The following is the English-language version of the interview I did with Hedvig Hanson for the Estonian magazine Edasi. The original interview was done in Estonian.
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I first met Justin Petrone three years ago when we met each other via the Petrone Print “Letters” series. His book was “Sketches of Estonia.” Mine was “Letters from the Mainland.” We spoke on the radio, in libraries, in book stores, and we even played a few songs at book launches, as the writer Petrone is also interested in music. His own swinging song carried the title, “The Green House Cafe.” This is an organic cafe in Viljandi. And the song wonderfully characterizes Justin’s creative outlook — from everyday things can be written chapters, or songs. Viljandi connects us as people, our kids attend the same school. There are other things that connect us, divorce among them, so we write sometimes or go for walks in the woods and discuss life. Sometimes we understand each other, sometimes not.
An American with Italian roots, Justin Petrone has spent 12 years of his life in Estonia and on November 20th will celebrate his 40th birthday. Let’s discuss things with this writer.
Justin, the title of one of your books is “What Happened?” I could start by asking you the same question. You were born on Long Island into an Italian-American family, you studied journalism in the US, traveled the world, married, fathered three daughters, divorced, and now live in Viljandi where you are raising one daughter. If you rewind your life like a film, how would you describe what happened? How did you get here? Do you see these things as circumstances, or does everything seem logical?
This is all connected with me. I remember when I went to Mexico in March 2000, I had this feeling that I wanted to stay there. Then a year later when I was in Iceland, I had the same feeling, that I wanted to move to Reykjavik. I really don’t know why I didn’t want to stay in Washington, where I was living and where I attended university. Then I looked for a study program in Iceland, but I couldn’t find one. I found one in Copenhagen and went there. At first, it was hard to be in Denmark. I was deeply depressed. All of these beautiful blond people riding around on bikes. I felt like a real alien. But then I started to drink! No, honestly, I really did start to drink, but not only. That was a very crazy fall, because we had the September 11 attacks in New York. What did that mean for me? Well, my brother worked in Manhattan, and for some time, I didn’t know where my brother was, whether he was alive or not. Fortunately, I don’t think he went to the office that day, but when I heard the news, I had no idea. It was a horrible feeling. I remember how we were all sitting around the TV in Denmark and a German said to me, “This is payback for what you did in Vietnam!” The polite Danes sighed, but for them it was just bad news. “Change the channel.” The Americans were sitting around the kitchen, I remember, and there was a magazine that showed the people leaping from the towers. One of them just picked it up and tossed it across the table. “I can’t even bear to look at it,” he said. But I somehow understood that this life doesn’t last forever. It’s better to do what is in your heart. Not everyone gets to live forever. Those people who jumped were probably planning vacations they never took, or planned to propose marriage, but never got around to it because they thought their lives would last forever. So when I went to Finland in the following summer, and I met an Estonian wanderer, I decided that I would go along with her, and that adventures awaited.
If you would paint us a picture of your childhood on Long Island, what do you remember? What was around you, the environment in which young Justin was raised? What were your family traditions?
To start, my home was an island, which meant that I saw the sea from my bedroom window, and I played in the sand every day. I was very deeply connected to the sea, and I thought of life as being like water, because even when I was young and started to swim, I understood how the sea comes in and goes out, and how the moon can control the tides. In the ocean, there is a very strong and dangerous current, and you have to learn how to go along with it, or how to get out of it. I still think that life is the exact same experience. The best is when you have been in the water the whole day and you go to sleep, because you can still feel the motion of the waves in your blood. We lived in a very cool place, very hilly, almost impossible to ride your bike there. The hills go up and down. When I was five, there was a hurricane. This was really cool. We came outside and there were trees down everywhere. We didn’t have electricity for a week.
