The website GOOD.is — which, coincidentally, was started by a classmate of mine — runs an online series called ’30 Days of Good’ (on Twitter #30Daysof GOOD) where they challenge readers to do one, well, for lack of a better word, ‘good’ thing each day. November’s theme revolves around documenting your life, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that today, the challenge was to document your commute.
Now, I regularly document my life at the helm of the cargo bike — which, as many of you know, results in sporadic, but genuinely well-intended blog posts and social media bits, but this challenge gave me a finite timeline and focus. And, for me, deadlines and structure are occasionally acceptable — so long as they don’t become a daily ritual.
And with that, today’s commute home…
This time of year in Copenhagen, the days close up shop pretty early. Just today, for the first time, when we left the nursery school at just after 4pm and headed out to the bike, Kristian asked me, ‘Hvorfor er det mørkt?’ — which means, ‘Why is it dark?’ Usually, when he asks me a direct question, I answer in Danish and then revert back to English as we get more into the conversation. My response was, ‘Det fordi det er vinter tid.’ — ‘That’s because it is winter time’.
The kick-off to a Danish winter usually comes with mixed emotions — with the sunlight rapidly diminishing, many Danes, and I suspect, in a more general sense, other Scandinavians, start what many people refer to as a seasonal depression. The lack of daylight does takes its toll on you. However, in an attempt to offset this seasonal phenomenon, and stay positive, the Danes try their best to maximize what they call the hygge.
Hygge is a tough word to translate because it is more a feeling or an atmosphere than anything else, but it usually gets passed off as simply ‘coziness’ — though it is a bit more involved than that.
Okay, where am I going with this ramble? Nowhere really — just contextualizing the commute.
So, we are getting on the bike, the sun is setting, Kristian wonders why it’s dark, and millions of Danes are basically asking themselves the same question but in slightly different manner — something along the lines of ‘Why are we putting ourselves through another Danish winter? Oh yeah, because sometimes it’s cozy.’
There. Scene set.
Before leaving the kindergarten, I bundle Kristian up in the box of the Christiania and even though it’s pretty darn cold, he insists that the canopy stay open — he loves the fresh air, and it allows us to carry on a conversation about the day’s happenings. We hit the road and start the 25 minute ride home. It might be worth noting that this same route takes 15 minutes in the morning because then we are dealing with another definite timeline and focus (this one of the daily ritual, sucky variety) — we need to be there by 8:30am and not a minute later! But after a long day of work, and in Kristian’s case, playing — we kick back for the ride home.
Our commute home is quite extraordinary, especially considering we live in a city of 1.5 million people. More than half of it is on a dirt path that cuts through a huge nature reserve connecting two sections of the city. In addition to a sporadic sampling of people on bikes, we often see people on horseback, and, on many mornings, we actually see herds of deer — which probably gets me more excited than Kristian. How many people can say their commute entails riding for more than 2 miles through a beautiful nature reserve and seeing deer, while still being within a major city?
Today’s ride home was particularly beautiful. The sun was setting as we hit the trail and the sky was mostly clear — some strategically placed clouds hung above the horizon in the southwestern sky, offering structure to the light show off of our bow. I pulled out the iPhone and snapped a few photos at this point remembering the challenge that GOOD had served up to me on a platter. My only regret now was that I didn’t have a better camera. Or even better than that, a friend who was actually good at using a better camera. Whatever the case, from this point onward, I began to snap shots as we pedaled home.
We made a turn on the path, and from here on, the sunset was at our back; once that happens when you’re this far north, things get dark in a hurry. I snapped a few more on the path — mostly just people approaching on bikes — and then started in on the photos again when we got to the other side of the reserve to show some perspective with regards to how we had emptied out into a busy city at rush hour (rush hour being a relative term — very little traffic in Copenhagen).
While stopped at the last light before arriving home, I noticed that Kristian was in full ‘bobble-head mode’, and by the time we arrived home, I knew that it would be ‘goodnight Irene’ for the little guy.
Not wanting to disrupt the little bear, I approached the front gate cautiously, while admiring the neighbor’s oh-so-cherry, ’73 Chevy Nova, and wheeled the bike up our entrance path. By the way, is there any doubt that white is THE color to have for an early-70s Nova? The answer is ‘no’. Follow up question: How on Earth did that car get to Copenhagen? The answer: magically.
After snapping a few pictures of the sleeping cub — cozy as can be in the box…
…but still clutching his Viking sword with a kung fu death grip — I had mama bear come to the rescue.
And as the end of the commute came to a halt, so began the hygge…
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Posted on: Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Posted in: news
Tags: 30DaysofGOOD, cargo bikes, christiania bikes, commute, copenhagen, winter