dispatch from denmark october 1-6
i spent this past weekend in denmark, two nights on the coast in rødvig for softer global conference and three in copenhagen just to explore.
travelling of course just reflects back what you were already ruminating about, giving the space you need to bring it into focus.
and the word stuck in my head, rolling around in the bottom of my shoe before i left for copenhagen was earnestness.
what makes a "good life"?
in rødvig, at the conference, i met a danish man who walked to the small seaside dock with me during a break between events. i was awestruck by the light, golden hour pink sun lighting up the cliffs and the water.
i said that growing up landlocked in colorado made the sea an endlessly magical thing to see, a treat. he said to him it was normal, something he was used to seeing all the time. "it's just the sea" he said and laughed.
the next morning in rødvig i woke up early to go for a swim, walked to the same dock and stripped to my swimsuit. an old danish woman arrived at the same time as me, removed her large poncho to nudity underneath and said something i couldn't understand. "oh, english! sorry!" she responded: "beautiful day. the water will be warmer than the dock."
she slid in and i followed, not nearly as graceful because my breath caught in my chest and i thought my heart might stop from the cold. i gasped and made a sound and she turned and looked me in the eye and moved her palms up and down, gesturing as she took a deep inhale and exhale with me. i followed along and she swam away and i kicked frantically and got out 30 seconds later because i couldn't take it any more.
an angel in the baltic sea.
and then i felt the best i ever have, walking along the dock in my bikini top and jeans and feeling like i had earned the sun that had burned off the mist and lit up my shoulders.
and i had a coffee at a cafe on the dock where i read my book and where everyone was old and speaking danish except for the man who saw my book and asked me in english where i was from and when i said "new york" he said "that's far, very different here" and i said "in a good way" and he said "life is funny like that" and walked away.
in copenhagen i took the train to the louisiana museum of contemporary art in humlebaek with the most insane view i have ever seen looking out at the sea from atop the cliffside with the most magnificent sculptures on all sides. and i sat on the concrete steps while kids rolled in the grass and people murmured with glasses of wine in hand, looking indeed more at each other than at the view, the maze of wood panneling and glass tunnels behind us encasing tiny giacomettis stretching up out of nothingness towards the sun.
that afternoon i went to copenhagen contemporary and waited 30 minutes to view james turrell's aftershock installation. i was in the second-to-last group of eight. we took off our shoes and put on cotton hospital booties and were ushered in and given 10 minutes with the piece, a smooth and curved and featureless room with a large void in the opposite wall, everything illuminated in vibrant color and briefly strobing.
no photos allowed. it was like being on drugs
on the recommendation of the copenhagen locals that i met at the conference i also visited assistens cemetery, where soren kierkegaard and hans christian andersen are buried. the vines flanking the path were fluorescently red and the tress tremendously straight and tall and magpies left feathers everywhere and many of the graves were adorned with perler bead art as offerings.
in the evening, i found myself at a blues bar downtown where a man named copenhagen slim sat alone on the stage and played harmonica and steel guitar and thumped his foot on a wooden board and sang western songs about railroad workers and lost lovers. the bartender gave me recommendations for blues venues in new york and a discounted whiskey coke.
on my last morning i went to grundtvig's kirke and said five hail marys and five our fathers while looking up at the bricks and i lit a candle in prayer and wedged it in white sand.
if back in new york the word on my mind was earnestness, here in denmark i found myself scribbling in colored pencil about honesty.
honesty maybe as the flowchart precursor to the idea of eartnestness, a box with an arrow pointing out to the right. if i seek honesty then i can be more earnest, earnestness being the opposite maybe of shame and skepticism.
the honest, unceremonious occasion of land meeting the sea, of numbingly cold water, of sunlight meeting me at steel sculptures watching over the horizon, of the purest pinks and blue.
on my trip i read lawrence weschler's interviews with david hockney and saw impressionist paintings in my head, the kinds where you can count the strokes.
i return to an old equation:
see/do/think + repeat = to Know.
artists that Knew the tree in front of them. honest representation in as few marks as possible. deliberate.
what does it mean to strive for that kind of clarity in my life, in word and action? is that what makes a "good life"?
what is honesty in a job, a career? one hour = one hour
in a creative practice: shameless output and distinct marks
interpersonally: initiating with clarity in intention, with fearlessness
and what does honesty in sexuality look like? in desire?
i don't know.
i return to past octobers.
give us this day our daily bread and forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
at louisiana:
i am alive between the serra slabs above the crisp air pushing/pulling on the calder bless me, soft concentric sphere entering through doorways, windows where the sea dapples again and again fluorescent vines autumnal children oblivious and fresh the light is crisp, sharp, long light that forgives sins and asks for nothing in return in california the sun is nineteen and playful and here it's twenty-five, taking nothing for granted persephonic, earned. the land meets the sea honestly, an old dog sunbathing i can eat the blue and the yellow of the green, taffy and pop rocks, chew and let rest. long shadows, sheepskin murmur. walk through rust and glass, through the misty morning sun, slide into the baltic sea as the seed pods fall and the cairn topples and the wood pigeons coo.
at aftershock:
a blue like the end of the world, a pink like the inside of a volcano or the inside of an organ, turning my eyelids green, blowing out the edges dissolving figures a core, an essence, boundlessness the atmosphere on another planet, alive the way a forest is
magnetic
absorption
supernova
vibrance
thick
purity
soft
silent
tactile
gravitational
thrumming
nuclear
weightless
apocalyptic
blissful
heavy
senseless
elemental
at mojo:
to play passionately is to play perfectly, at full force powerful sustained exhale and eyes closed. seeing boxcars from across the atlantic, reflected in steel. a railroad man's life: labor, struggle, love, "momma calling" everything tunes each one transient "i'm going home"
in christiania:
crows or something babbling, laughing, cacophonous dark spots in the yellowing tree. autumn sky purple-gray opening out