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...