Pidgeon spotting

I think I wrote also in English that I drove for an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy session to cure my pidgeon phobia to a nearby city on Friday. Since then I have been chasing pidgeons (!), not with a gun but with my camera or as today, without it. When I formerly crossed the street to avoid pidgeons, I did it today in order to experience how it feels to be close to them, Alas, they did not care about me but rather went further from away from me. I could of course have run after them but did not have time. A colleague of mine poignantly said that the therapy dose was too large! Well, let's see. I still do not like to look at the pictures I took of the 30-40 pigeons in a "heap" yesterday. I was about 1.5 meter from them!!! ME who could not even look at pictures of pidgeons, let alone at living ones. My intention is to start with the pictures where I was further away and the pidgeons look small and one can see my shadow and then desensitize myself in order to CALMLY look at the close ups I took , partly using my telephoto lens, which, by the way, is good also in high places. One does not feel the height in the same way. I have not really a fear of heights, but tend to be a bit wary, as when climbing metal stairs on the water tower in Jena last summer. One could see down through them but I badly wanted pictures so I climbed them, albeit partly creeping.

I rather tend to be brave, as when I jumped with a parachute. The situation was such that I belonged to a group of people on a army defense course, on our way in a bus to a military airfield. I should have understood from the name of the place what it was all about. A major asked for volunteers and I am terribly quick so I lifted my hand and said "me" without knowing what I volunteered for. Well, it turned out that we had to jump with a parachute, not from a plane, but from a tower. We were pushed out into the air! Afterwards I jokingly told the group that happily I wore new, black underwear with laces because we were going to have a festive dinner the same evening. I would have made a nice corps... Later I heard that the jump was a test of manlyhood for the recruits!!!!!!!!!!!! So maybe my bravery made me approach the pigeons yesterday. Perhaps I thought that I AM cured (I may well be, who knows) and this made me appraoch them. The two pidgeons today did not make ANY impression on me. Next, I'll sit on a park bench and wait for some pidgeons to approach me, then go to some outdoors restaurant (perhaps in France, where I'll be in two weeks time). If I pass THAT test, then I know that I really am cured.

Massor av duvor (Foto: helena Hurme)

Så var jag då på EMDR-terapi mot min uvfobi. Hela veckoslutet jagade jag duvor i Kyrkoparken och nere på Hovrättsesplanaden, men hittade inga förrän vid halv sjutiden när jag var på väg till fotoklubben. Jag kom ihåg att det brukar finnas duvor på Vasa universitets gamla tomt på Fredsgatan. Jag har noggrant undvikit den sidan av gatan men gick nu modigt dit. Där såg jag en gammal kvinna med två plastkassar som kastade mat åt duvorna, som slogs om smulorna. Det var en hög av duvor, säkert 30-40 stycken. Jag började fota dom och var kanske 1.5 meter ifrån dem. Dom flög och flaxade och jag fotade. I något skede sade jag dock högt för mig själv att "nej fan, nog är jag lite rädd för dem nog" (!). Jag brukar vanligtvis inte säja fan, nog. Men bilder fick jag. Sedan ringde jag till min svägerska som är psykolog och traumaterapeut och som själv har använt EMDR-terapi. Hon sade att kanske exponeringen var lit väl massiv så här i början. Under terapin hade jag närmast föreställt mig en eller två duvor som närmade sig mig. Det hör till saken att just när jag närmade mig högen med duvor, kom ett ungt par. Killen gick oberörd förbi dem men jag såg på flickan att hon tyckte illa om dem och hon var liksom en modell för mig att också göra det. Men jag fick bilder. JAg hade dock svårigheter att titta på dem i närbild (kanske andra inte heller tycker att dom är särskilt vackra, eller...). Jag sätter nu in en bild i alla fall. KANSKE det blir flera senare, sådana där min skugga också syns.

