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By Hanne
As we live at the beginning of 2021, I thought it might be interesting to look back to March 2020 and my feelings when I had to return to Finland a little unexpectedly. For those who don’t know, I’ve lived in India since the end of 2018. Life happens, they say, so let’s travel back in time and see how.
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Life happens
Then – March 2020
I’m sitting on my mom’s couch looking around in the room, not quite sure if I’m awake or not. The feeling is surreal, and it hasn’t quite yet sunk in. It’s like that time when I was sitting surrounded by movers boxes after I returned from an earthquake in Indonesia and in the middle of break up. Then it was so apparent that I’m going to leave the country, and where else besides India. Now, I have just returned from India, where only a few short weeks ago, I was offered a job as a yoga teacher for the next 3-6 months and a possibility to move and live by the ocean. Now I have just returned from India, which is the only place I call home.
Now.Â
When almost a year has gone by, I cannot travel back in time what comes to my emotions. So much has happened in a year so it is difficult to tap into my feelings. For sure, I didn’t think the situation would carry on as it has been.Â
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Why India?
I have heard that question so many times, and I wish I had a rational answer to this question, but I don’t. The only thing I can say is that in India, I feel like I’m home. There is no better explanation. Well, of course, I can say that I like the simple life. I like washing my clothes in a bucket, and I like the fact that there aren’t ready-to-eat kidney beans in the shop. I like walking barefoot, and most of all, I love the ocean. Oh, and of course, warm weather.
I still feel India is my home. I just love India. If you have a place you feel you belong; you know how I feel about India.Â
Why NOT Finland?
When I returned to Finland in June 2019 after being in India for eight months, I was confused and lost. I didn’t feel a connection to this country that I had been born. I thought if it weren’t for my family and friends, I would probably never come here anymore. I didn’t feel rooted in this country in any way. I was looking around and wondering what is going on in this world, in this country. I have been half kiddingly saying many times that I have been born in the wrong country, and in June 2019, I felt that most than ever before.
When I was maybe 15, I looked out the window of my room, remember watching the clouds in the sky, missing something so badly it hurt. I didn’t know what it was, but it was so obvious already back then that there was something to be found, something waiting for me, and it was not or would not be found in Finland.
Past months in Finland, I have made my “peace” with Finland. I get why I’m here now. I have explored nature and Finland more than ever and know now, and it is all ok; This is my home country, but it doesn’t mean that I have to feel like I belong here.Â
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Life in India
First of all, life in India is nowhere near perfect. India can be frustrating and noisy, but it teaches patience and how to take life as it is right now.
My best friend, an Indian, has asked me numerous times why I want to settle and stay in Varkala. Why don’t I travel around in India and, more importantly, somewhere outside of India? First of all, in 2018, when I moved to India, I just needed stability. Within less than six months, I had quit my job, moved to the other side of the world to work, and where I intended to stay for eight months, and after a month, the earthquake changed everything. I faced an ending of over a decade long relationship in Finland, and I sold everything I own and left. I just needed peace and quiet, time to gather my thoughts. I just wanted to feel rooted again. And Varkala was the place I wanted to grow my roots and find stability in my life.
Going home to Varkala in 2019
When I returned to Varkala in 2019, I felt really comfortable there. It had become my home, and I felt I was slowly growing my roots in Varkala, and I didn’t have any urge to travel elsewhere. It was nice to see familiar faces at the cliff (center of the tourism in Varkala); it was also interesting to see how people working in my favorite restaurants saw me now, the second time around. They already knew I don’t talk to strangers, so they told the new friendly employees that I don’t talk to strangers, kind of like, don’t try your usual speeches with her. 🙂
During my first year in Varkala, I was a little scared and shaky human being. I felt that it was a completely different person who returned. I still don’t speak to strangers; I’m known as someone who is listening to music and living in her own world. One person even had a nickname for me, “silent character.” Well, I have to say that this is my nature; I’m an introvert, I do have my own little world I am living.
Returning to Finland
I think it was Friday, 13.3. when a tourist, with c-virus, had been taken to hospital from the cliff. Everything shut down right away. I didn’t quite know what it meant, but 24 hours later, I already had my plane ticket to Finland. Everything happened so suddenly. There were people in Varkala, important people to me; I didn’t get to say goodbye. Luckily I could say my goodbyes to my best friends and talk with him before I left. I left Varkala on Monday, 16.3.
If I have known what I know today, that this situation just continues. I would have made an effort to say proper goodbyes to everyone dear to me. It is a bit heartbreaking to think that maybe I will never return. Perhaps I won’t see those people ever again.Â
Trying to feel the roots. I went for a walk today. I was walking in the places of my childhood; Places that are kind of important to me. I was trying to feel my roots while walking in the woods. But I couldn’t. I was walking in my hometown, and I didn’t feel any connection to it. I felt like a rootless human being who has been pulled from her roots and home and put here. I felt tears rolling on my cheeks, I felt like I had shrunk a bit since I got here, and it was a start of me, the real me, slowly fading away.
My roots, home, and heart
I am here, and I am grateful to my homeland in so many ways. I am thankful for being healthy and alive. I know times are going to be really tough to many and me as well. But still, I feel the same as that 15 years old me, looking out from the window of my room, missing something so much it hurts. Only now I do know what that something is. It is my life, my roots, my home, my heart. It is India.
Months gone by have taught me a lot. I have given up so many times, I have been so sad, and thought that life is not getting anywhere anymore. For a moment, I felt that it is not even worth it to do or try anything. Then, I remembered what I have learned and what I’m always teaching, which is the power of the mind. Focus on the good, and good will follow.Â
So today, I aim for stability and balance to accept life as it is right now. Believing that no matter how bad things seem right now, good things are coming. My life, roots, home, and heart is in India, and for sure, that day will come when I will return.Â
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Hanne Nousiainen
Yoga teacher • Personal Trainer
Hanne Nousiainen
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