A chance to change

I have been reading about the climate change almost every day during the last few years. You can't avoid seeing the titles in the news papers, in the internet, on Tv or hearing people of all ages talking about it. One thing bothers me in some of these discussions and reactions. It feels like there are very opposite sides on this case: some people are refusing to believe there is a climate change going on and the other side is painting big devils on the walls, saying there is no hope in the situation we live in. Many people are thinking that this process is something that always happened on our planet, there always was a change of climate and people have very little input to this change. It sometimes sounds like a big fight: who is right and who is wrong! 

I guess there is not such a very simple one truth. But there is an unhealthy process going on around us and it will affect on our lives in very basic levels. The food production will be challenged, more and more people may loose their homes in extreme weather conditions and there will be increased pressure to move to the areas with more stability. 

Our life conditions have developed better in many ways during the History and we live much longer these days than the generations before us...but the Nature is slowly collapsing around us. 

Maybe it would be more effective just to talk about the health influences of our actions. The healthy environment is good for everybody: for people, for the animals, for plants, waters and forests. A healthy environment is based on clean air, clean water, clean earth, clean food. I would like to see people and different countries making good choices to limit the unhealthy habits and circles of production and consuming. The industry and the leaders have to make better rules and commit to this healthy planet project. The scientist are following up the changes, measuring the facts and making prognoses how bad or good our situation can develop. No one can claim that the environmental changes and extreme conditions, like forest fires, are not affecting  to the physical and mental health of the people living in those areas. 

If one doesn't want to speak about the climate change, would it be more easy to talk about the health problems of our ecological system and it's impact to our life. Who doesn't want to have good air to breathe, clean water to drink and enough good quality food to eat. I often think of my children when I study the latest news about our planet. Parenting is a long term mentorship in so many ways and I have learned to be more attentive to many important things since having my own kids.

We had a Winter holiday last week in the northern part of the Netherlands. It is very popular that the dutch people go for skiing holidays during that time. I can understand that. Dutch winter is far away from the concept of "real winter". It is constantly raining this week.

We have been taking some healthy steps towards a better balance as a family. The holiday seasons are dedicated for being together. My husband  planned all the holidays in advance and he is totally present when the kids are having their school off. Last week we took the train for a few days trip to Berlin. Traveling by train instead of driving a car was a stress free journey, it took about six hours from Amsterdam. I enjoyed watching the landscapes, seeing the stations and even hearing the sounds of a moving train.

A nice family room in Lulu Guldsmeden hotel

The absolute "Hit", thinking of the kids, was driving the long streets of Berlin with an electric kick scooter. We noticed during our stay that one museum visit per day is the maximum for our teenagers. They need some fresh air and action. I was surprised how fun and effective way of transportation this kick scooter was in a large scale city like Berlin. You just download on app to your telephone, inlog and pick the scooters from a street. You can find them from everywhere. It is quite expensive, so we just used them a couple of times for moving longer distances.

We visited two museums this time: the DDR-museum and the Jewish Museum. These places were interesting enough to all of us. I really liked the Jewish museum in many ways. The architecture of the modern part of it is just amazing. The contrast of the spiky, geometrical forms of the building and the individual stories from the second world war with personal belongings was touching. Big open spaces made you feel small and the light coming from the top was giving some hope.

The Holocaust Tower (Jewish museum)

Great photography from Israel by Martin Collar (Jewish museum)

One week after the holiday we got some sad news. It just reminded how precious the time with your loved ones is. 

We always have a chance or many chances to change, but it can be very difficult.

First of all we have to be motivated and feel it's worth it and stop being too hard on ourselves. 

Caring about yourself can be harder than anything else. 

We just lost one charismatic and friendly person one week ago. Someone who was struggling with himself. 

x

A day before the new decade - Family time in Volendam

It was such a beautiful clear day yesterday and the misty next morning felt too grey after that. The first day of the year was a bit emotional. After a great last day of the previous year and a lot of family time during the christmas holiday, stepping to the new starting point felt like starting the same circle again. It made us think: did we learn from the experiences last year, did we grow as human beings and partners and did we enjoy enough our precious time together? My answer is yes and no. 

How to make the most of it and how to learn to give the good support and energy - how to let in the love there is - how to see the good intentions and efforts more clearly? Breaking the wrong circles and creating some new paths. It is so challenging to try to understand what is happening in my own mind and inside the minds of the other important persons in your life. I want to appreciate every day from now on and be kind in my thoughts and actions when the hard day hits every now and then.

I often search for the harmony and beauty to calm my mind and reload my batteries. The habits and routines of everyday life are our guiding lines, but stepping over one line can open the horizons and make us proud of having the courage and the curiosity to learn something new. There has to be time for the balance and for the side steps.

