On Doing Great

"I. Said. I'm. Fine."

Hi! How are you?

Hi! I'm doing great! Super busy right now, so many interesting projects going on that I hardly have time to sleep! So inspiring!

(...and when I would have time to sleep I just can't because my to-do list keeps spinning around in my head getting longer and longer, I have no clean socks anymore and no time to wash them and every new work request makes me want to vomit the lunch I forgot to eat because it's just all too much and I want to die on a desert island with a book and a bottle of wine and never hear a second of music ever again.)

Hi! How are you?

I'm great, thanks! I'm working less nowadays and it feels awesome. I have so much more time to enjoy life and take care of myself. It's really important for a musician to have other things in their life as well, not just their career.

(I'm having a dry spell. Very little work coming this way, and I lie awake at night worrying about next month's rent and whether I should retrain as a shop assistant. I'm having so much me-time that I'm starting to thoroughly despise myself, and I'd pay to get a gig.)

Hi! How are you?

I'm good! So busy applying for all these grants that are due now - I've got such a cool concert idea I'm looking forward to creating!

(...but I'm pretty sure other people will get all the money I would've deserved. My confidence in the idea sails from high to low - one day I'm booking Carnegie Hall sure that the different foundations are dying to pour money into my brilliant scheme, and the next I'm burning my application papers because the idea is commonplace, outdated, and hopelessly naive.)

Hi! How are you?

Couldn't be better - I'm teaching so much these days, and my students give me so much energy. It's so inspiring to watch them learn!

(I have hand problems but I really don't want to talk about it. I'm afraid I'll never perform again if this doesn't heal, and I feel like I've lost half of my identity. Without my students I'd starve in a ditch. My cheeks hurt from all the encouraging smiling and my head is full of recent pop tunes spiced with some Für Elises and Walking in the airs, and the next time someone tells me they simply forgot to practice I'll retire for good.)

Hi! How are you?

Awesome, just awesome. I have more concerts than I can fit in my calendar, but I'm loving every minute of it.

(I would really love performing if I'd had the time to practice the stuff properly, which I now don't since there are all the other concerts and so many different programs and so much music and so little time. My performing outfit reeks of sweat, I have trouble sleeping and my personal life is falling apart. The apartment is full of dying flowers stuck in random bottles since the landlady refuses to accept grand flower arrangements as rent, and the fridge is empty since shops don't want the damn flowers either.)

Hi! How are you?

I'm great! I'm a freelancer, so my life is a permanent mess of either too much or too little work - I'm trying to keep either a burnout or financial ruin at bay. But as I'm a professional musician I market myself as a thriving, busy artist with heaps of confidence, gigs, plans, hope, and creative potential. A professional musician is not desperate or insecure, and they certainly don't have physical problems, injuries, or any mental issues for that matter.

Hi! How are you?

What if next time I really answered the question instead of responding with marketing talk?

 

On Summer Cottages (the true story)

This is what we post on Instagram, but it's not the whole truth... 

Around midsummer, most of the Finns I know migrate to their summer cottages (mökki in Finnish). They post pictures of sunsets, landscapes with plenty of water, and it really is so beautiful you want to puke. I did the same a couple of days ago, but after seeing Instagram fill with like minded posts, I decided to come clean and reveal the true story.

1. Packing

You need a lot of shit in mökki. All the food, starting from salt and sugar, and all possible vanity items like toilet paper - you do not want to be a two-hour ferry ride away from the mainland with absolutely nothing to wipe your ass with.

Bed sheets, warm clothes, rubber boots (more about that later), sunscreen, a couple of hundred kilos of stuff you carry while wishing you'd stayed at home. Mökkis are usually situated quite far from said home - traveling takes years, plus all your mental and physical strength. 

2. The weather

The mökki I go to belongs to the family of my significant other. It's located in the outer reaches of the Turku archipelago, close to the open seas. IT IS NOT WARM HERE, EVER. The sun might shine, but go on a boat trip without your windproof coat and you're dead. A pleasant, warm midsummer here translates to +16 Celsius, and on worse summers it's more like +6 with insane wind that makes it dangerous to go outside.

3. Living standards

Some rich people have mökkis that are more like villas or houses, but the ones I'm used to are a bit more 18th century. There's no running water, OBVIOUSLY, so shower means pouring buckets of water on you, and the drinking water (that is safe enough to drink, I'm told (??!?!!)) comes from a well. Electricity we do have, which is very much needed for heating. The toilet is outside, a short walking distance away from the actual mökki. Mosquitoes love the toilet, and they're always happy to keep you company there. Spiders enjoy their time there too, pleased to greet you from the ceiling whenever you attend.

4. The fauna

There are swans swimming around looking like supermodels in a ComeToFinland ad, seagulls crying, swallows showing off their aviating skills, and if you're lucky, you'll see a seal on one of the islands not far away. No boat rides needed for meeting snakes, though. They're all over the islands, and they bite. That's why we always wear rubber boots here - I nearly stepped on one just yesterday. There's also quite enough of spiders, who do not limit themselves to toilets - they love hanging out indoors in places you'd least expect to find them.

There's one animal, however, that is the most infuriating and over-appreciated thing I've ever seen: the nightingale. They sing throughout the night. Sounds lovely? Then you've never heard them sing. For such a tiny bird they make a lot of noise, and they do not need to pause for breath. A nightingale sounds like what happens when you mix a bad stand-up comedian, a beat boxer, and all your ring tones together and add magic mushrooms. Nobody sleeps peacefully listening to that.

5. Activities

Sunbathing, boat trips, reading books by the fire? As if. 

Mökkis need constant repairing and attending to. You chop wood (or buy it pre-chopped, which means you just have to carry a couple hundred kilos of wood to the shed and pile it in neat rows, to protect it from mold - it takes a morning and a half), you wash the windows, you dust the cobwebs (quite literally), you fight the ever-growing jungle outside trying to create paths to move around the island, you decide to paint the mökki walls from outside and it turns out to be the project that costs all your remaining sanity plus your relationship, and you're constantly washing dishes (without running water, mind you). In the evenings you eat cold sausages because you can't be bothered to heat them anymore. We always go to sauna, but not-Finns rarely understand anything about that. It's a room where it's very hot, you sit there naked, and then you have a beer. Swimming is only for the very brave as seawater tends to be ice cold here, no matter the season.

6. The way home

After six days or so the longing for a real toilet grows so strong you pack your things and head home. Arms aching from work, skin covered in mosquito bites, and hair transformed beyond all recognition by the windiest of winds, you immediately start planning the next mökki trip. Mökki, after all, is the essence of summer - it is true happiness. For what is happiness without exhaustion and spiders?