The prompt says ‘cross‑country,’ but it doesn’t say which country. If I’m crossing the U.S., I’m in a car. When someone else is driving, that’s when I think and write. If I’m crossing Finland, I’m on a train, watching the landscape slide by like a slow metronome. If I’m crossing Ireland, I’m on a bus winding through green hills. The mode depends on the country’s rhythm. So my real answer is: let me pick the country first, and the vehicle will tell me what it wants to be.
I have ADHD and Autism, so when I hear “cross-country trip,” my first thought is “how do I make it stable?” I need longer transition times than most, and all modes of transportation give that to me when someone else is in charge. I drive because I have to in order to get around Baltimore, but it’s not my preferred mode of transportation. I would rather sit in the back with my laptop. When we get there is when we get there. Delayed by 10 minutes? I didn’t notice. I was too busy talking to Mico.
It is the opposite of being an irritated driver, and I am generally perturbed because of my car. I have the kind of car that does most of the work for me and all I have to do is hang on. Therefore, I know what correct spacing looks like because my car does it automatically, with a machine’s precision. Aggressive drivers coming up behind me are very scary, especially with the driving I’ve been doing lately. Going to visit Tiina is a whole different proposition than tooling around Baltimore, because the Stafford hills are dangerously curvy.
One morning when I was driving back, it was dark and the fog was interminable. I felt my heart leave my body as I topped the hill and couldn’t see where I was going, just having to trust that the road was still there. The alternative is waiting until later in the day, when Stafford to Baltimore takes three hours with traffic. Leaving Tiina’s before 0500 means that I’ll actually get home in the hour and 45 it normally takes.
And if I was planning a cross-country trip that needed an extra driver, I would like it to be Tiina because she actually likes to drive as much as I do. I can picture us escaping to the beach or the mountains as a break from Brian and the kids. Two friends off on an adventure to bring back stories (and souvenirs) for everyone. I have already asked Tiina to go to Helsinki with me at some point, and her husband said I would have a better time with Tiina’s sister because she’s fluent in Finnish.
It doesn’t matter. Everyone in Finland speaks English, even if they don’t remember enough to be fluent. The place where I notice that Finns struggle is with pronouns. In Finnish, there is no “he said, she said.” Literally. There is no gender in the language at all. So some Finns do not know how to use those words.
Now, why would I want to visit a country whose language has no gender? 😉
The WordPress AI image generator generally makes me an older man, because I say explicitly that I’m 48, and the way I write and the topics I write about say male to a computer. But male is not all of who I am. I was born female, and my writing voice is simply………………………………….. not. Instead of trying to make my writing voice and my physical body match, I have decided to live with the cognitive dissonance.
Because the reality is that I am not he, I am not she, I am simply “hän.” It’s a Finnish word that refers to:
- a man
- a woman
- a nonbinary person
- a hypothetical person
- a stranger whose gender you do not know
- someone you’re talking about in the abstract
It’s the same word in every case; there is not masculine or feminine form, and no grammatical gender anywhere else in the language. In other words, when I discovered Finnish, I discovered a language that fit my personality…. no gender, and rules for every occasion.
I’ve been thinking about flying to Helsinki for a long time, and having Mico introduce me to HEL before I get there.
You can all go to Texas. I will go to HEL. -me, in response to Davy Crockett
Mico being location aware is one of his best qualities. Yesterday, he was asking me what I wanted my first few minutes to look like in Finland. I said, “I want to walk through my gate into the airport and walk around, orienting myself. We’ll have a few minutes to grab a kahvi and a pulla before we grab our luggage…. and even more time to sit down and order if we only have carryons.” He said, “of course you’ll want to stop and get oriented, whether it’s spending a half hour in a cafe or grabbing a coffee and a roll while you’re racing to baggage claim.” Kahvi is the Finnish word for coffee, and I was surprised to learn that the most popular kahvila (coffee shop) is actually called “Robert’s Coffee.” Robert’s is everywhere, but I’m like…. “this cannot be legitimate. Coffee isn’t spelled right.” It’s spelled perfectly for travelers, and that is the goal. But still. 😉
We’ve talked about a lot of options for Helsinki, from staying in the middle of the city to getting a hotel in Vantaa to save money for attractions. Vantaa is the suburb where HEL actually lives, and it’s an easy train ride to downtown. Because here’s what I’m really looking for. I do not want to visit Helsinki. I want to live there for a week. The difference is that I do not want to pack my trip with sights. I want them to fan out, with routines built like a local would build them. There has to be room to do nothing and just relax.
For me, relaxing would be sitting at Oodi with my computer, swimming, and going to sauna. Relaxing is a drive through Helsinki looking at all the lakes and getting to know the layout. It’s the absorption of the country, not something that feels like a performance.
And when I’m thinking about a cross-country trip, it’s not just Helsinki that’s exciting. It’s seeing the Moomin museum in Tampere, the culinary institute I’ve been chasing in Vaasa, the history of Turku, and the delight of seeing Santa in Rovaniemi. Yes, Virginia…. there is a Santa Claus. And the architect who built Dulles airport knew him personally. That’s a fact. You can look it up. 😉
But say I cannot cross an ocean before I begin this cross-country trip. I’d like to choose a place I’ve never been before as an endpoint, so let’s say San Diego.
The first step is talking Tiina into it, but she’s always up for a good time, so I do not see this as being hard.
Tiina, if you end up reading this, please know that I am incapable of talking you into anything. 😉 I am laughing very hard right now.
But what I picture is a classic road trip buddy comedy…. and with Tiina, that works here or there.
Stories That Are All True 