it is my last day in copenhagen. i am sitting in Kongens Have, the King’s garden. I have about an hour to kill before the Designmuseum Danmark opens (i missed the ticket office by 18 minutes yesterday), and then i have another hour to zip through the exhibits before i have to run to the airport. time acts as water, then molasses.

this weekend i very rarely saw people alone. couples quietly wrapped around each other, being gentle, soft hair and hands. girls chittering at a cafe, clearly school friends catching up and excited to close the gap time had left them –– judging from the brightness in their voices it will be easy. groups of friends exploring, bits of danish and english and italian floating by. synced crunch of gravel, four feet. funny how often shoes or outerwear would match. 

everywhere, pairs of young men, thrown an arm around a neck, or both of them with hands in pockets, shoulder to shoulder with elbows nestled comfortably like stacked chairs at closing. these pairs were perhaps my favourite to see.

i’m quite comfortable being alone, and surprisingly it didn’t feel awkward for me to be nearly the only young woman walking around in the street, the park, museum, at a cafe, on the metro, not with someone. for a moment i wondered if i should feel awkward, being alone, but the feeling evaporated when i remembered this is my natural state –– an observer, swept in and out of the big beautiful web, joining, twinkling for a moment but always returning to the solace of my own body. 

i packed a lot into these three days. met my first river friend in europe! we sat by the water and the concept of hygge revealed itself to me. giving a word to something gives you a little more access to it, and unlocks all the times you have felt it before. i remarked how colorful it is here, and yasmin laid the groundwork of the city, and hui asked thoughtful questions that gently nudged the three of us together. 

on my second-to last evening, i had a date with a quiet french-danish man, where we sat and chatted in one of the local teeny tiny bars in europe that you are still allowed to smoke in. i felt quite wide-eyed, quite young but still very sure of myself. often the two are mutually exclusive but not that night. 

walking home late afterwards, a girl saw me alone with my headphones in, bracing against the cold, and asked if i was okay. 4am on the M2 felt like a bustling early afternoon and hardly like after-hours. young people commuting and younger people laughing over each other, doing drunken headcounts in the stairwells –– do we have everyone??

in this city i was a feather, carried from interaction to interaction very gently. i never ever felt unsafe.

––

now at another airport, shaking and hungry and grateful and thinking about my horrendous carbon footprint from all this flying.

when i land tonight, i will walk up the stairs to subin’s apartment, black shoes on black steps, black suitcase in hand  –– which i somehow managed to fit a shopping spree and pieces from my aunt’s to-be-posted-on-vinted pile into –– and i will open the door to my friends sat around the couch, appie pie in the oven, movie on...

i have three more days of this bliss, and then i will return to my life, which will be all brand new and never ever seen before!!

for listening like i am in a movie: 

first train home - imogen heap –– "i want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, and love someone / and i can't do any of that here, can i?"

thirteen - big star –– adrian sent me the elliot smith version which brought me back to this one, and i listened to both while walking to dinner alone.

destiny - live - fantastic live rendition by sia who featured on zero7's 2001 hit –– "i lie awake / i've gone to ground / i'm watching porn in my hotel dressing gown / and now i dream of you but i still believe / there's only enough for one in this lonely hotel suite"