Brooklyn, my love.

Where are you from?

This is a complicated question for me.

I was born and raised in Denmark, specifically Copenhagen, with a short stay in Hørsholm (if you know you know). I left the country when I was 21 to study abroad and never really moved back, at least not long-term. There was also that stint in New Mexico as an exchange student at age 16. But since 21, I have lived in 6 countries on 2 continents, and done on-the-ground work in an additional 5? 10? I no longer remember.

But I have lived in Brooklyn for the past 19 years, most of which in this one apartment right across from Prospect Park.

It recently occurred to me that this is the place I have lived the longest. Not just New York City, but this very apartment in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.

Time teaches you things. I know what the park is going to look like in any season. I wake up to the rustling of the trees in the summer and to the honking of geese during migration season. I remember my apartment in all stages of installation, including bare and filled with possibilities at move-in. Or when we stuffed all furniture and possessions into the bedroom to redo the floors. I remember the 5 different colors we painted my daughter’s room before we settled on white.

This weekend I spent time in a neighborhood I used to frequent about a decade ago, at that time with other friends, other hopes, other visions. It was still there, and so am I, just in a different constellation.

I think of these layers of memory as cognitive wallpaper. In a good way. I have always been jealous of people with that kind of textured feeling of where they belong, always thought of myself as somehow never being able to quite get to that point. And now that I am, I sit in the discomfort and joy of all that it brings up.

Home and belonging are complicated, y’all.