Day of the spirits, night of indulgence, the Kekri pamphlet reads. Kekri is part harvest feast festival and part Lutheran All Saints Day. The souls of the dead are returning, if these shades ever left us.

It’s November, the darkest time of the year in Finland, far darker than the short days of snow-white winter. The rain sets in and the bright leaves vanish and the trees are bare and skeletal. You force yourself out into the wet chill of these blustery days, as I force myself out on this Saturday afternoon. Afternoon is night at this latitude.

My partner refuses to come. It isn’t the cold and the dark that keeps him homebound. Maybe a little. It is the low-paying, entry-level job that mires him in his misery. Despite certifications and decades of experience. His face burns red from chemical exposure and his back aches. He blinks and coughs. There’s no fresh air exchange at work. I rub his shoulders and a sliver of fiberglass cuts my finger. It itches everywhere, he says.

We are poor immigrants here, he says, with no hope for a better future. He wants to quit. At least we’re not in cages at the border, I muse. There is healthcare and free education. He is not amused by the discrimination he sees. 45% of foreign women in Finland are without work and I am one of them. I plant seeds and I watch new friendships bud. I network, send resumes, and take Finnish classes. Still no job.

“This isn’t sustainable. I’m leaving,” he says. Are these empty words cast in frustration? I only know that there is a spear in my heart. I double over. My body turns to ice that shatters and melts out of my eyes in long trails of hot tears.

I am learning to live with uncertainty in uncertain times. Pandemic. Loss. Grief. Climate crisis. Migration. Unemployment. Heartbreak. “Live. You have your health,” a dear friend says. She is recovering from cancer. What path do I take?

For now, I walk past the white orb of Svenska Teatern. I see couples walking hand-in-hand, shoulders touching as they step and laugh in unison. A waterfall of light drenches Stockmann’s department store in holiday cheer. You need darkness to see the light, I tell myself but the words fall flat. I stroll through Esplanadi’s well-kept lawns and I admire the symmetrical hedges. Finns sit on Espa’s benches; no homeless lie here. Past Runeberg’s green statue and the whisper of his words, “Oh land, the thousand lakes’ own land.” Past Havis Amanda, who casts a coy look over her bronze shoulder as she rises naked from a fountain sea. Past Kauppatori’s orange market tents, pitched on a field of undulating cobblestone.

In Kauppatori, I pass a woman born in the 80s wearing sport socks pulled up 80s-style. “We wanted someone young anyway,” the recruiter told me in an icy voice. I find the ferry and my friend and I am young again as we leap onboard with a minute to spare. The ferry pulls away from the harbor. I see the dome of the great white cathedral over the pastel buildings. The ferris wheel is a continuous circle of light, broken only by the wheel’s sauna car. It’s Finland, after all.

Fifteen minutes later, we step off of the ferry and onto Suomenlinna. We are on one of the eight islands of the former fortress and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The coral-colored walls that greet us are out of place, too bright and cheery, too Caribbean. When we pass through them and look into a mighty tunnel of gray impenetrable stone, I change my mind. This fits. Nordic tough is tougher-than-nails tough and its exterior is bright. When the reward for winter swimming is euphoria. When you have inner strength and grit and spirit. When things go wrong, you don’t just give up. When you have Sisu. Grass-covered stone walls shield the island’s borders. Cannons manned by children posing for portraits still point outwards to would-be invaders. Tervetuloa Suomeen.

There is a long list of events and exhibits to choose from but we are hungry and thirsty. The Officer’s Club has Mannerheim’s hero portrait and an emerald-glazed fireplace. We eat salmon soup and drink wine and talk and laugh and I forget my worries for a time. Outside, I notice how bright the stars are in the night sky. I see the steam curling around the sauna tent. On Kekri, the sauna stays warm all night for the ancestors’ return. I imagine my grandparents watching over me. You aren’t claustrophobic are you, my friend asks. I follow her down a narrow passageway and think, if the spirits are anywhere, they are here. Hello Grandma and Grandpa, I miss you.

We stand with the crowd at the bridge. There is throat singing and didgeridoo and fire dancing. It’s Finland, after all. The country that plays swamp soccer and where wife-carrying is a competitive sport. A nation of introverts who get chatty with strangers when they get naked in a sauna. Anything is possible. What will I do for work? I was born in the plain state of South Dakota, not the high plains of Mongolia. No matter, I will persevere. Anything is possible. I will start a throat singing band called Tüb Sox. I smile the first honest smile of the day as I imagine the Freddie Mercury unitard I will perform in. I can totally rock a unitard.

The straw goat goes up in flames and the fire is huge and mesmerizing. The music pulses like a shamanic incantation. The announcer says, “Winter in Finland is long, grim, and inescapable, and we have no choice but to embrace its arrival.”

“Look at the face of darkness without fear. Look at the fire and release from your sorrows.”