Photo Therapy

A couple of years ago when I bought a nice camera, I promised myself I'd take a photography course one day. Then, of course, I forgot all about it.

It was in the beginning of October that I accidentally stumbled upon Eesti Foto's (Estonian Photo's) web page and with great surprise I realised they were JUST about to start with another beginners' course. The timing felt perfect. So I took a deep breath and signed up. This meant a photography feast every Thursday evening for two months. 

There are a couple of things I learnt. First, my camera turned from this obscure and spooky thing into something I actually understand. I have a million miles to go when it comes to taking really good pictures but at least I'm no longer afraid of my camera. That's a big one!

Then a myth was busted. I thought of professional photographers as introverted people who work alone and who are maybe not the best of public speakers. But, oh my days, they all turned out to be very different from that picture in my head. They were witty and sharp and talkative and it was a pure joy to listen to them and go through hundreds of their photos with them. I was thoroughly impressed by the lot!

And I've also learnt that a good distraction from the horrors of the world is sometimes a pure blessing. I've gone a little crazy about this photography thing - I watch videos and read articles and make everyone pose for me and just yesterday I purchased a program called Capture One for photo editing (I called it an early Christmas present). And I suspect this craziness is not only a harmless hobby but also something that offers me an escape from the world. It's as if taking pictures is a tiny world in itself, a world untouched by psychopath presidents and apocalyptic viruses (although I did test negative just a few days ago!) and November mud and school life. And man, if there ever was a time one needed an escape... 

So here are a handful of photos from recent times. I used some of them in our last class where we analysed our homework. Some of them got shot down, of course, but that's ok, that's a part of the progress.

The Good, The Bad, and The Elections

My nerves can’t take the tension of the US presidential election so in order to distract myself and to stop myself from hitting the refresh button on The Guardian’s vote count for the hundredth time, here’s some bloggin'.

Time flies. It’s already the second school week after the mid-term break. I remember how the first school weeks dragged on endlessly because everything was so new and scary and bumpy. Now I can hardly get to work and the next moment it’s already another Friday afternoon. It's beginning to look a lot like high time for Christmas music. 

I really enjoy that rhythm – the rhythm of working during the week and NOT working during the weekend. It’s one of those things I’m still a little euphoric about, some five months after closing the church office door behind me. Resting and working are much more separate now while in the past they were aways dangled up and muddled. But now, ah! I love those Friday afternoons when I can wave my pupils goodbye and hit one of my favourite cafes. I always make sure I have a good book with me when I go there. Sometimes I sit in that cafe for two hours straight, just enjoying the feeling of freedom, reading Ryszard Kapuscinski (one of my greatest literary crushes) and watching people. There’s absolutely no hurry, there’s no Sabbath school class to be taught the next day. Instead, I often get on a train on Saturday morning and go see friends or family. For example, I try to go and see my dad once a month. When I’m at my dad’s, we drive around (that means I’m driving and my dad is trying to look calm – I’m practicing for my driver’s licence exam and still have a loooong way to go), go to the woods and pick mushrooms or blueberries, and just chill. Until five months ago, I didn’t know such weekends even existed. I’m also trying my best to see my godson in Tartu once a month. Did I tell you that I became an official godmother in the beginning of September (meaning, there was a special church service and a silver cross and a fancy family dinner and all)? The little cutie is 9 months old so he probably doesn’t care too much about my visits but I care a lot about pushing his pram and babysitting.

As to school life, I really like my pupils. They can be a handful – I mean, they’re 10 and 11 and 12… But we get along well and every day I’m happy to see them. But other than that, the school life is very stressful. The Covid numbers are up and up and there’s this silent dread in the air. The government keeps telling us that the schools can stay open but there’s also a whole horde of panicky parents we need to deal with. It’s all very tiring. They will start testing teachers for Covid from next week onward, I’m on the waiting list, too. This constant source of stress, the endless November gloom, plus the never ending responsibility and worry for one’s health (I really don’t want to be the one who causes my school to shut down) is getting to me. I long for life to be ligther. I want snow, I want more light, I want more laughter. I want the American nightmare to end and the virus to pack its bags. And I wish someone lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders sometimes.

It’s really about balancing the wonderful stuff and the not so wonderful. The whole life is so much about it. And yet, the balancing act has never been easy.

Or as my favourite author Kapuscinski puts it in The Soccer War, „There is so much crap in the world, and then, suddenly, there is honesty and humanity.“ So elegant, so subtle, lol!

