Time Change

I have been consoling myself lately with Ecclesiastes 3, the famous passage from the Bible that says "To every thing, there is a season..." Sure, it made a groovy song in the 60s, but this is also just profound advice. There is a time for every purpose, great and small, wise or wicked. However set those times may be, however, it seems governments the world over are not content. It seems that even Denmark is not immune to the idiocy of "Daylight Savings."

I realize there is a history and yes, sort of kind of, a purpose for the time change. The only thing it has ever meant to me, however, is that we lose an hour of evening light in winter. Of course, in Florida, that doesn't mean much, particularly when every single winter day brings a glorious gift of sunshine so abundant and clear and brilliant, that each morning fills with bird song and squirrels help you tie your apron into place...

The descent into the winter season here in Copenhagen -- whose nearest neighbors are countries like Sweden, Russia, Norway -- is a little more profound. By my calculations, we've lost something like six hours of light in four months. It's amazing, actually. It makes me wonder exactly what sort of position we're in, here. Where, exactly, are we in relation to the sun?



That's a picture taken by the "lakes" here in Copenhagen, around 2 pm. These days the sun doesn't get up much higher than that. It comes up over the buildings, and then slides along sideways for a few hours before dipping back below them. And it's only October.

Aside from the sadness of losing the sun -- of feeling guilt prickle over the years of light and heat I often complained about -- I find this whole process somewhat fascinating. And just a little bit ominous. People here talk about "winter" as if it were an animal, a beast to guard against. "Be careful..." they say; "Just wait."

Theoretically, I'm going to learn a lesson, here. To everything there is a season, indeed. A time for light and a time for dark; a time to get, a time to lose. A time for plane tickets to Florida, and a time to gather your flip flops together.

My Polo Shirts Give Me Away

I am known in certain circles as a trendsetter. I brought wool socks to Florida. I single-handedly popularized safari hats for everyday wear, and I have extended the appeal of flannel shirts well beyond their normal life span.

Still, it was a small surprise when, speaking with a new Danish friend recently, I learned the full extent of my otherness.

"I suppose people here can tell I'm not Scandinavian pretty quickly," I admitted, considering my outgoing personality and general doofiness on a bicycle.
"Yes," she said. "It's mostly the Polo shirts."

Really? Polo shirts? Since when are Polo shirts not cool?

Okay, you see, trend-setting status aside, the style genre I am generally most comfortable with would fit somewhere in the mid 1990s. I'm talking preppie GAP-cum-wannabe grunge. I like plaid. I like Army/Navy stuff. I like layering long-sleeve shirts under skater t-shirts. I like Doc Martins.

This look is the antithesis of now. Particularly now in Scandinavia. The look here is (and I am surprised to find, has been for some time) skinny jeans. Aptly named because you do need to be skinny to look good in them. Lacking that, there is even a revival of what I'm hoping is an "ironic" tight-roll. Exhibit A:



Those socks and shoes are totally rad, too, apparently. (In my world, grunge rockers and riot grrls beat the crap out of dudes like this.)

So, fine. Scandinavia is all big scarves and long sweaters and leggings and leg warmers. So what? I rocked the eighties once already. I think once is enough. I'm just going to stay right here in my boot-cut GAP classics until they come back around again. By my calculations, it could be any day now.

All the Little Steps

A year! It's impossible that it's been a year. It can't possibly have been a year since I last wrote.

Let's see... we were just thinking about selling the house... painting... getting ready. It wasn't real until the furniture started to go, piecemeal--the porch stuff to Cathy, the sofa to Karen, the bistro table to Amber and Eve. It will be so strange to come across those pieces again, I think. Like ex-lovers to whom you were once given every permission.

And then the house was sold. And then it was emptied. And then it was cleaned. We left two beer caps under the eaves on the porch, a bottle of champaign in the fridge. Done. All the loose ends tied up so well, it seemed as though they were cauterized...

There's no point in dwelling on them because now I am here. We are here together, in Denmark, and that was the whole point. I didn't really think too much about life beyond that. But one of my favorite mottos says when you are in doubt, take the next small step.

So, I got a bike. Disregarding Maricris's advice, I got a cushy, brown city bike--the bike I always wanted. Which is so heavy, so cumbersome in this city's staggering wind, we call her La Vaca.

I thought about working... in a cafe, maybe. Or the newspaper. The language is an issue; the paperwork is an issue. I don't want to believe that disinformation and discouragement could be Immigration's MO, but, as in their personal lives, the Danes do seem to have all the people they need, thank you.

But, because it looks like, optimistically, many of my future posts will be about life in Copenhagen -- and I don't want anyone to think I'm not excited about that -- here's a quick list of what I like about this place:

• After thousands of years of Scandinavian weather, it's understandable that people here place great importance on warmth and comfort. If you've read anything about Denmark, you've heard of the term "hygge," which is not so much a word to be defined as an experience. It's what you want your guests to feel when they visit your home, and I think the bars and cafes -- and the few Danes I've visited -- do a nice job of achieving it.

• While I really haven't met many Danes -- they're so reticent, it seems -- I have met a lot of folks from elsewhere. Brits, Germans, Australians,Turks, Spaniards, Canadians, South Americans... and quite often Norwegians and Swedes, of course. It seems everyone here is from somewhere else, which is at once delightful and encouraging, even if it means my paperwork may take that much longer.

• It's a beautiful city. Copenhagen makes good use of its water- and lakefronts, and (for the most part) rather seamlessly incorporates the new with the old. It's easy to navigate by foot, bike or bus, with very little car traffic. Coming from the US, I underestimated how great a relief that would be.

• Lastly, it's in Europe. I've wanted to go to Europe all my life and now I live here. So it's not exactly Spain or Tuscany... but I am relatively close to many of Northern Europe's finer cities. I'm looking forward to Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, London and, of course, Paris.

So there's the year, more or less. One thing leads to another out of habit; I find myself amazed how I manage to do so much without really trying at all... baby steps through the hallway... baby steps down the stairs... baby steps out to the bike...