celebration anticipating despair. In and out, on and off, hot and cold taps running with equal force.

Seven plants inhabit my windowsill, a construction which the previous tenants made. It might collapse under the weight of the heavy pots any day now, so self-made it seems. Two of my darlings are committing suicide and five are growing exponentially, thanks to the overdose of fertilizer I’ve poured on them. The water becomes like green Mehukatti juice (pear flavour) - if I don’t use all of it in a go, the kids might accidentally drink the leftovers.

The rosemary is doing splendidly, but the apple of my eye, the sculptural pagoda tree has probably lost its fighting spirit. I found the pagoda tree (Sophora japonica) in a gardening centre in Jyväskylä last summer, fell in love with its fragile, sophisticated aura and took it home without any care-taking hints. Then I took great pains to find more information about it than the mere name. Finally, on a bonsai tree enthusiasts’ website (www.bonsaifi.net) it was told that the pagoda tree has a long hibernation and could even be kept in a fridge to resemble its natural winter climate. Contrary to the good advice, I’ve kept it suffering by my window next to the heating element the whole winter, because I first enjoyed looking at it even with the dry, lifeless leaves. Now I just feel bad about killing such a fine tree, but I haven’t got the nerve to throw the skeleton out before I’m quite sure about its fate.

Finland probably isn’t the right geographical spot to even try to grow such trees anyway, and I’m not even for the whole idea of bonsai. I wouldn’t start thwarting the pagoda tree if it came back to life. I prefer things to grow limitlessly.

You wouldn’t believe that I’ve read many feng shui manuals if you came to my house. I have, indeed, although it’s so 1990s. I know all about the bad chi dead or dying plants create around them. How they can cause loss of money, love and general lethargy. This is all theoretical knowledge I shouldn’t elaborate on until I practice what I preach. At the moment, my gardening skills are rather punk shui instead (www.punkshui.net).

It’s a definite sign of growing older when you suddenly start recognizing the success of plants in café corners, and have a discussion with a friend about the correct kind of lighting for the plant called mother-in-law’s tongue (anopinkieli/Sansevieria trifasciata) instead of screening and giving points to gorgeous guys and gals passing by. But I tell you not to panic: these conversations can be quite pleasurable, and at least I connect love for plants with a general lust for life – anything that grows can lift us up at a critical stage.

Most of the time, talking to a plant is more beneficial than talking to people.