floating bubble kind of way

sometimes i will tell people that we live in our very own little danish bubble.  it is the best way for me to describe that, when we are here, because we are so far away from family and many of our friends, and because it still takes a very concerted effort to understand danish, it is like the four of us are in our own little world, in a mostly very nice floating bubble kind of way.  not an isolated feeling, because any isolation we may have felt, say, the first winter we lived here, has long since passed.  we feel at home in our danish bubble.  it is the freedom to direct the way our free time is spent, as an example.  it is many distractions (both wonderful and tedious), many obligations (again, of the welcome and unwelcome variety), falling away... never having existed here for us in the first place.  and, speaking for myself, i like it very much.  just as much as i like being back home in the united states, amongst friends and family, the familiar spaces, the abundance of places to go and people to see and the ease of getting to all of those points.  i like them both.  they are so very different.  two worlds that are many miles away from intersecting.  

this is relevant to today, in my mind, only because today was an outdoor workday for our community.  there were trees to plant, compost bins to clean up, weeds to remove, and a new terrace to build.  groups of neighbors out working together, kids running around, alternately helping and playing.  henry had four little salamanders and one big salamander, one frog, and four snails all temporarily housed as pets in our plastic terrarium today.  when i went up to their room to see them the little lid door, which is broken anyway, was half off, and so only time will tell if we're not still providing shelter somewhere for one or two of them.  it was a day filled with lots of good, hard outdoor work (on a day that was once again beautiful) with lots of socializing, lots of practicing our danish, coffee and/or beer breaks, pizza dinner... and just feeling like a part of our little neighborhood here.  and liking it just as much as i like our little danish bubble and just as much as i like feeling at home with friends and family in the u.s.  part of me thinks i'm just stating the obvious-- who wouldn't like being around friends and family?  who doesn't value having time together with their own little immediate family?  and who wouldn't feel good after a day of hard work outside with a group of people to get something done?  to me that seems almost like the most obvious of all.  (after all... not everyone enjoys being around family, right?)  but working in a group-- isn't that probably the way nearly everything's been done and gotten done in all of human history?  and outside for most of it no less?  and taxing physical labor?  well... it's not always the way we do things nowadays.  so maybe it's not so obvious.  maybe it doesn't sound so nice.  but i'm not a very evolved creature.  i don't enjoy isolation.  bubbles, yes.  isolation, not so much.  

one other thing-- on my energy-- i don't know how i will feel tomorrow.  i may have been borrowing against tomorrow's energy.  i fear that i may have, because sometimes i push it, either knowingly or unknowingly.  but i appreciate days where i feel healthy and strong.  i feel like any physical work i can do or any exercise i give myself is helping keep cancer from returning.  (and if that is not to be, then it is helping me build up the strength to deal with it.) so i do greatly appreciate a day like today. 

muddy shoe, sock, muddy jeans

 så jeg siger tak for i dag.