About failed bed hunting, Mom, amazing Emma and Life

Starting to write this blog I had to think twice what has happened lately. With the first try I freaked out that nothing has happened and my life is all boring adult stuff with work and grocery shopping. With second try I started to count the people I have met and the wines I’ve tasted and felt normal again, my life isn’t boring here yet.  Yet. Well, it is following some kind of routines from Monday to Sunday with less fuss and surprises than in the beginning but it still isn’t boring. I am not an adult. So starting from a good routine of Friday night being reserved for project drinks, I decided to go for a glass, enjoyed the bar and the company and was told by Marijke to be quite tipsy already at 8pm when she arrived. It happens. We were at Stanford Hotel inner court next to Moo Moo that is supposed to be the best steak restaurant in town (got to our list of course). It was a nice bar, lots of space and live music. Most of the people leave from the Friday drinks quite early, luckily I am not one of those people and continued to Exchange hotel in a group of five. Exchange was the second bar I visited after my arrival to Australia, during my second evening and meeting Marijke for the first time. My memories from Exchange were sweeter than the reality last Friday. Ummmmm, I am most likely 10 year older than average Exchange visitor, my hemline is average 40cm longer, and I am average 10 drinks behind. I have no share in the game, and I think I didn’t have a share 4 month earlier but was just so messed up and jet lagging that I didn’t realize it. Taxi > Bed > Sweet dreams > no alarm. Sweet. Friday, check.

Saturday was all about bed hunting and world saving with dear M and good wine. So after getting up amazingly early on Saturday without any sign of hangover and having 2 cups of coffee and salty salmon bagel at Dandelion and Driftwood I was well prepared to spend the rest of the day in various furniture stores looking for a bed. I think I need a bed, at least a spare one for my quests but I could also be in a need for a new “master bed” to suit my tricky back better. My back complains a bit these days and I am not really sure if it is the running or the mattress or combination of both or something else. So for few weeks I have been playing with the idea of getting a new bed, swinging between cheap quest bed and super expensive quality bed depending on the day and mood and maybe coming to a conclusion that I am not mentally  and emotionally ready to buy a new bed. Too many “maybe” and “might” and “idea” factors and too little drive to get really something done....I think it shouldn’t be this tricky but realizing it is. Somehow buying a bed feels like the biggest decision of my life at the moment, well it pretty much is one, but shouldn’t I now be eligible enough to make the call as I have ended here by myself too? Or is the amount of decisions one can make in a year constant? And is a year a calendar year, or the FY I’ve been used to during the past 3.5 years?  And does a huge life changing decision eat out your capacity to decide what to have for dinner or whether to buy a new bed or not (certainly feels like it)? Meaning the Balance in the universe thingy? But anyways while looking for the right bed I got more inspired about pillows, laundry bags, outdoor furniture, book shelves, lamps, cups, mirrors and pictures, and with pillows meaning the decoration pillows and not the ones you sleep with, which could be a sign of not-being-ready. Pillows and laundry bags are more innocent, they do not consume your energy. So basically I don’t have a point here, I didn’t get a bed or pillows or anything else to my home but ended up to Marijke’s cosy balcony having a good girl talk with a bottle of red wine. The warm evenings are perfect for spending long nights at a balcony, in Bris balcony is your living room...it’s where the life happens. Bed is secondary. So I should get the balcony furniture first?