My mother’s sister lived on a nearby street and she had young children. I remember she would always come with a stroller and I would play with her kids in the sandbox. My mother’s family was essentially my family. She has three brothers and a sister. We had big parties, and Christmas was very important. My grandmother was like the matriarch and my grandfather had died long ago. I should add here that the Catholic Church was in my life at a young age. My grandmother is very devout and her brother, my great uncle, was a Catholic priest. Sometimes I would sleep there and I would be a little frightened by all the images of Jesus on the cross, honestly. At the same time, I took this faith in too. I probably still believe a bit. I even started school in a Catholic school, where there were nuns. My teacher was Sister Karen. But my mother had other beliefs. She was interested in psychic powers, reincarnation, New Age stuff, clairvoyance, telekinesis. I remember I would play this game with my mother where she would start a sentence and I would finish it. She was really shocked because I already knew what she was going to say. So it was kind of a weird childhood, full of esoteric stuff.
When I was six years old, we moved away from there. I had new neighbors and I felt very free. I played with other boys in the woods a lot. Sometimes we went farther than we were supposed to, but we didn’t tell our mothers about our adventures. I remember I was very young, six or seven, when I already knew about sex and drugs and even knew that someone’s older brother drank or smoked pot. Kind of funny that we were kids, but still lived in an adult world. Grotesque a bit. I remember that when we moved in, some friends from the old neighborhood came to visit one summer’s day and then my new friends organized a gang against it. This was no joke. People were really fighting. There was one bad kid, a few years older than me, who gave a rope to another boy and said, “Go and kill Justin.” And he came after me. Unbelievable! It really happened. Then I remember that I hid myself in a bush in the forest and the other boys started throwing rocks at me. I still remember how I looked up and this rock came down and nailed me on the head. It was a big rock and it hurt a lot, but I survived. Maybe that’s what happened to me?
One more thing. I loved music. I found my parents’ old Beatles and Rolling Stones records and would listen to them all the time. Even at three in the morning. I talked non-stop about the Beatles in school — John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I drew pictures of them. They were gods and role models. Others thought I was talking about insects.
You have published 13 books — 8 in Estonian, 5 in English. I have read a few of these. Your descriptions of Estonian life really make one smile! Is it possible for a person with Italian blood who misses the sea to ever adapt to culture here?
My connection is mostly through my children. They are my children, but they are also Estonians. And because of that, Estonia can never be completely foreign. It’s a bit strange. I was just watching Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) and there was an actress who looked just like our daughter, Anna. I thought, wow, we really are Italians. But she also takes after her mother, and, especially, her grandmother, whose family name was Tulev. I thought, “What have we done? We’ve mixed Petrones and Tulevs together? And this was the outcome?” When I was in Helsinki, it also happened that I got lost and a young woman stepped forward and helped me find the right tram stop. And she looked just like my daughter! The same Finno-Ugric eyes, the same hair color, same facial features. It was weird. She was somehow also related to me. In this way, the Estonians are my relatives and apparently some Finns are too.
I have had tough times with the culture. I think that every foreigner here reaches that point where he starts to hate Estonians. They are really aggressive drivers. I have driven in Italy, New York, even in China (by taxi). But the Estonians won the competition. That arrogance, impatience, ego-centrism can be exhausting. Out of my way! Even my daughter says it to me in the kitchen when she goes to get milk or something. “Out of my way, I need milk!” It happens often that at this point, the foreigner flees, because he can’t deal with it anymore. I have learned how to manage. It even makes me laugh. “Okay, Estonian, I’ll get out of your way. Go and get your milk.”
I understand that at some time in the deep past, the Estonians were living with moose in the forest. It was very snowy and they even lived in tents. They sat around the fire, ate moose meat, butter, and karask, sang runo songs and it was very hard in the winter indeed. They have this primitive instinct to stay alive. And because of that they can be rather desperate at times, when they are driving for instance, or when they want something to drink. They are afraid they might not reach the destination. They’re afraid there might not be any more moose milk left.
You are funny! I recall one chapter that reminded me of the blues. It was a winter evening where you were walking around Pärnu and there’s a raw lonesomeness to it. Another similar chapter was about Narva-Jõesuu, how you lost your daughter and what feelings you had when you lost her and when you found her again. That was deep. It gave an impression of your sensitivity. The time when you were writing those chapters must have been a difficult one in your life.
I don’t remember where I wrote the Narva-Jõesuu chapter, but the title was “The End of the World.” That period really felt like the end of the world for me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The fact that I was married, a family person, was a big part of my identity. It was who I was. But then my life started to change. If I didn’t live together with my wife and all of my children, then who was I? At that time, I started to watch the film The Grand Budapest Hotel a lot. I started to feel that I was that writer in the film, who is just sitting around in an old hotel alone. I don’t know why, but I had a great understanding that this was who I was. A writer. Not that I especially wanted to be one. I just realized I had no other real choice. I read Scott Fitzgerald’s books at that time, how he was also living in some hotel while his wife Zelda was in a psychiatric hospital, and he tried to write, drank too much, and their child was with relatives. I understood this deeply. But what else can you do except pull out the old typewriter?
But let’s talk about this “end of the world” experience. Nowadays, people take divorce relatively easily. For you, it was serious. In an Italian family, the whole family works together to keep things together. It is said that if you marry an Italian, you marry the whole family. In Estonia, we are all somehow on our own. There is the opinion that you have to manage yourself. I felt this acutely when my family fell apart. You have said that in Italy, it takes years to divorce. Here only a few months.
Yes I have said that here marriage is actually “cheap” in the sense that you only have to pay some money, sign your name twice, and that’s the end of it. Estonians praise this, because for them individuality is the most important and everyone is separate, but here I have to ask, if it’s so easy to marry and divorce, if these are such carefree events, then why do people marry at all? To have a big party, eat some cake, dance and take a lot of photos? It’s true that it takes more time in Italy and in New York to divorce, but at the same time, marriage is actually supposed to last for your whole life! That’s the point. People pledge this in church, before God. So this confuses me and I don’t understand what the point of marriage is at all.
In the year 1913, my great grandfather Salvatore Petrone, age 19, married my great grandmother, Rosaria, aged 21. From this marriage were born eight children, one of whom was my grandfather. They remained married until his death nearly 40 years later. Long ago, in southern Italy, family was the only social institution that mattered. Church? State? These were weak and corrupt. What was important to them? That they might have some money, a home, and work. But nowadays everyone wants to live like he’s Ingmar Bergman or Marcello Mastroianni (although Mastroianni remained married to his death, even though he fathered a child with actress Catherine Deneuve). We want more. It seems quite decadent, but that’s how it is. This is my nordic life henceforth. I try to live this Bergmanesque life.
You live together with one child, 12-year-old Anna. What’s father and daughter life like? Who does what? What do you teach her, what does she teach you?
Anna has a lot of questions and sometimes they are difficult to answer, because I don’t know the right answer or it’s too difficult to explain. One question is, for instance, “But why is Donald Trump a bad president?” Well, where to start? Or, “How come Estonia wasn’t always free?” It’s interesting for me, as a father, how important her home is for her. For me, these are just couches, tables, shelves — things that aren’t very important. But she would like to have a beautiful and cozy room, and that we would have a comfortable and well-ordered home. She sorts things, organizes her room, puts pictures on the wall. She has Christmas lights in there. She looks for and creates a homey feeling.
There aren’t many of us, fathers who live alone with our daughters, but we do exist.
That I had to in a way start over has not been easy for her, because I also had a crisis and I didn’t know how to get out of it. Was I only supposed to work? I don’t know how our children see us, but we try. With the others I have tried to share information. The eldest, Marta, often asks what really happen, and I tell her honestly what I think happened, who did what, how people sometimes manipulate others, and I think she has become quite adroit because of this. With Maria, I share things from my own childhood. I remember how when we were in New York, I would take her to the beach and we would sit there alone in the sand. That’s how she started to understand the timeless feeling of being beside the Atlantic Ocean.
Recently, I watched an old British program with her that I saw when I was very young. It came out in 1983 (it was so cool because though I didn’t notice it in the program at that time, New Order and Human League were playing in the background. The sounds of my childhood!) It was all about witchcraft in England and I felt somehow that she better understood those things, or that I had shared an experience with her. Now we have both seen it. I read my old childhood books to her too. I have even taught her a few Italian words. I just remember that one day, when I was very young and together with my mother in the kitchen, she took the milk out and said, “This is actually called latte. And the bread is actually called pane.” I do the same with Maria. At least this language won’t feel completely foreign to her, and she will understand that it is still our language in some way. I have repeated these experiences with her.
Your daughters are growing up separately. The eldest, Marta, lives with your parents in the US: The youngest, Maria, with her mother in Setomaa. And you travel between them all. This is certainly a complicated family system. But I am sure there is something positive in it. I am sure your daughters will grow up to be very strong women. Especially when they take after their mother.
No solution is completely satisfactory. The First World War was a hundred years ago. Great empires collapsed. All kinds of new countries emerged on the map of the world — Estonia one of them. Where there once stood the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires, were now interesting new countries, and nobody knew where the “correct borders” between them were. Even today the Kurds and Turks are fighting over this in the Middle East. We see the same between Ukraine and Russia. These are actually old conflicts that have not been resolved, because nobody is satisfied with the outcome. But sometimes, states become tired of fighting and the status quo is the new reality. The Åland Islands belong officially to Finland, but Swedes are living there, and there is no war there. Life just goes on, and I believe the islanders in Mariehamn are happy. Northern Ireland is another such example, perhaps. Nobody is completely happy, but they made up somehow because people were tired of fighting. They want to go to work, to live their lives. It’s not so important where the exact border is. Life isn’t just war. And family systems work the same way. I was with Maria in the countryside recently and I saw that she actually enjoys the country life. Every day, she sees what the animals are doing. For her, animals are characters, just like people. The hardest of course is that my eldest is so far away from me. It’s very strange for me and I have not gotten used to it. But I will forever be her father and that will never change. Naturally, they will become strong women. But I hope they will also be wise enough to know when to use their strength and when not to.
Right now you are writing My Viljandi, which will come out next summer. And you have started a new genre — novels. What is your novel about?
My Viljandi will come out in July 2020 at Viljandi Folk. We always planned that the new book would come out at Folk. I have worked on this book for three years. I have so much material and I don’t know how many pages. Actually, there are a lot of good books about Viljandi already available. Heikki Raudla has written very well about Viljandi, for instance. I advise them. This book is something else, definitely, but I hope these characters start to live in people’s hearts in the future, and become part of the lore of Viljandi.
People think that Viljandi is the bellybutton of the world, or at its end, but this is a town that breathes art. I think every person here is living in their own novel. Sometimes really because Romaan (“Novel”) is a favorite bar on Koidu Street. When I was in Reykjavik a summer ago, I bought Sjon’s books The Whispering Muse and Moonstone. I thought I would like to write the same kinds of novels. They are both beautiful books, but not very long. I just don’t have the time to write some huge novel but I could write shorter ones. I have different ideas. One takes place in Estonia in the 1960s, the other is set during Prohibition.
In addition to your books, you also write about genetics. Can you explain your interest in genetics?
As I wrote in my novel Montreal Demons, genetics is our new god. Genetics explains everything. Now they say that old traumas live on in our genes. All from genetics. I arrived to the genetics world in 2003 when I lived in Tallinn. The newspaper The Baltic Times sent me to Tartu for a genetics conference. I started to write about it, and that world pulled me in. I was already tired of politics. To write about politics is a dangerous profession. Politicians lie. That’s their job. They aren’t two-faced. They have 50 faces or more. A politician will tell you something in the morning and by nightfall will say that it never happened and that you haven’t done your work well, or you’re a liar, or you support another party. But scientists are actually cool people.
I will gladly meet with Andres Metspalu or Lili Milani. Let’s have some coffee and talk about genetics. I am not a scientist myself, but I enjoy their company. It’s a colorful world. These are people who are really trying to change everything. A politician’s promise is that the pension will rise x percent, or that public transport in Tallinn will be free. But a geneticist is a person like Kari Stefansson in Iceland who believes he can predict everyone who is at risk for breast cancer in Iceland and, if the government will allow him, wants to alert people to that risk to potentially save their lives. In this way, they do want to play God. They are creating a new world for us each and every day. My articles appear mostly on GenomeWeb. This is a popular publication based in New York. I have worked with them since 2005. My first editor there was from St. Petersburg. For him, Estonia was a neighboring country and he was greatly interested in Estonia. So, thanks to Estonia, I got the job.
You also have a great interest in history. I believe you know more about Estonian history than the average Estonian. Does knowing history help to better navigate the present?
An interesting question. Recently I was reading about the history of Viljandi and understood better why people are afraid of Russia, because every 100 or 150 years, the Russians return, burn the place to the ground, and leave. Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great did it. So it’s easier to understand the trauma that is inside Estonians. I also have this in me now. If I hear a rattly motorcycle engine in Viljandi, or the fireworks go off, I immediately think, “Did the Russians come back?” Interesting that people don’t fear the Germans the same way, though they behaved the same. It’s also interesting to read old Estonian narratives that are a few centuries old and understand that things haven’t changed a lot. They had the same concept of life. I recently was reading about Jaan Tõnisson, and what a hardworking, industrious youth he was at his family farm out in the countryside, and then there were photos of him in a student corporation hat and I thought, “See, nothing changes.” It only repeats itself. Some Estonians die, others are born to take their place. Time is not chronological. It repeats and repeats. It’s a spiral.
I believe that knowing our family histories helps us to better understand ourselves.
Absolutely. I only recently learned that my great grandfather was once an anarchist in Italy, and his brother too. And on my other side, my father’s side, it was the same story. I have a relative, Attanasio Dramis from Calabria, who was a very influential anarchist in 19th century Italy. So we have never respected authority! Or maybe it’s more the idea that rules are meant to be broken. During Prohibition, they still made their wine, because a law is just a rule. My mother’s family, the Abbatecolas, are passionate people. Even on Facebook they are fighting sometimes about politics. Sometimes it’s even too intense for me! The Petrones are more melancholic ladies’ men, I think. They loved wine, women and song, but mostly women. It’s nice to think that, yes, I am a bit alone in this world, but once upon a time there were uncles who were just like me. Maybe they were a bit dumb at times, but that’s just who we are.
How do you feel in Estonia really? From an outsider’s perspective, it seems you’ve really taken it into yourself — You speak Estonian, know the culture and history. But do you feel it’s your home?
In some ways, it’s quite comfortable. I was in New York in the summer and it was hot and fun. I really enjoyed it. Then I came back, there was a brisk wind, I went to the market in Tallinn, the people were so beautiful, and Postimees wanted a column from me. So I pulled out the laptop and I wrote it up — this was the fantasy that there was a concentration camp for foreigners in Estonia. It was a satire, but I read in the comments that Lauri Vahtre said I had spit in the face of the Estonian nation. Really? So satire is prohibited then. But my soul brother Jaan Kaplinski liked it. That also counts. I often think of how we are different. It came to mind recently, that an Estonian’s first thought is, “What should I do,” followed by, “What’s the point at all?” I once told an Estonian woman that I had romantic feelings for her and do you know what she said? “That’s nice. But what’s the point?” And then she said, “It’s nice if you feel something, but you don’t have to talk about it all the time. Feeling and talking are two different things.”
When an Estonian wants to relax, she does something. Picks potatoes. Goes mushrooming in the forests. Skis. An activity. For me, this is all backward. When a person relaxes, he doesn’t do anything at all. For me, life is absurd. There is no point or reason to life. I don’t know where that idea came from. Maybe a little Italian dolce far niente (“the sweetness of doing nothing”), but there is also a French existentialist influence. Not that I, as a youth, read Jean-Paul Sartre, but I think the French existentialists were very influential in culture in general in the 1960s and 1970s, so that it influenced me via the culture. The hippie phenomenon was very existentialist in outlook. So, dear Estonian lady, wherever you are at the moment, those feelings were great and wonderful. I liked them.
Estonian women. You have admired them, your children’s mother is an Estonian woman, but sometimes it seems that you still don’t understand them. Are Italian women different? Or is it just different from men to understand women’s logic, hormones, and behavior, and isn’t connected to nationality? For me it seems logical, we don’t have the experience of living in another gender’s body.
Italian women? Listen, it’s a damn good feeling to step inside a store in Puglia and have all these Italian women be friendly to you and smile and say, “Ciao, bello, ciao.” I love it. My whole body bubbles like hot chocolate. I need that kind of warmth, especially when these winters are so cold. It’s like a warm breeze. It’s something within me that I need at times, because that’s just who I am.
Most of my friends think I am a pretty mild-mannered person, but there is a crazy Mediterranean side, especially if I have some wine. Then I start to flirt and things get out of hand. I can be very intense. If I am sad, then I am very sad. If happy, then with a big smile. Once I got very angry and threw a container of milk against the refrigerator. Then a moment later I looked down and thought, “God, what an idiot you are,” and got the mop out. Damn.
The average Estonian woman, if she has a father, has not grown up with this kind of man. The average Estonian father is peaceful, does his work, comes home, eats some potatoes, goes back to work, and later puts up some shelves. Nobody’s throwing milk at the fridge! Once a whole stack of firewood collapsed on me and then I really started to curse. But then I felt better.
There are volcanoes in Italy, you know. Sometimes you need a good earthquake or explosion. Then things get better. It’s cathartic.
But in fact, I love Estonian women a lot, especially those wild Sami, Finno-Ugric types of women. I think that they have fire in their hearts too, and in a strange way complement Mediterranean men. This overly pragmatic, Germanic, city mentality doesn’t suit me because, for better or worse, I am not a logical German. But these wild Finno-Ugric women are full of vital essence, sisu. I would never say they are tepid or reserved. They are a force of nature, terrifying, passionate, wise, and insanely sexy. If you like extreme experiences, then I definitely advise one.
Women most certainly have a different perspective. My daughters are already as children far more intelligent than I am at the moment. How did they get so smart so quickly? It’s unbelievable, but I have a very rich life thanks to the fact that I have these smart young girls and women in my life who can explain to me what’s actually going on. Sometimes it is hard to understand how they see the world, because in their minds, all things are connected. It happens that I might do something wrong, but I don’t know what it is. They are angry, but later feel better, but I still don’t know what I did, and they won’t tell me. It’s a real mystery.
You have stayed single after your divorce, even though I imagine that for Estonian woman, a tall, mature Italian-American, who is still sensitive, is their romantic dream. Is that your conscious decision or are you too complicated to fulfill someone’s romantic image of you?
I have certainly had love interests after the divorce. Each one has been inspiring, intelligent, and beautiful. I have also communicated with a lot of women and have learned a lot from them. I take it that I am learning new things right now. This is a period in my life when I talk to a lot of people and have new experiences. This helps my writing too. It’s good when you have new characters. I should also acknowledge that I have learned a lot from younger women in particular. Often people think that young people are dumb, don’t know anything, are immature, unreliable. But actually women who are my age behave exactly the same way. Some things just don’t change and it is often young people who have a clearer picture of the world and how things actually are. They are the wise ones, we are the ones who are still confused. So I am grateful to them. In this context though, it would be very complicated if I just had one “new partner” if I want to wander, discuss, experience, listen. I no longer need someone at home. I am now looking for inspiration.
You get along well with Epp. Divorce is a painful process and many never make up or become friends. Why have you been able to do that? For the children, it’s very necessary. Perhaps you can give some advice?
I don’t think I am the right person to give anyone advice. I see a psychologist about once a month. That has helped and I advise that for sure, because, let’s be honest, our friends tire quickly of our complaining. As I see it, most conflicts are built on top of an old wound. Something that went wrong in the past. “You did this!” Even international relationships function this way. Take Estonia and Russia, for example. And also in Western Europe. I remember when I was 14 in Switzerland, someone said that the Swiss were worried about all the land the Germans were buying up. “See, they are trying to take over again, but this time without an army. They are just going to buy everything!” This is a conflict that is based on something that happened in the past. These wounds and traumas are sometimes quite difficult. They are real and they haunt you. At the same time, life goes on and they are exhausting. You have to think, do you really want it to be that when you die and go to heaven and God asks you what you did with your life, you answer, “I fought with my ex. But I won in the end!” This is absurd and stupid. This woman or man is also your children’s mother or father. In this way, you are joined to the end, because from you has come a new bloodline. Our children are part of me and part of her. We are therefore still a family. From a biological perspective, whether the paper says you are married or not doesn’t matter very much, honestly.
What are your creative ideals? What else would you like to do? Is the life of an international writer your dream?
I would really love to be in a band. Is it a midlife crisis or not, I can’t say, but I love to play music and supposedly I am a good bass guitarist. That is definitely a dream. I tried to put something together in Viljandi, but we all work and have children. It’s hard to do. I have a lot of friends who play, but they are professional musicians. It just doesn’t work this way that you ask Jalmar Vabarna, Silver Sepp, or Rauno Vaher, to put a band together. Because Silver is on tour in Uzbekistan, and Jalmar is playing in the Shetland Islands, and Rauno is … well, I am not sure where he is. Maybe in Jamaica? But I still hope it might happen.
The other thing is that I am a writer, not an Estonian writer I put my thoughts about an Italian trip on my blog once and it became one of my most popular posts. Thousands of people have read it. So I think it would be a good idea if I wrote something about Italy too. As a writer, I still feel I am very young and these coming years will give me plenty of opportunities to write interestingly and wonderfully. It would be great if some time in the distant future, I would end up like Henry Miller, who lived to be 88. All the other writers of his generation were long gone — Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, John Dos Passos — but every time they needed to wheel out an old man to spin some yarns, he would be there with an old cap on his head, a cane in hand, and twinkle in his eyes, to say, “Well, in those days, it was like this …”
Name some people who have inspired you.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir is a terrifically creative person, who showed me that art can be therapeutic. This feeling that when the shit starts to fly, you can always put out a new album and the sun will rise again. All the New York rappers have inspired me, I even listen to A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul when I write. Gypsy jazz has been a huge influence, the rhythm helps me to write a lot. The French guitarist Stephane Wrembel is my favorite and Django Rienhardt is our godfather. But you know, I have a lot of friends who are turning 50 this year. They are all born in the year 1969. I call them 69ers. When I worked in a music store in New York long ago, then my colleague Max was a cool hippie adventurer who worshiped John Coltrane, and I learned a lot about music from him in general. I was still a teenager and he was 28 or something. Already a wise old man! We sold a shitload of Spice Girls albums. And then when I came to Estonia, there was Steve Roman, my expat role model. All of my bosses in New York are born in 1969. I don’t know why this is. Why don’t I have a lot of friends who were born in 1968, or 1970? Why not? But since they are turning 50 this year, I ask you to pull out that bottle of wine and lift a glass to them too. Happy birthday, my dear friends!
I know you like old blues. I think the blues suit your personality. What do you think Justin Petrone’s blues name would be?
The Greasy Goose, because the water just rolls off my back. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
You have said that you had your midlife crisis at 35. We have different crises in life. What did you learn from yours or are still learning?
The biggest thing was probably that you can’t control life. We’ve all heard that we are the masters of our own fates, but I don’t believe this, because I tried very hard to change my fate, but it did not work in the end. A person can control his or her own life, what he or she does. But not the bigger picture. I can’t change what my mother does, or what my father thinks, or how my wife feels. With this understanding came a great degree of surrender. It’s been an interesting experience for me, and I have to learn how to let go more every day, how to flow with my subconscious. It’s interesting, because actually you get some control over your life back. Because you actually do not control your own subconscious and at the same time, nobody else does either. It’s absurd, but a cool experience. I think that before the crisis, I lived more within frames or in boxes. Everything was constructed. Now the stuff of life is out of the box. Every day, I lie down, feel, think, dream. I see what’s in my heart. To where it flows, I don’t know, but let the water flow.
How do you feel about your 40th birthday? How will you celebrate? Will you make a tiramisu? I’ve heard your tiramisu is quite good.
My birthday is on a Wednesday, so I might go out with some friends. I’ve never liked big parties, especially in my honor. But this weekend I might go swimming with my kids. I think it’s a good choice to celebrate my 40th with my children.
Happy birthday and lots of inspiration!
north! 