To live as we are

Hello... after a long time!

Sometimes it is hard to return to something after having a pause... as I have from this blog and writing.

It is so necessary for us though to have times at a distance from what we are used to doing or we never gain new perpectives.

At the same I think I have not even got used to doing this blog, that I want to keep up...and really, writing. Why is it hard sometimes? It's not really hard to say hello on a keyboard is it... this is not the first time I'm thinking about this -- a blank paper, be it a paper or a canvas or a space in your heart or in a room... SOOOO many times before entering a blank paper by writing I have this quick whisper in my heart as WHAT WILL IT BE!!?? And if you're having a bad day or lacking confidence in what you're about to do or don't have any idea of a starting point... well, it may well be that you just quit right there because the uncertainty of the outcome burns you down. But we're not supposed to know everything in order to experience, are we!?!

We are all born to LIVE. We don't ask ourselves how do I breathe in and out (unless taking voice lessons), it just happens! And of course there needs to be plans and structures when we do things but SO OFTEN I feel we get merely handicapped by all those structures and our creativity loses its colors.

Hmph. What do you say to all of this? 

Last time I wrote there was a column of mine published in a finnish magazine called Kotivinkki. I was encouraged and discouraged. Encouraged because it got published, discouraged the moment I read it in the magazine because they had taken parts of my text out and to me it didn't feel the same, as if something was missing, as if it was not fully mine even it was. Of course I quickly understood (after some tears, storm and calming down ;-D)  that this is how it goes, certainly I already sent them a text that was tooo long and they did what is supposed to be done - cut it in form that the content and message still remains. My message remained, so I didn't really lose anything. Really, I didn't.

I even got a lesson.. Even a couple of them... so this is the way it goes so I better be prepared and well, I have to own my writing, not to ask myself WHAT WILL IT BE? Am I going to be a writer or not?!?  It is no guestion of such sort. I AM already just like you are.  It is in being that we become, learn, mature, grow... towards our dreams.

Does that sound complicated? Of course I feel almost forced to say now that I don't mean I could really be a writer as  I kind of battle with that at times.... But that's the thing! In order to be something, we need to own it! It's like we are given a gift and we refuse to own it. Because in using anything we are given we become responsible, we become more vulnerable.

I don't know if what I write is really interesting but I know I love to do it.

Only I make the doing for myself harder as I start thinking - I'm not concentrated! I lack direction in my text! I'm going here and there and how is anyone supposed to follow me? And so instead of just going ahead I'm blaming that there's something wrong with this inner machine of mine, because I can't admit that well, being me is enough, and good enough. I say all the possible accusations towards myself before anyone else does and on the journey start believing some of them.

There is another text that I sent to some other magazines that we're intrested of my writing but that it didn't fit in their magazine unless I cut it smaller and take out some of the topics...because as being me, well, I am able to put this and that and that and that together. And often I think it is fine.

So it seems I need to learn. Keep learning. And sometimes I lack patience for that. It's like I have so many things I'd like to say and write but I don't know how to make the beginning meet the end in a way that it would also cross the hearts of people I wish give some thinking.

So here it is and here I am. And for sure, I'll keep writing be there someone who hears or not. I know after all I am my most important reader.

Who want's to dance, let them dance. Who wants to paint, paint! Who wants to sing, I will sing with them! There are so many things within us that we don't turn to... because all the obstacles we make ourselves. Often I am my biggest obstacle.

A few days ago I read this text on Pinterest (and oh, have I also become pinterested, I have!) :

THE GRASS IS GREENER WHERE YOU WATER IT

So let's all water our own gardens and let us grow to the things that hum in our hearts the tune we are supposed to sing and live in our lives.

BE THERE- in your moments and the one life you have.

I promise to be in mine. To remain true to myself. To be, because it is in being that I become who I want to be. Me.


<3 Rina




Here's a few pictures I took this summer in Paris... different ways of being along the river Seine

Music and dreams

Yesterday I found a list that I've made approximately fifteen years ago. A list with a big title: DREAMS OF MY LIFE.

I made that list as a young adult putting down all the things I wished to learn and do during my life as I looked at it then... and funny thing was that as years later I found it again, I could mark off several dreams as "done it!"

As reading the list yesterday I could mark off another: piano lessons. Those I started last fall and that is an ongoing dream to become a fluent player. It's interesting that for years I have wanted to take pianolessons but for some reason I have not got myself to that place. I know I had excuses but at the same even this sounds a bit silly, I think I wasn't ready.

