9/27/2012- The Concept of Time while Traveling (Copenhagen, Denmark)

The concept of time is always fleeting to travelers—where any time spent ‘away’ seems both like it was an eternity ago that they stepped out their door, and just yesterday, a cliché to be sure. And yet; yet it’s so completely and absolutely true. So long ago I sat atop the mountains above the Ilulissat Icefjord, falling asleep to the gentle sounds of calving ice and powerful waves; how short a time ago I worked in the Copenhagen office above Noma, savoring the scents of the world’s top ranked restaurant and laughing at their staff’s choice in prep music. I haven’t been in a town with more than 15,000 people in four months; yet having seen that many from my current bench in Hejbro Plads over the last half hour seems as natural and daily to me as seeing perhaps 75 people a day while in Kulusuk. Greenland was, and is, both yesterday and forever ago; both comforting and frightening me. It’s comparable to a dream perhaps; when you wake it’s truth—no going back.

I just hope it doesn’t fade in time as well. 

                                                                 

                                                     *Just outside my office in Copenhagen, a floor above Noma 

9/27/2012- Reflecting on the Definition of Peace (Copenhagen, Denmark)

The definition of peace. Should be simply—I’ve lived it the last four months. Nothing says peace more than the absolute silence which stems from being in Kangerlussuaq after the Copenhagen flight for the day leaves—being in a fjord, mountains on all sides, no more than 400 people living in town all inside, the midnight sun softly cast down. I knew leaving there I was going to back to a different world; trading snowcapped mountains and only hearing your breath & the wind & the water for the commotion and bustle of crowds and traffic in both Copenhagen and all else.

                -and yet-

-seeing the first city lights below our plane was strange as seeing the vastness of nothing, but-

-walking and driving through Christianshavn stuck in traffic with Malik was unnerving, yet-

-sitting now in one of the city Plads, watching as more people pass by in ten minutes than are in half the country I’ve been living, hearing different languages and cars across cobblestone than a flute bard, smelling not the nothingness in Greenland I’ve become accustomed to but garbage and crisp leaves, sweat and caramelized almonds; but-

-but with the warm air on my neck a sensory overload lashing at me, and jet lag fighting at my head-

                                                             -and yet this is peace, in its own way.