Walk in Beauty

Little memories

A split second before I swing my leg, my mind gets filled with the knowledge that I will hit the ball perfectly, and it will follow a perfect curve and make a beautiful goal. And it does.



I see the cat throw a dog, many times her own size, out of the farm. A real eye-opener. A demonstration of the fact that a big personality may be combined with a tiny body. And an insight in the tough side of her. From her birth until her early death, the side that she turns my way, is always pure sweetness and softness and warmth and trust and love.

In hindsight it is obvious for me, that her importance in my life can hardly be exaggerated. She opened my mind for some of my most important insights and for my best abilities. She gave me myself. She saved me.



I discover, through own experiences and the teachings of others, that some music may both purify your morality and sharpen your consciousness of fundamental truths about life.

(It took many years after that for me to become certain, that most music has exactly the opposite function.)



I am very drunk and have already completely forgotten what I said just a few seconds before. But I figure from the answer that it must have been something rather special. For the first time ever, I hear a voice sound completely overwhelmed, and filled to the brim with emotion.



Someone loses her dignity while trying to get me. Now why tell that? Isn't that a negative story? Yes, but there is a nice side to it: She is the only woman to ever damage my opinion of her in an attempt to win me.



Someone owes me a kiss and has evidently decided that now's the time for paying her debt, even if another girl is sitting on my lap. And she comments each step of the process: "A kiss for Troels' forehead.... for Troels' right cheek.... for Troels' nose.... for Troels' left cheek.... for Troels' mouth."



The first person to ever claim ownership to me is a niece, when she is about two and I am about twenty. She presents me to her mother's colleague and it sounds like this: "Look, that's my Troels. Isn't he sweet, what?"

Another incident with her: She's in the habit of sucking her thumb. I ask her if it tastes good. Her answer is to simply takes the thumb out of her mouth and hand it to me.



I am at a party and am very, very drunk. I have been dancing with some unknown girl. I have no idea how the dance began or ended, but I do remember some of my behaviour during the dance and have reasons to doubt that she, being the kind of person that she seems to be, will particularly have appreciated it. But suddenly she stands in front of my chair, bends forward, says in a very soft voice: "Good night, Troels", kisses my cheek, and away she is.



Someone asks: "Tell me, how many sisters do you actually have? When you talk about them, it sounds as if there are a lot!"



I squat down so that I can meet a little boy on level terms while speaking to him. His older sister immediately grabs the opportunity and sits down on my knee.



Someone says: "You must not die for me."



I stand in the forest and look at my sleeping son. His mother says: "Look, the insects leave him alone."



Someone turns, quite literally, around a corner and into my life. And in the few seconds while she walks towards me, I ask myself: Is her apparent coldness part of her personality, or is it that kind of coldness that some attractive women put around themselves as a protection? And will the miracle ever happen that I get to see those eyes and those lips smile at me?

The beginning is not promising. She catches me in having made some small mistake. It happens to be one of those mistakes that I find it difficult to admit. So I invent another one instead. It's wrong and ridiculous, but I believe that my lie at least is harmless. She immediately teaches me something else. She offers to help me. My lie gives her that opportunity, but the truth doesn't.

Even the smallest lie is never completely innocent.



A colleague stands beside me and asks: "Should I do that for you? I can feel that you don't like it." As if it is something completely natural that she can sit in her own office and feel my attitude to the work that I am doing.



I fumble. Never mind what I'm doing, or rather: trying to do. I fumble. Completely helplessly. As if I have lost all my competences and have no hope of ever finding any of them again. It all ends in laughter. Seems that at least my sense of humour had not deserted me.



I am working in a howling snowstorm and I am tired and wet and dirty, and my sore knee hurts, and there are still several hours of work, and a long drive home. And yet I sing with pure joy. Because I feel the oneness with something much larger than myself.



I plant a tree, for the first time in many years. By doing this, I reach back to the man I was when I last planted one. There are several differences between him and me, but the most significant one may be this: He had not yet learned to hate.



A friend tells me: "You walk softly, even when you wear clogs."