A Love Letter to Helsinki in Photographs
Helsinki and I have a complex relationship. I have been stringing it along for nearly five decades and I never seem to stick around.
I was born there in the seventies but remember very little of those times because my parents and I immigrated to Canada just before I turned 2 years old. I spent many a summer, wandering down Helsinki streets following my grandmother or some other relative, wide-eyed and mesmerized. As a teenager, I learned about strange back streets, with the children of my mother's friends, who were cajoled to take me along to whatever party they were going to.
I lived there after finishing my undergrad degree in literature, thinking I might do graduate studies there in the Finnish language, history or culture. I worked, took classes at the University, and learned to navigate my way around. In a way, it became my hometown and I thought, at that time, I might actually stay. I made friends, had awkward first and last dates, danced in clubs, and carried groceries home on the bus. Then Canada called me back. Since then, like a migratory bird, every decade or so, I fly back and spend the summer there. Every time I go back, nothing and everything has changed.
My gaps away from Helsinki have become wider, as the cost of travelling and adult life have kept me busy. Most recently, I took my mother back on a trip to see relatives. Mom is suffering from dementia, so a lot of my focus was spent on her, and this trip had its own significance to it, as we two who left for Canada so many years ago, were going back.
The meaning of Helsinki’s streets didn’t mean the same to Mom as they might have, had we been able to make it back before the pandemic disrupted global travel. For her, it was a curiosity, where she could read all the street signs with amusement, and where people did things very differently than she was accustomed to in Canada. I did not have the time to indulge heavily in galleries or libraries as I normally would have, as Mom’s condition makes her restless, and honestly quite impatient. She is a very keen walker, however, and fortunately, I was able to take a lot of photos as we wandered to old familiar places and some new ones.
As the years have begun adding up, and the feelings of older age are becoming familiar, I spent a lot more of my time trying to really see Helsinki, to appreciate it, and to accept what it means to me. Helsinki’s and my love is unrequited, but it is part of the waft of who I am. There are pieces of me everywhere.
If there is anything I noticed on this last trip, is that Finns have not changed in their willingness to move with the times. When I lived there in the 2000’s cell phone culture was well established a decade before it came to Canada. In much the same vein, there seemed to be an acceptance of many automated services such as unmanned gas stations, robots delivering food, and paying with cash being nearly obsolete. Almost everything you need as a traveller (transit day passes, train tickets, restaurant bookings) is most commonly done online. Everyone was paying for groceries with a tap of their phones or their watches. Everywhere you looked, scooters and rental bikes were being used.
It has taken me over a month, since returning home, to face the images on my camera cards. My love for this city is complex, deep, and perplexing. Helsinki surfaces emotions in me that no other place does. It is where I go to find my way again, but when I get there it makes me even more lost. It is where I feel the most at peace, and also full of unrest.
I am not very well versed in architecture and I only have a basic recollection of Helsinki’s history — but I can share with you the way the light filters through the trees on Bulevardi, or tell you what the trams sound like as they hum down Alexanderinkatu.
I can tell you it is best to visit in summer because the days are extra long and the breeze that blows on the south shore amid the islands of the archipelago is often fragrant with lilacs and sea salt. There are so many great cafes and little restaurants, and the city is often punctuated by spaces of greenery and open squares where you can purchase fresh vegetables and fruits. Helsinki is perhaps not as lively a capital as Stockholm when it comes to nightlife, but there are many public saunas, some also have restaurants, and others with great views of the city and the sea. In winter, Helsinki is dark and withdrawn, and the wind is very cold.
These places are the neighbourhoods of my mind, more dear to me than some of the places I see every day. I cannot tell you how my story with Helsinki will end, but I am already thinking of how to get back.
For now, I will speak with my photos… there are so so many.
