In-Between Days
My old flat in Copenhagen was on the third floor of an old building. Looking back, my life there felt like a big gulp of air waiting to be exhaled. I had finished university and was waiting for the rest of my life to begin. I liked the place, although I couldn't afford to live there on my own and had to rely on lodgers to make the mortgage. I had two tiny rooms to myself which overlooked a waste land (now part of the Copenhagen Business School emporium), I had a wall of overflowing bookcases and I had a fancy Italian stove which I still regret having to leave behind. And my flat had wonky old floorboards which a previous owner had stripped bare. I loved walking across them in bare feet: they were wonderfully warm and soft. They'd creak. Every so often my belongings would disappear into the ever-growing cracks between the floorboards. I'd joke that sometimes it felt like I disappeared between the cracks too. The joke of someone fed on fairy-tales and folk tales.
Yesterday I felt as though time had fallen between my old creaky floorboards once more. I cannot tell you what I did with myself yesterday for I have nothing to show for it - not even five knitted rows, a watercolour sketch or an article half-read. I sometimes wonder what I did during the years in my old flat - oh, I don't mean the heartache, the worries or the delights - and looking back at yesterday I wonder the same. I am someone who lives an incremental life. Perhaps it time to embrace the betweens as well and recognise that just because something gets lost in the cracks, it does not mean it is without value.