This is How You Begin Again in Copenhagen
He felt short. An endless procession of tall sturdy frames with mostly blonde domes and cerulean eyes passed as he made his way down Norre Voldgade. It was cold but not unbearable. College in Wisconsin had taught him how cruel winter could be. It was March, which meant the clouds that draped the city would soon be pulled back giving way to a season more festive. Still, he didn’t care. He was in Copenhagen.
The year leading up to the trip nearly broke him. Against his better judgement, he accepted a copywriting job at one of those companies great to claim, but less interesting to work for. When people perked up each time he handed out a business card, he marveled at how little they knew about what it was like behind closed doors. A friend had warned him before taking the position saying, “Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you’re supposed to do it.”
The trouble was, his friends were all married and buying homes, soon to be filled with families of their own. For the first time in his life, he felt the need to make appearances. Age seemed to be the great equalizer. His body no longer did as it was told, his mother finally appeared mortal, but mostly, he was now susceptible to the trappings of success he long claimed he was impervious to.
But after eleven months of grinding away at a job he could almost feel etching lines onto his face, he decided it was time to do something — anything as long as it was different. Life’s too short, he thought. And mine’s half lived. One afternoon after another meeting that could have been an email, he walked into his boss’s office and told him he wouldn’t be returning. When he got home that night, he bought a one-way ticket for Denmark.
He rented a house on Kretavej; a street in a residential neighborhood not unlike the one he grew up in a few miles from the city center. He bought a bike, a necessity in Copenhagen, before realizing he hadn’t mounted one since his junior year in high school. Within days, he looked and felt like a local as he zipped past Tivoli Gardens, the changing guards at Rosenborg Castle, and past weary shoppers on Strøget. He wondered if he might have been Danish in another life.
With each day, Copenhagen made more sense than any place he’d ever been. There was no artifice, or motive. The people were kind, usually considerate, and drivers actually stopped at crosswalks. In this strange land, there was a prevailing sense of how life could be if people were more generous with one other.
Of course, he’d only been in the city for a few weeks. There were surely problems that belied the facade of a place that seemed nearly perfect. “Believe me,” a cab driver told him. “We have plenty of problems. We’re a country of complainers.” Still, the distance from the only country he knew and mostly loved, suddenly ushered in a clearer sense of a place immersed in strife that seemed to be getting worse. For the first time, his idealism started to fade. He wondered if it might just be easier to live somewhere else.
His first month was a haze. He ambled down the cobblestone streets of Nyhavn, ate fried French cheese on warm sourdough in Østerbro, and sampled chocolates in Torvehallerne Market. He sat in cafes drinking tall glasses of Danish beer in the middle of the afternoon and wrote bad poetry on napkins. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
He kept mostly to himself but sometimes asked for directions to places he already knew how to get to. Every once in a while he needed to be reminded somebody saw him. On two occasions, he inquired about parks listed in his guide book. Both times, he was met with incredulous stares. When he did finally find what he was looking for, it proved hardly worth the effort — as though someone had let the air out of a balloon. He never used the book again.
He didn’t come to Copenhagen looking for romance. He didn’t come to Copenhagen not looking for romance either. He was open to love, or at least what he perceived it to be. He loved more women than he could remember and some loved him back. He figured the chances of it happening again, four decades into life, seemed unlikely. He had no reason for thinking so other than a hunch, which more often than not proved right.
One evening, he got lost in his neighborhood. He rarely went by street names relying mostly on storefronts or oddly shaped buildings to get his bearings. Even back home, he couldn’t tell anyone how to get anywhere without describing what they’d see instead of the name of the road.
A woman on a bike asked if he was okay as he dithered on Korfuvej. “I’m just looking for a place to eat,” he told her. “Oh,” she said. “Well, there isn’t much around here.” She surveyed the street as if afraid someone might overhear her. Just as he was about to thank her for stopping, she remembered a café two blocks down the road. For some reason, the fleeting nature of his life dawned on him with strange clarity as she disappeared into the cold night. I’ll never see her again, he thought.
The cafe was perched on a quiet corner across the street from a school. It was 7:54 and the restaurant closed at 8:30. “Are you still serving food?” he asked a girl behind the counter. The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties or so and despite a lazy eye, was not unattractive. “Yes,” she told him. “Good,” he said. “I promise I’ll be quick.” She smiled before telling him not to worry.
He took a seat by the window and glanced at his reflection. He still looked young. His hair black and still intact, his skin taut, and the bags beneath his eyes subtle enough. He’d made a decision ten years before to take better care of himself. He stopped drinking, started eating better, and even began running — something he once claimed was less interesting than watching paint dry. After his father died, he’d gone on a tear leaving a vestige of the man he was before. He drank to numb the regrets of a relationship fraught with pain and words felt but never said. The guilt was unbearable, which for him, said a great deal. The only thing he and his father had in common was neither understood the other. Still, he loved the man in spite of their dissonance.
His drinking led to dark scenes, each more perilous than the last. He was quick to confrontation and slow to retreat. He could be indiscriminate in his promiscuity and his work started to decline. One morning, he noticed a gash above his eye half an inch wide and a loaded handgun on his nightstand. When he couldn’t come up with an explanation for either, he quit drinking on the spot.
The café only sat about ten people or so. A group of three sat nearby, their books sprawled across a trendy table with coffee mugs peppered on either side. He learned they were engineering students studying abroad from South America and other parts of Europe. They spoke in perfect accented English while philosophizing about love, life, and everything in between.
When he went to pay his bill, one of them commented on his scarf before asking where he was from. “The United States,” he said nervously. People abroad often treated him differently when he uttered those words. It was something he found frustrating, but also understood. They invited him to join them, which both amused and surprised him. When he sat down, he realized he hadn’t had a conversation with anyone in nearly two months. His being alone had become loneliness without him realizing it.
The four of them spoke easily as he kept a discreet eye on the time. He could see the girl behind the register wiping down tabletops and stacking plates. Still, the students spoke without concern as he explained how he’d left his job and decided to move to Copenhagen. They listened in awe before telling him how much they admired his courage. “I wish I was brave enough to do that,” one of them said. “That takes real balls,” another chimed in. The truth was, following his heart had finally become the only way for him to live instead of exist.
The light above the display case went out as the girl retired into the kitchen. “What do you do now?” one of them asked — a question he’d avoided since arriving. He looked down at his ringed fingers, furrowed his brow as if trying to remember the melody of a song before glancing up at their young faces. He watched as they waited for a response. But nothing came to him.
