det skal nok gå

autumn is closing in on us. the days are visibly shorter. the wind is more blustery. it's cooler. and mornings are crisp. i feel mostly ready for it (tho' i do hope that guy comes with a new furnace soon). it feels like things are winding down, even as they wind up - i'm busier, sabin's busier, husband is busier. life is rushing past at the moment. energy is being channeled in new ways. time is being spent differently than it was. new projects. new friends. much-needed long conversations 'til all hours of the morning with old friends.

but i was accustomed to the lower gear and i feel like things should slow down a bit. and i should hoard my energy a bit better. when things pick up speed, i tend to waste it on things i shouldn't. fall into old patterns, rather than remembering and embracing the new ones. old procrastinations. old ways of focusing (or not, as the case may be).

i have to remember to take a moment to gather acorns. pet the kitten. pick up the child. ride the horse. breathe. and enjoy the autumn. i love spiderwebs in the morning and crisp cool air. raspberries ripening. chutneys bubbling on the stove.

there is time for everything if you just make it.

true story

true story.

thank you, fabulous folks at story people. you constantly read my mind.

welcome to denmark, now shut up and eat your smørrebrød

there are a lot of things i don't understand.

like how if slightly older men present something and you ask questions about it, they try, almost immediately, to write you off as a.) a woman, b.) a foreigner and if those don't work, c.) a bitch. you are present at the meeting on the same footing as they are and should therefore have the same rights they do to be part of the process and ask questions. in fact, that's the whole idea. the idea is to have a well thought-through decision made, based on good information and good arguments. and not just hand the design of the building to the chairman of the group. (or have i somehow misunderstood?)

i also have trouble understanding how someone can go on and on about the fabulous design of a new library/culture house in copenhagen and then when it's discussed that the group go to look at such buildings in other towns, and you suggest the much-praised building, the whole room recoils in horror. because it's in...(gasp) copenhagen. and that's (gasp) on the devil's island, which may as well be the moon, or possibly the very inner circle of hell.

and further, i utterly fail to grasp how someone can say, when you are in fact, an immigrant, that the aforementioned building (which he brought up in the first place) isn't relevant because it has to serve (gasp) immigrants. and i should note that the word "immigrant" - invanderer - in danish has taken on an extremely negative connotation in the past decade.

one more thing i fail to grasp is how you can fail to bring enough copies of a really important document to the meeting, when you know ahead of time precisely how many people will be attending the meeting. and how when you, in fact, are ONE copy short, you are entirely unapologetic about it and when asked, at the end of the meeting, if you're going to send a copy to the person who didn't get one, you refer to her as an "old witch" to her face. 

so let's review - i'm an old witch of a damn foreigner.

welcome to denmark.

but to get serious for a moment, why on earth is it even still possible more than a decade into the 21st century, for men to be able to write off the intelligent questions of an intelligent woman and brand her a bitch for asking them? and what can we (and by we i mean me) do about it?

edited:  this makes me feel so much better. thank odin for the new york times.

of course we have a camel for a neighbor

it seems i have only a limited amount of words at my disposal. and when they are going elsewhere, i have none to leave here. i've been editing a book. i think i'm actually pretty good at it (could it be i found my calling at this advanced age?), but it's pretty time consuming. and has filled my brain for days, leaving room for little else.

* * *

i've also just reread murakami's wind-up bird chronicle. he always makes me feel a step apart from the ostensibly real world (if i even know what that is). his words are so beautiful it feels pointless to try to put any down on the page (let alone send them out into cyberspace). plus, he makes me think it would be a good idea to spend time down a well. too bad ours is full of water.

* * *

polylingual poet cia rinne doesn't lack words. i wish i'd been at louisiana to hear her yesterday.

* * *

not a whole lot of words here in sign: moa + holmberg
i'm fascinated by the spare, clean, modern, scandinavian aesthetic, even as i could never indulge in it myself.

minnesota nice or things i like about the states

i had no idea that my promise to share a list of good things about the US would cause such a fit of writer's block.  i've found myself sitting at the computer, blogger compose window open, daily for a week and nothing comes out.  in some sense, it's not fair, because there are good things about the US and it's not really for a lack of those. maybe it's just easier (and more amusing) to write about the negatives or the puzzling things (tho' frankly the positives can at times be equally puzzling). but here goes...

things that are great about the states:

~ target. i've had serious withdrawals from the bountiful variety at fair prices and which also gives back to their communities and isn't evil and contains a starbucks as you come in wonder that is a target store. tho' i wasn't that keen on what was apparently their $200 rule - as in, you can't leave without spending at least $200. the trick was to avoid spending the lot of it on nail polish alone. we didn't always succeed.

