It is a curious day to live next door to Russia. It is Valentine’s Day.

When I was a Midwestern child, we had a globe by the bookshelves in the living room. I loved to spin the globe and orient myself in the world. I put my finger on places I read about. I gain perspective every time I look at a map. A border is closer or further away, or the lines have been redrawn altogether. Maps live and breathe as the world spins. 

In my Helsinki home, I sip strong coffee and I alt-tab between a map and the New York Times. ”Niinistö is not optimistic,” it says of Ukraine. Google’s cartographer shows the Russian border as a mere two hour and twenty minute drive from me. I zoom out. I see Belarus and Ukraine. I often think I am in a Nordic country but longitude commands my thinking today. Helsinki is east of Riga, Warsaw and Budapest.

I shake my Marimekko duvet cover smooth to make the bed. I think of Jackie Kennedy in her Marimekko dress and of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The classic A-line Marimekko dress is the same shape as trainloads of dresses that were sent by Finland to Russia for reparations after the war. 

Outside the snow is heavy and sullen with dirt under a relentless rain. Inside K-Market, Helsingin Sanomat shouts “Ukrainan kriisi” and there is a modest display of Moomin trolls locked in an embrace. It is Valentine’s Day. I call it V Day, as if cousin or kin to D Day. In high school, flowers were delivered to the office and girls were summoned to collect these displays of public affection. “So stupid and materialistic,” I said, empty-handed. I was too proud to admit that I wanted my secret crush to surprise me. 

One year, I received a dozen deep-red roses from Vern’s, wrapped in paper and not grocery store plastic. I walked the high school halls with my head held high and I smiled mysteriously when asked, from who? Somehow my dear Dad knew and I cherished those flowers above all others. 

I spy a bouquet and the K-Market cashier looks askance when I burst into laughter. I remember my college days. “Flowers are a sucker gift. Men give them to get out of trouble,” my friend had said. We share a dark sense of humor. “You ruined flowers,” I told him and we laughed. We carry this joke forward three decades. I still have the frog photo he gifted me. “Kiss This,” he wrote on the back. He is a forever friend, the kind who always listens and who turns tears to laughter.

I am still laughing when I step onto the icy sidewalks. A woman ahead of me falls and her bright red hat flies as she lands on sharp gravel. My step turns wary and tense. The whole world is wary and tense, bracing for war — or another long, uneasy peace? 

How is it that we are back to the Cold War? I remember my student trip of 1985. How we traveled from Sweden to Finland by ferry, then overland by bus to then-Leningrad. How six armed guards with six German Shepherds boarded the bus. How our belongings were summarily searched in a gray utilitarian room. How our suitcases were splayed open and defenseless as the contents were ravaged. How my book was confiscated and so was our music. Beloved mixed tapes of the mid-80s, gifts of crushes, gone forever.

I head towards the library. In Kasarmitori, the buildings have steeply pitched roofs and sawhorse signs warn of falling ice from above. I pass the Ministry of Defense with its reliefs of ornate helmets, weapons and shields. I remember my Finnish friend’s father, gone for a decade. How he was a young schoolboy in ‘39 at the onset of the Winter War. How his teacher sent the children home as Helsinki was attacked. How he told me he was only afraid for his mother and he ran as fast as he could to get to her. 

I often wonder which streets he ran along. Could war find Finland? Should I pack a go bag? The thought strikes me as paranoid as I note street signs in two languages, Rikhardinkatu and Richardsgatan. I remember that Finland has been independent for 105 years. Finland was once part of Russia, and, for 500 years, a part of Sweden too. On a map, Finland lies between the East and the West.

I drop off my books and I walk home. Snowmelt runs in rivers around my feet. As the Cold War thawed, I rode the packed summer trains to Berlin to see Roger Waters perform The Wall. 5 Deutsche Marks bought me a hammer rental and a piece of cement marked with rebar and faded graffiti. Tearing walls down was a joyful affair in 1990.

I check the weather. Temperatures are dropping and snow is back in the forecast. My Russian landlord drops by to pick up his mail and we laugh about trivial matters. I think of the frenzied efforts of diplomacy to avert war in Ukraine. In Finland, Valentine’s Day is Ystävänpäivä. Friendship Day. I like this. A day to honor lifelong friends. A day without limitations or shame. A day of warmth for all. A day for diplomacy.

It’s been a rocky year. My partner brings me roses and they are vibrant and beautiful and I am glad for them. Later I text my old friend, Happy Friendship Day.