More pictures from Luxemburg (Photos: Helena Hurme)

Here is the rest of the pictures from Luxemburg (but of course there are a lot of pictures left which I have not gone through). There are more pictures in the former post as well.

I have been thinking much of the visit to Luxemburg. Professionally, everything was fine. On a personal plane I have never in my life been as humiliated as there. The worst incident was when one of my doctoral tudents, Marta R. (I have two Martas!) and I entered a small kiosk on they way to the bridge over the valley at 17.32 on our last evening. She wanted to buy a fridge door magnet as a present for her cousin. There was an elderly couple in the shop. I said "Bonjour" and told them in French that Marta wanted to buy a magnet. The couple told me in French that they would close at half to six (they were not even close to the door and did not look like closing, neither did they apologize, nor tell us that we could not buy anything). Marta was at the magnets on a rack on the wall and took one out to show me. We were speaking Polish as usually in order to keep up my proficiency in that language. The lady suddenly came to us and said to Marta in English "Where did you take that one from? Put it back immediately from where you took it", like she would have been a child. She did as told and then continued to say to me in Polish that she would like to buy another one. She did and as we were about to leave I wanted to apologize for the couple to have to stay after half to six and told them in French that I thought they would close at six (because that was what I was told in the tourist office). The lady started to shout at me (her husband was silent all the time) in French that they are a private company and close whenever they want. "No one can tell me when to close!!!!! I have been working since five in the morning!!" I told her calmly that I am a university professor and that I also often work twelve hours a day. Marta was at the door already and I told her something in Polish which unfortunately sounded like "adieu" in French at which the lady said "adieu". I would have wanted to leave without saying it.

I interpret the incident as a racist one and as such I was a healthy experience for a Finn. We are not used to be the target of such attacks. I think it was the language, which to many sound like Russian, which set off the whole thing. I have been thinking of writing to the tourist office of Luxemburg, attaching a picture of the package with the magnet, of the shop and a picture of Marta with the magnet. I would like to point out that such behavior gives an extremely bad impression of the country and of the city. This was not the only incident, but the two other ones were minor compared to this one. They both had to do with me taking pictures. I have published both "forbidden" pictures in this blog. The first one was a florist shop, where a man came and took away the flower pot I was focusing on. I focused on an adjacent one then. Did it not occur to him that he cannot stand in the shop all around the clock watching if someone might make pictures of his flowers when the shop is closed? The second one was a shoeshop. I had my camera hanging around my neck and asked the lady in the shop in French if I could take some pictures of their flower arrangement. No, she said. It is forbidden (! Why of the flowers?). She told me that the owner has forbidden picture taking. I started discussing with her about people wanting to send photos taken by their phone (but perhaps the Luxemburgers are not that technically advanced yet?;)) to their friends, asking for advice on which shoes to buy. Then I shot a picture without aiming and told her that I already took some pictures and that it was that easy.

The Parisians have a reputation of being rude but they are lambs compared with the Luxemburgian shopkeepers. Shame on them!!!!

Pictures from Luxemburg (Photo: Helena Hurme)

I visited Luxemburg for the second time in my life at the beginning of March, being invited to give a talk at a conference at the University of Luxemburg. (The first time was in the mid-seventies, living on a camping site in the car, my husband being dead drunk and me having a bad migraine headache, so I have no fond memories of that trip). This time I came from a meeting in Copenhagen and had to arrive one day before the conference and thus had time to take a bus downtown and take a lot of pictures. Happily, the weather was fine. While writing this I have an incipient flu lurking around the corner, with a sore throat, an eaching ear, and a general feeling of being ill. Therefore, I'll continue with the rest of the pictures when I have more energy , also those from the conference.-- Well, I feel MUCH better today compared with yesterday hwn I wrote the above words, perhaps surprisingly. I'll even be able to drive to the EMDR therapy session in Pietarsaari tomorrow which I'll have for my pidgeon phobia. But I'll continue perhaps tomorrow or during the weekend with the landscape format pictures.