~ minnesota nice. i learned this term from my friend lisa. it describes those pleasant little conversations that you have with clerks in stores...whether it's about the odd-looking handful of coins you're pawing through to find some quarters or about how you're turning down their store credit card because they don't have any stores near where you live or about what exactly you're going to do with that quinoa or where you got those fabulous sequined uggs. it's a positive interchange and gives such a boost of energy in your day. of course, it's maybe not fair to credit it entirely to minnesota (tho' it IS a marked phenomenon there, even in the big city of minneapolis), as my sister and i had one of those uplifting experiences in our local grocery store right in our hometown in south dakota.

it was the day molly got her shots and her rather brutal ear mite treatment. her vet appointment was at 1:30 and i thought it would take like 15 minutes tops, so everyone was waiting for me to return with her so we could go swimming at the river (sans cat, of course). the appointment took much longer thanks to the ear mites, so by the time i got home, the three children were melting (literally, as it was 107°F/42°C) and whining like crazy. we stopped by the grocery store for snacks (and crisp, refreshing american light beer) and the sweet young girl at the cash register said, "how are you guys doing?" in her best local accent (think the coen brothers film fargo). we responded that no one was whining, no one was complaining, no one has asked 56 times whether we were going to the river and no one had begged for any junk food or candy. and in the process, those things started to be true...and we started to laugh and our stress melted away. all because the girl at the cash register acknowledged us with a greeting.

let me tell you, the danes could learn something from this.

i was talking to a canadian friend (who also lives in denmark) about this the other day. she's a sociologist, so she's thought about it a bit more than i had (hard to believe, i know). i said that i missed those light-hearted, surface conversations with clerks or others in line at the store and told her how much i'd appreciated them while we were in the US. she said she thought they were actually deeper than they appear at first. that when the young very pierced and tattooed clerk in the gas station's eyes light up when he sees your funny coin with the hole in the center and hearts around the edge and begins to tell you about foreign coins in his collection, he's revealing something more about himself...dreams of travel to far-away places perhaps, or a hint at the desire that despite having had ALL of his front teeth sharpened into vampire-like points, he wants something more from life.

which brings me to the next good thing...

~ believing something more is possible. i know that the american dream has come to be a bit ridiculed around the world in the face of financial crisis and political buffoonery. but that pie-in-the-sky belief that if you just try hard enough, you'll succeed and get what you want remains strong in americans. but isn't there something charming about it as well? and something optimistic and hopeful? i think (especially in the upper midwest) there are still a lot of people who believe that if they work hard enough, they can change their lives for the better. not everyone thinks they can take the reality t.v. shortcut to success (tho' it may seem like that sometimes).

however, the american dream is a double-edged sword and has resulted in the bewildering acceptance by the poorest for the concentration of wealth being in the hands of the few, some of whom apparently would like to be president (just not the ones one wishes would (say that three times fast)). it's because everyone has a core of belief inside them that they could make it too and once they're also there, they surely don't want to have to pay a bunch of taxes.

but i've digressed.

~ diversity. the states is BIG. there's a lot of space. and it means that everyone, no matter how wacky their idea, probably can have a little plot of land or a building or a place where they can have a chance to try it out. the mormons have utah. homosexuals and hippies have san francisco. wackos have LA. hutterites have their colonies in south dakota. amish in iowa (and moving into south dakota). there are organic farmers and big-scale farmers. there are snotty, organic grocery stores and there are everyday normal ones. there really is something for everyone. and people come in all colors, shapes and sizes. and it seems there's room for that.

whenever i come back home to denmark after being in the states, i'm struck by how much the same everyone is. the clothing choices, the food choices, the cars, the haircuts, the shoes. it's like there's a danish uniform (and sub-uniforms within categories - nurses, schoolteachers, business people, etc.). of course, it's a bit similar to that in south dakota, where i grew up, but it feels like there's more space (and there literally is) to unfold yourself and be a little different.

so there you have it. and i even went a little deeper than i did with the more negative list. and got past that spot of writer's block.

and i do so love those american clouds.

scenes from a weekend

husband built a very tall lifting device. 

we hosted awesome couchsurfers from france.

they harvested wheat from the field next door.

it appears to be a bumper crop.

we harvested 45 kilos of honey. from just one hive.

they don't call them busy bees for nothing.

there were beautiful skies.

one little kitten went WAY too far up a tree and nearly gave me a heart attack.

frankie didn't help.

husband convinced the child to try out his lifting device.

she was less than thrilled.

we had gazpacho for dinner. and homemade bread toasted in the oven with mushrooms on top.

sabin put avocado on hers and used the gazpacho as a garnish.

molly played in the sunshine 'til she was exhausted.

*  *  *

i laughed when i read this. 

and thought deep thoughts after reading this.

and was sad to finish this all too quickly.

oh what a beautiful morning!

dew-covered spiderwebs sparkling in the morning sunshine and golden fields of grain make it almost ok that there's a crisp hint of fall in the air.