Shards

Broke a glass today Jinx, and it inspired a stream of thought. I'm in Christiania again (no surprise) enjoying internet under almost luxury conditions: no need for the tarp, 5am so no bike traffic (Strøget empty, which is eerie since that never happens), Pink Floyd's Shine Part II playing, and cheap coffee from the 24hr bakery steaming beside me. I'm like an onion, Copenhagen is fucking cold and every piece of clothing is needed to keep warm. But I was talking about glasses...

My flatmate works in a bar, and from previous experience of hanging around those places I've noticed that every bartender, no matter how experienced, has dropped glasses in their record. Whatever the reason - off day, sick, distraction - the glass smashes, get's swept up, and the beer pours into a fresh one. Now if life is the bar, the hustle and bustle, then every society has it's smashed glasses. We speak of people being 'broken', fragile, transparent, clear - all these references to glass. In most bars when then glass breaks it ends up as shards in the trash, but sometimes you walk into a place that surprises you.

Sometimes you end up in a place where the shards get melted down, or glued back together, or fused in some other way to make something new. They hang down like crazy lamps around the candlelight, glow with strange colors through the tabletop mosaic, scatter the wall in a mirror of art. Sometimes you end up in a place like Christiania, where the shards aren't broken glass, they're just shards. Instead of fractions of a whole, they become new&different wholes. A guy came up to me today when I was drawing in Manesfiskern (Moonfisher cafe) vaguely intoxicated and wanting a drag. We got chatting (well mainly he sat there smoking and gesturing, that joint disappeared fast) and he told me about crossing India on motorcycle to catalog Tsunami victims. I have no idea what the guy went through - though if his stories offer any glimpse it was intense - but it left him crying, drunk and ranting about changing the world under the noon sun in Christiania. He'd had a job, normal life, and then woken up one day and looked at the world until dead Indian eyes looked back; it probably almost or did 'break' him. But in this place, this guy can at least get it out, talk to strangers, tourists (maybe they'll learn something), whoever he needs to tell his shit to, to deal with it.

I don't call that a broken shard in the trash, I call that a piece putting itself together. I've seen many a classmate in Canada exposed to many a smaller pressure bury themselves in drugs, sex, gambling, food. All manner of escapes that buried the problem far deeper than this guy could shove his, and cope far worse, while still being considered whole glasses. But being a whole glass, just to stand empty or hold a cup of toxic juice, might be more 'broken' than hanging out as a piece of lamp. We've all got our passions, histories, little niche in life. Some tend the bar, some sing, some hit on the ladies, some avoid the creeps, some dance, some drink, some read, some dream, and some sweep up the broken bits and take them home. This place is teaching me things about judging people. Oh, and by the way Jinx, want to know what that guy did before he left for India? He was a ballet dancer at the academy in Denmark. Little shard twirled like a spinning top, just goes to show.

Coffee's getting cold, the thing's I do to express myself online Jinx, so peace out.