September 21, 2007


I have no idea what the outside temperature is.  It’s always warm inside the Finnish house. I kick off my shoes and hang my jacket when I enter my apartment and walk barefoot, in a tank top. So, every morning, I check the thermometer outside the kitchen in order to dress accordingly before stepping out. Typically, I’ll wear Jeans and a light leather jacket. No-one has to know that underneath the jacket, I only have a tank top. I live about three kilometers from the university and walk there every morning. And I walk fast, with my laptop, shirt, etc. in the backpack. Lots of students pass me on bike. They are all wearing heavy jackets, gloves and beanies – and heavy scarves. It’s September – and thus it’s fall and cold. It doesn’t matter that the temperature lingers around 65 F, and there’s no wind as Jyväskylä is an inland city although surrounded by lakes from every angle. I almost burst out laughing aloud when I all of a sudden remember Matlena’s stories. Matlena spent a fall in Helsinki as an au-pair after graduating from high school. She took care of two little girls. When she picked them up from their preschool in the afternoon, she walked back to the house pushing a stroller. The trip included a long, slight hill. Being a typical California girl, she dressed in rolled-up jeans or a  cotton skirt, a tank top – and flip-flops. She told me about the stares and comments she received, mostly from older ladies after they saw her. There’s an untranslatable Finnish verb for that: päivitellä, and that’s what they did. September IS fall! No matter what the weather! Suddenly I see a young man and a woman riding by with summer jackets, no scarves, no gloves, nor beanies. Now, I join the rank of the older ladies and stare. But while they wheeze by, I get –they speak French. They are our California cousins. We stubbornly ignore the cold. The winter is just an illusion. Mercifully, we, Californians and French have one more fact in common: wine is cheap and plenty.