inside of ourselves

"you never know how inside of themselves people are." i read that long ago in a barbara kingsolver novel and it's stuck with me ever since. in any given situation, you don't really know where people are coming from. maybe they've had a completely shit week. maybe it's been awesome. maybe it's been both - up and down, like any other week. maybe they've just learned they have a terminal illness. maybe their father just died. maybe their mother with alzheimer's just failed to recognize them for the first time. maybe they just lost their job. maybe they just got a new one. maybe they just learned they're pregnant. or perhaps they miscarried. maybe they're tired or have a toothache. maybe they feel lonely or sad or joyful. you just don't know. maybe the path ahead of them seems clear. or perhaps it's obscured and murky. maybe they're relieved the sun is finally shining after too many days of rain. maybe their awesome boss just quit. maybe they feel like they're in limbo. perhaps they're caught up in needless office politics. what if they have a need to be right? to be comforted? to be understood? what if they feel bewildered and alone and cast adrift? what if they are newly in love and their stomach is full of butterflies? you just don't know. you can never really know. and quite possibly they'll never really be able to tell you. but maybe what they most need from you is that you see them - really see them. no matter how inside of themselves they are.

reverting to childhood helplessness

i completed a study recently wherein i talked to a whole lot of foreigners who had, for one reason or another, made denmark their home. some came for love, some for work, some to be safe from war-torn homelands. their feelings of displacement and discomfort were remarkably similar, despite a diversity of reasons for being here. i could easily go on and on about it, but this weekend i found myself thinking about one aspect that many of them cited...that of how being in a new place where you don't speak the language and don't understand the culture makes you feel about 6 years old again.

i was fortunate to have husband when i came to denmark, so my exposure to the bewildering new set of sounds that is danish and the general coldness of the culture was cushioned a bit. but i do recall that with many things...paperwork, phone calls, directions (let's just say that the streets in denmark are not laid out in a nice neat grid like they are on the prairies of my homeland) to get places...husband helped me by taking care of things i didn't understand.

and on saturday, when a heavy maglight flashlight fell on his toe and caused it serious harm which necessitated that he sit in the chair with his foot up, trying to stop the bleeding, for most of the day, i realized that i felt rendered incapacitated myself by his injury. not because i had also hurt my toe, but because it felt like i couldn't do any of the things i had planned to do (turning our front glassed-in entryway into a makeshift greenhouse), because husband wasn't there helping me. he hadn't paved the way. the heavy pots were still out back and some of them had old, dead lemon trees in them. the plants were still sitting out back, being whipped by the wind. but he had prepared a wheelbarrow of soil, compost and perfectly aged cow poo for me the day before, so that was ready. but it took me most of the day to realize that i was perfectly capable of getting on with the task myself.

and it hit me that my reliance on him when i came to denmark, for even the simplest tasks (telling the difference between the kinds of milk at the grocery store, for example), had set the tone. i have, in many ways, stayed that child i reverted to, expecting husband to fix everything for me. and i had lost the sense of frustration that it had early on. it was probably because he took on those responsibilities so kindly and patiently, that we just slipped into our roles and stayed there. he is the eternal fixer and i am the one for whom he fixes.

but, i realized that i was perfectly capable of dumping out the old lemon trees and moving those big crocks around to the front of the house in the other wheelbarrow. and so i did it. and i filled them with stones in the bottom for drainage and that soil he had prepared and i planted tomatoes, aubergine and cucumber. and i arranged it all in the glassed-in entryway, so it can be my makeshift greenhouse this year (we're moving the real one, again, again). and almost immediately it smelled moist and fragrant and green out there. and i had a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of being capable. and the plants have perked up considerably since i took these photos immediately after i was finished, so even they're happy.

maybe it's time to let go of that 6-year-old girl again and start getting something done.

denmark you are a mystery to me: or when life turns kafkaesque

there is a deep and abiding faith in clubs and associations in denmark. they're called foreninger. it's something that i, as a non-dane, find really quite incomprehensible. and the ability to create a new association, which is focused on a very specific, narrow purpose (instead of expanding an existing one to include that little focus area) is simply breathtaking. sometimes it appears that they'll create a new association simply to get away from some other people they don't like in the old association (instead of relying on democracy and voting them out). heaven forbid that people made room for one another or adjusted their thinking a little bit to be more inclusive within existing groups. no, no, let's call a general assembly, create a convoluted set of bureaucratic by-laws (which we will debate down to the last comma) and by odin make a new group - one that preferably will really show that other group that we maybe could have been part of, had we had even an ounce of open-mindedness.

