It's Still Life

18.09.23

8:03
Nobody on the beach this morning. A pitched wind; high seas. Not like yesterday’s sun and Sunday. There’s a scattered kaleidoscopic of litter. Left to blow away.

8:15
Sails up. Jibs full. Hulls cut the waves, tack and turn. Out-pacing seagulls, who shout at the wind.

08:30
My hair’s never been longer than my shoulder. I’ve tried but never managed it.

08:34
Women’s hair is either short or tied up in Kerteminde. It’s the wind; it blows you apart and makes your eyes squint.

11:10
Blocks of cocoa-brown fields. A tractor tacks and turns into the wind. This island is in a constant argument with wind.

12:40
I wouldn’t mind a new walking stick. An antique one, I say. He considers that I want a new old stick.

12:45
We drive to Bogense. We are to scrounge antique shops.

13:10
Bogense is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And Sundays because everything closes on Sunday. Every shop. The whole town. I looked at new old sticks through a shop window.

13:14
Bogense’s children draw stick figures and write words with chalk on Main Street’s pavement. Go play in the street, say parents. No worries about traffic on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday, and never on Sundays.

13:45
Look! IKEA! Let’s have meatballs for lunch!

14:45
He’s reading roadside signs on honesty boxes. Til Salg: Kartofler, and æbles, and blommer, and æg. Kro and øl. He’s refuelling his native tongue.

15:20
He says, Dad had one of those. I say, My dad did, too. He says he knows how to drive it. Okay, so he’s one up on me. A farmer drives by on his red Massey Ferguson tractor – unaware we’re talking about him.

16:15
I’ve lost him in the supermarket. Føtex. That’s the name of the supermarket. I’ll start searching in the cheese section.

16:20
It’s just like Christmas, he says, look at it – rullepølse, salami and leverpostej. I’ve found him. He’s in the deli meats section.

Tomorrow we’re going on a tour of a Danish furniture manufacturer.

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©Misky 2023.