of bravery and other admirable things

i might have previously mentioned that husband is a keeper. that continues to be true. tomorrow morning, he's headed for ukraine with three others. they are delivering a truck and trailer load of humanitarian aid, as well as three cars that have been donated by the danish geo data authorities. i'm so proud of him and also pretty nervous. one of the vehicles needs to be delivered pretty far east. and husband will be driving that one. i love his bravery. and how he is willing to take action for a cause he believes in. i'm thinking it won't hurt to say a little prayer for his safety, even i'm not all that religious. might be worth a try. 

2021 :: a second plague year, in pictures

january

it started off ok. a quiet new year's with friends, some baking - homemade sausage rolls, cardamon buns, quite a lot of working from home. we were able to hold a couple of croquis sundays before everything shut down in earnest. we bought a greenhouse on the blå avis and spent a saturday dismantling it and carting it home. and our child turned 20 halfway across the world! so we gave her valentino sneakers in neon pink. as one does.

february

working from home meant my coworkers were mostly lounging around on the bed or staring out the windows. i was jealous of them. we had actual snow and enough cold temperatures so that the lake actually froze and though we oddly didn't skate, we spent a whole weekend down there, enjoying being on the ice, grilling sausages and loving that there was some actual winter. a week later, temperatures were mild, so we dug the foundation for the new greenhouse. i started a 100 days of payne's grey project, but quickly fell behind and abandoned it in a kind of malaise brought on by the monotony of working from home with shitty internet.

march

i bought a bright pink sweater and some ceramics from a local artist to cheer myself up. there were signs of spring. working from home continued and it was nice to live in the countryside to alleviate feeling so confined. making good food and baking were definitely things i chose to do to cope. we finally put the windows in upstairs on the front of the house. i bought an unusual color palette in linen for making a quilt. and check out how badly husband needed a haircut - we fervently hoped for the hairdressers to open again soon!

april

a white papa kitty, who was surprisingly friendly, showed up, signaling the advent of spring in earnest. we found a second greenhouse for only 500kr and moved it home on a trailer via the back roads, rather than totally taking it apart. a lot of april went to working on the greenhouses. i'm not sure i ever got dressed in proper clothes - i may have spent the entire month in sweatpants and a hoodie.

may

things tentatively began to open up and we were able to go back to the office a couple of days a week. i realized that i preferred working at home because the coffee here is much better than the swill that passes for coffee at work. the greenhouses were completed and we planted a few things. weaving at the museum started up again as well, which was very welcome. i attended an embroidery course at the museum in kolding. we hung our spring exhibition, but didn't hold an opening, as larger gatherings still weren't allowed. billy, the prodigal cat, made his annual return (he definitely has another family somewhere) for the summer. the swans built a nest at our end of the lake, but alas, i don't think they ever hatched out any babies. 

june

summer days came - we had a department outing on a colleague's boat, which was on the most perfect sunny day. flowers bloomed, the garden took off and we had our annual sankt hans bonfire. husband ran a 4:18:4 mini triathlon and seems to have been bit by the triathlon bug. i prepared the warp for my crazy striped tea towels and husband worked on the siding on the west side of the house. 

july

i finished the rainbow quilt i had made in early 2020, just in time to give it as a gift to friend's daughter who was graduating. we enjoyed the garden bounty that was the reward of all that hard work on the greenhouses in the spring. i made a second quilt, using the funky linen color palette - planning it as a picnic quilt for my work in the exhibition. we spent all the time we could enjoying the garden. i only took a week off, saving my holiday for a hoped-for november trip to the us.

august

life was essentially back to normal. we were in the office again full time, though we all took days working from home here and there because we had grown accustomed to it. the garden continued to give generously, both veggies and flowers. husband decided to extend the house a couple more meters since he had a new plan for where the stairs should be. an old bloggy friend came to town and explored copenhagen in the rain. husband's eldest ran the copenhagen ironman, which was an absolutely amazing feat of which i am still in awe. i finished the quilt and at our exhibition opening (which was really the closing), i set up a picnic, complete with snacks and cocktails that everyone attending could sample. it was a good month and didn't at all seem like it was in the midst of a plague year.

