Captioned

As much as I've always enjoyed calendar autumns - the disappearing of excessive light and the dissipation of the numbing heat, the amazement of wearing clothes again - just as much I have always hated the mental autumn , the idea that slowly but inevitably, everything around us starts to wither and die, and that there is nothing I can do about it. The magnitude of this annihilation falls heavy on me, every year. In this annulment, progress gets too deeply buried – but not quite. That year, the fall fell to a full halt in one long and incessant, unscrupulous slide, starting right here, with the taking of this picture. The smell of the void is already there, you can almost feel the land standing still inside of it in the thin and limpid air, timidly waiting for the permafrost. Golden birds have flown home, the only movement left is the darting of the clouds – the passage of days, swift as arrows. So, you may imagine my astonishment when I found the tree – in Google Maps. Without the tree I would have never, ever been able to place the picture on the map, not even close – I would have put it much further south, away from Ylläs. But then again, this is wide angle. This is with many calendar autumns passed. View to the west towards Ylläs from Lainiotie 301.

If there is fate predefined, it lies ahead behind that ridge, unseen. Does it turn to the left, does it turn to the right; does it thin out and vanish, does it build up to a highway? Or does it always take form only to the next ridge and according to the rules we've already set – by ourselves? Which one would you prefer?

For an urbanist like me, a night in the countyside is definitely an experience. It can be quite scary too: when you go out, it is so pitch black first that you cannot see your own hands. That night we had the stars: after many rainy days the sun had managed to peek just before the sunset, but I was totally unaware of the spectacle waiting for me up there when I first went out after dark. I think I actually cried out loud in astonishment at the stairs, me, who had not seen the full Big Dipper in decades. The awe was not diminished by the grandpa from the neigborhood, who had just told us that they had seen a bear with two clubs out there. It was ursa all over the place! If you look closely, there are other kinds of trespassers in the sky.

A film group of the epoch movie Härmä (Once Upon a Time in the North) left this sign behind in 2012. The tree is portrayed in the opening scene of the film (and I think it should have reappeared in the end, to close the cycle). It is a brilliant movie, though. "Please don't fell" the sign says in local dialect - probably because the crew had rigorous training on the dialect at the location; to get into the feel they even spent their nights at the local museum. There is only two words in the sign, because there is no such word as "please" in Finnish, expecially not in *this* dialect! I'd say this attitude is what the film is about.

This reminds me of a song by a Finnish singer Edu Kettunen. The song is about generations, about a family outing from which the father chooses not to return - instead, he turns himself into a tree on the seashore. (Yes, believe me, the sea is right there behind the man.) It is a finely crafted song but so abysmally sad that I cannot listen to it too often.

Story goes that a father planted this pine-tree for his new-born child so that, in due course, it would provide planks for his/her coffin. The story does not tell why the tree was never cut down; most likely the baby died young. Infant mortality was very high in the area in those times, because the whole families, including mothers and older kids worked in the fields all day long, and infants were left home alone with their rudimentary "automated" feeding devices - that is, milk-filled cattle horns that were left hanging upside down at their reach. Those "baby bottles" were astute sources of infections. The habit of leaving children by themselves may not have been the best nourishment for their emotional developement either, and might well have contributed to the social troubles in the area those days, most notably the rise of the so called Bads , who caused havoc in the area for hundred years. The advent of the Bads is usually explained by socioeconomic reasons, like by the local inheritance rule, where one descendant got it all and forced other siblings to buy their share of the patrimony from the heir and fund the purchase by selling lumber or distilling pine tar for shipbuilding. This worked fine as long as lumber for those pursuits existed; when the forests dwindled down, non-heirs were left on empty, got frustrated – and turned into Bads. That ended when the "excess" population prone to bad habits emigrated to America – which, in turn, may explain why the US... oh well, let's not get into that! From America as well as from Russia we got this new, weird idea , which led us to our one and only civil war. The idea was called socialism . It took us 80 000 White soldiers to put an end to it, while Americans got away with one McCarthy. (Americans called it communism, but it was only because to them all Europeans are socialists, and you have to tell those two apart somehow, don't you?) In Russia the funny idea that all men are – were – equal lasted longer and provided them enough time to round it out more elegantly, without war. But let's not get into that either! Today, all that is just annoying, distant history, and all men are happily unequal again, more and more so every day – some, like immigrants, even more unequal than others. And no, we won't get into that either, because there is nothing left there to get into: our present state of affairs is the final Arcadia, Lintukoto, Paradise, Narnia, Summerland, Xanadu, Heaven, you name it – or the Tree of Life if you will; end of all roads, singularity without alternatives. . . . Sorry about all that; it must have been the limbs of the tree that carried me away – too far away someone might say – and out on a limb at that. Someone else might call it irony. Anyway, the tree in the picture goes by the name Coffin Tree in the local map, so the story might as well be true. The first story, that is.

