I don’t understand why people make such a fuss over the year end. What are we celebrating? That we are one year older? That time has passed? I am not sure. This uncertainty aside, it is definitely a time to look back in reflection. Was this year time well spent?
A bit over five months ago my family and I relocated for the very first time, to the north side of the continent we have always inhabited. Much like everything miraculous that has happened in our lives, our move to Denmark seemed to happen on a fluke, as the result of serendipity (is there such a thing?) and was accompanied by so much angst, so many questions, so much reshaping and reframing. As a family we had discussed leaving the country we were born in before but the north had never been even remotely in our choices.
We first touched Danish land in March of 2023. It was the very first time we had ever visited and the time when we were coming to welcome a major change in our lives. Nothing was more surprising to me than the instant feeling of home. By the standards of what I had always been told home was there was absolutely no reason for me to feel like that. The people I had grown up with and had known my entire life were not there, my life’s history had developed in another part of the continent. Danish people were supposed to be cold and tough (something most probably pegged on them on account of the weather and darkness). I knew a thing or two about transitioning to a new place and a new job and so I checked everything off to “the honeymoon phase” – doing my best to enjoy it and at the same time waiting for the other shoe to drop as soon as the next phase was going to ensue.
Almost half a year later, walking our dogs on a hale ridden night (more like 6PM really …) amidst the Pia cyclone, I heard myself tell my better half: I am still amazed about how at home I feel here. She wholeheartedly agreed. It bothers me so much that I don’t speak the language because it is like I don’t understand my people. There are so many around me who discourage me from making efforts to learn Danish because it is a hard language. Someone even expressed their disenchantment at the way it sounds. I found myself attracted to the Danish language from the first moment I heard it. To me it sounds melodic and its structure feels interesting. Hard, yes, like any new language you try to learn at 46, but still quite interesting. May the new year bring me the time, the determination and the perseverance I need to learn the language of my people.
The way I feel at home in Denmark today reminds me of the well known story by the Danes’ own Hans Christian Andersen. As early as I can remember, I have felt like the ugly duckling. Not really getting why I could not be like the others. I was either too dark skinned, too hairy, too emotional, too black and white, too much of a nerd, not smart enough to shine, a workaholic, not leadership material, the only girl or the only woman, too head in the sky, too down to earth, too bitter … and the list can go on. For years and years I tried to fit the square peg of the way I felt inside into the round hole of what “the way things are done here” .
And one day, almost by accident, I landed in another nest. And I looked around and people looked very different, they spoke a language I could not understand but for some strange reason, they felt like my people. Personally and professionally over the past months I have experienced the miracle of people looking at me, at my family like we are real, and equal and worthwhile. Could I have been part of a different nest all along? What if I was actually a swan? Dare I even ask?
As miraculous as this all seems, as we are attempting to settle in a new land, a new people and a new reality, I am experiencing a new kind of hard – the right kind, I would say. I have been living as an ugly duckling for such a long time that I don’t really know how to behave like a swan. The other day, talking to a colleague whose honesty was sobering, I understood that I am facing a different challenge these days: I very much would like to think of myself as a beautiful swan but I am still quacking like the ugly duckling most of the time. He put it very bluntly to me that my duckling laments never manage to keep his attention but that when I am able to exert a swan song he is present and captivated. May I have the patience and wisdom in the new year to distinguish between unnecessary quaking and harmonious swan song. May I accept that sometimes neither is needed and not be afraid of my own silence.
My wish for myself in the new year is to continue to discover my swan voice. To begin firmly, over and over again, as many times as it takes. Because this is not an easy feat and growing up is a lifetime affair. I am not entirely sure what my particular swan song is but if I have to make some predictions I would say that it sounds like putting my true self out there unapologetically and with ownership, like being kind, not nice, looking people in the eye, pausing more often instead of filling awkward silences just to keep everyone comfortable. Sometimes my swan song will be dimmed by cyclones of tears or frustration but may this not happen because of attempts to fit into moulds I do not understand or have not created for myself. Because … have you ever seen a swan in full expansion? What could contain that miracle?
Photo by Birgitta Roos on Unsplash
Post cover photo by Marketa Wranova on Unsplash
Connect 