september

i resolved to grab all the chances i could for creativity, starting with a lovely weekend down in højer with my creative group. it was absolute bliss and i even got a pair of green sandgren sandals in a little shop run by a lovely woman who i believe made up prices for each customer individually. i made an artwork of a focaccia with all kinds of goodness from the garden to take along for sharing and we made quite a lot of linoleum prints while we were there. then, a few days later, i went to fanø for a very enjoyable day with my weaving group. then, our team had a much-needed trip to copenhagen together and went a long ways towards repairing the damage wrought by too many months of working from home and a boss who had gone down with stress. the coffee continued to be much better at home and the garden generously provided flowers for all the vases in the house.

october

i attended a gourmet knitting day where i met some lovely and talented knitters and thoroughly enjoyed the company of women. we saw the latest james bond in a posh theatre with reclining seats - the first film we'd seen in the theatre in several years. a hard frost came and stopped my dahlias in their tracks. i brought the mango plant inside, along with all the avocados that i'd been growing as well. my first sweet potato crop was a bit tiny, but it was fun to try growing them. i'm not sure our climate is warm enough for them. i finished four tea of my crazy striped linen tea towels, in time to take them as gifts to the us. just before we left, i found two kittens i didn't know about in the greenhouse. they were absolutely adorable and we quickly found a new home for them.

november

finally, that longed-for vacation came and we headed for arizona and some sunshine and warmer temperatures. it was a great trip! we went to a sorority gala, the asu-usc football game, we climbed south mountain and we saw the grand canyon and visited sedona. it was so much fun seeing husband see the grand canyon for the first time. back at home, we went to husband's aunt's 90th birthday and i played with shibori in the dye pot twice! once with real indigo. i decided to take a new job in the new year and we put in the windows on the other end of the house. it was yuzu time and i got all that i could and made loads of delicious things with their fragrant goodness.

december

december started with the discovery of a charming little gin bar at halmtorvet and two visits to jah izakaya with colleagues. i find the food there so inspiring and delicious! we did a small belated thanksgiving gathering. husband made me a christmas calendar, giving me a new holey stone every day - he had collected them last summer as he spread stones from a big bag we had ordered in front of the house. when he was doing it, i asked him if he had found any with holes and he laughed at me. but he was secretly saving them to do the christmas calendar. he's a keeper. mid-month, the child came home and that was wonderful. we've been making her favorite foods and taking care of all the things she needed to do - like going to the doctor and getting a pfizer booster to go with her johnson & johnson vaccination. we had a wonderful white christmas with snow on the ground and the most sparkling, beautiful frosty walk. we should have celebrated husband's eldest's 30th birthday on new year's eve, but she got covid and we all had to isolate until we could test negative (we have all tested negative multiple times now). it wasn't the end to the year we expected, but maybe it was fitting anyway. 

* * *

i wasn't going to do a full month-by-month mosaic post, but i found myself perusing the ones from previous years and decided that it's nice to have them to look back upon. so, as always, this one's for me. and what's nice is that as i looked back over the photos and wrote the words here, i realized it may have been a second plague year, but it wasn't really all that bad. 

daily delight reprise : march 5

 

husband called out to me to hurry up as i was closing in the chickens for the night. he wanted me to see this cloud. it was much, much better than this photo indicates. husband is totally a keeper and that's today's delight. 

standing with millions around the world

this group set off for the march around 8 this morning. we thought being at the last stop would make our journey in to D.C. easier. it did, in that we got to sit, but there were many unscheduled delays due to the sheer number of people. you'd think that D.C. would be used to this.

even just getting out when we reached our destination took ages. but the crowd was overwhelmingly chatty and positive. there was an amazing energy in the air.

escalators were all turned off, we guess that it was in the interest of safety. if the escalator was forcing people up and there was no room at the top, it would have been pretty bad.

couldn't resist a shot from the top - so. many. people.

father and daughter discussing technology

(husband was just upgraded from our original iPhone 3S to my old 6 and needed a bit of a lesson)

he's a keeper.

yes, he is.

just a little taste of the crowd. so much creativity on display - both in knitting/crocheting skills and the signs (more about those later).

i can't believe i was here today. such an amazing experience. so much positive energy. no one was angry or aggressive or even remotely making trouble. it was incredible and a little bit overwhelming. but also reassuring and empowering. and despite a bit of ugliness on a friend's facebook wall from the cheeto-supporter set, i still have hope for the future. i marched for the rights of women to choose what happens to their bodies, for equal pay, for equal rights for all, no matter their race, nationality, sexual orientation or diagnosis. for the climate. for the future. for the country of my birth. for my friends around the world, who also marched where they were. for my beautiful, intelligent, talented daughter. for my family. for me.

so great these two were there with me!! one of the most amazing experiences of my life!

i'm still processing the experience and i'm sure there is more to come.

rethinking things

husband has an uncanny ability to rethink things and decide to go in a completely different direction, not being stuck to an idea just because it's what he originally thought and just because steps were taken towards realizing it. he's very open to change and new ideas. and i feel like it's very good for me.  two summers ago, he built a rather significant building to house his sawmill. he now has outfitted a rather nice workshop for himself out there and we were even able to hold sabin's confirmation party in the building. it's a pretty great space.

we're getting ready to buy a barn and a little bit of property for a paddock for the horses from our neighbors. we first broached the subject four+ years ago when we moved in and now they're mentally ready to consider it. we already rent part of that barn from the neighbors, and have two stalls there, as well as our bunnies, hay, straw and a stash of building supplies in the building. it's not really much of a barn, more of a machine shed, really, but it has potential and with a new roof on it (paid for by the insurance after a storm last december), it would be good for us to have it.

and husband is already planning on moving his sawmill and workshop over there, which would leave the lovely sawmill building for another purpose. perhaps a party space to rent out? a bed & breakfast? a space where i could begin to have blog camps at my house again? or maybe we could move into it? the possibilities are endless. and it's so much fun talking all of the ideas over with husband. he just makes it seem like anything is possible. being so open to new ideas and rethinking old ones is really a gift. just another way in which that boy is a keeper.

the damage bodil did

this was husband's wood drying barn.

look how it lifted the entire foundation out of place.

that amazing pinkish-orange light is the sunrise.

and the roof is folded neatly in half

husband got up there and fixed that hole in the roof during the storm.

he's a keeper, i tell you.

the winds haven't really subsided yet, tho' the skies are mostly clear. it continues to blow out there, tho' not with the same force as around 5 p.m. yesterday. we didn't lose any trees here at the property around the house. but we haven't checked our forest yet. a neighbor had a couple of trees down over his own driveway and couldn't even get out. the big barn next door shed a whole lot of sharp shards of roofing onto our lawn. i'm glad we weren't standing out there when they blew free. all of the animals (horses, bunnies, chickens and cats) are safe. and so are we. and that's what matters.

giving thanks

tho' the danes have sadly not realized that thanksgiving is the best holiday (they still think it's christmas, which they actually celebrate on christmas eve), i am determined to be thankful today anyway. so i hereby declare that i am thankful for:

~ husband. he's a keeper. (i think i might have mentioned that before.)

~ sabin. i thought i'd be freaked out to see her getting so tall and wearing mascara and hogging the flat iron, and locking the bathroom door, but i'm not. she's exactly the age she should be. and it's a pleasure to see her growing up and thinking for herself. i'm in awe.

~ the kittens. six weeks must be the cutest age.

~ that i've taken a photo every day since may 2008.

~ going to a play with a group of friends on saturday.

~ being involved in my community.

~ horses. they ground me and keep me sane.
~ good books.
~ moments in the kitchen, making good food.
~ staying up late with friends, drinking wine and laughing.

~ ideas, solutions, opportunities.

~ being provoked to think - by the radio, the newspaper, the interwebs, by people around me.

~ new friends. and old ones.

~ creativity that seems to be coming back to me.

~ living the right life.

i wish you all a very happy thanksgiving!

* * *

the c boards on pinterest: camera porn, cat person, ceramics, clever cookie, color, converse, crazy chicken lady, cupcakes are not muffins (but they might be cake), cutie patootie.

it takes two

we attended the wedding of a good friend of mine this weekend. we used to work together and i used to say that she was the keeper of my brain, or at least my memory and on more than one occasion, my sanity (i should note that the times when it didn't work are entirely my own and not at all her fault).  it was so great to be there to share in the happiness of her day.

it was a gorgeous weekend and she and her new husband looked so relaxed and happy amidst their friends and family. the church was lovely and filled with lilacs and people who were happy for them and children who plugged their ears when the organ played (what is up with organs? they're a terrible instrument). everyone gathered after the ceremony in her parents' beautiful, wide front yard for champagne from her father's own vineyard (in denmark, yes, it's true - and it was good!). then on to a dinner and party that lasted 'til the wee hours of the night. it was truly a stunning beginning to what i am sure will be a long and happy life together.

we stayed with her parents' neighbors, as we were a bit slow (what, me, procrastinate? really?) to book the pension they had reserved and all the rooms were gone by the time we decided we needed one. that turned out to be quite ok, because her parents' neighbors were a couple that knew husband when he was a child growing up in the heart of copenhagen. we had a leisurely breakfast with them in the sunshine before we left, reminiscing over the old times and the people husband knew when he was growing up. it is a small world after all.

but it got even smaller, as it turned out that the groom's parents had worked closely with my father-in-law on his technolution drawings - helping him with the latin names of all of them. husband and i had some nearly-tearful moments talking to the groom's mother about him. it's been more than five years since he died, but we do still miss him. it was very nice to meet someone who had known him and worked closely with him too. it made us both happy and sad at the same time and sometimes those are the best kind of emotions because they're so keenly felt. you feel alive at moments like that, when you are truly feeling something, even if it does make you feel a bit sorrowful.

a little bit weird to run into such connections from BOTH sides of husband's family (his parents split when he was 5) at a wedding where our connection to being there was actually through me, the girl from the other side of the world.

and it makes me think, once again, that we were undoubtedly meant to be. and tho' i shudder at times to think of the chain of events that had to be as it was for us to meet and how easily they could have gone another way, perhaps it's times like this that should make me realize we really were meant to be together. these things can't be coincidence, can they? there must be strong connections binding us - and we would probably have found our way to one another no matter what.

and now, our long weekend is winding to a close. a new week awaits. with new projects and new challenges ahead. but these experiences (and a lot of sunshine) leave us fortified and ready to face it head-on. but first, a bit of rest.

* most of the photos above were taken by sabin.

the keeper

today is husband's (also known as the keeper) birthday. he's thirty-seventeen and mildly alarmed that fifty is only three years away.  but honestly, he's aging very well and somehow this seems like the right age. i baked him two kinds of brownies (raspberry truffle and raspberry cheesecake) and homemade buns to have with cocoa mid-afternoon. i was getting these yummies packed into a basket to take down to have a little skating party on the lake when i heard water dripping in the other room. turned out there was a deluge in both sabin's bedroom and the living room, thanks to pipes upstairs that had frozen during our cold weather and which were thawed out today in slightly warmer temperatures.

not exactly how husband wanted to spend his birthday or i our 13th anniversary, but there you have it.

we'll be without heat overnight, as it's the radiator pipes that froze, but husband has it all cleaned up upstairs and the plumber will come and fix it tomorrow. of course, the insurance doesn't cover it, as it's a bunch of pipes that were cobbled together by the previous owners out what they could find at the dump. but such is life in a really old house. the ceilings were made of repurposed pallets anyway, so they can take a little water and despite a having a little shower, even sabin's computer is just fine (big relief).

it was quite enough excitement for one weekend.

speed dating and that fizzy feeling

over the past few days i have come to understand the concept of speed dating (i realize i'm quite possibly left behind in the mid-noughties with this notion and perhaps no one does it anymore). speed dating in the sense of a fast, intense conversation with a new person, where you ask a series of set questions and form a quick impression. tho' my purpose was quite different than selecting a date (what with husband being a keeper and all) i think that the almost instantaneous sense of whether you click with a person is actually the same. i have effectively speed-dated more than 60 people in the past few days and there are handful that i could almost instantly tell that i would like to hang out with and get to know better.

during two of the conversations (quick word about my project: over a period of ten days, i'm assessing the english skills of 120+ people who work with children) i actually had goosebumps. i was left feeling decidedly fizzy and longing for more time. interestingly (and to my relief), those who i didn't connect intensely with didn't produce an opposite reaction of revulsion - it was more like the conversation was over quickly and there was no fizz. this reaction only marginally had to do with the language skills of the person in question.

this, of course, got me thinking. what is it that attracts us to other people? after this experience, i think it's something quite subconscious and perhaps even intangible. or it involves a whole lot of signals that we both give and receive of which we are almost completely unaware on a conscious level. i don't even think it has that much to do with the topics being discussed, it's just a kind of instant connection. chemistry perhaps? or maybe an ability to pick up on the energy or aura another person radiates?  whatever it is, i was left wanting more.

i can tell that i need to spend more time out among people. that fizzy feeling definitely gives me some much-needed energy.

*  *  *

holy crap, i can't stop thinking about this.

*  *  *

happy weekend, one and all!

the truth: it's a mess around here

one of the most disheartening things about browsing blogs, pinterest and flickr is all of the perfection and perfect styling. i don't believe that people's lives are actually so perfectly styled all the time. i do my share of cropping photos and advantageously placing things so as not to include clutter, so i'm not completely condemning it - sometimes we have a need to appear perfect, both to ourselves and to the world. but mostly, i think it's exhausting. and at times it fills me with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy, because my house is full of spider webs and bits of straw on the carpet and dust on all of the surfaces.

paper gets stacked and half-finished projects piled up. and when it gets bad enough, i go on a cleaning frenzy and tidy it all up and feel much better for a few minutes. tho' curiously, i often don't really feel that great during the cleaning frenzy, in fact, i often find that i'm fuming about all manner of little irritations while i manically clean.

probably worst of all is the "dining room." it's the main big room of the oldest part of the house (the part that's going to be torn down) and it is still (after a year) a repository of boxes of things that shouldn't be out where it's cold and damp - fabric, seasonal clothes, pretty paper, books, etc.) they actually can't be unpacked because without having the house finished, we don't have enough bookshelves or space. so it has to be the way it is. additionally, it's the only place where the dining table fits, so it also has to be there. during the summer, we eat out in our terrace and this room is only used for my sewing projects, but now that it's cold, we eat here too.

i think to an extent you become immune to it and you don't see the boxes anymore and just go about living your life, knowing that it's a sort of long-term temporary thing that you have to live with. but there are times when i look at the perfect scenes in the blogosphere and feel rather frustrated by it all. however, this is a process that we're in and it's going to take time.  deep breath.

as much as i love to cook, i'm not that big on cleaning it all up afterwards. maybe because the room itself isn't that inviting with those pink cupboards and the stained, cheap linoleum floor (why bother to try to keep it obsessively marginally clean if it doesn't show anyway). mostly, husband tidies up after dinner (he is such a keeper) and i'm grateful for both that and having a dishwasher. again, it's something that i know i have to live with - next summer the new "curry kitchen" will be in out in the end of the barn and we'll be able to stop using this uninspiring space.

but now you know what it's really like at my house.

anyway, this is the kind of truth-telling i was thinking of (not name-calling or other such nasty things - i get that out of my system on a private blog). i just don't believe that lives are styled and curated in reality the way they are in today's blogosophere.

so now, it's your turn for some truth, are you relieved or horrified?

deed to a treehouse

DEED

sabin hereby purchases poppelvej 24 (our old address and what she decided to call her treehouse), y17 belch city (bøvseby) for the totally crazy sum of:

25 danish kroner ($5)

according to the transaction and ownership of the above-named, the following apply:

~ a key will be delivered with the deed.

~ adults may enter the property, if they ask nicely and bow deeply.

~ the fireplace (outside, in front of the treehouse) may be used by the owners of the adjacent property if they bring a small oak tree as thanks.

~ no trumpets may be played after 5:23 p.m.

~ no cows, horses, buffalo, starfish or whales may be kept on the property.

~ air balloons may not land on the roof of the building.

~ the building may not be moved to ground level, but must remain a least 1.5 meters over the ground, but no higher than 30,000 feet.

~ only far (supermann) can make structural changes to the building.

~ sabin may decide the interior decoration of the building and outdoor areas and does not have to do what her mother says with regard to these areas.

~ the building may be painted on the outside if far (supermann) says that it's necessary. sabin can choose the color, but it must be either swedish red, black or green.

when everyone has signed below, and the 25DKK is paid, this deed is in effect.

signatures from buyer, the king of belch city (bøvseby) and the sweetest mother in the world.

*  *  *

husband is such a keeper.

the treehouse has already been taken into use as a center for secret potion production, harry potter-stylie.

the view from sunday evening

the view is outstanding from the porch of the treehouse. the afternoon sun hits it absolutely perfectly. it's soon going to be everyone's favorite spot. the house part took shape this weekend and there's even the beginning of a roof on one side. husband decided to put a roof over the porch as well, because the reality of our weather dictates shelter from the rain. but today, tho' a bit breezy and slightly more cold than you'd like it to be, was actually pretty glorious. sunshine and bird song filling the air.

we made a wreath of evergreen bows and flowers from around the garden and held a ceremonial rejsegilde, which is a little party you have once the roof construction on a new building is complete. i was sent for sausages, since they're traditional at such a party. so we ate sausages and toasted with fizzy lemonade to what an agreeable project it was shaping up to be (that's apparently traditional as well). and we basically just took a few minutes to stand and admire the work that had been done and to look happily forward to it being finished.

i'm pretty sure it's going to be much better than the main house when it's finished and i'm pretty much set on just moving into it. sabin and i have plans for furnishing it with loads of big, comfy pillows. hmmm. i wonder if the wifi will reach out there?

but i digress (what a surprise there). what i meant to write about was how nice it was to participate in the tradition of the rejsegilde. somehow traditions are very comforting, apparently even when they're not your own. it gave me, just for a moment, a sense of being part of a continuous chain of people who built things throughout the centuries. all of the hopefulness and optimism that's actually in the act of building something. it's a belief in it being worth doing and a belief in making something that lasts. and a father making a treehouse for his daughter is such an act of love and caring. making something for her, purely for her enjoyment. using his time and strength and know-how and brawn and imagination and creativity to create a room to call her own. i think that's just beautiful. husband is such a keeper.

