The Happiest People in the World

It is Wednesday afternoon, April 19. I am sitting in Ekenas, in my room in this 200 year old building built originally probably as a room for livestock. It is made of rough hewn wood. Here’s a photo of Cookie Monster in the room. You can see the cavelike feeling. 

Monday I got to tag along as Cookie did documentary photography of early planning and rehearsing for a musical called All Shook Up, which uses 27 Elvis Presley songs. The play is in Finnish but the songs are sung in English. We went first to the outdoor theater (beside a picturesque castle from when the area was controlled by Sweden). Here is the flyer for the musical. (The poster itself was not blurry - I must have been “all shook up” when I took the photo)

Here is Cookie photographing the planning process - this is an early meeting including the director, the stage set designer, the stage set builder, the stage manager and another woman whose role wasn’t clear to me. I liked watching them and thinking about how much time and coordination and cooperation goes into preparing a theater performance. I wish we humans could put more of our ambition and ingenuity into theater, dance, music and art - and less into war. 

And here is a collage showing the theater and the castle just beyond the outdoor stage (its right beyond the trees - hard to see in the photos). It was also fun to hear Cookie reminisce about other plays he had photographed in this location, and to hear his appreciation for the creativity and humor of the directors. 

We also went to an indoor rehearsal process which was fun because I couldn’t understand a word of the Finnish but I got such a kick out of the body language and voice tones of the actors and director.  At one point one of the actors gyrated his hips in an Elvis-like way and I got such delight from being able to understand his body language! 

For the first time Monday I had enough energy to take myself out on a solo walk. I walked along the water and into the woods at sunset and really enjoyed the beauty of the place and having time off from humans. I so wanted to be with Cookie and see his life here and I knew it would involve lots of people contact and be exhausting for me. I really really wished that I didn’t get so exhausted around people and that it didn’t require so much effort just to stay awake and be a little bit present. The rests have helped a lot, and the solo walks really help restore me. Here’s a collage of the beauty I walked through. 

Tuesday Cookie took me to the town of Hanko on the southernmost tip of Finland. It was a beautiful sunny day and I could see why Cookie loves it so much. He especially loves the ocean that feels like a real ocean because one can see water all the way to the horizon and because there are waves. (Here in Ekenas the many islands in the Baltic block both waves and a view of the water-horizon). 

We walked up to an old tower that offers a spectacular view of the area from the top but unfortunately the elevator was closed. Great glacier-smoothed slabs of gray granite were everywhere in this town - Cookie pointed them out and I loved them too. 

We visited a renovated historic building in Hanko called the Casino and had a delicious and generous buffet lunch. Though they had lots of tourists over Easter weekend and will have a lot more in a week or two, we had the whole dining room virtually to ourselves. It was so quiet and the sunlight was such a presence. 

Having done a lot of construction work, Cookie notices the details and work involved in building and renovation (and thinks about things like hauling cannons and huge rock blocks for buildings). It makes it fun for me because I don’t think about such things on my own. 

After we came back to Ekanas yesterday (Tuesday) I met a young doctor friend of Cookie’s, a Norwegian man whose eyes and coloring resembled strikingly an American of Norwegian descent I was in love with the summer I was 18. His energy reminded me of my nephew. He talked about his love life, the many complex challenges posed by cultural differences, the hard choices - I was awed by his trust in me, simply because I was Cookie’s friend. But we both think that Cookie is extraordinary - and feel immediate kinship with others who love and appreciate him. (As I did with the magical Thorstrom family, when I got to meet three generations and fell more than a little in love with the entire family.) I also recalled vividly (as I listened to this young man struggle with conflicting personal feelings and values) the stormy intensity of youthful love and life dreams. I  felt grateful that phase of my own life is over, and that I am in a time I find more restful. Meeting this young man was a real highlight. I am sad that I take so few photos of people. Just as I feel awkward and off-balance around people in general, I rarely feel relaxed enough to take their photos. And the moments that move me - peoples’ faces and gestures - disappear before I can catch them anyway. 

Since I don’t have a photo of Cookie’s young friend, here’s one of Cookie as we waited for the bus back to Ekenas. I like the play of wind and light on his hair and I like catching a bit of the intensity of his story telling and joking. 

I had another lovely sunset walk in the woods and along the water Tuesday night. Then Wednesday Cookie and I were given a ride to the Steiner school where he spends a lot of his time helping out (I had no idea how much - he pointed out two buildings he painted on the campus) and photographing and connecting with kids. The campus is astoundingly beautiful, with woods all around (where the children spend a lot of their time even in winter), with beautifully renovated old buildings, but most of all - of i so wish I could be present enough and calm enough to photograph people - such beautiful people. Beautiful children, beautiful teachers, beautiful women preparing food in the kitchen (fresh healthy delicious food the likes of which I have never seen in a school before). So much of the curriculum is art, theater, movement, connecting with nature. 

Chris says when the students transfer to the (non Steiner) public high schools they may be a little behind in subjects like math but they have so much social skill, so much joy and confidence in learning that they catch up quickly. We watched a group of 12 year olds rehearse a play based on the Odyssey. I couldn’t understand a word of Finnish of course but it was fun to recognize scenes - a mirror held up and a sword cutting off Medusa’s head, a giant cyclops (one girl carried on another’s shoulders) and a great stick to poke out the cyclops’ one eye and the Greeks escaping under sheep skins, and the suitors all killed and Odysseus reunited with Penelope. I had just “reread” (listened to the audiobook) the Odyssey as part of rereading Ulysses before going to Ireland, so it was fun to have it evoked here in Finland. 

I also loved watching a puppet show rehearsal and was so impressed by all the hand knitted puppets. There was one comic scene where two puppets were eating and playing tug of war with a huge tangle of spaghetti (white yarn). I found the creativity so delightful. 

But what affected me the most  was visiting the class 9 classroom - 15 year olds who will transfer to public high schools next year and whom Cookie has known since they were preschoolers. They asked me what I had noticed about Finland, how it was culturally different for me, and I told them that I was aware when walking that people mostly did not greet me or meet my eyes and even if they did, they almost never smiled. This is so different from what I am accustomed to in the US. They agreed that people don’t smile - but they also said that Finland is the happiest country in the world, according to a happiness index which they said wasn’t exactly about happiness but about being satisfied with their lives, being able to live the lives they wanted. I asked if they felt able to make their dreams come true and they agreed that they did. As I walked on my own later today I reflected on the pressure I felt, especially as a young woman, to smile and look happy and make others happy. It occurred to me that the “pursuit of happiness” in America may be as much an obligation/expectation as a right. We are supposed to be happy, to act happy, to put on a happy face. I wonder what it would be like to walk down the street and feel absolutely no pressure to greet, to make eye contact, or to smile. It strikes me as enormously freeing, and deeply relaxing. 

Tomorrow Cookie will accompany me on the bus, train and light rail to the Helsinki airport and I will then fly to Frankfurt and take a train to Cologne. It will be good to see Chris again and Sabine and Agnes. But I suspect I will be digesting the experience of Finland for a long time. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself pulled to come back. I guess you could say I fell in love. Here’s my last sunset (for now) in Ekenas. 

Hope you will join us for ongoing adventures in Koln/Cologne and then Crete.