They say that, as you grow older, you just return to the things that brought you joy in your younger years. If there’s anything that really marked me when I was younger, it’s gothic music. Not just music, but the entire subculture, way of life… And Finland. The land of enchanted winters and gothic metal. And not just what brought you joy, I must add, but what constitutes your very being. So, when one of my favourite bands ever announced their reunion tour in their homeland, there was nothing else for me to do than to return, 20 years after my first visit, and my first Charon concert.
The tickets for the show in Helsinki were sold out within a few minutes. I quickly rerouted my original plan and bought a ticket for Jyväskylä, figuring an extra 3-hour trip by train is doable within the temporal confines of my weekend trip. After a fantastic Weekend of Hell in Germany, a mere two weeks later I had found myself roaming the streets of Helsinki. Just like all those years ago, I embarked on a journey of self-reflection as well as self-revelation, unfolding in perhaps the most beautiful country in the world next to my own.
Like a pilgrim entering the temple of his final rest, I let Jyväskylä envelop me with the most wonderful feelings of belonging. I stood at the edge of the dark, hypnotic waters of Jyväsjärvi lake, as melodic guitar riffs played like a presque vu in my mind, inviting what was to come that evening. And what came was perhaps the best show I’ve seen by Charon, a warm welcome back between melodic poets and their audience in a spell of devotion. The utter gothic poetry of JP’s lyrics always brought me back to their albums throughout the past two decades, unearthing rare, hitherto hidden meaning in its bewitching beauty. To feel his tight embrace, to laugh together at our old photo and to reminisce and offer my deep and heartfelt gratitude to all of them for this gem of a night… I left the place in a smiling daze, singing in the middle of a street, the moon carefully shining over my every step, the gothic sky above like another embrace, no other sky like it.
The third day, and already the last one, my heart whispered. Why did I wait so many years to return here? There were obstacles, sure, but I wonder… Was it also an attempt at forgetting what Finland truly means for my existence? Oblivion lies beyond that last look, twenty years apart… I felt as if my legs were rushing me towards the train station, as if in a dream… Or maybe I couldn’t bear the official goodbye, so I hurried inside to not allow myself one last look at Helsinki. My mind was in a dark chamber, nothing in it except a suspended heart in light pink… Crumbling down to the melody of „Unbreak, Unchain“… „Could this be what it seems? Painted in your dreams…“ Like tiny pieces of bread, frosty and soft, the weight of my world in each crumble… Yet I was content to have my heart crumble like that, because at least one part of it would remain here… Unbreak, unchain. Its melody trailing me (or I trailing it)… And then the doors were closed behind me, no one to hold them for as the kind lady before did for me. Should I go back and take a deep breath of that autumnal air? Say my goodbye officially? It was as if I would willingly submit myself to the pain of departure. I tried telling myself „This is not a goodbye. Therefore, no need to go back and gaze upon Helsinki for the last time, because this time, you will return and it will not take you another 20 years to do it.“ So I turned away reluctantly, my innards crumbling with a sorrowful smile.
Is this truly the closest I could get to calling a country home? Here I spent the weekend greeting everyone back in Finnish because they all assumed I was a native, what with my attire and overall look. Perhaps because “outsiders” are the norm here? Black is a normal colour, being a goth even more. Perhaps I would never truly belong anywhere, but this is the closest I could get to it – a comfortable easiness of being? Why does it call me, and I yearn for it? Am I sentenced to always yearn and mourn, perpetually walking around a mausoleum, the wind carrying leaves like petals of a present around me… Perpetual craving for this melancholic winter sky, the cold streets, familiar places of rapture… „Leave no remorse to call your name“, and yet I left everything, even the things I couldn’t do without… Parted from these lands a fraction of myself.
Charon, as if sensing this could not be such a rushed departure again, announced a big arena concert this summer. Helsinki, I will return to you.