12 hearts - 12 years

12 hearts - one for every year

12 years ago today, husband became husband. not a day goes by when i don't think, "that boy is a keeper." it's also his birthday. clever that, then he can never forget our anniversary. right now, as my anniversary present, he's putting in a new gas stove arrangement for me. we'll be able to cook his birthday burgers (yes, that's what he wanted) on the new burners later today. i got him some real wellies - neither are very romantic presents, i guess, but it has been 12 years - we have less to prove and more knowledge of what would make the other one happy. so a stove and wellies it is. the sun is shining and it's shaping up to be a good day.

turnabout is fairplay

well, it was bound to happen, after all those interviews, someone was going to want to interview me. bill, who you may remember as that guy from the minimum security lockup somewhere in the pacific northwest, sent me some questions. i have to confess that i was down to number 9 and when i pasted in the blok poem, i accidentally erased everything above it, losing more than a week of work and what were likely my best, most articulate words ever, thanks to an ill-timed blogger save. after lying down to make the minor heart attack pass, i managed to reconstruct it. naturally, i had to add a few pictures...but here's what i had to say:

* * *

Julie, I enjoyed participating in your Q and A experiment and I'm fascinated by your blog bravery to do an open request for interviews.  I don’t recall seeing it done before. So, a bit of turn about seems fair - here are 10 questions which I hope will enhance the blog portrait of who you are.

1. By birth you are a child of the American Prairie and, as an adult, you have lived many other places. Was there a moment when you understood the uniqueness of your heritage and what it means to have roots in the history of that region?

i think i spent a lot of years running away from being from a little town on the prairie. tho' i think i can honestly say i was never a redneck, i definitely know one when i see one from having dated grown up with them. the little town was very conservative and very religious (12 churches in a town of 1300) and i definitely fled that...first to southern california and then to the liberal environs of a big ten school.

i was fortunate to be raised by a liberal father - he always says he hopes that one day he has enough money to be a republican, but until then, he simply can't afford it - and a mother who showed me there was a world outside (by hauling me and my horse in a multi-state region every summer). i am very grateful for that, as that foundation definitely made me a person able to make her life in an small european country miles from the little town on the prairie.

i think that growing up on the prairie gave me an actual physical need for space around me. when you grow up there, in that flat landscape, with waving grasses as far as the eye can see to the horizon, you have an innate sense of space built in. i find that when i don't feel that space around me, i begin to feel cramped and tense.

i think i first became aware of what the source of the tension was in my first year in denmark. i was feeling out-of-sorts and generally uncomfortable and chalking it up to generally dreary weather, darkness and the coldness of the unwelcoming natives around me. then, i worked for a weekend in st. petersburg and i was walking down one of the wide streets of that beautiful city when i realized that all of that tension i had felt had melted away. and it hit me that i could palpably feel the vastness of russia around me and that i felt like i could breathe again. and it clicked for me in that moment that it was because i grew up on the wide-open prairie.

i think part of why we've moved to the countryside is because i'm drawn to that sense of space, but generally, i think my very being feels how small denmark is. there are only two places that feel physically as vast to me as the prairie where i grew up and that's russia and when i was out sailing on an LNG carrier. the sea, when it's calm, has that same vastness from you to the horizon that the prairie has. and i think that's the part that settled into my being from my roots on the prairies.

me at the foot of the divine sophia at ephesus (now sans fuzzes - thanks bill)

2. How do you see yourself? As a leader, follower, joiner, individualist, thinker, nurturer, experimenter, fighter, pacifist or whatever else one can be labeled?

