I recommend listening to it while reading the essay.
This Cowboy Bebop jazzhop mix instantly transports me to memories of Helsinki. (And more specifically, you're gonna carry that weight by cormac.) I was working on my Master’s thesis in a mostly vacated Computer Science department, because this was in the middle of the Covid pandemic. It was a Nordic summer. Long days of sunlight, the sweet scent of trees, and birdsongs on campus. I often felt lonely and peaceful at the same time. Putting in earbuds with this mix and walking through the warm corridors, or strolling between my student room and the department building. It gave me mental clarity, or, brought me in a lucid state of mind, where I could experience the smallness of life and the immense scale of Earth.
Otaniemi campus, 2021.
My life was focused. Every day I would be chiseling on my academic crown jewel, even though I never felt that I truly understood the foundations on which I was building sufficiently to be worthy of laying the next brick. In that way, I at least taught myself to be humbled.
I would often go to saunas with friends. Or I would go on my own. This delicate form of self-torture has consistently been the most meditative and calming experience for me. I also used to meditate on the roof of a building next to mine on campus. Every morning, climbing up there, dangling my legs over the edge, and focusing on only breathing for the next fifteen minutes.
I visualize the beautiful and grand streets of Helsinki that I roamed with my camera in hand. Taking in the world around me, looking for the beauty in people’s ordinary life. At some point, I apparently decided that I’d make it a new hobby to climb on top of high buildings. The catalyst seemed to be my realization that Finnish buildings, more often than not, have a ladder on the outside (for easy access for repairs and maintenance, I can only presume). This is basically an invitation to climb to the roofs. Towers on the Otaniemi campus, large apartment blocks in Helsinki, small churches, construction scaffolding. The thrill of adrenaline is highly addictive. And it carries a romantic, fatalistic sensation with it.
Helsinki as seen from the top of a building's scaffolding, 2021.
My meditation rooftop on the Otaniemi campus, 2021.
While living abroad, I had two relationships that petered out in their own painful ways. This music strongly reminds me of those conflicted feelings fighting within me. And how I had to learn to grapple with these emotions that I didn’t feel equipped to handle. My solitudal circumstances made me live through them much more intensely and, looking back, I think I am grateful for that. In a way it also made this period of my life more meaningful. There is meaning in pain.
I remember drifting around the city, along the seashores, thinking about stories. While reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, I was organizing writing competitions with friends. (Read my short story.) I sat around in nature, writing ideas, forming characters and motivations in my mind. Incredibly satisfying. Almost mind-expanding. But again, a mostly solitary experience.
I am perhaps most grateful for the trips that we adventured on. In both winter and summer, we traveled to places across the country. Forests and islands. Small cottages and tents. (Saunas.) The environments were something impossible, coming from The Netherlands.
Amanda exploring the forest on an island in a frozen lake, 2021.
Finnish lake at night around midsummer, 2021.
Camping on an island along the King's road, 2021.
My emotional journey is maybe captured best by this Cowboy Bebop quote:
“I’m not going there to die. I’m going to find out if I’m really alive.”
—Spike Spiegel