Searching for Cactus

Well, show me the way
To the next whiskey bar
Oh, don’t ask why
Oh, don’t ask why.
Jim Morrison

Follow the Cactus

I have recently realised that I am searching for a cactus.

Again.

Years ago, when The Life Before and I were in Japan, we discovered something important.

The way-out signs looked like cacti.

At least to us they did.

I am sure this was not the intention of whoever designed the Japanese transport system, but once we’d seen a cactus, there was no going back.

This became particularly useful in the Tokyo Metro, which is less a public transport system and more an underground psychological experiment designed to identify weak Europeans.

Everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were going.

We did not.

We would get off a train, follow 700 people down a corridor, take three escalators, two staircases, pass a bakery, a department store and possibly cross into another prefecture before realising we had absolutely no idea where Japan was anymore.

So we developed a system.

Follow the cactus.

The cactus meant one thing:

WAY OUT.

Eventually, the cactus would get us back above ground.

I’ve been thinking about that little green bastard a lot lately.

Because at the moment, my life feels remarkably like looking at a Tokyo Metro map.

There are approximately 47 coloured lines going in different directions. Several important connections appear to have been cancelled. Half the signs are in a language I don’t understand and everyone else looks suspiciously confident.

I would simply like to know which fucking train I’m supposed to be on.

Which is slightly awkward, because somebody has just offered me a seat on a bullet train.

A really big project.

The sort of project that doesn’t politely ask whether you would like to come along. It opens the doors for approximately eleven seconds, you jump in, and suddenly you’re doing 300 kilometres an hour while trying to remember whether you packed underwear.

It could be brilliant.

It could take me somewhere completely new.

I’m just not entirely sure I understand how fast the train is going.

Or where I’m supposed to get off.

So naturally, while apparently considering boarding a bullet train, I am also looking for the cactus.

I like to keep my options open.

Home Number 29

I have lived in 29 homes.

I am 47.

The longest I have ever lived anywhere is four years.

And I got that achievement out of the way before I turned four.

After that, apparently, I decided stability was overrated and began a lifelong relationship with cardboard boxes.

I’ve lived all over Finland. I’ve lived abroad. I’ve moved around Helsinki enough to qualify as my own postal service.

During my student years, I moved roughly once a year.

At one particularly efficient point in my life, I managed three moves in twelve months.

I have also lived on a tour bus, although I refuse to count that as an official home because I am saving number 30 for something with plumbing.

Preferably functioning plumbing.

Perhaps none of this should be particularly surprising.

My mother once worked in a circus, dealing cards and living the caravan life.

My father was a gigging musician. He drove the tour bus and spent a considerable part of his working life on the road.

So my genetic introduction to the concept of home came from a circus caravan on one side and a tour bus on the other.

In retrospect, expecting me to develop a lifelong commitment to one postcode may have been optimistic.

There is, however, one thing that has survived almost every move.

A two-metre papier-mâché crocodile.

I made it when I was young, and for reasons nobody — including me — can entirely explain, it has followed me from home to home ever since.

Furniture has come and gone.

Relationships have come and gone.

Countries have come and gone.

The crocodile remains.

When I moved back to Finland from Denmark, my belongings came in an enormous full-sized removal lorry.

I remember giving essentially one instruction.

I didn’t particularly care what happened to anything else.

The crocodile must arrive intact.

And so, somewhere between Denmark and Finland, while the rest of my worldly possessions travelled anonymously in the back of a fucking enormous truck, a two-metre papier-mâché crocodile travelled in the driver’s cab.

Presumably enjoying the view.

It arrived unharmed.

Of course it did.

These days it hangs on my wall with my graduation cap.

Twenty-nine homes, several cities, different countries, different lives — and apparently the closest thing I have to an ancestral family estate is a papier-mâché reptile.

Maybe that is what home is for me.

Not necessarily the building.

Just the few things strange enough to survive every version of my life.

Although I admit it is slightly concerning that, after all these years, the most stable relationship I’ve managed to maintain is with a crocodile.

So here I am.

Home number 29.

And somewhere out there is number 30.

My Nervous System’s Wellness Programme

Life has become rather complicated again.

Work is uncertain.

Money requires considerably more attention than I would like to give it.

There are debts to pay.

There are people I love going through things I cannot fix for them.

There are problems that stubbornly refuse to respond to sensible conversations, spreadsheets or me staring aggressively at the ceiling at three in the morning.

I have tried all three.

Results remain disappointing.

The problem is that I don’t really have time for a proper mental breakdown.

I can afford approximately two seconds.

Sometimes I watch children have magnificent tantrums over things like not being personally consulted about whether they would like vegetables, and I think:

God, imagine having that kind of time.

I once had a child become absolutely furious because, for reasons she found completely unreasonable, she was not allowed to bring an enormous stick inside the school.

Not a small stick.

Not a charming little twig.

A proper fucking stick.

This was clearly a human-rights violation.

The tantrum was spectacular.

But eventually we found a solution.

The stick got its own special place outside the school.

From then on, whenever she found a particularly magnificent stick, she could bring it there.

Nobody got impaled.

The child was happy.

The stick had a home.

WAY OUT.

And perhaps that’s the thing.

