church

I don’t go to church. Ever. Well I do when somebody gets married or one of my friends organises a christening for their children or the latest addition to the list of many but for the rest, I never go.

Yesterday I was feeling miserable. Absolutely rubbish. There was no apparent reason to my gloomy mood but that just made things even worse because not only was I unhappy but I also could not figure out how to make myself happy.

After having spent most of the day feeling sorry for myself and eating chocolate, which made me even worse and then this meant I had more chocolate to comfort myself and that obviously made me feel even worse as I already felt like I had had too much chocolate. I was bored. I had nothing to do. I had nowhere to go to. I had no one to talk to. To break this self-destructive cycle I decided to bike to the Finnish marine church to increase the number of books waiting next to my bed to be read. Maybe I would even get some dinner there. If they had something nice. Or buy few more sweets. At least Finnish chocolate is better than the English one.

I got there just as they had started their evening service. In order not to disturb I quietly climbed upstairs. I sat in the corner and read my book (in French). At the background I had a constant humming of prayers and what ever went on with the ceremony. As the Finnish church is a Lutheran church there was no loud clapping, dancing, shouting, speaking in tongues or any other form of worship so prominent in other places. No. It was all quiet and reserved.

I heard the piano tamper familiar notes and soon a handful of voices started to sing a familiar hymn. I knew that. We used to sing it in primary school, in the choir…”siunaa koko maailmaa/isä, siunaa koko maailmaa”. I could picture the big sports hall, full of kids, a piano in the corner and us, the choir, in the front.

I smiled.

I think I hummed.

I got back to my reading.

Before leaving I bought few sweets. I just had to. And spoke some Finnish. I think. Though it might have been in English as I think someone addressed me in English with a Finnish accent. Anyway. I think I spoke some Finnish. It definitely was not French. My book was in French.

When I got back home I felt a lot better. To a point where I managed to get myself out into the darkness and cold (the rain had stopped while I was choosing books at the Church library) for a long run. It wasn’t really the song that did it. It was the familiarity of it all.

At the same time it made me feel worse. The song was just a memory. A part of history. It was as if I was trying to hold on to something that I used to have, but had lost.

But still, while I am trying to figure out if I could ever belong to this city I hold on to every occasions to speak French, read detective stories that take me to the roads and bars of Turku and wonder where to go next.