Eating herring improves vision

Life. It can be a box or an open window.  Life can change in a moment.  Falling in love. Falling flat on your face. Looking up. Catching an eye or missing a step.

My heart is tied to Paris. The moment I arrived there it swept over me. I had forgotten. The gentleness.  Beauty wherever you look.  Familiar tastes.  And yet, I have changed. I am not the same innocent I was 25 years ago. Or even 15 years ago. It’s my Paris now.  But who would have thought that Copenhagen is mine, too? Not Stockholm, but Copenhagen where the herring is lively and the Baltic sea beckons. They may boast of skinheads, but Denmark pushed me. The blank canvas. The openness. The light.  I hated it from the moment we got there. That should have been enough of a clue for me, New Yorker that I am, hating everything. Of course. So much to criticize. But the flowers were everywhere. The navigation easy.  The edgy saltiness stung my lips.

I will go back to Denmark.  To see how I’ve changed.  Denmark. The place that made me ask, " Oh my darling, who will take care of you?" The place that answered- take care of yourself. There is no one else. Just you. And that remarkable pack of friends you carry around with you. No man. No other, not really.

This ends where it began. Paris.  Back in the city of kisses and embraces. Of sweet summer light. Old lovers. Glimpsing faces I knew and never really knew. Where I dreamt and stopped dreaming. Learned to speak a language of my own that made me mute. The only speaker. The only listener.  It is over now. The struggle is over. There was sweetness, but mainly I was spooking myself. Circling around myself.  Unknown. Unaware. Endless circles. Paris is the place that starts it all. The place I can see myself. It’s the starting point.  I will always return. But I’ll never return in the same way because as much as it feels like home, it’s not. 

Flashes appear in my vision from my right eye. I know that I need to see myself. See. I keep telling myself that everything will be ok. But what if it’s not? I keep telling myself that I can start again. Can I? I am not doubting myself. But what about those boxes we find ourselves in? And the boxes I am surrounded by. It’s no accident that the radio is playing “Little Boxes”.  Petites boites. Koroboshki.