Finnish history

Tonight I went to a rather extensive talk (79 slides!) about Finnish history.  The speaker, a graduate student working on his dissertation, emphasized that there are many dark parts of Finnish history that never get talked about. Sad times when terrible things happened, like the civil war and the red and white terrors. But through it all there was enough of a sense of democracy and law that things moved forward, rather than turning even darker.

It's all so hard, because it seems untrue to ignore the past, to push things under the rug, but on the other hand, talking it out can reopen wounds and trauma all over again. A nation has to be able to move forward.

This morning I bought my ticket to Iceland, and my niece passed her driver's test, and my sister made it down to my parents house safely.

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