To Let the Young Love Go

First Sight of the Blind Writer

Johanna Kinnunen 2008

 

 

LILLI KINNUNEN                               

lilli.kinnunen@gmail.com  +358-50-534 8279  HELSINKI FINLAND

Sinne päin

Toisenlainen tapa tavata

Lilli Kinnunen 2009

 

 

My aspiration is to treat words like humans and to build sentences like relationships. I try to let the words come to me as they are, as simple as possible. The challenge is to find the essential, not by forcing and manipulating, but by opening myself to listen. Sentence after sentence I let the words go away… and wait to see which one will come back to me the next day.

 

Art has taught me to see nuances as bridges between the oppositions and to view the limits as possibilities for something new. With intuition, association and analysis I’m inspired to benefit contingency and to search points in uncertainty.

 

To handle a word as an act and a sentence as a behavior is motivated by loyalty to myself and responsibility towards others. Common principles are parallel with my efforts to experience knowledge literally: physically (pain in the ass), emotionally (temporal catastrophe) and intellectually (falling in love). I guide my passions to flow in the same direction where the invitation of the sublime ambition is addressed. The aim is catharsis, condition which cannot be transmitted as such, but which purifications, actions to remove uncleanliness resulting from violation of taboos, are possible to share.

 

To make the writing process possible in situ, I build the space for silence and organize some time to get lost in peace. That state of security is guarded by sentences and bordered with headphones. I start to re-read myself from the marginal notes. To let the unthinkable become thinkable, I confuse the imaginary structure of myself. Johanna as my third name needs to be persuaded in the present to reveal inexplicit knowledge as the source for the explicit words. Lilli the observer is about to change the perspective from self-critique towards the crux of words’ essences and the text’s consistency. Marika the performer will test appropriate attitudes and apprehended emotions to adapt them into sentences. She will smile aloud when verifying the words lost in translations.

 

During this exercise, I have thought more than once that this is the least I can do. I have searched out the strength from my limits and researched the fissures as a potential basis for new intellectual constructions. I have written a lot to forget the obvious and noticed self-control as a relieving tactic for self-expression. However I feel now that I’m stuck in an intermediate position. The importance of the writing process as an individual act cannot be completed if I have doubts regarding the sentences’ misusage as common nonsense behavior. The reason to continue writing is the continuous need to deconstruct the form and the content to let behind the ruptures.

Palava pyrkimykseni paljastaa piilomerkityksiä rivien välitiloista on pääosin Jaakobin painia itseni kanssa. Haluan tulla selätetyksi tavujen takaa ja löytää tekstienvälisyydestä piilopaikan itselleni. Vastaanotettu haaste on päätyä olennaiseen päättelemällä se painimaton painautumista. Avaudun, sulkeudun ja sallin; näen, tulen nähdyksi ja teen näkyväksi.

 

Elämä opettajana ja rajat karttakeppeinä olen saanut näpeilleni ja nähnyt näkyjä silloista silloin tällöin kun muuta näkymää ei ole ollut tarjolla. Eläen takaperin silmäluomet puolitangossa jäljet tulee jättäneeksi useimmiten pientareille.

 

Kohdellessani itseäni huonosti ja antaessani muiden kohdella minua samalla tavalla, tulen lusikoineeksi lapsuuteni uudelleen lämmitettyä sekametelisoppaa. Ei ollut eroa minun ja sinun välillä ja opettelin samaistumaan ja myötäelämään kirjaimellisesti. Hain korvaavia kokemuksia kirjastosta, löysin turvan kirjahyllyjen välistä ja tulin tietoiseksi ulkopuolisuudestani melko varhain. Lukiossa nimeni oli jo virallisestikin Lilli ja aloin kumittaa itseäni ensin kotitehtävistä... Sitten katosin klarinetteineni orkestereista ja lopulta lakkasin kyntenikin mustiksi. Kun kovaa treenaa ja hikoilee, kynnet jäävät kenkiin.

 

Isäni nimi on Jaakko, kuninkaan sukua Kainuun nälkämailta. Joka vuosi 25. heinäkuuta hän heittää minulle kylmän kiven, josta saan kopin. Äitini on Tarja Tuulikki Aaltojen huuhtoma kivikenkäinen rakas äiti, joka yritti opettaa minulle, ettei ihmisiin ole luottaminen. Minä olen neitsyt, muuttuva maan merkki, joka puikkelehtii merkitysten limissä¹, lomissa ja lovissa. Pinnaltani muistutan kuuta kraatereineen ja hakeudun aina auringon lähelle. Viestinviejänä odotan kuolematonta sielua vaikka 1000 vuotta etsien harharetkillä kadottamiani äänihuulia wikipediasta. Toisinaan tulen etsiytyneeksi sudenkuoppiin lepäämään.

