A Hundred Cities

The snow is receding from the roadside and sinking surreptitiously into the forest, as if to direct our thoughts to sunnier days ahead in Denmark, but we know better. It is still January and the chill is omnipresent. Underneath the snowy, faux tundra the lush, green, German countryside is bursting forth with a vibrant enthusiasm. An endearing, though premature gesture, indeed, for winter is just hitting its stride. Regardless, there is a desolate beauty in the static numbness that surrounds us, the way a recent snowfall conceals the landscape under a uniform, seamless blanket. It is incorrupt, untouched. Its perfection elicits a feeling of forgottenness. Is there anything more isolating than to be forgotten? Every time I see a fresh canopy of freshly driven snow, I want to stop the van and track across the field, I want to destroy its quiet purity, as if to say to all who will hear, ’I will not forget you. I will not abandon you.’