As photogenic as haypoles were, they are history. This I took in the end of the 70's; we had spent the night in the tent nearby but had gotten so cold before the dawn that we'd had to take a hike. Here the sun had just risen and can be vaguely seen behind the closest stack. In a thick fog in a place like this it can get so amazingly quiet at night before birds wake up that an urban dweller may go nuts out there! The fog sucks all reverberations and echos whatsoever from the ether and you can only hear your own breathing, blood circulating and brain buzzing – and the worst of all, your thoughts, if any. :-)

She came from our building, someone I had never seen, pushed her huge bags into her tiny car and drove away. Last thing she did she slowed down under my balcony, looked out of her car window at something above my floor, and there were tears in her eyes. Or perhaps it was just the light. Shot through black curtain, and not an especially thin one either, with a 85mm lens practically touching it. Focus is in the cars, and with f/1.2 the lens has no way of focusing to the curtain, not by a mile, but still the structure of the fabric is visible.

This was the first picture in her photo album. It is the only surviving part of her wedding picture – she had cut away the other side, the side that was perhaps the only thing in her life that didn't manage to turn its brightest side to her. She was a true Sunday's child: even though she had her share of grief and sorrow in her life she was always heartfelt, unpretentious and unfeigned and equally present for everyone around her, having this aura of easiness upon her; as the result people of all ages tended to like her and trust her, everything came up roses for her – except for that one thing. She was born on Sunday, too – and she passed away on Sunday. Because of her social nature she took to acting on her adult age and performed in various local amateur theatre groups; some of the productions were huge historical ones, some small like the ones she did during her last spring to entertain people in pensionates and alike. She did the latter even when she was already having these weird fits of fatigue in the early spring of 2015, eventually forcing her to sit down on the neighbourhood stairs on her way to the groceries 200 meters away. Then, in the summer of 2015 they diagnosed the reason for her weariness, acute leukemia. Doctors however said it won't neccessaily mean much these days, not even for the elderly people, so she didn't seem to be too worried about it but faithfully to her habits went confidently to her first treatment. Induction was heavy but went well, but unfortunately they found another blood disease lurking behind leukemia, the myelodysplastic syndrome: whereas leukemia was more or less defeated by the treatment, MDS all but blossomed by it, so that they had to stop the treatment short after the first induction. She called me, her firstborn, the day at the end of the summer after her doctor had told her she won't be cured. She told me over the phone she'd felt a bit sad at first, but that she hadn't "cried or anything" because she thought she'd already had a long and wonderful life, and she thought it was her time to go. When she was discharged from hospital at the end of August she was so weak and feeble that I moved in with her and lived with her for four weeks, helping her out, doing the grocery shopping, mending her food, arranging her medicine supply and the like. MDS kept her blood cell production low and she lived almost solely on imported blood, which she got weekly at two local hospitals. She was especially weak and frail prior to the transfusions, so that at home she could walk unaided only a few meters at a time, had these pangs of dizzyness and nausea and all these bruises appearing all over her body, blisters in her mouth and you name it. But she never complained; only twice she mentioned that things were not especially enjoyable any more; but she said it with no bitterness, just stated it. Luckily the summer came very late this year; after transfusions she always felt better for a few days, and on a couple of those occasions we managed to go out with a rollator to admire the flowers and the butterflies which she loved so much. I especially remember the warm and sunny day when we rolled out to the local garden to see all the azaleas and peonies, the peacock butterflies and the red admirals, stopping at the bench now and then to save her strength for the return trip. More than butterflies and flowers she loved her friends who visited her frequently, so that even though the doctors had ordered her a strict diet, she was always more concerned about having enough buns and bisquits for her friends. Her own blood cell production seemed to improve slowly but steadily during the autumn, and her overall condition with it, so eventually I decided to pack my things and head back home. My brother, her relatives and the local service took to helping her, she even managed to do the groceries by herself with her rollator. One week she sounded so bright and happy and full of stamina over the phone that I decided I won't bother her during the weekend at all; I reckoned she had to be quite exasperated to hear the same questions of mine