Skin of my teeth, wow thats a funny expression! Never thought about it before. It isnt sometimes until I say something to others and then have to try to explain myself, that I even think about our expressions or begin to understand them myself. I dont have any skin on my teeth.
Up at six, on the train by seven, twenty minutes to bike to the ferry, which google tells me is a ten minute walk. Seeing nobody and no cars i wonder if i am very early or very late or misread the timetables.
A ticket kiosk, i dash in and thankfully find a person as well as the machines with which i am familiar from trains. I must buy a ticket please? She looks at me in disbelief, A ticket for now? i do love the Danish, theres no misunderstanding their emotions, clear as day! She phones through and tells me they will take me but i must use the stairs. Doors are unlocked, pasenger ramp flaps put down and i board. my bike is now propped precariously on the passenger deck instead of down below!
I find i have no words, no desire to recall or record. I am just living. Two days have passed since i wrote this beginning, busy, full days.
I spoke to an old lady today, happenchance, as you do. She says she used to live in Skagen but now lives in Copenhagen, she sounds sad. I say move back? She says ' i sold my house, i weep every day i think of that' and she walks away from me, down the train and i feel her emotion.
Things are meant to be. We meet the people we are meant to meet at the time we meet them. I am leaving my beautiful house but i may want to return, it is my home, it grounded me when i was still working at establishing myself. I have always felt my world in Norwich has always been 'mine' nothing to do with my parents or life hitherto, just me and my girls. Now i need to turn my attention to trying to just be me. And when i am me, maybe i will choose to come home.
Or maybe stay in this beautiful, light land of a totally selfish never never travelling world.
I met an old lady on a train when i was seventeen, her face smiled, she just smiled whilst doing nothing and engaging with no one, her mouth was just fixed in a smile! I was used to dour, turned down mouths and found this notion of another way of existing absolutely aspirational. I loved talking with her.
I met an old lady in Australia. She was travelling with her swag, nothing more. I couldnt understand then what her journey might be and she was not open to talking about it but i now see myself in her.
My mouth has the familial trait of turning down at the corners. Over the years i have not paid enough attention to trying to smile, i have lived a too serious existence. I need to learn a lightness of movement, of being.
