The Miracle in July

What’s the point in staying the same
Regrets, forget what’s dead and gone
If you could rewind your time
Would you change your life?

[Rewind] by [Stereophonics]

The plane ride to Denmark from my home in Oregon was just as excruciatingly long as I remember, only this time instead of arriving alert and composed and ready to give myself away for love, I land exhausted from gingerly holding my shaking heart still. I’m not reeling from jet lag, but from the turbulence of flying hours into the future and years into the past.

I’m in the heart of the beautiful city of Copenhagen, in the rented cottage I will call my home for an indefinite future. Outside a chilly evening sun has managed to punch through some parts of dense marine clouds, making hazy beams shoot out of the breaks toward nothing in particular. In the yard two leafless trees planted on opposite sides of the door’s walkway are ornamented with small, chirping starlings. Their beaks have gone dark for the fall and their [white feathers] are strangely stark against their brown bodies. There are piles and piles of down-coated shit on the grass below them. They’ve lived here awhile, and as I trudge up to the front door, loaded down with my gear and resolve fading fast, I feel their collective eyeballing and hear their whistled conversations about the stranger moving in.

The birds are judging my decision to come back to Denmark to eviscerate an old love affair, but their criticism pales in comparison with my own.

The first thing I do after hauling my things inside is to stir my laptop awake and connect to the Internet. I have 535 emails, and 534 of them are new. Jesus. The scale of irritation the digital age  brings me is balanced only by its indisputable usefulness.

I [typed up and sent off a new message].

I didn’t bother looking at the unread messages in my inbox before deleting all 534 of them. I left that read, unanswered one alone. Those people who I would care to find me know better than to send me an email and expect a timely response. Years of living digitally connected and publicly transparent has left me wary of always fulfilling my reputation as an early tech adopter. The chime from an incoming cell message or the ding from a new email received, things that used to bring a smile to my lips from the knowledge that someone was thinking about me, are now tiny bites of itchy annoyance. The sender of the lone email I spared in my inbox understands this.

All my luggage and shipped whatnots are strategically stacked against the entryway wall waiting for my attention. I ignore everything but the box that once contained the high-heeled boots I had on my feet years ago when I first visited Denmark. The box that now contains tangible evidence of the past and not my boots is heavy. I carry it to the little table situated in front of the floral divan and place it carefully, as if it contains something both precious and volatile, which is does.

I have neatly sealed it with industrial waterproof tape, which has certainly done its job. Removing the lid isn’t a simple process but eventually it gives up the struggle and releases its protected contents. I reach for paper and a pen and start a list that I hope might [show me what I’m looking for]:

• A [small teddy bear] wearing dark blue sweater with the red and white Danish flag
• Two bound sets of three-hundred-plus pages of instant message conversations, emails, exported text messages, organized chronologically and printed landscape, front and back
• Two DVDs, one containing several short films and a large number of photos, the other containing close-ups of pussies and cocks, and European movies with titles like Hot Egyptian Couple Having a Fuck
• A spiral calendar with one year’s worth of dates, appointments and reminder
• Handmade [red paper card] adorned with gold stars and silver crayon carefully spelling out “Merry Christmas to Shelley, Love Ana”
• Glossy 8’x10’ of me [laughing behind my hands], nude and tinted lavender, standing in front of a tilting lighthouse
• White-lettered red t-shirt shouting [DANMARK]
• Creased and tearing promotional [city map of Arhus]
• [Nisse ornaments ]
• [Danish money]
• Small and square, accordion-style [booklet from Becca] reminding me not to forget about Portland, Oregon or my friends and family

Each item I take out of the box and document clinically and business-like. Reach hand in, pull something out, record it, set it aside.

The bound pages is where I start. They are the sum of the whole story, the beginning, middle and end. I pick up one of the books and open it to a random page. I hold my breath and the starlings outside fill the void with their [gregariously judgmental chatter].  I notice the language right away. It’s the part of the story where Daniel won’t reveal if there is still love for me. His Viking personality, hidden, rough, deeply emotional, is pleading with me to “figure it out” on my own. He wrote that it would embarrass him to confess where I lived in his heart now that our supernova digital love affair had asphyxiated. Even in type I can see that his words have already lost their English accent; and he is saying “I did want it” instead of “I do want it” now. The tension is in the past.

I quickly scan through twenty pages, leaving [twenty slivers] of truth piercing my fingers. This random conversation revisited seems to me proof that there is no such thing as coincidence.

Yes, I should figure it out. That’s exactly why I’m here.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.