During the months we have been in Estonia, there have been many times when I wonder if we are somehow living in some protected, idyllic part of the world. We watch the news often. Usually BBC World News, Deutchewelle and EuroNews which are both fairly balanced, centrist views of current happenings and world events. (Well, let me correct that slightly: BBC covered 'the wedding' -- don't even ask which one..you should know!!!- as well as the Queen's and 'O'Bama's' recent visit to Ireland -- in enough live and extensive details to satisfy me for the rest of my life.) The natural and human violence happening on the world stage is overwhelming and deeply tragic- Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Fukoshima, Japan, Joplin MO, North Minneapolis, the volcano in Iceland, the on-going impact of the economic slalom as well as local political events such as the Minnesota decision to include a vote that would defining marriage in heterosexual terms in the next election. All of these challenging news items, seem to be occurring far away and in my imagination their stories enter Estonia airspace only through the magic of cyberspace and radio waves. (Side note: In the US, the recent hurricanes made BBC headline news but, sadly, the many American poltical travesties that seem to primarly oppress marginalized groups have not merited BBC attention.)
To add to this impression, it is gloriously spring. Daylight is increasing in huge increments- it is light by 4 am and we can see clear, sharp shadows at 10 pm. The lilacs are just beginning to bloom, tulips are coming (in colors and varieties I am not used to seeing in the US), white candle-like chestnut blossoms point sky-ward from a green leafy base and the world is filled with a pallette of greens set in a bright blue-sky background filled with puffy scutting clouds.
However, as I read student journals, I what see beneath the surface of most of my students is deep, unnamed trauma and sadness. I am touched and tearful as I read their journals. One student follows an area of body pain that they had 'forgotten' but never addressed directly. Her discomfort takes her to the deeper memory of a bus accident and of a grandparent who died while pushing her to safety. Someone else connects with childhood memories of a father who returned from deportation to Siberia (by the soviets) a different person- silent and withdrawn. And who committed suicide about a year later. Other students focus only on happy thoughts at all costs. Grieving, for them is a sign of personal weakness to be avoided, even in private. Others are harnessed with expectations of personal perfection- and often seem to expect tirades of shame and criticism from their teachers (or me) when their perfect standard is not full met. For many of my students, trust and safety seem to be new experiences for them, and their journals simultaneously reflect their deep hunger for being valued and seen and a reluctance to be hurt or disappointed, as they have been, so often in the past.
But my students also courageously dive into the deepest, darkest parts of their stories and beings in a way that is rare in other classes or settings where I have taught. For most of my students, my sense is that life is a struggle to be conquored and they meet their hardest challenges and memories head-on at full speed. I wonder how they have already learned this, at their relatively young age (aplogies to those of you out there, for whom this is not a young age- but for me it is). I find myself reminding them, over and over again, that it is normal to feel sad when a parent dies, when a friend suicides, when people or the world disappoints you. And that you are not a failure as a human being, if you take time to pause and find a way to acknoweldge those feelings.
I led a workshop for therapists on trauma, and one man wonders if it is any value in returning to work on painful experiences from the past. My first thought is to reluctantly agree with him, but then I ask him about happiness in his life, and close relationships. Within a few sentences, he is sharing his observations that in addition to avoiding hard feelings, he is also unable to feel the pleasant ones, or feel intimacy and trust with another person. His comment reminded me, once again, of how hard the journey out of trauma is, and that it is often the anguish and longing for other emotions and experiences that keeps most of us walking this particular path.
I also was talking with a student who graduation project is called 'Where is your Paradise?'. The film shows several mummy-wrapped dancers standing statue-like in the middle of a busy downtown intersection. This alternated with brief glimpses of them, similarly attired on a solitary rock next to grey roiling sky and sea, and also in an opulent green meadow filled with yellow flowers. The film ended inconclusively...the dancers remained wrapped in their shrounds and in the last scene they are still being buffeted by wind from the shifting grey waters. I asked my student where paradise was for her? What was she wanting to share with us, through her work? How she would answer her own question? She answered that she did not yet know, and that paradise remained something ephemeral and distant...outside of her daily grasp and possibly unreachable.... somewhere in the green flower-filled field.
Her answer, reflected my sense of so many of the people I meet here- on the surface they are strong, resilient, intelligent, curious, unflinching, but under this surface lies unnamed and untouched darknesses. In someways it parallels the seasonal dance of light and dark in this part of the world. Spring ands summer arrive in glorious but brief abundance. It is as if everyone changes personality and disappear to their 'summer home' somewhere in the country (on an island, by a lake, in the woods...it doesnt matter where...but it is green and away from people and urbanization). Summer is short but intense with almost constant sunlight (We walked home last night at 10:30 and, if we had wanted, we could have easily read outside in Vabaduse Valjak). But then winter, with its longer darkness, cold and ice arrives and it is as if summer never existed.
Which came first, the earthly seasonal pattern of light and dark? The historic journey these people have had for so long, of being invaded, conquored and oppressed by a larger- land hungy power (Sweden, Germany, Russia, the Soviets)? The cultural personality of northern Europeans in general (having lived, taught and worked for so many years in Minnesota with its large Scandinavian population, I feel a strange familiarity with the personalities of my Estonian students and colleagues.) Or perhaps other factors that have shaped the people of this nation. And, so far this question remains unanswered for me.
And with this entry, we are off to Helsinki for the weekend. Nagemiste
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