... is when you know you’ve reached the point where things cannot get any worse and then find yourself bombarded by hail the size of baseballs.
... is when you warm up old coffee in the microwave or prepare for bad times by storing away porridge you just made. Or wrap pieces of fish-and-pig-fat pie in tin foil for your wife's lunch. Or binge buy shitloads of coffee with those grocery bonus stamps you collected way, way back.
... is to take take off your pants the minute you're home.
... is when you buy fruit and veggies when they're still a bit raw and return them to the store when they're just right, complaining you've been sold "overripe goods". But really, they do taste kid of funny when they´re just right, don't you think?
... is to begin any task by going 'yeah right, as if this will ever work out". But eventually it will work out. Life is like a box of Ikea furniture: everything begins in a mess of little pieces.
...is when you use one hand to steer the icebreaker while holding a phone in the other, telling your husband the correct temperature for washing the wool shirts. The most Finnish thing ever: When the said husband has two hours later washed the said wool shirts that now are the perfect fit for the gnomes in your garden.
... is when you live with your mother after you’ve turned 30. (It's also the most Italian thing ever.)
The most Finnish thing ever
... is when a hand slowly tightens into a fist in the pocket of a windbreaker, reflecting the famous Finnish Emotion Scale that stretches from irritation all the way to anger. As in, "... and if the fucking price of gas wasn't enough, the guy next door keeps flushing the toilet every night after Letterman. I know this for sure, I placed a glass on the wall to hear better and clearly heard him do it."
... is to sulk. Sulking is pretty much the best thing a Finn can do all by himself (if we leave out solitary ice fishing on a big frozen lake). But it's also not to really hate anyone even when you're sometimes so fucking pissed off at everything you almost fucking die.
... are the extremely neat piles of firewood behind every cottage. You never know when you're going to need lots of firewood.
The most Finnish thing ever
... is when there's a bunch of Finnish people in the sauna, bare ass naked, each with their wrinkles and craters and bumps and flab and scars and the pitiful few hairs that remain in the upstairs and in the downstairs. In the sauna, everyone is beautiful.
... is the sound of leaf blower.
... when your heart is so broken the pain gives you hell but you don't dare to admit it to anyone. The most Finnish thing ever is you feel so lonely you could die.
... are the spinsters and the backwoods bachelors, the wedding reality show bride having a smoke by herself, the widower dozing on a park bench, last Monday's leftover Social Democrats supporter.
The most Finnish thing ever
... is the lowest infant mortality rate and the highest freedom of the press in the world. The most Finnish thing ever is when your Governments are usually boring but never scary and the police dogs let you pet them. The most Finnish thing ever is to know for certain that when I'm old and can't remember who and where I am, there will be someone to take care of me.
... is when you order french fries with your kebab and ask for extra pineapple to your pizza.
... is you never complete the newspaper's weekly crossword puzzle but still decide you can build your own home, dammit.
... is to communicate with your apartment building neighbors using the message board in the downstairs lobby.
... is when you get fired by an email.
... is to just push against the Santa Ana winds of a shopping mall's air conditioning when you're drowning in the fluids of your seasonal cold, dragging a screaming kid behind you. The most Finnish thing ever is when you realize the days are getting shorter while some of the previous winter’s snows still remain. But it's the most Finnish thing ever to never forgive, never give up, never surrender.
The most Finnish thing ever
... is to regret, grow bitter and die. You can freely change the order of these events should you you feel like it.
... is to have a crush on the girl who has taken the same bus to work with you for the past 15 years. But maybe tomorrow! Right? Well, not really.
... is to take the excuse of a slow dance to let your hand quietly slide your partner’s bottom (and the song is always November Rain by Guns N' Roses). The most Finnish thing ever is to kiss by the war memorial and climb with your daughter to the hilltop where you can show her the entire town spreding out beneath you.
... when you simultaneously long for some faraway place and home. When you walk into the forest or to the bright lights and feel you’re the only one there. The most Finnish thing ever is when the Northern skies above shelter you.
.... are friends you’ll never have but when you eventually have them, they just will not wear off. The most Finnish thing ever is when a boy meets girl or a girl meets boy or a boy meets boy or a girl meets girl.
Because the most Finnish thing ever is to love quietly but deeply.
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