 After a grumpy first day with one of those habitual misunderstandings, this first evening of the year is showing compassion, understanding and flexibility. Communication is the key for connecting and learning from each other. Watching all these pictures from a sunny walk in Volendam is pointing out how important it is to have time for each other and be outside. I am thankful of these moments!

It was wonderful to see the water views in Volendam and admire the old architecture near the harbor. This small town about 20 kilometers north from Amsterdam is the best well known fishing town in the Netherlands. It is also a touristic place, but we chose a perfect day for our visit. Often people have other plans in the last day of the year than looking for sights and eating fish n waffles!

Too much choice!!

Delicious waffles near the harbor. 

The New Years Eve was a marathon of Monopoly. Four hours we were competing agains each other and in the end there was no official winner. The midnight and the fireworks were mixing our concentration and we left the game on the table. Next morning no one didn't want to finish the battle. The material was packed in and stored in a closet. 

I guess we do the same now with the memories from the last year. We have the experiences packed in our mind and with some suitable new keys we can always find them and use them for learning, reflecting, comforting and bringing us joy.

I am positive, so much potential we all have. I want to think out of the box and have a good year. Wishing you the same! 

Friends and fresh air in Finland

A mini holiday in Finland around the first Advent weekend was refreshing and nostalgic. I met first some old student friends in Helsinki and after that stayed for two days in Tammisaari visiting a good friend of mine. Helsinki is such a wonderful city and I miss being there. Luckily we I could stay one night by my other friend and also see my sister for a coffee. 

Time was flying and I mostly forgot to take any pictures. The days are also short and it's getting dark too early. One afternoon we walked a little bit around Tammisaari centre and there was a beautiful winter light and white snow covering the dark tones of earth. It was enough cold for a very thin ice layer on top of the sea water. The moving ice made fabulous noise. I had forgotten this sort of sound existed. As a child winter was my favorite season. I loved to build snow castles and the snow was the most interesting material to play with.

The goal of my trip was to reconnect with some of my friends. I only had three days time and I saw many nice, friendly faces and heard some stories about the time that had passed. Evidently the time had passed yes, but it was so great to see the same light of the different personalities sparkling there and the humor filling the space with a laugh and witty remarks. I sometimes miss a lot my own language and how effortless it is to be fluent, fast and playful in your mother tongue.

I was lucky to see some sun and snow. It had been grey and rainy before my arrival and after my visit the temperature got higher again with some wet weather. 

It was like opening a door to a different world when I came back to Holland. Still the same autumn-like mood and some golden glitter on the yellow leaves.

Evenings are so dark without snow...and with the snow as well :-). 

 I have some christmas lights and flowers at home to color these black velvet days. 

One sunny day in Amsterdamse Bos in December

Have a peaceful Christmas time :)

Beach views and plastic fishing by the Canals

We meet our friends few times during the year at the beach. Walking  there and seeing the open views is mind freeing. A good place to change the latest news of our lives and relax. I've noticed there are only few people that I'm comfortable to really share what I feel and what I dream about. I sometimes admire the people who are extremely sociable and can market themselves so well. I have decided that I have to try to be more open sometimes, because I enjoy the good company, good talks and a good laugh. It is ok to be the one who needs to be alone sometimes, but it's also a good feeling to belong to a group of good people and friends.

We met at the beach of Zandvoort. You can easily go there by car and with public transportation. The train trip from Amsterdam to the beach takes 25 minutes. If you make a trip to Amsterdam, you should visit one of the many beaches near the city. The mood at the coastline is interesting in every season and there are always few beach restaurants open even in the winter time.

Zandvoort is not my favorite beach, but there is a good variation of services, sport opportunities and cosy restaurants. Personally I do not like the architecture of the area - the element houses build near the dunes. I do prefer the beaches that are more natural looking and not too busy.

There is a funny retro feeling beside the beach. The contrast with the wind beaten element houses, the left overs from the summer, the ruins of beach restaurants (the ones that are taken down for the winter season). It looks interesting, like a movie scene waiting some actors and some action. 

I wonder how it is to live here. The centre of Zandvoort is so close to the sea and there are many appartement houses along the dunes. The wind can be extremely hard in the winter time, we can feel some of that even in Amsterdam. The sea is beautiful to watch, but also a reminder of the powers of nature and how we have to be careful what we do to our planet. Often it seems we do not know what we are doing. Sometimes we seem to wake up too late!

The environmental issues are made more visible for the new generations of people. The education system and teacher are doing a great job by bringing these problems as a part of the daily themes at school. I joined the class of my daughter for a day to go fishing  some plastic by the canals of Amsterdam.  

The Plastic Whale company is organizing plastic fishing for groups with their boats around the  canals of central area. The children are searching and collecting some plastic and other garbage from the water. This is very educational and fun way to point out how much garbage people drop to the water or to the streets. It was great to see how driven the children were to clean the environment and how much they already knew about the effects of plastic and micro plastics in the water and circling around in our ecosystem.