each and every day. During that weekend her condition suddenly plummeted. Tuesday morning she managed to phone me just before I called her; she sounded dull and weak and said she had laid in her bed all weekend, alone, without eating or taking her medicine. She asked me to come back to her because she couldn't cope alone at home any more. I answered I simply couldn't because if I left, I'd go bankrupt – which was true. They hospitalized her the same day, pumped some more bags of blood into her and let her go home on Friday because she wanted it so much. The neighbors called the first ambulance for her the same evening; she had tripped over at home and couldn't get onto her feet by herself. She turned the ambulance down. The next morning two more ambulances had to be called to fetch her; the first one she again turned down, the second one she accepted, but she was already so week they had to wheel her out on a stretcher. Her sister called me and asked me to jump the train immediately. Well, I didn't: the doctor who had just examined her called me an hour later and said there was no acute crisis whatsoever, she wasn't hemorrhaging or anything. So I didn't hurry but bought the ticket for the morning train. I walked onto the platform of the Helsinki railway station at 6.50. The train wasn't there yet, and I thanked god the phone hadn't rung during the night. It rang one minute later with a nurse saying I should come over immediately; she is coughing blood and fails to respond. My train left ten minutes later, but I had 400 kilometers to go. I sat in the packed train with a cellphone in my sweating hand, and was already more than halfway through when it rang and my brother said I was already late. I walked to the solitary hall window on the second floor and stood there for the rest of the trip, staring at the fog that seemed to cover the whole country, and tried not to cry out loud. It was a train trip to remember. ... It is now 2.30 am on Monday morning. Her funeral was last Friday, she will be cremated today. For the past two weeks I've been living in her gradually emptying apartment, arranging the funerals, shifting through her papers and belongings and clearing things for the probate. Most of all I've been waiting for her to appear, even just for a few seconds so that I could offer her an apology for me not to be there during her last days, not to be there at the side of her deathbed, at the same time knowing I won't see her again, trying to adjust to living with this guilt. If you asked me I'd say she really would have deserved another kind of ending. I'm not a religious person, but perhaps God – if there indeed is one – thought that here's a person who can stand it all, a female Job if you will, so let her have it, instead of a thousand who'd only succumb to bitterness and curse their God. Despite her hard end she never faltered – and I feel so sorry for her. I feel so sorry for not being there with her, not holding her hand during her last days. ... Is there a lesson in the story? Yes, I think there is one: we should try to lead our lives so that we and any of our beloved ones could depart this world at any moment with no hard feelings on either side. At any moment.

I am not a religious person, so this photo is here purely for visual reasons. Besides, redemption that this event promises has caused so much misery in the world by assuring pardon for murderers, warmongers and whatnot – and I don't mean among fanatics like in islam today, but among middle-of-the-road christians – that it hardly deserves any other reason to be displayed than visual. But please don't get me wrong: we do not neccessarily need this chap in order to be cruel to each other; that can be easily seen, say, in Israel today. I shot this in Venice, but I don't remember in which church. I tried to google photos of it, but in vain. I kind of understand the lack of images, because the church was very, very dark as you can see from the specs, and the use of flash was forbidden.

“There is a dog buried in here!” might any Finn exclaim when suspecting there is something fishy going on. The saying originates to the stone in the image, located in a park in Helsinki. There is no dog buried beneath it, however. In the first years of the 20th century Finland was autonomous grand duchy of Russia with a strong opposition towards the current imperial govern, which had stripped off many privileges granted to the duchy by the previous tsars. Current tsar, however, had granted dictatorship to local governor-general, who, fearing agitation by Finnish nationalists, had decreed acts suppressing civil rights, e.g. the prohibition of assembly. To counteract, nationalists founded a secret society called Kagal, which used to gather around this particular stone. Should a militia ask the reason for the gathering, participants had agreed to tell him they were attending a memorial, which was one of the few forms of assembly allowed. Should the militia then ask why they were gathering around an unmarked stone, they'd tell him there was a dog buried in there. A date was engraved to the stone later; it is still clearly visible, and happens to be the date Kagal was founded. Finland gained independence in 1917, two months before the civil war erupted.