When I finally made that step and got me a piano-teacher and took the book of Aaron for piano I found marks in it that the last time I've had lessons was at age 10. I had always thought it was something like age 6 or 7. I don't remember my piano teacher, I only hold the memory of having learned something wrong... And  I suppose I let that thought be so large in my head even I haven't thought of it so much that I never got started...as thinking well, maybe I can't learn... For years I've been a good listener of other players, secretly hoping one day I could enjoy the art of playing myself.

Now that I'm learning with the help of an awesome teacher, an old man who has played for over 50 years and continues to play every single day apart from times when he's travelling, I've discovered something else: I CAN learn and do learn, even so far I'm in the level of children's songs. :-) I'm progressing, defenitely.

Before getting started with the piano lessons, I also started singing-lessons in pop-jazz style last fall. Quite spontanously! I have always loved singing and been in music class for six years but I've always been rather reserved to sing to others. Insecure. I took voice-lessons years ago when I lived in France and have sung in the choir quite a few years too. Slowly, during last year, something grew more eager within me to sing more... One time I found myself at a birthday party and felt an inner push to sing a song and at the very end I had the courage to do it (I felt I could not go home if I didn't) and I guess that was a big step for me, for the next day I found myself looking for occasion to sing more. To just let myself enjoy with others what I enjoy to do: to sing.  So I have, once a week had this class with two other women, teacher accompanying us with the piano we sing together and on our own. And again I've found: I CAN learn. I'm progressing, defenitely.And most of all, I can let myself enjoy what I enjoy. I'm not expecting to be a great pianist or singer but to fulfill myself in the art that's in my heart.

These are dreams coming true for me. And as dreams are, they are also a gift: to be able to do what we yearn to do because in doing so we discover something new of ourselves, completing us. We can find ourselves like a growing flower making its way from the frozen earth towards the light and warmth of spring and summer. When we plant a seed in the ground and water it, we tend to believe something is gonna grow out from there, right?! A sunflower or a strawberry for example! :-)
- Why don't we see the seeds that are as gifts inside us and believe in the growth that can take place in us? Learning a language or to play an instrument? To garden? To learn new recipes and enjoy cooking? What is it in you? Through learning to love ourselves we water those seeds and grow to new inner lengths.

I believe all of us have gifts to be discovered. Gifts that make us who we really are. Often these gifts are hidden in our dreams and that is yet a greater gift when we realise it. What do you dream of ? How could you make the path there? I suggest: start by making a list of those dreams and slowly an inner path leads you towards those dreams; in seeing and finding ways of making it real.

Something happened recently that I want to write down, because it feels much like a dream.

A couple weeks ago I was out with some friends.  Around two in the morning I was on the street calling the taxi to take me home. The street where I was had a building with - I assumed offices and a restaurant downstairs that was closed. It was all quiet, with only some cars passing and I felt like singing...and I sang as I thought it would not disturb anyone... After a while a door opened and a man came out asking me "Is it you singing here so beautifully? I came out just for that... would you sing for me?"

You can imagine I was taken by surprise.... But I discovered I had only little hesitation in me with such an invitation but did tell him I'm waiting for the taxi however... and so I started and sang again the song Bridge over troubled water by Simon & Garfunkel.  He sat down with his shoelaces untied and listened. In the last verse he sang along a couple lines. From the first look I saw he was a rather sad man. All I did was to sing, because when the last verse came to its end the taxi arrived and I stopped singing. Before getting in the taxi I went to shake hands with the man and wished him all the best in life. And that moment disappeared only to remain in the book of my memories as long as I hold memory.

Unkowingly, he gave me a gift that I probably haven't still been able to completely unravel.... I hope to believe he also received something. It made me realise again that we don't always have to know people in order to connect with them in some way. As humans we are more alike than we realise.



BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER by Simon And Garfunkel

When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind



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It is now Easter friday, actually, as I've been completing this text I started already a few days ago.

The scene from the window is not the kind I would like: it's snowing AGAIN. I'm so much looking forward to spring. But I know it's coming just as I know YOU and I hold dreams to come true for us, in us. Dreams that are gifts for ourselves and others. Dreams that create us to be more of who we really are.

Happy Easter!

With nothing less than my heart,
Rina