It was my second summer in Finland. In the past, I had judged there quite frequently and held seminars, but it was always just temporary—for a few days, a week at most. I had fallen into favor with Jessi, a Finnish agility enthusiast, judge, mother of three children and five dogs, who also worked full-time. Simply put, a bit of a superwoman.
During the Corona period, when I was somewhat involuntarily stuck on Tenerife—not that I was complaining; a sunny island in the Atlantic Ocean isn’t the worst place in the world to survive a global apocalypse. But even paradise on earth can have a bitter taste when they clip your wings and take away your freedom. Ships and flights were canceled; there was no way to leave. Only in thoughts and imagination. I couldn’t work, my modest savings were running out, and although I had to tighten my belt considerably, after a few months things got really tight, and I had to borrow money for rent. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can call that period the most difficult and simultaneously the most important in my life so far.
“As soon as flights resume, you’ll take the first plane and come here. By then, the halls will be reopening and you’ll be able to train—I mean, work. Don’t worry, it’ll work out.” Jessi and I spent hours on the phone during that time, and she was my great support—support that everything would turn out well, support that helped prevent me from completely giving up during that period.
Jessi was just about to move to a new house that had a garden cottage where I was supposed to stay. She had it all figured out, and just as she said, that’s how it happened. In the second half of July, a few days after my birthday, I flew to Helsinki. There was a big housewarming celebration for Jessi’s new nest, and the following week I started working. I had regular training sessions during the week and every weekend a seminar or judging assignment somewhere around Finland. My calendar began filling up again, I paid off my debts, and slowly I began to feel at home in Finland. Except for the Finnish language—I was still struggling with that.
I was living my Finnish agility dream, and then came autumn, rain, winter. The days grew shorter and there was less sun. I started losing simple joy in life, and when I discussed this with friends at training once, they said it was normal, that what was happening to me was called seasonal depression caused by lack of sunlight, and that it would pass. “When?” I asked hopefully. “In April!” they replied with a grin. “Ah.” It slipped out of me, and in my head, a multi-lane highway of thoughts was running with fire trucks, ambulances, and police all honking at the same time. It was mid-November. Every man for himself.
On the advice of experienced Finns, I bought vitamin D, a headlamp, reflective luminous straps that you wear on your jacket so that passing cars would notice you in the pitch-black Mordor that spread across the country after four o’clock in the evening. I tried, but apparently not hard enough. The melancholy didn’t stop, so after a few weeks I gave up and bought a ticket south, to my other home, to the eternally sunny island lost near Africa, to Fuerteventura. Flying and traveling in general still wasn’t quite as ideal and simple as it had been before the pandemic. Vaccines were starting to appear, along with various associated commands and prohibitions.
Jessi drove me to the airport and cried so hard her knees buckled—it was heartbreaking, but I felt I had to go. My decision was also simplified by the fact that I knew I would return the following year, that this was just a period. I wasn’t vaccinated yet at that time; in Finland they were only vaccinating locals, and I actually didn’t want to get vaccinated then. Not because I was afraid that Martians would chip me, but on principle—I didn’t want to put anything in my body that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Although, as I discovered right at Helsinki airport, it was already somewhat necessary for flying around Europe. There was confusion; laws were changing from day to day. They didn’t want to let me on the plane, but somehow miraculously I talked them into letting me fly at least to the Netherlands. There I talked my way through Schiphol airport again to at least get to Barcelona, and so on. So with complications, but I eventually made it to the Canaries.
And exactly as I had planned that winter, I flew back to Finland in early July. Beautifully tanned, relaxed, grinning from ear to ear, ready for another agility season. Jessi and I hugged at the airport as if it were yesterday when we’d said goodbye six months earlier, and we rolled home.
A friend once told me:
“If you’re not happy where you are, then move. You’re not a tree.”
And I took that quite literally. A few months here, a few there—I followed the sun, my heart, and intuition, which somehow always knows where to guide me, even if it might seem crazy, illogical, and irresponsible to the outside world. It’s a journey. We’re all architects of our own destiny, and although not everyone sees their final destination completely clearly, we all have to get out of bed in the morning and continue. Just keep paddling.
And this is where the real adventure to America was about to begin…
Vendula
AGILITY ON THE ROAD 
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