any and all of those things at any given moment. but probably less of a leader, more of a follower, a bit too eager a joiner, a hesitant individualist, not much of a nurturer, a careful experimenter and too often a more of a fighter than i would like to think. but i can definitely say that i'm a thinker and have often been accused of over-thinking. blogging actually lends itself very well to that - i can't count the times i've started off with "i've been thinking about...." but i think (see, there is is again) the one of those things no one would call me is a pacifist. that's not to say that i am in favor of war, as i don't think i mean pacifist in that sense. i'm just not very passive. i'm too impatient for that. i guess i'd like labels like worldly, smart and funny. those i could live with.

gratuitous shot of our wegner Y chairs

3. Hypothetical question. You walk into a cafe and immediately notice people waving to you. On one side of the room sits Søren Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and they’re gesturing for you to join them. Simultaneously, on the other side of the room, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen and Børge Mogensen are also inviting you to sit with them. Where do you go and why?

my initial reaction is to say søren, simone and fyodor, if only because i wonder what the three of them are doing together, but only if we sit in wegner's Y chairs or arne's egg, as they lend themselves beautifully to good conversation. but on second thought, i think kierkegaard's angst, de beauvoir's militant feminism and dostoevsky's religiousness would probably end up irritating the hell out of me (not to mention that i'm not sure they could stand one another), so let's go with wegner, jacobsen and mogensen, but we'll hope that poul henningsen and piet hein drop by as well.

here's a little sample of why we'd like to hang out with piet:

CONSOLATION GROOK

Losing one glove

is certainly painful,

but nothing

compared to the pain,

of losing one,

throwing away the other,

and finding

the first one again.

4. You’ve stated your interest in different crafts - paper, cloth, weaving and such. Additionally, you have a well written blog that's both intelligent and personal. I understand the time restraints involved but have you considered taking the next steps and moving from craftsperson to artist?

"don't mention the war...i think i mentioned it once, but got away with it...." -- basil fawlty

seriously, i think about this all. the. time. i even scribble down business plans and such. but it's plain and simple fear that holds me back. i'm afraid not to know how much my paycheck will be every month (you also, by my stage, have achieved such a ridiculous monthly salary that you are loathe to give it up)  i'm afraid to turn something that's fun into something i have to do. and those fears paralyze me. one of the reasons we moved to the countryside was to simplify and try to prepare our life for me taking that step, so perhaps i'll get there yet.

interesting fashion choices at legoland

5. From your photographs it's easy to see you have a keen eye but there's also some reserve or conservatism. Your photos rarely include people, especially people looking towards the camera (other than family and friends). Why is that and do you think composed object shots are good enough?

ever since i moved to denmark more than a decade ago, i have had to face again and again that i am more conservative than i'd like to think i am with my liberal arts education and liberal father (he once tacked on an amendment to a bill to make the fence post the state tree of south dakota - it was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to point out the absurdity of the bill in the first place, but seriously, no republican would have that kind of sense of humor). so my not taking photos of people is partially this conservatism, but it's also got more to do with shyness than you might imagine. especially of taking photos of people in public. as far as my family goes, every time i try to make them sit for a photo, we all end up frustrated and the photos are artificial. i'd much rather catch them from the side or in an unguarded moment than do actual portraits of them. i think the good portraits i have taken were all ones i just caught and not ones we posed.

edit: i realized i didn't answer the last part about composed object shots (i blame losing my original text. *sigh*). i will say that i've learned a great deal from doing my composed object shots. i've learned about light and shadow and how you often only notice things when you get them onto the computer. i've also learned about how you can achieve a rather different feel through processing that wasn't there originally and completely change the shot. plus, the rocks sit still and don't argue with me. but i will agree that part of the stagnation with my photography that i'm feeling at the moment is undoubtedly because you can only go so far with composed objects and then no farther. i think it's why i've been drawn to landscapes of late (which is also because we have a lake)...they give me something new but still without the people. i'm going to have to ponder a bit more about why i don't like taking people shots, i'm not quite to the bottom of that yet, all i know is that i've never liked it. i even had a friend back in macedonia who used to walk up to old ladies and ask them if she could photograph them all the time and it just totally made me cringe with embarrassment, tho' i admit she got some great shots.

6. Here’s another hypothetical question. You're dead and there’s a memorial stone (large beach pebble?) commemorating your life. On that stone is a button and anyone can walk up to it and push it. When the button is pushed, music is heard. What music do you choose to be heard?

the song that came immediately to mind is sheryl crow's all i wanna do. i'm not sure if that's deep or pathetic. the second song is madonna's express yourself. i'm a 90s girl, what can i say? i wish it was deeper or even more musical than that, but there you have it.