deep breath.

it's a fascinating study in group behavior and if i still wanted to be an anthropologist, i'm sure i could easily write an entire dissertation about it. it has everything - social darwinism, cultural capital (ahh, bordieu), biology, psychology, even a bit of pop business theory between the lines. there's jockeying for position, there's the constantly determining who is with the in crowd and who's not. there's the determining who is the albanian (remember my theory that everyone needs their albanian - someone who they feel superior to?) in any configuration (and oddly, it seems to be an ever-shifting thing). and there's the scheming beforehand because of an inherent lack of trust in the democratic process. and don't even get me started on conflicts of interest...

but among the things that strike me most (there are 2), is how utterly meaningless it all is. it's a small town that's part of a larger municipality (more like a county in american terms) and the mayor and politicians on the city council are those ultimately allocating funds and deciding things - so these local councils and committees and associations and clubs are actually full of powerless little wanna-be kings (who to the cool anthropological observer are actually a whole lot more like a flock of banty roosters). ones who apparently couldn't even make it on the pathetic plane that is the municipality level. so the supposed power of the little clubs is utterly impotent.

the second thing that strikes me is how proud the little banty roosters are of their bylaws and their long history of being involved in this whole culture around the little associations. one stood up at a recent meeting and proudly declared that he was a foreningsmenneske (a person of the association - it's one of those things that just has a better ring in danish, mostly because i can't imagine that it truly exists outside of denmark) and went on to pontificate on how bylaws were the glue holding the society together. it was a critique of another association which had mistakenly (and rather publicly) not followed their bylaws to the letter and managed, as happens if you accidentally dissolve the very glue holding the society together, to embarrass themselves - having to call a new general assembly according to the letter of their bylaws. they were even ridiculed in the local press for not announcing the first general assembly two weeks in advance, as required. yes, the behavior, especially between generations, is that petty and small-minded.

and for all of the group mentality, they really don't want to work together across groups - not even if those groups share an interest. it's all very petty and quite exhausting. and even as i try to maintain an anthropologic distance, i couldn't help but feel i had stepped into the bureaucratic hell of a kafka novel as i observed the natives in their natural habitat last evening.

* * *

speaking of boring things, i keep reading really interesting stuff about the boring conference.

* * *

the t boards on pinterest: tattoo in the near future. that's funny. the eyes have it. the hats (and possibly the crowns). tiny houses (this is one of my best boards). to dye for. topographies (another winner). treehouse.

culture clash or the ribbons are the wrong color

whenever you enter into a new activity, you find yourself immersed in a new and sometimes bewildering culture. tho' i grew up showing horses, it's apparently very different to show horses in the US (admittedly 25 years ago) than it is in denmark.

the first thing i did was read the rulebook. i could see that all of the photos of dressage competition showed people with white saddle pads, white breeches, white gloves and white leg wraps on their horses. i found the white breeches in the rules and a paragraph that said you could wear gloves that were the same color as your coat (which had to be black) if you wished. i read that the saddle blanket should be a neutral color and could find nothing at all about the color of the boots/legwraps. but when we got to the show, it was obvious that only white would do. our black saddle pad with a hint of purple stitching and purple legwraps were not going to cut it. luckily, we could borrow a white pad and just forgo the legwraps.  it seemed to be some strange and unpredictable collusion of rules and what's in fashion.

the next thing that seemed strange was that the judge sat in a vehicle that was parked down at the end of the arena. not along the side, where she might have been able to see something, but at the far end. furthermore, the judge would honk the horn of the car when the person should begin their program. because a honking horn isn't at all going to scare a highly-strung warmblood. the weather was iffy and there were patches of showers all day long, but the judge judged on from the front seat of the car, windshield wipers flapping. i was incredulous, but everyone else seemed to consider it completely normal.

then, there were the ribbons. where i grew up, first place is blue, second is red and yellow is third. here, apparently red is first place, blue is second place and green is third. so you can see above that matilde won a first and a third in the jumping, rather than the second and sixth place that it looks like to the conditioning of my culture.

for the dressage competition, everyone is dressed and outfitted the same, so it seems very egalitarian (and thus very danish). apparently, there's more leeway and fashion at play in the jumping, as people had bright colored saddle pads and boots on their horses and one girl even wore pink britches (tho' i did hear some people expressing surprise over that). everyone has a bright, pretty fleece that they cover their horse with before and after they compete and there seems to be some fashion at work in those as well. because despite the uniform involved, people do want to express themselves.

