Danish Blue: A Love Story in Three Helpings
Notes from the sweet cream of youthfulness divided by culture, and an aging process that overcame the salty sting of blue.
We met on an island of cream-white sand and swam in the warm swells of the Indian Ocean. Our connection belonged to some long-ago time and arrived in a moment too fast for words.
After a ricochet of love and sex; in a seedy, green Nairobi hotel room, on a camping safari across the wild Masai Mara, and on a hotel rooftop lost in ancient Islamic alleyways, we separated.
We were young, mid-twenties, and our lives hadn’t yet gelled. He was from Denmark, a student on a summer adventure. I was traveling rootless and searching for a different love story, the one that birthed me. So he returned to Copenhagen, and I returned to England promising to stay in touch.
In December, I took the train to the coast, then a ferry that reeked, and another train across flat, winter-bleak stretches of Danish farmland. The thousand-year-old city of Copenhagen sparkled with Christmas markets and strings of white lights reflected on icy cobblestones.
We spent some weeks holed up in his cozy apartment in the old working-class area of the city, red brick blocks with gardens hidden inside. We ate…