7. It’s summer and you’ve decided to take a hike. At the trail head there are two choices: One is a walk through a valley with lush meadows filled with flowers and birds. The other one winds under a forest canopy with occasional streams, small waterfalls and ultimately reaches tree line and there's mountains with scenic views? Which path do you take?

i'll go with the meadows. again, i think it's the prairie heritage. i think mountains are beautiful, but i don't have a need for them like i do wide-open spaces. denmark has nice forests to go for a walk in and i do love to try to find mushrooms and i enjoy the forest, but meadows, with the rustle of grass in the breeze, they just calm me. tho' i have also learned to love a harsh beach - not the kind where you laze about in the sun, but the kind where you need your rubber boots, a scarf and a warm jacket and you can't hear yourself talk because the waves are pounding on the shore with such force and the wind is really blowing. those can clear my head and calm me too (but that wasn't really part of the question, was it?)

8. Judging from your blog(s) you never sleep. With job, family and new property and house, how do you juggle what you do? Do you devote a particular amount of time to each of your endeavors? Or is it more spontaneous?

totally spontaneous. and i'm a night owl. i stay up too late every night, tho' by thursday i'm usually really tired and i go to sleep at a reasonable time that one night a week. i watch very little t.v. and if i do watch t.v., i'm always attempting to knit or stitch or paint feathers on stones while i do it. i also never put away the laundry and husband does the dishes. and the ironing (except the tea towels, i iron the tea towels). it's the beauty of being married to a dane - the males of the species are completely domesticated. that's part of why he's a keeper.

9. What great or memorable past experience would you like to re-experience?

two things come to mind, one is a train ride in the balkans in the summer of 1997. the temperature was perfect, the wind coming in through the windows of the train was perfect. i was wearing my favorite dress. the landscape outside the train featured ruins and farms where they were still using horse-drawn implements. i don't think i ever felt more alive before or since that night. i would love to experience that again.

and the other isn't really something i've experienced myself unless you believe in reincarnation. i've mentioned before that i'd like to have lived in 1913 - to have experienced the creativity and change that was in the air, especially in russia, in that era.  to hang out with the symbolists, the intense creativity of those involved in the ballets russes, the dramas, the salons, the whole aura of that milieu just appeal so much. even in denmark, at that time, asta nielsen was becoming the world's first film star with her abyss. it was such a dynamic, sweeping time. i would love to have been part of it. somehow blok's the stranger (neznakomka), tho' it was written a bit before 1913, captures it for me.

 The Stranger

The restaurants on hot spring evenings

Lie under a dense and savage air.

Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers

Contaminate the thoroughfare.

Above the dusty lanes of suburbia

Above the tedium of bungalows

A pretzel sign begilds a bakery

And children screech fortissimo.

And every evening beyond the barriers

Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm

Go strolling beside the drainage ditches --

A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.

The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water

A woman's shriek assaults the ear

While above, in the sky, inured to everything,

The moon looks on with a mindless leer.

And every evening my one companion

Sits here, reflected in my glass.

Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.

Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.

The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables

Waiting for the night to pass

And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits

Cry out: "In vino veritas!"

And every evening (or am I imagining?)

Exactly at the appointed time

A girl's slim figure, silk raimented,

Glides past the window's mist and grime.

And slowly passing throught the revelers,

Unaccompanied, always alone,

Exuding mists and secret fragrances,

She sits at the table that is her own.

Something ancient, something legendary

Surrounds her presence in the room,

Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,

Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.

Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,

I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil

And I behold an enchanted shoreline

And enchanted distances, far and pale.

I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,

Someone's sun is entrusted to my control.

Tart wine has pierced the last convolution

of my labyrinthine soul.

And now the drooping plumes of ostriches

Asway in my brain droop slowly lower

And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless

Are blooming on a distant shore.

Inside my soul a treasure is buried.

The key is mine and only mine.

How right you are, you drunken monster!

I know: the truth is in the wine.

-alexander blok

10. I said there would be no food questions, I lied. Can a guy get a really good Mexican burrito in Denmark?

you most definitely cannot. way, way, way too far from mexico. and there's a totally insufficient influx of mexican immigrants. and the danes don't realize it's just wrong to put creme fraiche in the guacamole.

* * *

thank you, bill, for these questions. since you sent them, i've been pondering that interaction between kierkegaard and dostoevsky and trying to figure out why i never take pictures of people. so you made me think and that's really the best thing one can ask. do be sure to visit bill's blog - just a moment of miscellany, he'll undoubtedly make you think too.