And then Mom. My mom arrived last Sunday, early around 7am. I left to the airport super excited. Excited to see a loved one, excited to hug a loved one and excited to see if she has changed a lot or gotten older. I took a Finnish flag with me, just to stand out from the crowd and after some 15 minutes of waiting I got to wave the flag. There she was, my mom, looking extremely fresh and happy and of course tears in her eyes as soon as she saw me. I cried too, no doubt, and it felt so good to hug her. Welcome to Brisbane Mom, welcome to Australia. This was the feeling I counted on when leaving Finland and saying “see you instead”, the sweet reunion. You believe when you see it, hope to have many more. For my relief she didn’t look a day older, she had new glasses and very her style black and white tunica and black sneakers. Same perfume too. Mom as I know her, familiar. We were back home already 7.30am and I felt more tired than she did after waking up 5.30am. “So, should we go out for a brekkie and then to explore the city?” Mom, you have travelled some 24 hours with hardly any sleep, you should be extremely tired and trying to sneak for a proper nap (I headed straight to bed from Airport and slept for some good 5 hours and woke up to Kaija calling from the reception and saying we were supposed to meet an hour ago. Oho). But no, my mom didn’t want to sleep or stay inside, she wanted to go out and DO STUFF *Superwoman* So we went to have brekkie at Gunshop coffee, ate outside, walked up and down Boundary Street and she kept saying it felt so unreal to be in Brisbane right now. It was unreal for me too. She will be here for a month and I think my cupboards will never be that organised and shiny as they are now as she has a tendency to clean. In addition to the cleaning service (no, my home isn’t messy...but sure there is some room for improvement and wiping) I get scrambled eggs and rye bread for breakfast and proper food for dinner too. During the days I am of course at work, so she has time to enjoy Brisbane, clean and hang out with Kaija. When I come home I spot another cleaned area and fridge filled with proper food. Heh, for the first time my fridge looks more like a fridge than a wine cooler, even my brother’s wife would be proud! Currently here in Brisbane there is an advertisement campaign going on about being prepared for natural disaster and having 3 days reserve for food and water to manage well and I realized I have a reserve for a damn good world saving weekend (includes wine and chocolate), but not much food as such. It takes a mom to change that and if you are prepared nothing happens, right? I am spoiled. My mom loves life here, Brisbane is friendly to all sorts of people and helpful too. We don’t have much plans, she wants to just enjoy and be. So most likely we’ll go to Moreton Island for a weekend, Kaija will take her to a road trip and rest of the time we go by the ear. It is also awesome she gets to meet my people and see what life here is all about. I believe it makes it easier for her to go back home...realize that my life has its flow and have more context to it. When she is home I can say I have spent a long evening again at Marijke’s. She knows the place and her. When I say I had brekkie at Gunshop she can imagine the big toast poached eggs and rocket salad. When I say I went for a run to the river side she knows the route and asks if there were other people running too as the riverside is a bit scary in the evening without any lights. All in all she has started to build a map now. We have still 3.5 weeks to go, hope all goes well.

Wednesday was a big night in terms of Maslow Hierarchy level 2, getting my hair cut updated. As I told, the last time at Fuckenheim for Hair was pretty traumatic and I was not at all satisfied for the quality of the cut I got and I decided to give another salon a try and got a recommendation from Marijke to call for Emma at AKA togninis. Her hair looks pretty, mine could look pretty too. Once again I went inside with mixed feelings, please do not *uck up my hair. Long story short (3h 15 minutes long story, jep I sat there for 205 minutes!!), Emma is amazing!! She looked at my hair and said the cut is all *ucked up. She said it has no shape and no volume either. She said it’s been cut with 1990’s style. She said the highlights are way too thin. She said it will take some 2 cuts to do the damage control and she has a plan for my next style (I indicated that I am pretty done with the fringe and asked her to come up with something). She also wants to be BIG in the business one day and participate to Milan and New York fashion weeks. She’s amazing and will make the dream. So 205 minutes later I was back in the game again and all smile and wanted to give her a hug. I didn’t, but reserved next appointment and thanked her for saving my day. All smile, situation calls for drinks. So I got drinks to an empty stomach and ended up being tipsy at 9pm and blaming for the big excitement and good looking damage control. Cheers for Emma. Lime rooftop is nice too.

Then few words about life. Life happens. I have realized it lately. During the past 4 months four of my good friends have became parents for the first time. Two of my friends have separated from their long time partner. One is considering a divorce. Two of my friends have fallen in love madly and ended up with a broken heart. Few are struggling with the busy life of working parents and small kids.  Some are waiting for the news if they get to keep a job or not. New jobs. Big things. Life changing things. Being this far you see things from a distance, literally and figuratively. I am excluded from the “noise” and just get the facts as they are, the emails, messages, Skype calls from Finland with get-to-the-point approach. I get the end result but not the processing part and it feels weird, as I am the type of person that has a need to “be there”, I’ve been used to being there. I feel I should be able to be in two places at the same time knowing it is impossible. I know every upside has a down side but I’m still fighting against. And maybe there is a bit of fear too, fear of missing something crucial and fundamental, like life would happen outside my territory? I should learn to be “grounded”. So what I try to do is to shape up my Skype and email routines to be more in touch. Even short calls or messages, just catch up and hear the latest news. To know where people stand between the big announcements and news, be part of the processing. And please do the same (many of you do already, thanks) to know what’s happening with my life…the stuff outside this blog, there is a lot of that too. A lot that isn’t public.

Love,

//Ansku

PS: Shhh, posting from work as my computer got stuck last night just before publishing. Don’t tell anyone. Thanks. And have a great weekend too!