Barackstar

I was walking by the lakes the other day, and I saw this boy playing with his friends. They were all maybe about 12 or 13. Now that's an age where what your friends think of you matters. That's an age where--particularly here, it seems--kids start claiming a sense of style highly influenced by their peers. So what was this boy wearing?

An Obama t-shirt. Specifically the ubiquitous "Hope"/Fairey image, which we could argue is losing all meaning and impact based on its now-iconic status--much like Che Guevara--but that's a post for another day.

The point is, when was the last time you saw a teenager wearing the face of a US president in a non-ironic way? In Europe, he's crazy popular. In Denmark, his name is spray painted on buildings. Not "Suck it Obama," but honest to God... just "Obama."

That there is a collective sigh of relief in Europe over Obama's election is hardly news. And I'm probably the 40 billionth blogger to say it, but I understand how deeply reviled Bush must have been here when I see things like this:



And this:



I know that Barack Obama isn't the Second Coming--there can be no such thing in politics--but gosh it's nice to have him there... especially while I'm over here.

Bright Blessed Day

I was thinking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, today--you know air, water, food, shelter. And then farther on down the list, things like companionship, confidence, creative outlets... essentially all of the reasons that self-help programs are so popular. But you know what's not on the pyramid? Not anywhere? Not even in the highest levels (and therefore lowest priority)?

Sunlight. It's just not there. And you can't piggyback it with something like homeostasis. That's simply a catch-all for the fact that we need to be generally not ill or, say, stuck in a walk-in freezer.

We are not algae or bacteria. On a very technical level--even if you take in the whole vitamin D business--sunlight isn't a requirement. Isn't that odd?

Today, I went for a walk and took this picture. This is high noon in Scandinavia.



While I was trying to get a shot light enough, I realized that this strange woman was speaking to me.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"I said," she repeated in English, pointing to the sky, "that it's beautiful isn't it?"

And even though I took this picture because I knew you all would be incredulous--even though it was a weak, watery sun behind our traditional blanket of grey--I couldn't help but agree.

"It is," I said. "It really is."

Voyeur

The view from our apartment, from all three windows of our apartment, is... other apartments. Other people, other rooms, other candles flickering over other lives. I cannot tell you how seductive this is, how very much I want to look.

From the sink, as I wash dishes, there are two or three lives that specifically draw my attention. There's the family across and below--the baby there just graduated to a "big kid" bed. They have colorful dishes, which the father always washes in a separate dish pan. I wonder why.

There is the couple down to the right. He wears boxer shorts; she is small and pretty and dark. They don't often cook, but they entertain friends now and then, congregating in their kitchen with beer in bottles--never cans. And then there is the young woman above them, whose bedroom is also visible. She likes espresso, and has no qualms about being naked in front of her open windows.

They all have one thing in common: they never look back. Is this part of the Danish "mind your own business" personality? I suppose I'm being terribly rude. I suppose I should keep my eyes on the sink, on the cars in the street. But how human is that?

Maricris, who probably doesn't look much herself, tells me that if we were in Puerto Rico, everyone would look. You couldn't stop them; grandmothers would be swapping stories about how the people in the adjacent apartment probably couldn't afford that big screen TV... how if they spent less time in front of it, they might have a baby or two by now...

Honestly, I can't believe the Danes don't look. They must. They must look up from their sinks every so often and wonder about the strange girl who sits at her computer so much of the day. The girl with the crazy hair and the Polo shirts. "Bet she's not Danish," they say. "I wonder why she never looks back..."

It's Oh So Quiet...

Riding my bike home from a friend's apartment tonight, I could hear only one thing: my own breath.

Okay, so maybe I'm not so fit. Maybe I do sound a little like a hyperventilating walrus when I pedal through the city center. I'll concede that. But the fact is that Copenhagen is revealing many sides of herself to me, and the most profound of these is that she is silent.

I mean silent like worship. I mean soft as snow. Muffled. Hushed. Riding my bike this evening, it was me, my walrus breathing, and the sound of this city -- the wind, the crystalline, almost gothic, cackle of leaves over cold streets... the nothing.

When I am in my apartment -- on the third floor -- I can hear the clip of a kick stand across the street. I can hear a car over cobblestones three blocks away. At three in the afternoon, I hear the children laughing as they come home from school; I hear church bells at six. In short, I can hear everything -- and nothing.

The peace is immense, almost painful, but this is not to say that nothing is happening. This is not the quiet of a small town on a Sunday evening. This is not the quiet of desertion. It's the quiet of Denmark. Of the Danes.

Copenhagen is a city packed with people, with bars and gatherings and a hundred thousand bicycles. And there are children -- so many tiny children! At the risk of seeming trite, they are undoubtably the happiest, most contented, quietest children I have ever seen. They put something in the water here; even the dogs are reticent and mild-mannered. I've yet to hear one bark.

But this is the funny thing. In a city where babies sleep noiselessly outside of genteel restaurants, a city where I might hear a petal plucked from the garden on my street, I am somehow ten times louder. I am American, hear me talk!

And talk. A lot. I can't seem to shut up. Whenever I meet someone new -- and this city is full of someones new -- even I am embarrassed as my lips move. I am helpless to stop them. What is it? Is it the fact that I am often alone? Is it that I don't speak the language, and am all too happy to exercise my own? Is it the very Danish silence that burdens me to break it?

I've been criticized for talking too much -- perhaps from the time I could talk. It's not so sad a quality of itself. I do it because it's sociable; I despise the awkward lull. I do it because I want you to feel comfortable. And I do it because I want you to understand.

But I've come to find that, with all of these words, I'm not saying much. I'm not saying all the things I thought I was saying. I am reverb; I am white noise. I am the sonic equivalent of a porno mag: all reveal and no revelation.

Then so, among the many lessons this city would teach me, perhaps I am listening. I'm getting that what I say is not the same as what I do. I get that what I do prevents me from learning who you are. And the revelation -- as sound as a breath over silent streets -- is that I very much want to hear it.

I want to hear it all.


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