OK, I’m back to The Guardian now. Bye!

I Don't Know What Hit Me

Sometimes things happen so fast we don’t even know what hit us.

Since 1st of September I am a school teacher – I teach grammar and literature – in one of the elementary schools in Tallinn and to this day I have a quizzical expression on my face. I still don’t know how it happened.

Truth be told, I can trace it all back to a jazz concert in the beginning of June after which I met a young woman who almost demanded I’d become a teacher in the school she worked at. Five days later I was sitting in the headmistress’ office and pretty much signed the contract. It really did happen that fast. I never looked for a job. In fact, I don’t think I even prayed for one. The job sort of dropped from the sky. Or was dropped from the heaven (depends on a viewpoint).

So I just finished week 4 of teaching. And in this short period of time I have gone through a good number of phases. First the „being afraid of children“ phase. I mean, I am teaching 10-12 year olds! Me who has disappeared every time volunteers are asked to teach a children’s Sabbath school class. Me who observes any and every 11 year old with suspicion. Me who has never studied pedagogics. Fortunately, this phase seems to be over now. Then that was followed by panicky phase when it would take me every free moment to search for materials and make slides for classes. My kitchen table would be constantly covered with all sorts of text books and printed pages and I would send frantic messages to my closest colleagues, asking for help. Things are quieting down on that front, too, it seems. And then I had a very short phase of „I am going to be a perfect teacher and tell those kiddos everything I know about life. And they will sit still and look adoringly at me every day“. That phase took only two days to disappear. Oh, well. Now I seem to have entered the phase of „Okay, I have as much to learn from these kids as they have to learn from me. And the kids are wonderful one day and the next day they drive you absolutely crazy, don’t let that throw you off balance. The progress is slower than you expected, don’t let that bother you too much, either. The homework is not always done nor the books read, that’s okay. And the telling of all your wisdom needs to wait because first we need to get through the boring basics of grammar. Breathe. All is fine. The school holidays aren’t far any more.“ I will probably stay in that phase for a while (maybe for the whole school year).

The colleagues are really nice. The school itself, too. It’s a Catholic school situated in the middle of our wonderful Old Town. So the classrooms are only some 500 years old. During the past two weeks a massive film crew has taken over our school yard with their trucks and equipment (they’re shooting some scenes for a medieval detective movie) so some mornings I am greeted by medieval monks when I go to school. Not bad, I say, not bad at all. :)

It’s just about the worst year to try out teaching, of course. There is so much fuss about the virus and PPE and what not. I get tired of the news. I get anxious about my own health (is this my throat that's aching???). And I get tired of waiting for the inevitable – the instruction to move from my beautiful classroom to Google Classroom. One day it will happen. But until then, I try and enjoy the messy school life, the never ending gossip in the staff room, the morning walk to the Old Town (no public transport, we’ve been advised) and the coziness of Old Town cafes. Oh, and free Sabbaths with no preaching. *high five*

Travelling

I went on a weekend trip with my aunt and two uncles (all three of them my mum's siblings). I was doing nothing - and feeling fabulous - at my cousin's place in Tartu when my uncle called and invited me. My cousin had such a good laugh about it. She pictured my aunt and uncles sitting around a table and discussing which one of the younger generation to take with them. And then they, my cousin believes, wrote down the names of all 16 children (yes, it's 16 of us) and one by one crossed out the names until only mine was left. The real story was much more earthly, I'm sure.

Whatever made them invite me, the trip was lovely. We drove some 2000 km through Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania, did a lot of sightseeing and some fine dining, we talked about theology, I heard a million stories of their childhood, and we also got on each others nerves a bit. Just like on any other trip when you spend too much time with people you are not used to be around with.

My uncles are true gentlemen. Everything was always "the lovely ladies' choice". They really did take good care of me.

My favourite day was the one we spent in Lithuania. We wandered through moorlands and high sand dunes and it all looked a lot like Jane Eyre's world. Well, I still seem to be under the spell of the Brontë sisters and their haunting books. In any case, there's something about those open, untouched landscapes that do good to one's soul.

And it was the first time I actually started liking my fancy-pancy camera. I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of manor houses and palaces and resorts we visited. They don't interest me much. But I am much more interested in little details and fleeting moments. They tend to stay longer with me.

Frames Around Moments

Reflections

It's the fourth week or so of my leave. I say "or so" because I have lost track of time. Time is no longer this quantitative thing that has its demands and divides my life into certain slots. Time has slowly become a fluid material that only has meaning as a quality - I have only a very vague idea of what date or day of the week it is at any given moment. It's as fundamental a change as any. Because even when I have my usual holidays - some 2-3 weeks - time still remains a quantity. I try to count and divide my free time, thinking of how many things I am able to get done, how many places or friends I am able to visit. But now, I perceive time differently. I no longer calculate. Time just flows.

It didn't happen overnight, of course. The beginning of June saw me sitting quietly and doing my school work, attending some Seminary's events, winding down very gradually. But I remember clearly the first moment I was able to enjoy for itself, just being present. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were cruising with K. in his old Buick to have dinner at auntie R.'s place, the windows were rolled down and Baba Yetu was on repeat, and this inexplicable joy took over, and I thought, "This! This moment. Remember it. All is good."

Last week, I read Frederick Buechner's book The Remarkable Ordinary - I never get tired of his writing - where he talks about noticing life, its moments, its music, its whisper. And he says that when we are truly present and experience life in all its fullness, it's as if we put a frame around a moment, making it a piece of art. And only then do we see an ordinary and fleeting moment as it really is with all its potential and beauty. I liked that idea - putting frames around moments. And I realised this is exactly what had happened in that car on my way to the dinner. A frame was put around it. And I haven't forgotten that moment since.

There are more of those moments, more of those frames from the past weeks, and I'm just walking around without hurry, collecting them. Sitting in a sauna with my cousin and his family, looking at sunset from their little sauna window. Birdwatching with my dad in a moor. Sitting in a shady garden with a book. Staying up too late with my friends on Midsummer Eve. Visiting A. and L. for the first time after the lockdown. Picking fresh sun-warm strawberries. Going to the first concert since March and sitting there with my smile never ending. Being a tourist in my own neighborhood and enjoying Old Town cafes with H. and K. and P. Such ordinary things, and yet... frames around all of them.

I visited my first violin teacher last week. She is a spirited and tough woman who has gone through some very difficult times. She lost her husband to depression about a year ago, and has had to build up her life all over again. So we talked about our lives, and I told her about my leave of absence, kind of timidly, as the whole thing still has an air of failure to it. But she listened very quietly and when I left in the evening, she told me she thought I was inspirational and that she ought to find the strength to take a leave, too, and live in Italy for a year. It was a bitter-sweet moment. I don't think about myself as particularly inspirational when it comes my long leave, more like desperational. And yet, here I am - not knowing what day it is, and not caring either. Collecting moments like an old-school art dealer. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

--

As to my cultural wanderings, I watched BBC mini-series Jane Eyre a little while ago (the 2006 version with Ruth Wilson who is a wonder to behold, and Toby Stephens who would beat any Mr Darcy, hands down). So I've dived into Victorian lit, having just finished Wuthering Heights and am half way through Jane Eyre now. If I touched another Victorian novel, I would return from my wanderings with a floor-length skirt and fashionably hysterical mind.

The Chronicles of Freedom

A couple of days ago I took my precious notebook and started a whole new section in it. The title of that section is The Chronicles of Freedom.

The transition from working life to non-working life, from a yoke to a sabbatical, is made up of tiny things and changes. None of these things individually make a big difference but it’s the accumulation of them that matters. And I’m determined to notice and record them, not for anyone else’s sake but for my own sake. Because there is something triumphant about writing down these little things and gathering these precious particles of gold. Something in my weary soul makes a little happy dance every time I write another entry in my notebook.

I’m officially on a leave from this coming Monday onward but I already have a good number of things written down in my Chronicles. I’ll share some with you.

Last night I threw out my work email from my phone. No more easy access to my email! No more constant inbox checking! No more urgent replies! The habit of checking email is strong, true. Sometimes I find myself absentmindedly picking up my phone and opening it and then… remembering that I no longer see my email. The rehab will take a while but the shaking of my addicted hands will be worth it!

