Sum­mer in Fin­land is short in­deed. Is it even shor­ter now than when I was a child? Or have I just, in the mid­d­le of the hust­le and bust­le of dai­ly life, for­got­ten to pau­se and en­joy the warmth of the sum­mer, the soft bree­ze and the buz­zing in­sects?

Au­tumn of­ten marks the be­gin­ning of so­met­hing new. I am sen­ding our eighth child to the first grade, and our ol­der daugh­ter goes to Reis­jär­vi Opis­to. Our mid­d­le school pu­pil will move from a tem­po­ra­ry fa­ci­li­ty in­to a lo­ve­ly new school, while the pri­ma­ry school kids will move out of their di­la­pi­da­ted school hou­se in­to tem­po­ra­ry pre­mi­ses. Apart from these out­ward chan­ges, all edu­ca­ti­o­nal pro­ces­ses will con­ti­nue af­ter the sum­mer va­ca­ti­on, inc­lu­ding my own stu­dies. Both my ca­len­dar and my head are full of a hod­ge­pod­ge of lists and sche­du­les.

I will do my best to fend off the fee­lings of hur­ry, shor­ta­ge of time and cons­tant chaos. I will try to keep those things at arm’s length. Far enough for me not to be inf­lu­en­ced by them. I would like to wel­co­me the fall with an or­ga­ni­zed and or­der­ly mind.

I have re­cent­ly been won­de­ring about the im­pact of the hu­man psyc­he on one’s ener­gy le­vels. What ma­kes us choo­se our oc­cu­pa­ti­on and hob­bies? What is the pre­sump­ti­on, re­qui­re­ment or dream in­si­de us that mo­ti­va­tes us to make our choi­ces? It is im­por­tant to re­cog­ni­ze the un­der­lying as­pi­ra­ti­on that go­verns our ac­ti­ons, be­cau­se it may so­me­ti­mes be at od­ds with our re­sour­ces.

This thought has been pre­oc­cu­pying my mind, be­cau­se I have re­a­li­zed that I tend to aim at per­fec­ti­on in wha­te­ver I am doing. I have been re­a­ding about how one le­arns to take things ea­sy, to pau­se and lis­ten to one’s body and mind. It is im­por­tant to be awa­re of one’s in­ner re­sour­ces and to res­pect their li­mits.

Hu­man beings are fun­ny in that their fa­ti­gue is not di­rect­ly re­la­ted to the num­ber of hours slept du­ring the night or the work­lo­ad ac­comp­lis­hed. So­me­ti­mes it is ea­sy to work on an in­te­res­ting as­sign­ment for a long time wit­hout fee­ling ti­red. At some ot­her time work can be ho­pe­les­s­ly dull and ti­ring.

There are ti­mes when I feel ex­haus­ted by the ”meta” work re­qui­red in dai­ly fa­mi­ly life. What should we eat to­day, to­mor­row, next week? I should re­mem­ber to buy a fi­xing kit for the flat bi­cyc­le tire. Oh, I al­most for­got, one of the kids will have a den­tal ap­point­ment at 10.30 to­mor­row and a swim­ming les­son right af­ter that. When should we go to pick blu­e­ber­ries, and do we have enough ber­ry ra­kes? Whose are the wor­nout trai­ners in the hall, when would I have time to sow the cur­tains for the lit­t­le ones’ room?

When bom­bar­ded by all these thoughts, I should ar­ran­ge some calm, pe­a­ce­ful time for my­self. Qui­et enough to hear the whis­pe­ring voi­ce in­si­de me. What do I need my­self? I of­ten for­get all about that. For some re­a­son, I find it chal­len­ging to take a short break from the dai­ly cho­res and child care and do so­met­hing per­so­nal­ly re­war­ding.

My in­ner voi­ce seems to be qui­te de­man­ding. It does not whis­per in my ear nice rhy­mes of bloo­ming flo­wers or soft knit­ting wool. It says that work co­mes first and play on­ly co­mes af­ter that. And work ne­ver ends. Ba­sed on what I have read, I am not the on­ly one strug­g­ling with this prob­lem.

I am hap­py we were ab­le to go on a ho­li­day this sum­mer. I could put some dis­tan­ce bet­ween my­self and the work wai­ting to be done and to re­lax and en­joy na­tu­re. Be­au­ti­ful sce­ne­ry and si­len­ce are the best me­di­ca­ti­on for a busy mot­her’s rest­less mind.

I de­ri­ved new strength for my dai­ly life from the blue sky, the tops of high moun­tains, the rus­hing wa­ter­fal­ls and bird­song. It was ea­sy to pau­se there, with no ot­her al­ter­na­ti­ves avai­lab­le. I hope that, lit­t­le by lit­t­le, I will le­arn to ex­pe­rien­ce that same pe­a­ce in my life on an or­di­na­ry Wed­nes­day. Right af­ter din­ner when all fa­mi­ly mem­bers are hap­py and con­tent.

Text: Suvi Myl­ly­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.