Thank god for swingsets.

I sat at dinner, thoughtfully invited by Søren, and ate quietly. Quietly, because I had no idea what anyone was saying. I caught the occasional word. Potato. Chicken. Many. Father. They are not trying to be rude, but I am the only non-Dane in the group of seven. I am not upset, because I know they are not trying to exclude me. But I am frustrated, because even if that is not the intent, it is the end result. The conversation has nothing to do with me directly, most conversations don’t, even in the USA, but it is still interesting to know what people are saying. This is, after all, why I am in journalism. I am interested in people.

It is my own fault, however. I am the one that came to their country. I am the one that does not know their language. I had good intentions. I checked out the “Learn Danish” books and tapes from the library. They laid untouched on the floor of my room while I watched America’s Next Top Model reruns and fucked my roommate.

So I finish my chicken, quietly. Get up and wash my plate, quietly. Scream, quietly. And go to my room. To find a poem waiting for me. A poem in response to something I wrote a while ago. It was the first time I have cried in more than a month. I cried for what is and what had been and what will be. Then I pulled on some jeans, a hat, my coat and Chacos. I grabbed my mp3 player, joked with a German and headed out for a walk. To my failsafe happy place–the swingset I had found on my way to the grocery store, making a careful mental note of where it was, thanking the powers that be that Danish people seemed to realize the importance of swingsets, unlike the Ogden authorities. And I smile, remembering sadly the night I searched in a near panic for a swingset in Ogden. Trying to hold back tears while Louis searched online for playgrounds. It seems so long ago now.

My feet hit the pavement to the voice of Regina Spektor. I break into a slow run and my lungs begin to burn, but I feel this frustration purging itself. I am there. I settle carefully into the tire swing and idly drift for a moment, until some strange passion comes over me, and I begin to pump my legs, swinging higher and higher and higher. Eyes closed, I am in a trance, a reverie. Leaning back I open my eyes to the dazzling brilliance of the night sky and the beauty of the shadows.

Peace returns. My soul is calm. And suddenly I am flying off the swing, running back home, shins aching and side stabbing me.

Life of Di