alyssa – Page 3 – Alyssa Bittner-Gibbs

The Climb

On my forty-sixth birthday, I see that human life cannot be understood only from where the person is standing now. During the climb, I know the grain of the rock, the doubtful foothold, the salt in my eyes. Then something catches me. I lean back, and the years open into a landscape. Earlier selves, worlds I have come to carry, a life I once lacked the imagination to picture: each changes what the others mean. Where their views meet, I begin to recognise the life that could only be mine. Each of us carries a world assembled in an unrepeatable way, still widening, still coming into view.

Driven to Abstraction

Philosophy finds a place at the kitchen table, alongside somebody’s strongly held views about loading the dishwasher. It should feel quite at home. Most households are already conducting ongoing research into fairness, freedom and the limits of human knowledge, particularly concerning the whereabouts of the scissors. We manage to take these questions seriously without demanding that justice present itself in a measuring jug. Why, then, do we become so suspicious of abstract thought when the household gets larger? A small defence of ideas, before somebody clears them away to make room for something useful.

Nonni

Our relationship begins somewhere beyond the reach of my memory, in those first days when being loved was something other people would have to remember for me. Today, my grandmother turns ninety. Between us is the entirety of my life, nearly half of hers, and rather more geography than I would like.

Not Lost in Translation

Why is alyssa.ax in English? Partly because it is my native language. Partly because writing has to remain sustainable. But also because English lets things travel — and because I think Åland is fascinating enough that more people should know what the hell goes on here.

Of Cows, Commitees and Kaffeklubb

You can take my coffee from my cold, dead hands. However, the committee structure is negotiable. Flourishing is not permanent happiness. It depends on time, access, trust, useful work, somewhere to belong—and institutions that do not consume more human energy than they return. With a cow in the parliamentary record and fika inexplicably under fire, I explore what it would mean to take Åland’s ambition seriously. Perhaps we could start by making a good life less work to arrange.

alyssa Author of 42 Articles