On Becoming a Writer

As I write this I am waiting for my book to arrive to me from the printing press. Some time this week I'll get to hold a copy and leaf through the book. Or so I think, even though the release of the book is still two weeks away. The book is in Finnish. Therefore, I hesitate to write here in English about it, but then I give myself permission as this space has always been in English. I remain torn between the two languages. Still, I am more at ease with these two languages than ever before. They are both mine in a meaningful way. I don't have to prefer one, I don't have to struggle between expressions.
(I just hope you read Finnish)

This same sense of duality has troubled me for ages regarding being a passionate musician but continuing to love and need writing as well as research too. As if wanting to contribute on all these fronts, through apparently differing media was a infidelity or a contradiction. It has taken me a lifetime to arrive here; to know it's all just one stream. One stream or a reservoir of water from which I pour. In which I swim.

I am going to give myself permission to write in Finnish here too, from time to time. If it seems to make sense with the book. I am the worst translator I know so it won't be a case of translating. Just hopping to a different part of the brain. Maybe, in time I'll realize that there isn't such a chasm between the modes of expression either.
Now I'm just sharing this cover of the book with my expectant feelings. Butterflies in the belly, spring's harshest dust in the throat, glittering joy of a dream coming true.

I am becoming a writer. One with a book with pages and covers.
Viimeinen kirjani is out April 7th, 2019.