The boats from the Plastic Whale company are made from recycled plastic found from the water. For example the floors of the boats are made from the bottle caps. The aim of the company is to collect, create and educate: This means collecting the garbage, creating new products from the material (like the boats and some office furniture are designed and made from the recycled plastic) and educating children and other groups by organizing work shops and presentations about the environmental issues. They have ambitions to spread the word internationally and make this movement to grow to other countries as well.

This experience gave me a bunch of energy and inspiration. Taking part and cleaning the city is about small daily decisions and actions we can do. This is part of stopping the plastics ending up further to the rivers, to the sea and in the stomach of the animals and in our food. With a right attitude and respect we can always do our part of caring the environment we live in. Every action counts!

It was cold out there, but it was fun!

Sounds without a voice

 The sounds of dropping leaves on the path I walk

 and the darkest speed of the evenings. You don't have to say it loud:  "autumn"

The feeling of silent waiting and the voiceless breath of the wind

before 

the autumn storm

The painting, the layers of the temperatures and the geology of ending growth, 

the leftovers of green

Invitation for a walk,

making sounds

without a voice

Today I had three different walks. I wanted to capture some autumn moments. I only managed to take a picture of my shoes with some fallen leaves. I felt a bit shy with my camera out there. I was avoiding crowds and looking for the most silent corners at the park. 

The blurry season change is making me a bit more tired than normally. I was looking for strong colors, but instead the poetry of darker evenings felt more suitable for my mood. 

Some memories came back to my mind, one autumn five years ago...when my voice was gone and talking loud was a struggle. I took a lot of pictures with my camera back then. I was talking and writing through the pictures, focusing on something that brought me joy. I felt relief, that I could express myself this way.

I hardly never think of the three years I had this problem with my voice.  It started back in Germany and I did not get a prober help from the local doctor there. I felt he did not take my problem seriously even it was impacting my daily life so much. Talking, reading loud, making phone calls and just going to super market was getting more and more difficult. I was concentrating enormously just trying to produce some normal sounding speech. People were asking what is wrong with my voice and I started to feel like a stranger in my own body. I was hoping this problem will go away if I just relax more.  

In the end I was too tired of my problem and even trying to find out some more information or getting a second opinion from another doctor. I almost gave up. The funny thing is I had studied logopedics at the University in Finland and how powerless I was so with my own voice problem. But some knowledge of the speech problems helped me not to panic. My german doctor obviously thought this was more a psychic, stress related thing. He just wrote me some homeopathic pills to be more calm. I did not feel connected with him, he made me feel invisible. 

People are complicated and all different factors together are slowly creating a spiral and affecting to different situations in our life. From this process I learned I have to trust on my intuition. I know myself better than anyone else and it is extremely important to find the professionals and people out there who are listening to you and taking you seriously. Many problems in life are invisible to others, you don't see the individual problems from the outside. I started to avoid some social situations and I chose carefully the words that were easier for me to produce. 

My intuition said we have to move from that little town and go to a bigger place with more possibilities. We also wanted to be more close to our families. We had some close family in Holland and it was easier to combine with the work situation. One of the first things I did in Amsterdam was that I took contact to a local nose, ear and throat doctor. My husband had read an article in the internet about a radio dj who lost his voice and was diagnosed and helped by this local medical specialist.

This meeting gave me hope, I was very fast diagnosed having a spasmodic dysphonia. It is a neurological condition and the reason for the motorical coordination problems in producing the sounds, (needed for articulating words) are basically neurological. Nothing dangerous or serious, but making talking normally more difficult. I felt relief: I was not being crazy and I was taken seriously. The problem was lying somewhere between the connections of  my vocal cords, my nervous system and the motorical areas of my brain. We tried some voice therapy for a while with a logopedist to evaluate my situation and see if the therapy helps me. But the voice therapy did not really help. 

From the start it was clear there would be another option for me available: a small surgery on my vocal cords, manipulating the connection between the nerve and the muscle. After this surgery I would not be depended on the Botox injections to my vocal cords like most of the people with spasmodic dysphonia are for the rest of their lives. The doctor is a pioneer in these sort of operations in Europe. I could have not got this surgery in Germany back then and these are not available in Finland, where I come from. I did not even know this sort of treatment exists. But I am happy I found this option and it helped me. I can speak totally normally again after this surgery and I can be "me" without thinking how I sound and what sort of first impression I give based on my voice.

I could make this a long story, but it is already quite long. Thank you for reading :). The intuition pushed me towards to Amsterdam where I found a specialist. One of the only ones in Europe and he could help me. 

If you ever have a problem with your health or with something else: Use your intuition and trust on your own feeling what is best in that situation. Find help and find people who make you feel connected, take you seriously and listen to you. 

Stay connected to yourself too and enjoy the nature!