I wrote to Classical Radio a couple of weeks ago, picking up a conversation I had dropped last summer. I probably let you know that they made me a very attractive offer – to try and become one of their morning program hosts. I had to let them down last year because the waves of school and work and lecturing threatened to drown me then. But the whole thing has kept bugging me ever since so I picked up my courage and wrote again and let them know that I would be more than happy to give their morning programs another try this year. I didn’t receive a reply for two weeks. And I was sad because I took their silence for an answer. But lo and behold, on Tuesday, two weeks after my initial email, I received a reply. Yes, you are welcome, if all goes well we’ll add you to our morning program rota in September. Whoooooooosh! The fact that my knowledge about classical music is superficial will probably end my radio career before it has a chance to begin but all these future embarrassing moments don’t bother me at all. Well, not yet!

I cleaned my office desk today. I wiped it clean clean clean (because the Union president wants to have it lol) and didn’t shed a single tear! Bye!

I had a chat with NJ the other day and there was this moment in our conversation when I thought he was prophesying. He does that every now and then, in the middle of casual conversations he suddenly changes the gear and says stuff that has this odd weight and meaningfulness to it that I can’t fully comprehend. I love those moments. And he said things about how God is orchestarting everything in my life, every detail, every note, and by the end of it I’ll be blown away by its beauty and magnificence. I HAD to write this down in my notebook despite my gnawing doubts. Please please please let these words come true.

Next week I’m hitting Tartu for the first time after this world war. I have no idea when I’ll come back to Tallinn, no idea where I’ll go from there. Should I go to my dad’s? Do I want to spend some times at M.’s? Or in my cousin’s summer house? Do I want to go to Pärnu and take over the beach? So many choices!

I think that’s what you’d call freedom.

And Jamie Cullum, sweetheart, hits the bull’s eye by singing, "Endings are like beginnings."

A Monthly Newsletter

It's week two of school in Zoomland. Every evening I experience a schizophrenic moment - seeing all these familiar faces and having got used to the school rhythm, I want to go to the dorm after the class and then have dinner in the caf and later hit the library or watch a movie with my classmates. But instead, I find myself walking home from my church office, and I can't help but have this surprised look on my face. Something's wrong here, my two worlds are clashing in an odd way.

But the classes are good and Zoom is slightly less exhausting than I feared. And there is always an opportunity of sending private messages on Zoom which, on the one hand, distracts but, on the other hand, adds some spice to the class. I just pray the private messages don't show on the host's screen! If they do, oh man, this is the end of me.

--

Life is slowly returning to its normal rhythms and habits. The restaurants are open again - I know because I had my birthday lunch with dad and K. in my favourite place and it felt like a revenge for all these times I've been turned down on the door because the place was full of tourists. Now it was almost empty and all the clients were locals. It's actually a welcomed change. Gyms are also open - I know because I've just come from one. There was a big smile on my face while running on treadmill although it took me considerably longer than usual to get my 6K done. The pool is still closed but that's ok, they'll open it one day, too. Friends are again within my reach - I know because I've sat in a sauna (and have listened to all the gossip I've missed) and have baked a chocolate cake with some of them. Even churches are open again - I know because this last Saturday, I didn't watch an online service from my couch but went to my home church. It was just a little group that gathered but it was church nevertheless! And a potluck!

--

There's one thing I wanted to share. During the national emergency, an extra church service was added to the program of our National Broadcast. And toward the end of the emergency, our church's turn came to have this service. It so happened that our service was to be aired on Mother's Day Sunday. And in the beginning, I tried to convince I. (with whom I was asked to conduct the service) that the Mother's Day wasn't that important and we could pick any other topic. But then a clear signal came from the tv guys about the Mother's Day being very important, and my heart just sank. Suddenly I didn't want to be a part of it. Actually, I had a message written on my phone, telling I. he should find someone else to do this service with beacuse I wasn't up for it. I stared at that message for a while and then deleted it without sending it. I took a couple of deep breaths and decided I could do it.

And I told whoever was on the other side of the camera lens and tv screen about my experience. How I try and stay away from the social media on MD so that I wouldn't have to think about the meaning of this day. I don't have Mother's Day any more. And I never will. But if there is any truth to Romans' 8th chapter, the love of Christ is always with me, no matter what.

In a way, what followed didn't surprise me. So many thank you messages from people to whom the Mother's Day is not about flowers and family breakfasts but about deep pain. And I recognise God's handwriting in it. It's exactly where my clay pot is most broken that His glory shines through the brightest.

We were also crucified, of course, me and I., by some lovely church members. Because the service was aired on a SUNDAY morning. Fallen, fallen is the great Babylon, and together with it also I. and M.! But that comes with a package, I guess. *sigh*

Here is the service. Sorry for not providing subtitles!