So I started my Danish language class tonight. Intensive lessons. The pretty blonde woman who interviewed me said that, if I apply myself, I'll be fluent by the end of the year. Fluent. In Danish. A language spoken by like .008 percent of the world population.
(I'm going to stop bitching about that. Really. Would it be nice to learn French or Spanish instead? Sure. Will that help me living in Denmark? Not even a little bit.)
The class is free. And, at the moment, I have nothing better to do. So, tonight I shlepped myself over the icy sidewalks, through the immigrant and working-class neighborhood to my own little culture club. Of the ten students, I am the only native English speaker. This, I think, gives me a leg up as the lessons are initially in English.
But then I realize this means I am also the only monolingual student. That I speak only one language is something that separates me from literally every single person I know in Denmark. How lame.
At home, I know only a tiny handful of people who speak another language. One of these people is my girlfriend. They all grew up somewhere else, of course. Middle class, public school Americans don't do languages.
But I am. I'm going to learn Danish--glottal stops and 87 vowel sounds be damned. I'm going to read Hans Christian Andersen in the original, and when you come to visit, I will wow you with my ability to order from the sausage wagon.
Until the sausage guy realizes I'm not Danish. And immediately switches to English. Because everyone here speaks English. Perfectly.
February 9, 2010
January 26, 2010
January 22
I got my only tattoo when I was 18. I was in Boston for the first time, celebrating New Year's Eve in the North End. It was crazy cold, and we were crazy drunk. Liz, my amazonian friend--who would one day wear bright red dreadlocks and become incapacitated by my gravity bong--convinced me that this was a good idea. A tattoo. She knew what she wanted, was going the next day to get it. Would I come?
So there we were on the northern border of Massachusetts, just far enough into New Hampshire to get legally inked. I picked a design off the wall. It felt like a bee stinging. We walked through the snow giggling, back to a car that would leave us stranded for six hours.
The beginning and the end. That's what I chose. A chinese character in black on the back of my neck. One symbol, two words, everything included.
What I liked about the idea of a tattoo was that it could be an outward sign of inner hurt. I have a four-inch scar on my arm to remind me that I climbed a barbed wire fence. I have dents in my mouth where they took my wisdom teeth. I didn't have anything to mark the day my mother left.
For a long time, I drank margaritas on her birthday. For years I took the day off, the day she died, to ride horses. Because that's what she loved to do. But I've long since stopped celebrating her birthday. And this year, I forgot the day she died.
We had fondue with friends, went to a movie. We came home and drank and listened to classical music. Because that's what we love to do.
When I put my fingers to it, I can feel the faintest rise of the beginning and end on my neck. "They cancel each other out," I used to say. Cancel each other out, as in zero. As in a blank page. Grief can be such a selfish thing that forgetting feels like a triumph. Just another day.
So there we were on the northern border of Massachusetts, just far enough into New Hampshire to get legally inked. I picked a design off the wall. It felt like a bee stinging. We walked through the snow giggling, back to a car that would leave us stranded for six hours.
The beginning and the end. That's what I chose. A chinese character in black on the back of my neck. One symbol, two words, everything included.
What I liked about the idea of a tattoo was that it could be an outward sign of inner hurt. I have a four-inch scar on my arm to remind me that I climbed a barbed wire fence. I have dents in my mouth where they took my wisdom teeth. I didn't have anything to mark the day my mother left.
For a long time, I drank margaritas on her birthday. For years I took the day off, the day she died, to ride horses. Because that's what she loved to do. But I've long since stopped celebrating her birthday. And this year, I forgot the day she died.
We had fondue with friends, went to a movie. We came home and drank and listened to classical music. Because that's what we love to do.
When I put my fingers to it, I can feel the faintest rise of the beginning and end on my neck. "They cancel each other out," I used to say. Cancel each other out, as in zero. As in a blank page. Grief can be such a selfish thing that forgetting feels like a triumph. Just another day.
January 14, 2010
Homecoming
I don't think of Denmark as home. The same way I didn't think of my college town as home, or Boston in the year that I lived there.
But after three weeks away, there was a sense of relief coming back here. Settling. Like an old house. It feels good to settle, to hunker down. I feel, if not at home, more and more entrenched here. I have a residency permit, now. Official permission to reside. They will (hopefully) heal me if I am sick; they will (attempt to) teach me their language. Doors are opening. And like a benevolent, but slightly weary, parent, Denmark is telling me to get a job. Socialism doesn't grow on trees, you know.
But, the impending slog that is jobseeking aside, I am happy to be here. Content, at least, because here there are a lot of very kind people, people I like very much, and in whom I have very little invested. There is no one here whose happiness I agonize about. There is no one here who agonizes over mine.
Release. The burden of love is often too great to shoulder. And I realize that this is rather like a gorgeous women complaining that no one asks for her opinion, but honestly, I need this detachment. I craved it. Distance dulls the pain of the hurts at home; allows me to throw up my hands and say, however little I may have done there, "Well, there's nothing I can do from here."
Peace. The way you can believe peace is possible if you live in Topeka, Kansas rather than, say, Kabul. A very selfish peace. When in doubt, we take the next small step. I need to go to the post office. Practice yoga. Take a walk in the sun.
But after three weeks away, there was a sense of relief coming back here. Settling. Like an old house. It feels good to settle, to hunker down. I feel, if not at home, more and more entrenched here. I have a residency permit, now. Official permission to reside. They will (hopefully) heal me if I am sick; they will (attempt to) teach me their language. Doors are opening. And like a benevolent, but slightly weary, parent, Denmark is telling me to get a job. Socialism doesn't grow on trees, you know.
But, the impending slog that is jobseeking aside, I am happy to be here. Content, at least, because here there are a lot of very kind people, people I like very much, and in whom I have very little invested. There is no one here whose happiness I agonize about. There is no one here who agonizes over mine.
Release. The burden of love is often too great to shoulder. And I realize that this is rather like a gorgeous women complaining that no one asks for her opinion, but honestly, I need this detachment. I craved it. Distance dulls the pain of the hurts at home; allows me to throw up my hands and say, however little I may have done there, "Well, there's nothing I can do from here."
Peace. The way you can believe peace is possible if you live in Topeka, Kansas rather than, say, Kabul. A very selfish peace. When in doubt, we take the next small step. I need to go to the post office. Practice yoga. Take a walk in the sun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)