Coming Home

On Turning 50 and What the Finnish Forest Taught Me

Hi friend,

There are certain birthdays that ask us to look behind us before we continue walking.

I am turning 50 this week.

But this article is about more than just my fifty trips around the sun. I’m also celebrating 20 years of living in Finland. I was 30 when I moved back to Finland.

All these milestone numbers made me reflective.

Back and Forth

When I first came to Finland in 1999 - fresh out of woodworking school - I wasn’t certain I would stay. After falling in love with my now husband, back then the move just felt like chasing an adventure; a chance to see how life in another country might suit me, while also chasing love. At 24, I was young and naive. “Let’s just see what’ll happen …”, I thought.

After only one and half years, I was lonely and didn’t much like “the adventure” anymore. Love wasn’t the problem, but the language was too hard, I didn’t make many new friends, and although I had secured a woodworking job, working life was tougher than I thought it needed to be. I missed my family and friends, and losing my father in early 2001 was the drop that spilled the bucket.

We returned to the Netherlands, where we spent a happier four and a half years closer to family, my old friends and my own familiar culture and language.

But something changed inside me during those years in the Netherlands. The faster pace of life I initially grew up with and was okay with when we moved back, became too much to deal with for me.

I was approaching 30, and I didn’t feel at home in my own country anymore!

It sounded crazy, but I missed Finland!

August 2006; a Turning Point

While Hubby wasn’t unhappy in the Netherlands, he cherished the dream of retiring back to Finland. But I was impatient …

Why postpone the life we hope to live someday? Waiting until retirement? No, that didn’t feel right anymore. I wanted to begin living it right then and there. I wanted Finland to become my home.

So a month after celebrating my 30th, I packed up everything again, and moved back.

Different Frame of Mind

I remember consciously saying: “This time, moving to Finland isn’t going to be an adventure, or an “I’ll see how it goes”.

We deliberately moved to the more vibrant and international city of Tampere, where I could find a good job, make new friends, and live a more social life combined with nature being close by.

Two years later, we purchased a small row house, 20 minutes from the city, even closer to nature. Finally, in 2021 we bought our 100-year old house surrounded by forest on the other side of the country.

Looking back on all those years, I realize that home isn’t about “location location location”, despite it being advertised as such. Home is a feeling that grows through ordinary as well as awe-inspiring moments.

Through learning the rhythm of the seasons. Through the smell of pine after rain, the silence after fresh snow, the nightless summer evenings, and the northern lights-filled winter skies. Home becomes the feeling of arriving at the airport after a trip abroad and thinking, I have returned to where I belong.

It took me twenty years to realize that while I thought I was building a home in Finland, Finland was quietly building a home in me.

I don’t think Finland simply changed my address. It changed the way I see life.

When I first arrived in Finland, I walked through forests the way many people do, including Finns: to get from one place to another, or as exercise (käydä lenkillä).

Today I rarely hurry through them. I stop for the light filtering through the trees. I notice the texture of lichen on an old stump. I photograph mushrooms, insects, and pieces of moss that most people would simply step over.

Somewhere along the way, the forest taught me that pausing to paying attention IS a way of living.

And that lesson gradually found its way into my wood-burning art.

The Process is the Same

I approach my art and my creation process in the same way as I approach the Finnish Forest; listening and observing, and allow myself to feel wonder.

Sometimes a piece of wood waits on my studio desk for weeks or months before I “see” what it wants to become.

Other times, an idea finds me during a forest walk and I somehow find exactly the right piece of wood waiting for me in my workshop!

Perhaps my blood is made of wood dust and fire? Because some of my favorite pieces were never planned.

On turning 50

Lately, another question has been following me. What has 50 years on this planet brought me and what do I want from the next decades?

The answer surprised me; I actually want less.

Less stress, less noise, less rushing, less pressure, obligations, and less responsibilities.

More moments of awe, though! Because those rare, awe-inspiring moments when I look up at the Northern Lights dancing across the sky, or hope to catch a glimpse of a fox between the trees, remind me that there is still so much mystery in the world.

On those moments I feel closest to something larger than myself. To Mother Nature, to The Universe, or to God, if that’s what you want to call it.

Calmer Days Ahead

If there is one thing I hope you, the person looking, will remember when you see my wood art, it’s that the natural world is still full of stories waiting to be discovered.

With my art, I hope to spark that moment of awe. I hope my art makes you pause, look a little closer .. and feel the wonder I felt when I created.

As I approach 50, I don’t feel that I have everything figured out. My menopausal body reminds me that the years are passing, and I don’t know exactly what the future will bring. But I do know how I want to meet it.

With curiosity and gratitude.

With calmer days.

With my camera in one hand and a piece of wood waiting on my studio bench, ready for the next story. Ready to inhabit that next moment of wonder.

When I moved back to Finland twenty years ago, I thought I was choosing a new place to call home. I didn’t know at that time I was also choosing the person I would become.

Home, I’ve learned, isn’t where you begin or even where you end up, but where you finally recognize yourself.

And somehow, between the trees and silence, the wood dust and wonder ... I came home.

With love from the Finnish Forest,

Iona

*Disclaimer: The video I compiled honoring my 50th birthday and 20 years in Finland features a unique song, with lyrics, based on my personality and horoscope. While AI helped me turn it into actual music in my favorite genre, I did the rest myself 🥰.