but it's interesting, these clashes of culture. i do tend to like things that push me out of my rut, but the judge sitting inside of a car during the judging was where i drew the line. i just can't get my head around that. i can appreciate the need to stay warm and dry, but what about the need to actually be able to SEE the performance of the horse you're judging? still, i didn't hear any complaints about the scoring, so i suppose it must work (either that or people have just been culturally conditioned to accept it and not question it).

such an experience also engages many conflicting feelings...the need to belong and fit in and the need to resist. i can see that i have much more need to resist than my child has - she wants very much to belong and be like the others. so i guess i'll be buying her some white gloves, a white pad and white legwraps for the next time.

oh, and i can't resist showing you how brilliantly matilde jumped on sunday to earn those ribbons above. one of the older, more experienced girls from the riding school rode her very well. and she looked fetching in red. 

reflections on the lake

last evening - reflections on the lake

why is that having a view is so important to us as humans?  there was a time, not all that long ago, when it wasn't. here in denmark, the older houses along the harsh west coast have small windows and you can see that people weren't concerned about seeing the sea. they were more concerned about keeping out the wind and the sand. in the laura ingalls wilder books, there's only one passage about how pa got a real glass window for one of the houses on the prairie and it was a tiny one. there was a time when people living along canals and rivers did their best not to see all that dirty water and waste flowing by and those living closest to it were the poorest. today, the most expensive properties brag about their view and their proximity to water. when did our view on having a view change? is it the fault of creative real estate agents? or do we as humans crave the horizon as our horizons have expanded?

we've noticed since moving out to the countryside that our neighbors who have lived here for 40 years have what to us is a curious lack of a seating area outside. if the weather is good enough (and sometimes even if it isn't), we eat outdoors. our neighbor is likely to be mowing his extensive lawn during those early evening hours when we're trying to enjoy a meal outside. but we want him to sell us his barn and a bit of land at the back of it eventually, so we don't complain. we've realized it's just a different view on what activities happen outdoors. to our neighbors, long-time farmers, outdoors is where you work and in the house is where you relax. we work indoors all day and so we want to go outdoors to relax.

we move our table all around the lawn, taking advantage of spots of sunshine (or shade) and wind directions (if we're grilling). and tho' the view of our lake isn't from the table in the garden, it's important to us that it's there. we are drawn to it and seek it out, most often in the evening, during the golden hour when the sun is sinking in the sky. an amble down to the end of the pasture to spend a few moments gazing at the lake in the quiet of the evening makes us feel restful and relaxed. the view is important to our mental well-being. 

i think as our work has taken us farther from nature, we naturally are drawn to it in other ways, so we have larger windows on our homes and we move many domestic activities - like eating - outdoors when weather permits. i surely hope it's not just the manipulation of conniving real estate agents.

stop overthinking and just enjoy

i apparently have theory on the brain...yesterday, cultural capital, today, orientalism.

you may have gathered that i love the philippines. the warmth and genuineness of the people, the food, their creative use of vinegar, the climate, the shopping. i love it all. but in my tendency to overthink and over-analyze, i wonder if i end up, in my deep and abiding affection, in fetishizing a whole nation?

nearly every time i've been to the philippines (and last week was my 17th trip), i have had the opportunity to see a performance like the one depicted here...magically lovely young girls enacting traditional dances from one of the philippines' 7000 islands. hotels almost always have such a show - and i wonder if such shows feed an expected stereotype...a taste of the exotic, served up to hungry tourists.

taal volcano - batangas, philippines

this show, on a friday afternoon, at a lovely hotel overlooking the taal volcano, was performed in a restaurant full of filipinos. looking around, i think myself and my colleagues were the only tourists in the place. which makes me feel a bit less like i'm orientalizing, as i'm sure they hadn't put on the show just for our sake.

maybe sometimes i need to stop over analyzing and just enjoy, because the girls were graceful and lovely and their silhouettes exquisite. and it's undoubtedly perfectly ok to simply enjoy that and not worry too much about it.  when i go back in a couple of weeks, i'll think i'll just sit back and enjoy the show.

in which she thinks bourdieu was right about cultural capital

i've been pondering social capital in recent days. pierre bourdieu's distinction lays out the theory and i read it a number of years ago when husband was working on his master's. it comes back to me again and again...basically, we are all born with a cultural, social capital at a certain level and it's very hard for us to change that. it shapes who we are and is not easy to escape.

