We are each other's adventures

Last week was a week of encounters and reflections. This isn’t quite a diary, but maybe it’s enough..

Monday: Twenty-five years ago, my colleagues and I hired the Executive Director of AmCham Denmark. His anniversary was also his retirement party. His dream job, he said. One of my colleagues back then was afraid he’d see the job as “lifetime dancing lessons.” I’m glad he did. And I’m proud of him, without any right to be, really.

Evening comes early at this time of year. I walked back to the train through the center of Copenhagen. At 5:30 pm it was already dark. Lights in the windows glowed. Shadows moved through rooms, barely visible. L’heure bleu, as they say in Paris. It’s a time of fragile beauty and connection. The light seems tangible; we are invisible, free.

Tuesday: we visited an old poet-friend who has just moved into a much smaller apartment - with a wonderful view and balcony. We consulted on where he should hang some of his many posters and paintings, and then went to lunch at a modest place in a part of Copenhagen I’ve never seen before. That’s how we met Domenico, a young Brazilian from Manaus, whose Finnish wife is studying here.

I gave our friend a copy of my children’s book, The Adventures of Mimi la Fourmi, in the Danish edition. He promised to read it.

Wednesday: a slow day with a visit to a physiotherapist and a talk with the Lithuanian lady who helps with the cleaning. The Lithuanian for “thank you” sounds like the English sneeze: A-choo!

Son number two is back from Italy, where he mostly lives these days. He wanted something light to offset all the good meals there, and ate about 500 grams (a little less than a pound) of fish, plus vegetables, salad, and strawberries. We talked about books and music and ballet, and (inevitably) food. It’s always gratifying when someone likes your cooking. He’s very slender, I hasten to add.

Thursday: Lots of housework and cooking. We still have blooming roses and French anemones (anemones de Caen), a few asters, and coral bells (Heuchera). Roses and English ivy make a wonderful composition.

Friday: Our friend sent me his view of the children’s book. He understood something most people miss. Yes, it’s about friendship and adventure, he said. But more than that, it’s about openness and a feeling that even when you land somewhere you didn’t expect to be, you can view the world from the standpoint of plenty. As he said, “Mimi sees the world as her anthill.”

Halloween has become a big ‘thing’ here. Last year, we weren’t prepared. This year we were. But no one came. However, there were two big parties in the neighborhood. The cookies will be good at Christmas, so the preparations weren’t wasted.

Saturday: We went to the market in Torvehallerne, the closest thing to a farmer’s market or the markets you find in France. As we walked towards the fishmonger, we met Domenico, his wife, their baby, and his mother. Domenico’s mother speaks only Brazilian Portuguese, but the words for welcome are easily conveyed. Our chance meeting felt reassuring to me, hopefully to her: the world is small, Copenhagen is charming, her son has friends who are happy to see him.

Sunday: St. Hubert, they say, gave up pagan life when he saw a Christian cross appear between the horns of a stag. Like any good saint, he has a specialty: patron of hunters. The day of his revelation is celebrated in the forest north of Copenhagen with a hunt. No foxes are involved, although there’s a fox-tail pinned to the first rider. Red coats, polished boots, top hats, and velvet-covered hats.

A constant stream of people swelled into an immense crowd. Good St. Hubert provided the rationale for a celebration of autumn. Children clambered over fallen trees. Families brought sandwiches and coffee. Dogs (on leashes) introduced themselves. We met one of them. Half-collie/half-malamute, she had a white plume of a tail that Cyrano would have envied.

We stood back to give smaller children a better view. One of them was a young girl with a turned-up nose and strands of light-brown hair. Her pale blue eyes narrowed as she looked us over. Then she smiled, looked down, and slid into the first row.

The race ended, and we drove home up the coast road. The sea was calm, and the air so clear that you could see all the way to Helsingør. Sweden glittered under the bright sun.

Monday: We won’t be here when election day comes, so we voted early.

The library is our polling place. I took a copy of all 10 editions of The Adventures of Mimi la Fourmi to donate. The librarian who took them was enthusiasm itself, but who knows how the system works.

Our community is widely international, so perhaps some child from a faraway place will find something to like or laugh about, and learn to love Denmark, or France, or ants, or geese, or friendships. I live in hope.

While we waited for our ballots, we talked with a pleasant Danish lady who’d lived in and visited many lands, many of them places we’ve also lived or visited and loved. We were happy to have met each other. We didn’t exchange contact information, though. This is Denmark, after all.

It’s been a week full of unexpected, happy, encounters. Made me think. Although it may be trite, it seems to me that somehow, somewhere, we are all linked. And although we will never quite understand how and why, we are each other’s adventure. You are mine, and I am yours. Do you see what I mean?