I was strolling the street one night, minding my own business, when they came, hummed down like an old hoover and parked on a nearby hill. I cursed my almost dead battery, managed to grab a picture and walked cautiously closer. Soon enough a small door whirred open, and an old-looking chap limped to me. He said I looked wasted and offered me a buffet in their canteen. I have nothing against buffets, quite the contrary, all of us Finns absolutely love buffets, but I suspected it might be even more costly on this ship than on the cruise ship to Sweden. He assured me it would cost me nothing at all and kindly led me in. And what a "canteen" it was! There were these huge chandeliers hanging from the unvisible ceiling (they called them engines), and underneath them the cornucopia of diners were gathered for the feast, toiling and moiling and babbling with their plates, and so varying in sizes and colors they were that I sometimes had trouble telling them from the dish. With the help of my friend I managed to fill my tray, and we sat down to a cosy little table in the middle. When I eat, I usually read at the same time, but since their was nothing even vaguely readable at hand, between my mouthfuls I started to tell him about life on Earth. He looked interested, the others too, and the babble around me gradually quieted down, and when I got to the Berlin wall, most of them had stopped eating and just gazed at me. Even though I know I'm a pretty eloquent storyteller, the silence was slightly awkward first, but the main course was so delicious I soon forgot their staring. However, I was pretty sure that they started to get restless when I got to the other wall, the Trump one, and soon enough, my friend rose up, grabbed me by the arm and without a word led me to the hall. So hasty he was I barely had time to snatch a juicy-looking Schtumpfenstrüdel or whatever it was in my breast pocket. He guided me out, swiftly waved his hand at me, and the ship zoomed away before he had properly closed the door behind him. I've patrolled the streets every night since then but haven't seen a glimpse of them. I have no idea what alarmed them so, but my wife suspects that I – as usual – might have belched at the table. Without the photo she would never believe my story, she says.

... Read an interesting book about western propaganda in post-war Finland. After WW2 GB and the US were worried about Finland falling prey to Soviet propaganda, so they started their own here. Their offices in Helsinki flooded us with their books and magazines, radio news, tv-shows and movies and granted generous scholarships in their universities; so successful was their campaign that us Finns still don’t understand why we all absolutely love english language, Reader’s Digest, Donald Duck, John Wayne and indeed anything coming from the west – even that other Donald. (According to a recent study, our interaction with US has never been livelier than during the Trump's first administration.) That love applies to Hornet (pictured) as well, our number one war machine against the Evil Empires, Rogue States and whatever Axes of Evil the west has pointed us with its long and wise finger. Surely that eternal love will also apply to the Hornet’s successor F-35, which was officially chosen of five fighter candidates – even though everyone was so sure there really was no other option than the most expensive one, F-35, that our former Chief of Defence went to work for Lockheed Martin, maker of F-35, before the deal was fixed. Who ever said love was free? I, err… shot her at the Malmi Airshow. Our beloved one is sooo beautiful, capable of doing sooo pretty things, isn’t she?

... People living on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia has this speciality that us southeners at the Gulf of Finland don't: the sun that sets into the sea. Shooting against the setting sun was especially challenging this time because of the huge contrast between the glittering sea and the gloomy skies. Luckily I always shoot raw, I wouldn't have succeeded at all without it, not even close. Funny that there was this constant flux of people to the tip of the sand bank even though everyone could clearly see there was absolutely nothing out there. Perhaps the adults hoped they'd hear Sirens singing there, and the kids would get a glimpse of the mighty Kraken.

Goldeneye family between ponds. The procession intrigued a young crow a lot – had perhaps never seen one – and everytime he walked close to inspect the proceedings, the parent goldeneye ushered her youngsters back into the water and then scowled at the crow. The crow finally seemed to grasp that the operation just wouldn't happen because of him, so he flew further back to scrutinize the scene. The mother immediately took her crew to the other side.

She is Neva Masquerade, an eternal child and forever curious of anything new or unexpected. She always stares people in the eye – and hates being stared at. If at all possible, she always sleeps in the lap, and whatever is done in the kitchen, she participates by sitting on the shoulder.