7/11/2017

I'm thinking about a song - Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness. In a way it pretty much describes the summer feeling of these past weeks, on the other hand there's really nothing to be sad about so I'm not quite sure why this song came to my mind. But even if there is no sadness, there sure is a lot of summertime melancholy. Days go by slowly and without much fuss, I'm stuck in my patterns and circles, which, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing. It feels like this summer has lasted forever and will continue to last forever. It's a still life, that's what it is.

There has been some family business. I've visited my dad, I've visited my auntie, just this past Sunday morning I visited my uncle whom I don't see that often (we had pancakes and a long conversation which really was more of a monologue from his part and I left with quiet sadness, knowing that we see life from very different viewpoints). I've visited my mum's grave for the first time since Christmas Eve and I've taken some long walks in the tiny town of Türi where my mum grew up and where she is now resting. And all these pictures and memories from my early childhood flooded back, and I thought a great deal about my mum and my granny, and how my identity and self are firmly grounded in their love. Oh, and we celebrated my little brother's 30th birthday in the beginning of July, and that added more melancholy still - to see your brother you've always thought as small all grown up and manned up is awesome and yet equally perplexing.

It's quiet at work. Everyone else is either on their annual leave or camping in the bush with our pathfinders or they're just not coming to the office these days. So I'm here all by myself and I don't get that much work done. The conference's library is still waiting to be sorted out, there's always a sermon that needs to be written, preparations for Valencia need to get done soon. This morning I'm translating Greek sentences and going through the text book word by word as I am teaching in Riga again on Thursday. It is strange how even the Riga lecturing trips have quietly become the part of my usual summer routine. I go once every three weeks and although they are long and tough days, I enjoy them very much. Later today, when I'm done with translations, I reward myself with Anne Lamott's TED Talk. Little treats like this do good to one's soul. There were some things I had become very excited about over my traveling weeks - new contacts, possibilities of new opportunities. But nothing has come of them, the emails I was so impatiently waiting for after returning home never arrived, new initiatives never took off. I guess it's one of those seasons.

I'm reading Kathleen Norris' book The Cloister Walk and even that book fits in the general mood perfectly. It's slow and deep and beautiful, that book. And when I'm not reading that, I'm reading the book of Revelation in the evenings, and although Revelation is anything but quiet and calm, even this book can tear me up these days with its beautiful opening and closing chapters.

Some evenings I'm meeting up with friends, and when I'm not doing it I either go to the seaside or to a new nearby market to get fresh local strawberries and tomatoes.

It's a still life alright.

At K.'s birthday bash.
Visiting the pathfinders camp last weekend. I preached there on Sabbath.
Tea at A.'s.

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