I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed this mental phenomena or if it even has a name, but hopefully I’ll describe it in a way that makes sense.

You might regularly pass along a street and so the facades of buildings become familiar. Then for some reason, an appointment, the purchase of a specific item, you enter one of the buildings and it is no longer a facade facing a street, but a real(ised), three-dimensional space filled with people, objects and stories. From that point on, whenever you pass along that street, you can comprehend the form of the building, and as such it becomes far easier to imagine what might be happening inside. The physical world is still the same size, but somehow the representation of its space in your head and imagination has become larger.

This is not to say that you can’t imagine what is behind a facade without walking through it, but imagining becomes far easier once you have a collection of the real in your mind to draw from.

I feel that it’s the same with people. Names and faces are facades, but until we interact with another person’s mental and emotional space, it is much harder to imagine what that person’s life is like. Of course, once you begin to know a person, it is like rooms in their self open up in your mind. As with physical spaces, the more human spaces you know, makes it easier to imagine what an unknown person is experiencing and feeling.

Almost two years ago I ended up living in Finland. An imagined land of snow and Moomintrolls was now a three-dimensional space of parks and lakes and islands and streets, cafes, kitchens and living rooms, workspaces and tram-tracks. The abstracted population of “Suomi” became a community of real people, people with stories and feelings and goals and failures. They were mothers, fathers, coworkers, customers, bank-tellers, friends and strangers I smiled at on endless summer days as we drank cider in parks.

about a year later, back in Australia, the news of a school shooting in Jokela, a few hours north of Helsinki, really shook me. This was a violent act taking place in a culture that I had come to know, even though I hadn’t visited the town. I could imagine the faces of the students, what clothes they wore and food they ate, how they spoke and interacted with their families. My exposure to people and places meant that the Jokela violence affected me far more intensely than similar incidents in the United States, a country I have never visited.

Surely this wasn’t a just way for me to react? What makes the lives of people we can’t easily imagine less valuable than those who are already “real” in our minds? Sometimes, imagining and remembering places and people I know, feels far more authentic than the empathy I can muster together for people I am _just_ imagining. Then I have to remind myself that I’m not alone in the continual practice of combining memory, place, people and imagining to understand more about the world.

As far as I can tell, this practice of imagination and empathy for people takes me one step closer to becoming compassionate in the true sense. In isolation from people, compassion is possible, but difficult. However, once you know how some individuals feel, it is far easier to feel empathy and thereby be moved to compassion towards a greater number of people.

To me, that is why travel is so important in making a person grow towards a better state of being. Countries which may have just been marketing images in a magazine now become real, living spaces full of life and smells and sound. When traveling, one is not just confronted by new spaces, they’re also meeting new people and learning their experiences and stories.

Exposed to new people and places your heart begins to stretch so it can accommodate and acknowledge these amazing new experiences and memories. Of course, once it becomes easier for your heart and mind to feel and empathise, it also becomes far easier to miss and long for the places and people you are no longer near. Despite the longing and missing, you know that you can always experience just one more place and make connections with a few more people, safe in the knowledge that your heart will stretch that little bit more.

I’ve decided that I want to research / work in the development of strong, sustainable local communities using social networks, web and mobile technologies and urban design practice (particularly new urbanism).

Now help me get this job.

On the windowsill of my room in Merihaka I have a temporary garden of lettuce, parsley and thyme in jars, mugs and reused plastic containers struggling to survive out of their traditional hydroponic environments.

At times I miss Adelaide horribly. I miss the way the park by my bus stop smells on a warm evening and the sounds the rainbow lorikeets make. I miss the Farmers and Central markets and the fact that I don’t need to buy airfreighted fruit and overpackaged food from a chain store. I miss my friends, Queen St and my old job, my bike and Womadelaide. I miss it but it all feels a bit unreal. I miss my garden and my ridiculously large house which is both a blessing and a burden.

But I’m back in Helsinki and that means that I’m surrounded by a tremendous amount of good stuff. I’m love that Ninnu and Sid are an hour away and that I have friends in Helsinki too. I love that there is snow even though it’s the warmest winter in a century. I love the drying cupboards in the kitchens and fact I can shower as long as I like and not have to carry the used water on to the garden. I love the smell a wood-fired sauna makes and that I don’t need to talk or think when the löyly hits my skin and my head. I love the amazing design surrounding me and the scale and density of the city and the public transport. I love the range of salmiaki in the pick and mix section of the video store and the rye bread. I love that even though I never studied the language I can actually understand some of what I read and hear.

I’m flattered that here I’m greeted like a minor celebrity by some old customers “Hei! You! Australian Girl!” and that my English is international enough to confuse some people into not knowing where I’m from at all.

For all the good stuff here I’m frustrated too. I’m kind of bored because I don’t have a job to fill up some of my days and let me meet new people. I regret not studying Finnish because I understand enough to know that it will be years before I was ever fluent in a language only 6 million people speak. I’m frustrated that I feel heartbound to Adelaide but intrigued by Finland and that so many people are leaving while I’m away (not that my presence would have kept them there).

Every couple of days it seems like I switch moods between “I shall stay here and work at the bar so I can stay for the summer…” to “I need to go home and make radelai.de happen right now!” and then to “Ooooh, maybe I should apply for a Masters program here… It’s free!”. I half make plans for a summer in Europe and for May in Australia.

I am confused by choices and I don’t want to give either one up just yet.