 

Sudenkuoppa 1. Susi eli hukka on koiraeläimiin kuuluva selkärankainen nisäkäs, joka on biologisesti määriteltynä samaa lajia kuin kesy koira. Sudet ovat yksinäisiä petoeläimiä ja petollisia laumaeläimiä. He hakevat morsiamensa täydenkuun aikaan.

 

Sudenkuoppa 2. Sudenmorsiamet osaavat tanssia heilojensa kanssa. He eivät osaa pelätä tulevansa poltetuiksi saunassa. Hiilloksissaan he kypsyttävät rosvopaisteja hamaan hautaan asti.

 

Sudenkuoppa 3. Vallitsevien tulilinjojen ylittäminen; alitajuinen ymmärtämättömyys amputaatioita ja muita kirurgisia toimenpiteitä kohtaan ei pakota kostamaan eikä kantamaan kaunaa. Kevine mieline kirjoittamine kyllä kivistää pienen punahilkan haukkuja raaoista omenoista. Hänen pehmeä masunsa ottaa iskut vastaan, mutta ei sulata leipään leivottuja kiviä. Kivet kuuluvat kirjahyllyyn, eivät kielletyn puun oksille.

 

¹ In mathematics, the concept of a “limit” is used to describe the behavior of a function as its argument or input either “gets close” to some point, or as the argument becomes arbitrarily large; or the behavior of a sequence’s elements as their index increases indefinitely. Limits are used in calculus and other branches of mathematical analysis to define derivatives and continuity. In formulas, limit is usually abbreviated as lim. [wikipedia].

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Casting Spells 

Encounters of Another Kind

Lilli Kinnunen 2009 | English translation by Katariina Kyrölä

 

My fervent attempts to reveal what is between the lines have lead to a wrestling match with myself. I want to be pinned down by syllables and find a hideaway in intertextuality. I accept the challenge to search for the essence by making sense of untouched sensory traces. I open, close and allow; I see, become seen and show.

 

With life as my teacher and edges as my pointers, I have burnt my fingers and seen visions of bridges here and there, where no other scene was imaginable. When drooping backwards through life, footprints are often left on the roadside.

 

In treating myself badly and letting others treat me so, I cannot help but slurp on the reheated leftover soup of my childhood. There was no difference between you and I; I literally learned to travel through others’ skins. I looked for compensation in the library, found shelter between the shelves and grew early aware of being an outsider. In high school, I became Lilli officially and began to erase myself, first from homework… Then I and my clarinet vanished from orchestras, and finally I even polished my fingernails black. In the midst of hard training and sweating, nails get caught on shoes.

 

My father is Jaakko, descendant of the kings of Kainuu. Every year on July 25th he throws me a cold rock which I always catch. My mother is Tarja Tuulikki, washed by waves, stones for shoes, my beloved mother who tried to teach me that people cannot be trusted. I’m a Virgo, the ever-changing earth sign, zigzagging through lines, lesions and limits of meaning. On the surface I’m like the cratered moon, always caught in the pull of the sun. The messenger that I am, I am prepared to wait for an immortal soul for 1000 years if needed and search the Wikipedia for the vocal cords I lost on my odysseys. Sometimes I rest in wolf traps along my way.

 

Wolf trap 1. The wolf is a canine vertebrate mammal of the same biological origin as the domestic dog. Wolves are lone predators and treacherous in packs. Were a wolf to long for a bride, he would take her during full moon.

 

Wolf trap 2. Wolves’ brides know how to dance with their bridegrooms. They are not afraid of getting burned in a sauna. Until their dying day, they cook their roasts in smoldering embers.

 

Wolf trap 3. Crossing lines of fire; subconscious aversion to amputations and other surgical procedures cannot force one to revenge or carry a grudge. Lightly written words weigh like rocks on Little Red Riding Hood as she bites raw apples. Her soft tummy can take punches but fails to digest stones baked into bread. Stones belong on a bookshelf, not on the branches of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge.