Monday, February 19, 2007
On being homeless
In the supermarkets in Copenhagen, I forget that here you pay for plastic bags, you don't pick them up for free like you do in England. It's to protect the environment, and I wholly sympathise with the cause, but I keep forgetting, and stop the whole line by running back to grab a bag and pay for it after all my shopping has been checked out.
Then people roll their eyes, because how can I be that stupid, I'm Danish after all.
If you forget something in a supermarket in a foreign country and you ask for help in a foreign accent, everybody understands "she's a foreigner, what can you expect".
- Sorry, it's just cos I'm used to the bags being for free in England, I once stupidly excused myself. The rolling eyes and bemused expressions of "you think you're cool, don't you, having been abroad", made me realise that its better to simply accept being misunderstood, rather than force them to understand me.
Then there's the loss of unconditional attachment to Denmark. I sit at my brother-in-law's parents beautiful and cosy little house in a fishing village in Denmark, looking at the sea, the fireplace crackling. The walls are covered in old beautiful paintings and memorablia, every inch of the house testifies to the fact that this family has been living here for generations. The connection of their spirit to the stones on the beach and the wooden walls of the house shows in their calm movements and assured smiles.
Something open and squeezes inside of me.
I realise that I will never feel that unconditional connection to any place anymore. I have made another country my home as well, and for ever after no place will be my true and only home.
I feel the Danish future I used to carry with me, like a medallion close to my heart slipping away.
My bicycle drives to the beach through a pine forest, with my children on the back seat. My Christmas Eves starring at the lit candles, letting the carols wrap my restless mind in a warm and comforting blanket. Reading Halfdan's ABC to my kids. Getting married in a light green beech forest. Trampling through snow on a bike in the cold winter mornings.
I mourn the loss of my home, while I celebrate my freedom.
Then people roll their eyes, because how can I be that stupid, I'm Danish after all.
If you forget something in a supermarket in a foreign country and you ask for help in a foreign accent, everybody understands "she's a foreigner, what can you expect".
- Sorry, it's just cos I'm used to the bags being for free in England, I once stupidly excused myself. The rolling eyes and bemused expressions of "you think you're cool, don't you, having been abroad", made me realise that its better to simply accept being misunderstood, rather than force them to understand me.
Then there's the loss of unconditional attachment to Denmark. I sit at my brother-in-law's parents beautiful and cosy little house in a fishing village in Denmark, looking at the sea, the fireplace crackling. The walls are covered in old beautiful paintings and memorablia, every inch of the house testifies to the fact that this family has been living here for generations. The connection of their spirit to the stones on the beach and the wooden walls of the house shows in their calm movements and assured smiles.
Something open and squeezes inside of me.
I realise that I will never feel that unconditional connection to any place anymore. I have made another country my home as well, and for ever after no place will be my true and only home.
I feel the Danish future I used to carry with me, like a medallion close to my heart slipping away.
My bicycle drives to the beach through a pine forest, with my children on the back seat. My Christmas Eves starring at the lit candles, letting the carols wrap my restless mind in a warm and comforting blanket. Reading Halfdan's ABC to my kids. Getting married in a light green beech forest. Trampling through snow on a bike in the cold winter mornings.
I mourn the loss of my home, while I celebrate my freedom.
# posted by Unknown : 5:14 AM
