Solo Sailing

http://theadventureblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/solo-sailing-update-jessica-nears-horn.html

So the link above is about two 16 year old girls who are now circumnavigating the globe. How do you, at 16, leave home to brave the elements on a ship when you haven't even been alive two decades? What kind of person does this produce? I'd love to meet these girls...are they more mature? Quieter? Louder? The subject sparks my curiosity.

What kind of person do you become after a trip like that?

The Sky

The sky here is a strange color. It's not the bright blue that I'm used to. It's a milky kind of cornflower, like the ice has moved to the sky. The water is a deep royal that seems to steal the magic from the cloudless expanse above it. The ferries plough through, startling in their contrast, like the dangerous yellow of a hornet's ass. The tourist boats are needlefish: thin, flat, and translucent.

In the great green room
there was a telephone
And a red balloon
And a picture of--

The cow jumping over the moon

and there were three little bears, sitting on chairs

and two little kittens and a pair of mittens

and a little toy house and a young mouse

and a comb and a brush and bowl full of mush

and a quiet old lady who was whispering "hush"

Goodnight room

goodnight moon

goodnight cow jumping over the moon

goodnight light and the red balloon

goodnight bears goodnight chairs

goodnight kittens goodnight mittens

goodnight clocks and goodnight socks

goodnight little house and goodnight mouse

goodnight comb and goodnight brush

goodnight nobody goodnight mush

and goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush"

goodnight stars, goodnight air

goodnight noises everywhere.

Things to fall in love with today:

Bon Iver. How can you be so sad and so happy, and so...wonderful? I want to lean out of the passenger's side window of a certain car and watch the landscape go by. It's like looking out the rearview window at a place you'll never forget. It's like nostalgia and picnics in the park. It's the falsetto longing in a hipster beanie that I just might like to listen to tonight.

Pizza. It was: peppers, mushrooms, cheese, chorizo, salad, tuna (sure?), handmade dough, baking while talking with new friends, trying to eat it like an American and realizing everyone else is using a fork. (fail.) Plus, the giant cup of really strong instant coffee that made for a difficult first mile while running.

Long runs. Of all the mood enhancers that I've tried since being here, I think that running is probably the most effective. There is something fantastic about the immediacy of hitting the pavement. You can't be happy, you can't be sad, you can't be expectant, or mad when running for an hour and a half. After a while, you can only be running. It's rhythm, pain, landscape, trees, cars, people, sidelong glances, half hidden smiles, ducks, swans, panting, sweating, smelling, swinging hair, smiling at puppies, water, wind, air, cold, hot...simple.

The picture on my computer right now. That addictive smile that can get him in trouble and get him out of it. That smile that could probably get me to follow him anywhere. That smile that I get when he hasn't seen me in a while. I miss it.

Maybe, possibly, this city. We'll see. It's growing on me. Like most other things in my life, I have to learn to love it the hard way...

Layouts and Beginnings

I think I enjoy playing with the layout and font colors on blogs more than I like posting on them. Let's try this and see if I can maintain some kind of record aside from facebook postings...

I have been living in Copenhagen for almost 2 months now, and am beginning to feel the warmth of spring creeping up on this southern part of Scandinavia. It's raining today, but yesterday, I had my studio window open and could hear the noises of the harbor. It's yet to hit 55 degrees F, but the days are quickly getting longer (5+ minutes per day!) and there is a noticeable difference in my mood in the past few weeks. I never would have guessed that I could succumb to that circadian depression, caused by 5 hour days and frigid nights. I may have damned myself to that fate anyways, traveling to Costa Rica and then flying straight into heart of the nordic winter. (From the frying pan to the icebox...).

Since I've been in Europe, I've traveled to Malmo, Berlin, and Amsterdam. I leave for Stockholm in less than a week, and will be in Edinburgh after that.

Today has been lazy. Too lazy. I made a blog to procrastinate from doing my homework...oh my.