Finnish is a lived-in language. I’m not just saying this because it is my mother tongue, the only one I knew for my first decade, but also because of the way its words shape themselves around movements in the world, curling up to accommodate for this/that/my body/the sky walking or being in love or opening up to drench the earth, leaving gaps where they are needed.

From the stem of sur, sorrow, comes surraan: something/one is in the state of mourning, but the mourner(s) is (are) veiled in the absence of specificity, graciously unseen. Of course the passive exists in other languages, such as Japanese (悼まれている), where the use of different writing systems creates a degree of separation between the act and the subject — the kanji is the heart, a crimson flower carried by unmemorable pedicels — and French (On est en deuil), where a change of direction is observed — the mass of sorrow now resides in the final syllables, carried by three prepositions with no emotional weight of their own. On est pret. On est rouge. On n’est heureux qu'avant d'être heureux. Anything could follow. In Finnish, the obliteration of subject-verb separation creates microcosms of feeling. Rakastaako. Does he/she/they/it love. Adding a pronoun does not impose much detail on the subject: rakastaako hän only leaves ‘it’ out of the picture. Love poems are written for everyone.

Then again, the word ‘rakkaus’ in its various conjugations is almost never used. Its weight is too great, crushing, perhaps comparable to the Arabic يقبرني (you bury me). In English, I spread my love around almost indiscriminately. A few days ago, I mentioned to my sister in passing that I love one of my friends. ‘Oh’, she said and went quiet as a grave. She thought I had made a confession of unrequited love and felt sorry for me. I realised just how long I have spent outside the country.

Finnish communication is direct, unconcerned with politeness — there is no ‘please’ — yet it is wonderfully fluid, too. In practice, there is no paradox. When each word is a sum of multitudes, they must be weighed with care.