Finn Fixation

Ok, I am about to do something a little annoying and potentially lame but there are at least three good reasons for it. I'm going to post an essay I wrote fall semester for a personal narrative assignment in my writing class. I'm doing this because I have no original ideas, and because I have mentioned this particular essay to at least three family members promising them that I would send them a copy which of course I never did. Anyway, consider this a disclaimer: there are a couple of painfully cheesy parts, a few less-than-proud writing moments, some organizational issues, and just a touch of that mundane scholastic style we all feel needs to be included in anything being graded by a teacher or professor. But, I will say that the essay actually reflects a sort of epiphany I had last summer and helped me to sort of gather my thoughts about it. So without further ado, enjoy (or don't, you know, whatever):

It’s a Finnish Life for Me

“Finn Parking Only”—I read the familiar greeting as I enter the gravel drive. I hardly notice the subtle references to our Finnish heritage littering the landscape at my grandparent’s cabin anymore. Yes, the “You can always tell a Finn but you can’t tell him much” sign is still there. Why wouldn’t it be? Things have been here forever; the place is like a well-preserved museum exhibit of a 1960’s living room. The bright orange velour couch clashes glaringly with the turquoise rose-patterned cushion on the rocking chair and the various Finnish pride insignia tacked to the walls. The “SISU” hat is still hanging on the corner hook and I am fairly positive that I saw that jar of peanuts there the last time I was here three years ago. It looks like a scene from My Big Fat Finnish Wedding. Standing on the porch, I can see the Sauna my grandfather built with my Uncle Paul, the outhouse that my grandma still uses out of principle, and the faded red pump for the well that only gives cold water. This is my history.

This place is constant; it adapts with the generations that pass through it—little things are added here and there: the sauna stove is replaced, a loft is added on top of the garage, a bath house with a flush toilet is finally built, a paddle boat appears—but the cabin is still the cabin. It speaks history, it breathes the life of the family and our heritage, and whispers of times and people long ago. This cabin represents my inherited legacy. I am learning to embrace this heritage, and beginning to understand how it affects me. I am noticing how immersed I really am; how it infiltrates every facet of my life. I always thought of the cabin as the place where all of that family history existed, somehow separately from my real life; but the truth is that it is only the outward manifestation of something I carry within me, of the blood that runs through my veins: the red and pulsing, proud and hard-headed Finnish blood. ‘Finn parking only’ isn’t just a sign on a driveway, it’s a message engraved on my bones.

Looking out the window from my mountain home in Park City, I can see my grandpa, who is here visiting for a couple weeks from Northern Minnesota, sweating profusely while hauling huge rocks from the yard. He has decided that he will begin our landscaping by removing all of the rock from a small area so that we can put sod or flowers in. He must be crazy, I think to myself, the rock to soil ratio of our yard is roughly 10:1; there is no way he will ever even make a dent. He looks like a man trying to drain the ocean by hauling water out bucket by bucket. But my grandpa has already finished my mother’s list of things to fix around the house, and he certainly isn’t going to sit around—apparently neither am I, and I soon find myself by his side reluctantly filling a bucket.

Ridding the yard of rock was just one small manifestation of a lifelong devotion to Uurastus—hard work. Hard work is what brought my grandparents—and by extension us—to this country and to this lifestyle. Growing up in large families and difficult circumstances, my Grandparents learned the value of many of the luxuries I now enjoy. Working on the farm as a child with his brothers and sisters, my grandfather would turn his underwear inside out halfway through the week in lieu of putting on new ones. I have never been certain of the factual accuracy of this story, but the message is clear enough. Similarly, my grandmother May, who also grew up on a traditional Finnish farm in Minnesota shared a bed with her twelve siblings, whom she, being the eldest, would alphabetize for sleeping order. Though they are not my own, these experiences are collective and ongoing; they are as much a part of me as they were a part of them.

Waste not, want not: the unspoken credo of my family tree. I reflect on my grandfather’s hard set belief system as I stumble over to the wheelbarrow with a large grey rock. Always appalled at wasted food and picky eaters, he was party to the belief that everyone should be a member of the clean plate club, or else not eat at all. “When I was growing up I ate whatever was put on my plate, no questions asked,” my mother reminds me as I skeptically eyeball the too-rare, too-big, too-animal product hamburger on my plate. I am reminded once again of her family’s almost fanatic no-waste policy. This belief went far beyond food or any simple dinner conversation. Organic waste was composted, leftovers were reinvented for another meal, scraps were fed to the dogs, paper products were burned, cool-whip containers housed the rehashed leftovers, and pop tops were saved to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. Anything that could be made was never bought; grandpa could build just about anything with spare parts found in dark crevices of the garage—aesthetics of course always being second to functionality. My mother sewed all of her own clothes in high school, including her wedding dress and my father’s three-piece-suit.

On the day my young father packed up his old car and moved my mother and her two young children from their home in Northern Minnesota to Provo, UT, my grandfather bestowed upon him, as a parting gift and peace offering, a jar full of old nails. Offering little explanation he simply stammered “you might need these.” This was a man who had never thrown away a nail in his life. If he saw one on the road he would pick it up and add it to the jar. If they were bent, he would hammer them straight again. Those nails say more about him than any journal ever could. His values have become my values, his nails, my nails; the things that an old Finnish barber and insurance salesman believed in have sunk deep into the value system of a young BYU student.

My most treasured heirlooms are embedded in the actions of my predecessors. Though sometimes unacknowledged as morals and traditions that I have inherited, they are the most basic values I hold. They have been formed generations before me and passed on to me by the way my forbearers lived their lives.

Walking into my great aunt and uncle’s house, the last stop on the way home from the cabin, my eyes meet with walls papered in pictures of family members. After being warmly embraced, I am introduced to various extended family members who have stopped in, and am invited to sit down. Then the talking begins. After a couple of minutes have passed, I have been introduced to every face plastered on the wall as well as offered explanations of the sketches done by their granddaughter. It is not difficult to see what is important in this home. People. I now face my share of questions, all delivered with obvious sincerity. My dad looks comfortable and starts swapping childhood stories with some distant cousins. It occurs to me that even though at first glance my life seems so different from that of these people living on a farm in rural Minnesota, I am at home here. This is what my dad grew up with and it’s clear that he greatly values this history. There is name dropping everywhere in this conversation; each name that comes up has its own story and you can tell that they are just another string in this web of relationships. It amazes me that they remember the names of all seven of my brothers and sisters—it’s not like we are very closely related. I begin to understand that they remember because they care. Getting back into the car, my dad talks about the grand Finnish tradition of sitting down after a meal with guests and talking for hours. I can see that he really admires this. I begin to admire it too.

As my mind works, I realize that this is not so foreign after all, this tradition has been carried on by my family, and I have seen it at the cabin countless times. In fact, that heinous neon-orange velour couch is never without an occupant. Finnish homes are always filled with friends, family, neighbors, and loved ones. Whether they are just stopping in to say hello or have traveled across the country to visit with relatives, guests are always warmly welcomed and never without a meal. Mucada, cheese trays, cucumber slices, flat bread, crackers, coffee cake, pulla bread, lemonade, coffee. You never leave hungry or without a friend.

My history is the collective history of my family. My values have been shaped for generations, and I am as much a part of this legacy as my grandparents are. As I glance around my desk I realize that the tissue in my pocket that I have nicely folded because I didn’t use it all the first time, the leftovers in my mini fridge, and the pictures of family and friends tacked to my wall are not all that different from a jar of old nails, a couple of reused cool whip containers, and a wall papered with memories.