i had occasion to observe someone trying to overcome their social capital in recent days. and it is a painful sight indeed. because cultural capital is a mysterious beast and it's definitely not easily overcome. the efforts involved are superhuman and if they're not, it ends up somehow sad and pathetic. sad to have reached a mature age and not be able to accept who you are. sad to be trying so hard and so strenuously to so little effect.

society is harsh and it has programmed us not to accept people's attempts to rise above their station. despite all that talk of the american dream and being whatever you want to be, there is still a scent of tastelessness over the nouveau riche. so if the person trying to climb up out of their social layer doesn't actually have the benefits money brings, the attempt is all the more unpretty. a set of strange rituals that are awkward and stilted because they're so unnatural.

i ended up with a kind of perversely fascinated revulsion to the sight and although i wanted to have a more anthropological view on it, i will admit that i was quite disgusted at the sight. a mixture of pity and loathing rose in me. unless you have a special talent, without education and sophistication, it's simply not possible to change your cultural capital. isn't it really just better to be content with who you are?

* * *

if you'd like a bit of a diversion from all this cryptic seriousness, why not try to mad men yourself?

the fifth circle of hell or weird wednesday gets even weirder

descending to the fifth circle of hell (wrath and sullenness)

my morning found me trudging up a staircase, following a fifty-something woman who had clearly eaten loads of garlic for breakfast, or perhaps just used it instead of perfume. i prayed frantically silently to odin that she was going somewhere else, but no, she was headed to the same classroom up on the top floor that i was. apparently odin was otherwise engaged.

because there is a gap of time between old job and new job, i have applied for unemployment benefits and one of the hoops one must jump through is to attend a two day "competence assessment" course during which one ends up with an online "CV" in a government system (the one which, if you recall, suggested after analyzing my education and experience that i do telemarketing). thus, you know that i have already placed my CV in the system on my own and am, as it were, well aware of my competence(s). so anyway, that's why i found myself following the clearly-afraid-of-vampires woman up the stairs early on a wednesday morning.

myself and 17 others were attending the day's sessions, which opened with the most patronizing 30 minutes of instructions and warnings i've witnessed in as long as i can remember. we were referred to as "unemployed welfare recipients" (very motivating) during the entire spiel, which included a whole lot of references to the apparently given fact that we were looking for jobs as chauffeurs and nursing home attendants (not that there's anything wrong with those things, but i didn't spent nine months on a fulbright in the balkans to lift old mr. hansen from his bed to his wheelchair). anyone who came in late was subjected to cutting and even more demeaning and patronizing remarks about their ability to tell time.

once i realized that i was making serious fingernail marks in the palms of my hands from holding them in fists to keep from screaming, i tuned out the capri- and thigh-length "sporty" boot-wearing woman's patronizing droning and looked around. nearly half of my fellow participants were in their upper fifties, four were clearly carpenters or bricklayers or the like, there were two who looked a bit like me and a few young women who looked like candidates for channel 4's the young mothers program.

the capri-clad woman with her asymmetrical haircut turned us over to an energetic bald man who told us straight away about his messy divorce and life with his three kids, who only spend half the month at his house. for otherwise cold, closed people, the danes surely do share some all-too personal details rather easily. he proceeded to throw every remaining scrap of political correctness out the window in what i eventually decided was a charming way (after i recovered from the shock that he outright called me an asshole for joining that more general union instead of the one for people with master's degrees). he actually said to a young girl who worked part time in a church, "what the hell does a kirketjener (her job title) do?" not really appreciating the irony of swearing about a church. i had to actually cover my mouth to restrain outright boisterous laughter at that one.

one of the women, who i thought i had spotted as a fellow academic, turned out to be a former computer programmer turned papergirl turned failed nursing student who left her 4-year nursing program after 6 years without finishing due to "ideological reasons." i came to feel real empathy for her, because i think she had a soft heart and it caused her to be unable to take the overwhelming reality of the world. on the other hand, i do think there are meds for that.

once i arranged not to be forced to go back for day two (i was clearly in the wrong room and apparently the wrong union), i sat back and enjoyed it. some of the more amusing stories that came out during the day:

~  a girl in her late 20s with two kids and no husband who wanted to be a mechanic because she liked cars (but had no training or skills in being a mechanic whatsoever and no idea how to get them. and she didn't even have a car).

~  a sweet (and very talkative) man of nearly 60 who had spent a lifetime as a salesman and had already applied for 500 jobs (he had a stack of documents to prove it).

