TURNS
The neighbors told me: “it must be good to be home again.” “But I rather liked it up there,” I told them back.” And they went, “In the cold?” “That's right,” I said. And then they kept silent. I walked up the stairs to the apartment, and a grand view compensated for the lack of the Tromsonian mountains.
I owe Denmark a lot, and I don't think that I got the country wrong, when it comes down to it. When it comes to geography, I rather think that it was Sweden I got wrong, when 10 years ago while crossing the border into Norway from Sweden, almost rather by accident, a reindeer popped on the road out of the blue and started smelling my hands. I had an epiphany: it was not Sweden I was supposed to be in, but Norway. So I hurried up the plateau, with the whole family backing me up, to see what this 'Norway' place was like, and why, although looking just like the other thing of Sweden, it also seemed different. What was different was the smell. My sister claimed that it couldn't be, as we were in the middle of the exact same type of nature. But I insisted that someone was soon going to corroborate my suspicion, that Norway was 'it'. I didn't have to wait too long. My nephew, 5 at the time, went to a water nearby a godforsaken place that popped out of nowhere, just like the animal did, and started exercising his newly acquired perfect and fluent Queen's English on some Germans who were fishing. Ja, ja, this was definitely Norway, ja, ja, za smell. Ja, ja, Norway, it vas better zen Sveden. I ended up developing a fixation with the place.
This made me think that if things don't move as such, they always take a turn. We turn left, we turn right, we take backwards turns, but ahead we go. And hold on to some things we do. As I was turning the key to my apartment in the keyhole, sounds started flying in my head, going all the way back to my time, the 60s. I heard The Byrds and their cosmic titles and hits: Turn Turn Turn, Fifth Dimension, and Eight Miles High. I put on some records, and I almost wasn't so sad anymore for having left the ice behind.
I owe Denmark a lot, and I don't think that I got the country wrong, when it comes down to it. When it comes to geography, I rather think that it was Sweden I got wrong, when 10 years ago while crossing the border into Norway from Sweden, almost rather by accident, a reindeer popped on the road out of the blue and started smelling my hands. I had an epiphany: it was not Sweden I was supposed to be in, but Norway. So I hurried up the plateau, with the whole family backing me up, to see what this 'Norway' place was like, and why, although looking just like the other thing of Sweden, it also seemed different. What was different was the smell. My sister claimed that it couldn't be, as we were in the middle of the exact same type of nature. But I insisted that someone was soon going to corroborate my suspicion, that Norway was 'it'. I didn't have to wait too long. My nephew, 5 at the time, went to a water nearby a godforsaken place that popped out of nowhere, just like the animal did, and started exercising his newly acquired perfect and fluent Queen's English on some Germans who were fishing. Ja, ja, this was definitely Norway, ja, ja, za smell. Ja, ja, Norway, it vas better zen Sveden. I ended up developing a fixation with the place.
This made me think that if things don't move as such, they always take a turn. We turn left, we turn right, we take backwards turns, but ahead we go. And hold on to some things we do. As I was turning the key to my apartment in the keyhole, sounds started flying in my head, going all the way back to my time, the 60s. I heard The Byrds and their cosmic titles and hits: Turn Turn Turn, Fifth Dimension, and Eight Miles High. I put on some records, and I almost wasn't so sad anymore for having left the ice behind.
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