I don’t necessarily solve problems.

I look for exits.

Give me two seconds for the mental breakdown and then we need to find the fucking cactus, because there are things to do.

So naturally, when my own life becomes complicated, my brain applies exactly the same sophisticated psychological method.

Move house.

Of course.

Some people meditate when they are stressed.

Some practise mindfulness.

Some do yoga.

I go on property websites and search for houses near railway stations.

This is my nervous system’s preferred wellness programme.

Dream Big

Recently I have become obsessed with the idea of a tiny house somewhere outside Helsinki.

Nothing extravagant.

Forty-five square metres.

Maybe fifty if success doesn’t completely change me.

A bedroom with a door.

A tiled stove.

Some trees.

A railway station somewhere within cycling distance.

Apparently I am now prepared to cycle through horizontal November rain for the privilege of living next to a field.

Although I have set a limit.

The railway station can be one November Rain away.

Anything beyond that is unreasonable.

This is what ambition looks like at 47.

Twenty years ago I wanted adventure.

Now I want affordable rent and an hourly train service.

Dream big.

And every time I find one of these houses, there it is.

Cactus.

WAY OUT.

I’ve Never Met Plan A

Cacti, of course, live in deserts.

They store water because water is scarce and because apparently even plants understand that good times cannot be trusted.

I relate.

A cactus doesn’t experience one rainy Tuesday and think:

Well, excellent. That’s sorted forever.

No.

It stores that shit.

For February.

I understand this mentality.

I have plans.

Backup plans.

Backup plans for the backup plans.

Actually, that’s not entirely true.

I’m not sure I’ve ever met Plan A.

People talk about Plan A as though it’s this perfectly normal thing everyone receives at birth.

Apparently you make a plan, execute the plan and then the thing you planned happens.

Fascinating.

I’d love to see one someday.

My life usually begins somewhere around Plan C, takes an unexpected connection through Plan F and ends with me on a bullet train wondering whether this was perhaps Plan Q all along.

Which might explain the cactus.

The cactus also has spikes, survives under appalling conditions and strongly discourages unnecessary physical contact.

At this point I’m not sure whether it is a metaphor or my final form.

Not Every Symbol Is a Cactus

Speaking of symbols, I recently posted a picture of Bengtskär Lighthouse.

A magnificent piece of Finnish maritime history.

A beacon in the darkness.

A symbol of guidance, safety and finding your way home.

It also looks remarkably like a phallus.

There is really no sophisticated way around this.

It’s a phallus.

Around the same time, I ran into a male colleague at work.

He asked how my Tinder adventures were going.

I laughed.

There are no Tinder adventures.

I haven’t been there for a year.

I’m still firmly Men-on-Pause.

So apparently, despite the general instability of my life, this particular department remains remarkably stable.

And perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something with the lighthouse.

Unfortunately, this particular phallic symbol is not going to quench my thirst.

Wrong cactus.

An Irritating Thought

But this morning, while making coffee in my beautiful home in Kruununhaka, I had an irritating thought.

What if I don’t actually need the cactus right now?

Because I am not in a desert.

I am not lost underneath Tokyo.

I am standing in a beautiful old apartment with high ceilings, making coffee.

I have a roof over my head.

I have work.

There are people I love.

There are still good things happening.

And yes, the future currently resembles a Tokyo Metro map drawn by someone having a nervous breakdown.

There may even be a bullet train involved.

But I am not actually required to understand the entire transport system before breakfast.

If this turns out to be my last year living like this, in this home, in this version of my life, it would be rather unfortunate to spend the whole bloody thing searching for the way out.

Imagine that.

One day I finally move out and think:

God, I loved that place.

Apparently not enough to actually sit down in it.

I was too busy looking at cottages.

Personal Growth, Approximately One Coffee Long

So this morning I made a decision.

No major life decisions over coffee.

No property websites.

No calculating rents.

No railway timetables.

No cactus.

I would drink my coffee and appreciate where I am.

Home number 29.

Right here.

Right now.

And it worked.

For the duration of the coffee.

This is what personal growth looks like.

Baby steps.

Because once the coffee was finished, obviously I started looking for the fucking cactus again.

Apparently I am permanently thirsty.

Maybe that’s the real problem.

Give me water and I store it.

Give me stability and I start wondering where the nearest railway station is.

Give me a beautiful home and eventually I’ll start checking what 47 square metres costs somewhere next to a forest.

I would love to end this story by saying that I have finally learned to stop searching.

That I have embraced the present.

That I now understand that happiness is not somewhere beyond the next exit.

Beautiful.

Very mature.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no evidence to support this conclusion.

I have been moving since I was four.

Twenty-nine homes.

Twenty-eight exits.

One tour bus.

And possibly one bullet train waiting at the platform.

Somewhere out there, number 30.

So no, I’m not currently dying of thirst in a desert.

I’m not lost in the Tokyo Metro.

I’m sitting in home number 29 with coffee, a roof over my head and absolutely no need to go anywhere.

Which is lovely.

For now.

But the coffee is finished.

And apparently I’m still thirsty.

Fortunately, I’m going to Cape Verde next.

Dry climate.

Plenty of sun.

Surely there must be a fucking cactus somewhere.