~  a boy in his early 20s who said his ambition was to become a garbage man (after he attained the correct qualifications, including a driver's license, which he currently lacked).

~  a real asshole of a (self-declared) dyslexic bricklayer whose phone was in his coat pocket and kept ringing every 15-20 minutes all morning and who actually refused to turn it off or on silent when asked to do so (turned out he didn't know how to do it, so the future garbage man helped him out, but not until it had rung 4-5 times).

i'll admit i didn't get a whole lot out of the day, other than 11 pages of notes in my "blog about this" notebook. so perhaps it was worth it. but thank odin i don't have to go back tomorrow. so i can stay home and write some more about it, because there's so much more to share.

aging system fails to keep up with new economic reality

it's a very interesting experience, this being unemployed and encountering the social welfare system to which i've paid so dearly for so many years, both through my (rather alarmingly high) taxes and through an extra unemployment insurance called an A-kasse, through my union. although a job is on my immediate horizon, it won't start 'til april, so i need to enter the "dagpenge" or "day-money" system for a month. and in fact, having paid into the system for so long, i actually want to try it out, to see how it works.  it is an interesting, frustrating and yes, even infuriating experience. and a huge eye-opener into a system that has not kept up with the reality of those facing unemployment today.

in many ways, i think it's fair enough for there to be some oversight and monitoring of people who are, as the brits put it, on the dole. so a certain amount of paperwork is fair enough. it's also fair enough that you have to be actively seeking employment so that you can rejoin the ranks of taxpayer and not payee (tho' interestingly, you ARE taxed on the money you get from the government - that's a whole 'nother issue that i won't go into at the moment).

the first thing you are asked to do is enter your "CV" into an old-fashioned and cumbersome online system called the jobnet. i am, as you know, quite good at things internet and it still took me the better part of an hour to do this. there is one point where you should give a written description of your work life thus far and the skills and talents you have to offer to an employer. sort of like you do at the top of a normal CV - a profile of yourself. however, it is limited to 250 characters, so it's kind of like the twitter version of who you are and what you want. i found this quite limiting, i must say.

at the end, after you have entered all of this, the system helpfully suggests some jobs to you that are found in its database. for me, the system admitted that it didn't have anything that matched my profile, but suggested that i have a look at several jobs that were marked as "hot" with a little red chili pepper symbol. the "hot" jobs the system suggested i apply for included: telemarketer for a mobile phone company, helper in a nursing home and yes, you guessed it, cleaning staff in a hotel. at this point, i said, aloud, WTF?

apparently the system, which forces you to spend the best part of an hour entering a whole lot of information about your work experience and education, but will not allow you to actually upload your real CV, doesn't actually know what masters degrees and ph.d. programs and fulbright scholarships and elite american universities really are. is it really relevant for me to enter my real and true information into this system that is so clearly targeted at someone on a totally different plane(t) than i am?

i realize that this sounds rather arrogant and in a way, i don't mean it to, but in a way, i do. seriously? this system was clearly developed when denmark's unemployment was for all intents and purposes nul. so anyone who was on the job market was looking for telemarketing or a cleaning job. but now, the reality is something quite different--there is a job market full of highly-educated people with extensive work experience on the market. and the system hasn't changed to reflect this.

next week, i actually must attend a two-day course which will help me determine my "competence" and then write a CV. hello, people. i could TEACH that course. without preparing in advance.

i also have to log into this ridiculous jobnet on a weekly basis and apply for two jobs. two jobs that are apparently listed there in the jobnet. so they are actually FORCING me to apply for telemarketing and cleaning jobs in order to get grocery money for one month. it makes no difference whatsoever that i have a job lined up, nor does it matter that i've paid into the unemployment insurance scheme for ten years. if i want that one month of assistance, i have to jump their hoops, because they have made the hoops the same for all.

although it gave me a serious headache mid-afternoon when i was knee-deep in all of it, i am now more relaxed and ready to take it as the sociological experiment that it is for me. a test of the system, if you will. and i'm going to do quite a lot of writing (in my journal, don't worry, i won't subject you all to all of it) about the psychological effects of such a system. i have to admit that it already feels quite defeating and psychologically damaging to enter my experience and education and have the system suggest to me that i become a telemarketer. the implications on job seekers and society at large are potentially devastating.

i'll bet this isn't the only example of a system that's broken in the face of the new economic reality.

an eye-opener

today was the day of the inaugural meeting of the artists' group that's being formed in my community. i decided last month to join and paid my 100DKK fee to be part of the group, but as the meeting approached, i felt less sure i wanted to go. however, i took hold of myself this morning, flat-ironed the hair and drove over to the meeting, artwork in hand for the photo for the local newspaper. it was one of those moments when you dress up a bit too much because it feels like the best way to feel psychologically prepared. so, on with my fave gap dress, funked up with electric blue tights, grey socks and purple furry boots--looking suitably arty, right? (why did i not have someone snap my picture--oh right, because they were all still asleep when i left.)

thankfully, i pulled up at the same time as a very nice, smiling older man who actually spoke to me (i actually wondered for a minute if he was danish--he was) and walked in together with him and ended up finding a chair and sitting next to him in the back of the already-crowded room. no one said hello (not that i expected them to). soon, the meeting got underway. strangely, it started off with a list of what the association wasn't, given by the presumed chairman of the board (she wasn't elected yet at that point). i found it a strangely negative tone to start off on, especially as it mainly consisted of a lot of whining and pushing away of responsibility by the board that wasn't even yet elected and foreseeing of problems caused by group members who weren't yet causing any trouble. i sat back and reminded myself to put on my anthropologist hat and just observe the natives in their natural habitat. they say that anytime there's a group of at least five danes, they will form an association of some sort, so i wanted to see this in action.

one of the most interesting and to me, incomprehensible, aspects of the meeting was the presence of what they called an "overstyrer." this seems to translate, as near as i could tell, as meeting nazi--as she rudely interrupted people, spoke in the most patronizing, agressive manner, only allowed grown adults to speak if they had raised their hands, cut them off and loudly answered "no" whenever the gentleman taking us through the by-laws point by point asked if there was any feedback--thereby preventing anyone from offering any feedback at several junctures. what was most strange is although this particular individual was not elected to the board, she ran the entire meeting, even closing it with a little speech that conveyed that she thought it was a room of small, dull children rather than grown-up adult, creative artists, most of whom were in their 50s and 60s. it was really quite astonishing as a cultural phenomenon. i'll admit i don't yet have my head around it.

i wasn't the only one astonished, as at the end, one of the older gentlemen--one of six in the room that i had decided really looked like an artist--called her on her patronizing speech. she didn't take it well and the other righteous women in the room rallied around her, so she didn't actually learn from it at all, which was a real shame.

however, there are good things about the group. it's cool to be part of a group of 68 artists that live in my community. there's going to be an "art route" on may 17, where the public can go around and visit the studios and workshops of all who want to participate. i signed up for that, as my studio is perhaps my main point of pride (other than the famous kitchen, of course, which i'm still a little giddy about) and it will give me the push i need to be ready for that (i'm a girl who needs an assignment). i think it can only do me good to meet artists and find sources of inspiration within my own community, rather than almost exclusively online (as much as i love and appreciate all of you).

i guess overall, what surprised me most is that i thought that a group of artists would be extremely open--open-minded and generally open as people, but quite the opposite was true. their views on the incorporation of the group were really very square and what i can only characterize as non-artistic in nature. at one point, several people wanted to exclude young people under 18 from joining (not that there were any there), but why should young artists not be welcome? i just really didn't get that and luckily one of the elder voices of reason spoke up on that point and it was voted down. there was a closedness that surprised me, tho' i suppose it shouldn't have in light of how denmark is in general. i just expected artists to be different. in all, i guess it was an interesting experience.

i'm curious to get to know some of the others and find out why they got involved. i think it could be a real eye-opener for me to learn that, because i'm beginning to think that it's not for the reasons i would have imagined.

a day i'll never have back...

this was one of those days...so full of promise, so much time stretching before me and so utterly wasted.

you know the kind of days where you go from task to task, doing a little of something here and little of something there, but finishing nothing. you drive to ikea. you find the stuff. although you are very focused (this is, after all, your SIXTH trip in 10 days), it still takes forever--mostly because you are unable to shed the cultural and societal pressure of following those damn arrows through in the right direction, not to mention the irresistible call of the meatballs. the line is long but that doesn't really matter because you have the world's worst queueing karma anyway, the cashier is slow and then a little suspicious when your addled brain accidentally tells him you have twelve shelf brackets when you really have fourteen. despite this, it still occurs to you that maybe it would have been easier to just move into ikea. because if you lived there, you wouldn't really have to worry about the check-out. plus, everything is so pretty! and very swedish! ;-)

on the drive home, the meatballs let you down and you crash hard (not literally, but almost), feeling very, very sleepy, so you have no motivation whatsoever to pick up any of the million tasks you were working on (lining drawers, hanging pictures, arranging books) before you embarked on the ikea mission. and then you have to take husband's oldest child, who is suddenly mad for bonsai trees to the plant school where you needed to go anyway to get dirt to repot the very tall palm tree you bought for the addition in ikea. you drag yourself through this as though there is lead in your shoes.

you make a coffee. it doesn't really help. you go into the dining room where you see that husband has actually removed a bunch of the books you so carefully arranged yesterday and you try not to cry because he is just trying to get the new shelves in place correctly. but it seems a little overwhelming. they send you to get pizza for dinner because let's face it, you're not in the frame of mind to make any dinner. then you remember that you have a parents' meeting at the school this evening. so you know that this day is now completely a wash-out.

the first bit of the parents' meeting is good--it's interesting to hear what the teachers have to say. they give an overview of what's on the agenda for second grade, aside from some worrying statements about a subject called "christianity," you think it sounds pretty ok. you spend a few minutes having a conversation with yourself in your head, reminding you that they have such a subject in a country where there is a state church rather than a separation of church and state. you make mental note (and actual note in little black book) to discuss the subject with sabin and encourage in her a healthy skepticism.

your mental reverie wanders to the difference between the two second grade teachers. one is a traditional teacher-type--a little bit hippie-agtig (that's one of those danish words that's just better than "ish") in clothes she made out of hemp fibers she wove and dyed herself (or so you imagine--it is your reverie, after all). the other in a tailored white blouse, smart jeans and an expensive haircut--still looking every bit the lead stewardess flight attendant she was before she became a teacher.  you're a little bit glad that your teacher is the former flight attendant. she looks like someone who belongs in business class and seems like someone who would keep a cool head in an emergency. tho', of course, you hope there aren't any of those in the second grade.

then, the meeting breaks into the two classes and out comes the cake and coffee.  you gaze around the room. these public institutions are very alike--they have curtains of a certain pattern that can only be called offentlig and they all have designer arne jacobsen chairs. you try to focus, but it's a lot of talk of planning obsessively some picnic tour next may. that's may 2009. you have difficulty focusing on such discussion as you have no idea what you'll fancy doing tomorrow, let alone may 2009. you can't commit to that date.  you think, wow, this discussion is really danish. is there no viking spirit left in these people? the vikings surely didn't obsessively plan the raping and pillaging months and months ahead. they just packed up the boats and rowed away when the wind was right.

then came the great risengrød discussion (it's a christmasy rice porridge) and for the past two years, we've had an evening where we all eat it together and make christmas decor. i think we may have decided to do it again, but by then i was heavily into fox-like thoughts of chewing off my own arm in attempt to escape.

then there was the great homework discussion, during which it transpired that there wasn't really too much homework, but the kid of the one who brought it up was just really, really slow.

i amused myself by going around the room and making a mental note of which newspaper each person/couple was. i have a theory that you can tell by looking at people, especially danes, what newspaper they read. there were 2 politiken couples, one jyllands-posten, possibly 2 berlingske (including myself), no information (unless i include myself again and it doesn't really count because it's my auxiliary backup newspaper) and the rest (read: overwhelming majority) were either BT or extrabladet, which are arguably NOT newspapers at all. i told myself that this internal dialogue was anthropological in nature and definitely not elitist snob in nature. but by then my brain was mush and i might be a little bit wrong about that.

anyway. tomorrow is another day and the new version of my list, while still long, shall be done tomorrow. wish me luck!

#300 - this had better be good

this is my 300th blog posting since i created the blog, which i did in '04, but i didn't actually start blogging in earnest until this past january. it's really weird how those round numbers seem to have some sort of significance. why is that? luckily, i have something to write about, because it feels wrong to fill a round post with the mundane. this should really be a moment of perfect clarity. let's hope it is! 

some friends of ours got married yesterday on 08.08.08. they got the infinity symbol engraved on their rings, pushing the whole 8-thing to the maximum. i think that was pretty cool. they are in their 40s, both have children from previous relationships and so this is a real true love kind of marriage, they're not proving anything to anyone but themselves and that was so nice because it meant that it was all about relaxing and enjoying the day.

the ceremony was in a little country church that must have been added onto several times over the years, as the main part was really quite tiny and we (who got there only about 5 minutes before the bride) were actually seated in another "wing" that went off from the main aisle, which meant that we couldn't actually see any of the ceremony except for a quick glimpse of the bride as her son escorted her down the very short aisle to the front and out of our line of sight. 

it was one of those church services where i felt totally out of place...everyone else seemed to know when the standing and the singing and the sitting and the standing again and sung "amens" were coming, but i was bewildered and a beat behind all of them. i had a terrible time understanding the minister, as his accent sounded very strange. later, even the danes said they felt the same way (whew, i thought my few days in norway this week had somehow wrecked my ability to understand danish!). they thought he'd had a stroke at some point and his speech was affected by that. i was quite relieved that it wasn't just me.

the bride and groom meandered on foot over to the local community centre where the party would be held. it was a very relaxed and happy procession and many of the guests also walked over. it's so nice with second weddings, the couple in question always seems to enjoy them so much more!

i will admit that i was nervous about attending a danish wedding. i had been to one 8 years ago and had had such a miserable time that i had to step outside twice to bawl my eyes out. or perhaps it was just the smoke from the chain cheap cigarillo-smoking grandfather that was seated next to me. or the fact that i was in the early stages of pregnancy with twins and not yet ready for anyone to know that, so i couldn't even drink to cope. or perhaps it was because there were 11 songs and speeches, including one from the cat, for a couple with a limited range of interests (which had pretty much been covered in the first 2-3 songs). or maybe it was because my husband's ex-wife was also invited and i was feeling a bit insecure about that. in any case, i was totally unable, on that previous occasion, to appreciate it in any way, not even from an anthropological or sociological standpoint--observing the natives in their natural habitat and such.

so, i was a little bit nervous. these are friends, but not our closest, best friends (tho' our closest, best friends were there). we have spent new year's with them a couple of times and been to birthdays and summer parties, but only knew a few of their friends. i didn't feel i knew them well enough to know what the level of sentimental songs/speeches would be and i was dreading those.

let me say that when danes have big, significant parties, they often make up songs for the guest of honor. think cheesy lyrics featuring anecdotes of trips to mallorca set to famous melodies. you actually see ads in the paper for people who do this "songwriting" professionally. if you're too lame to actually put together a song for your friends, some stranger who doesn't know them at all will gladly do it for you. in my experience, the cleverness of these songs is limited at best and is only meaningful to a very small percentage of the audience that attends any such party (it can be birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, confirmations that are the occasion for such songs) and pretty much a vaguely embarrassing situation for everyone else.

i don't know what was different about this party. for one, there were only two songs and 3-4 speeches. the speeches were very appropriate to the one giving them--the groom gave a speech that was just very much him. his mother gave a good speech that said a lot about the generational shift that i don't think knew she was saying (more about that in a minute). friends spoke, from the heart and in a very real, grounded and caring way (more about that too).

it was also about me being in a different place. i could have wine because i wasn't pregnant this time. and i understand danish a whole lot better than i did 8 years ago. and a really charming, lovely girl from namibia (who lives in iceland and will be an icelandic citizen in october) was sitting across from me and we had a very interesting conversation with her. 

the groom's parents are rather elderly and they were an old shipping family whose shipping company was wrestled away from them in some uproar years ago. there is a clear generation gap that is also a gap in social standing. his mother, who is 82 and was perfectly lovely in a long, formal purple gown, with perfect earrings and coiffed hair, is clearly of an old fashioned upper-class family. she speaks in the same accent as the queen and isn't entirely comfortable in a provincial community building, nor does she entirely understand why her son wants to live in an unfinished summer house with his new wife and now four children while working as a pedagogue to handicapped children. for me, knowing the story of no-longer shipowners generation, there is an air of sadness over her that isn't there in her son, who apparently never really knew that life and embraces the life he lives. very interesting to observe if one is anthropologist for an evening. and was very revealing of family dynamics. 

the friend who gave the most touching speech was also an interesting study of the natives. i've often ranted on this very blog about people being very cold and closed in denmark. but, what is quite amazing is their capacity to open up and stand up in a room full of people that they largely don't know and speak completely from the heart and sincerely (in this case without sentimentality) of their feelings with regard to the friendship they have shared with the guest of honor. it is an ability to be admired and treasured. i even got tears in my eyes from this friend's speech. they had both been lonely 40-somethings together, despairing they would ever find "The One," and he was so sincerely happy for his friend to have found her. 

although i never really danced...the DJ was a bit too all over the place-Abba one second and techno the next--we sat together with a big group of friends and had lots of laughs, doing ridiculous parlor tricks (pat your head and rub your stomach) and just simply having a wonderful time with friends.  my faith in danish weddings was restored. it was a wonderful way to spend 08.08.08.