The details of life

Quite ensconced in Frederiksberg, here in Copenhagen. I just let my hostess know that yesterday, I met with a friend whose colleague lives here in the same building. And that another friend I met up with was in a class here with her daughter. Whereas in other places there are perhaps five or six degrees of separation, here I think here must be about two. Should I be adopted here, I would conceivably be related to a wide swath of the population here. And divorce seems to build upon this phenomenon. The rate is comparatively high here, but this really only results in widening the circle of those to whom one is related. A friend was recently invited to a wedding. It was to his father's third wife's daughter of her first husband. Everyone's either a relative or about to be.

I have now been here a week. As many know, this is not my first time here, though I certainly notice many changes. Some small details, some large. Nørrebro Station has seemingly been under continual construction, and this observation stands. There is a different voice on the Øresunds train up to Nordsjælland, and I miss the way the former voice said the station names 'Kokkedal' and 'Nivå'. Outside of errands, such as seeing a doctor for preventative asthma medication, exchanging bills my mother had from her visit here in the 70s, and buying a very nice Bourgogne truffel cheese, I have simply been visiting friends, barely skimming the edges of the city. Yesterday involved petting a cat in the afternoon, and picking hyldebær fruit around a lake to make a homemade drink. While one friend is studying 'sjælens sorg', the sorrows of the soul (he is a priest), this week is simply about rekindling connections, and filling the soul with light and gladness.