When I was a child, I thought that I could see the other side of the world across the ocean.

I never believed myself to be superhuman in this endeavor; on the contrary, I believed that it was something everything but my (at that naïve age) old mother with her ‘failing eyesight’ could see. It was only just sitting on the horizon; a whole new experience just waiting to be reached. Sitting on the beach by my grandparents' house in New Hampshire, the world seemed so small—if I hopped on a boat I could be in another continent by noon, and there were no doubts in my mind that I would someday make that trek...

Thursday, September 27, 2012

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. 


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