A Life of Mirrors

Maddy had come to think of moving to a new city, a new country, very much like observing herself in a new mirror. One in which she remained recognizable, yet differences in sharpness, tone of color, or even warping and cracks made her appear different than the one previous. Being a professional ballet dancer, she spent more time in front of mirrors than most, so she thought the analagy was quite fitting.

If her image in the mirrior changed, did that mean she herself was changed in each of these different environments? She wasn’t sure, but she liked to think about it. Even kept a list in the notes app on her phone of all the things she’s noticed through the years. Some entries were small and seemingly insignificant like ‘I am secretly a lumberjack’. That one had been curtesy of her time in Canada when her collection of flannel shirts had grown alarmingly fast. Others, however, were much deeper and emotional.

…

‘I am an asshole (maybe?)’

Boston, USA. Age 21.

Maddy adored living in Boston. Sure there was plenty to bitch about, no place is perfect, but she found the city to be exciting and fun. And now, finally, more than a whole year after her moving here, she had convinced her mom and sister to visit. She was excited to show off her city, and even had a spreadsheet of the important spots she wanted to bring them, of course organized by T stop for highest efficiency.

But first, they had to find their way to the hotel from the airport. Mom had complained only half-jokingly that “What was the point of having a daughter living in a cool city like Boston if she couldn’t even use her for a place to stay?”. Maddy’s salary wasn’t all that much and she had chosen to prioritize location, in the center of downtown near to the practice studio and theater, over having her own space. That also meant, she had two roommates in an already cramped apartment. Not much room for guests. Therefore, hotel it is.

When their plane touched down 20 minutes ago, Mom had asked, for what Maddy thought must have been the fourth time, which public transport to get on. Blue line to green, get off at Arlington. I’ll meet you there so lmk when you’re on the green. She was expecting the text any moment now, was ready to dash out the door as soon as she got word. Her phone buzzed.

We are here.

On the green line?

No. Outside your place. Come down.

“the fuck…?” she muttered, snagged her keys from the hook by the door and made her way down to the entrance of her building. She spoted them through the glass doors even before making it outside, and hurried towards them.

“Hey Mom. Kayla!” she hugged her little sister tightly. Well, not so little anymore as they were practically the same height now, much to her surprise. When did that happen? Had she really been away that long? Then, she turned to Mom for a quick hug as well. “Why didn’t you tell me you were almost here? Said I’d meet you at the T didn’t I?”

“We got an uber. Mom couldn’t figure out how to get to the train.”, Kayla complained dramatically. She met Maddy’s eyes and they burst into giggles. Mom, ever so uptight and allergic to jokes, huffed indignantly at the snipe by her daughters.

“Ok. ok. I’ll stop” Maddy mimmed wipping tears from her eyes, but was still smiling brightly, “lets get you to the hotel, shall we?”

She got them settled into the hotel which was just down the block from her apartment. The two travelers freshened up a bit, then they set off to conquer Maddy’s list of sights. First up: a coffee pick-me-up.

They only had to walk two blocks to reach the nearest Dunkin. They were in Boston, after all. The place was quite busy, so they waited in line which gave the two out of towners time to look at the menu. When it became their turn to order, Maddy watched as her mother went stereotypical Minnesotan and asked about the employee’s day, then hemmed and hawed about what to order. Asking for their opinions on what she would like. She was in the middle of trying to describe her normal order at the midwestern coffee chain she was fond of to find an equivalent when Maddy could no longer bear it. She knew the kind of cream-filled abomination that her mom favored, so she cut in and ordered for her.

“I don’t like them. They didn’t seem very nice” Mom said matter of factly after they collected their drinks and walked out into the afternoon sunshine. Maddy didn’t know how to respond so she uncomfortably hummed in a sort of ambiguous way, hopping her mother would take it as agreement.

Maddy took them towards the North End, her personal favorite area of the city, and figured they could join up with The Freedom Trail at some point along the way. Mom always liked to get up and moving, especially after a flight, so the walking would probably be appreciated. A walk and coffee while catching each other up on their lives would be a great start to their weekend here.

They made it along the Charles, and turned onto a bit of an out of the way path. The only other person in their direct vacinity was an older lady walking a tiny dog. She moved very slowly and was heading in the opposite direction of the three girls. Once their paths converged, but before they crossed the inflection point where distance between the two parties would grow, Mom threw out a “Hi, how are ya”. The lady looked at them suspiciously, then continued on her way without a word. Maddy waited a moment, to where she hoped the lady would no longer be within ear shot, and then burst into laughter.

“We don’t do that here, Mom. You don’t need to greet everyone you pass on the street.”

“Why ever not? It’s only polite.” She seemed genuinely confused and put out.

Maddy couldn’t get that out of her head for a long while afterwards. Not necessarily the greeting everyone per se, but rather the differences between what constituted polite where she grew up and where she now calls home. She was well aware of the stereotypes from each, Minnesota Nice versus Masshole, but she hadn’t really been confronted with the differences so directly before. When she moved here, she had comfortably shed the Minnesota Nice without even giving it conscious thought. But now? She could feel the mental exhaustion wash over her even just thinking about going back to the forced and exagerated small talk and passive agressivness. It’s just another performance. Her whole life depends on her ability to put on a show. By definition she is a performer. So then, why does that specific performace, one that she grew up with and was shaped by, now seem to fit her so ill? Who is she, if not a Minnesotan? These thoughts seemed like a betrayal, or a rejection, of the place that raised her. She couldn’t explain the imense feelings that bubbled up in her. There were many of them. Icky, uncomfortable, untethered? What she did know was that she didn’t like it.

…

‘Swedish is my love language’

Stockholm, Sweden. Age 25.

It was following Maddy’s third season in Stockholm. She had spent two weeks in Greece. A solo trip meant to unwind from the gruelling performance schedule. The beaches were lovely, the people nice, and food delicious. She was even sporting a slight tan, which she was proud of, but she had intentionally kept it to a minimum. She couldn’t afford early wrinkles or obvious tan lines in her line of work so she had been meticulous with her sunscreeen application and umbrella coverage.

She was sat with a book, some cheesy beach read that she thought fit the vacation vibe, and a cup of shitty airport coffee at the gate for her return flight to Stockholm. Aviators perched on her head to hold back her long sunlightened hair away from her face. She was so early that the screen above the flight attendant’s stand was still showing the flight using the same gate before hers. Destined for London Heathrow, and had just started boarding. She had plenty of time. Just the way she liked it. She opened the novel and let herself get swept away in the romance.

It must not have been long because the screen had been switched to Stockholm, but the chairs around her were largely empty. No doubt, her fellow Swedish passengers were still working their way through secuirity. There was, however, one family on the other side of the gate. They were just barely within her hearing range and she realized they were speaking Swedish.

Oh thank god! That’s better.

The thought flashed through her head instinctively. A flutter of relief that made her shoulders minutely relax, bringing to her attention that she had been sitting stiffly with posture more suited for the stage than her current surroundings. She took a deep breath and forced the remaining tension away, sitting in an exagerated slump, a trick she used sometimes to force herself to snap out of performance mode.

The gate area was filling up now. A man sat to her right but, like a true Scandanavian, had left two seats between them. He was talking on the phone, not particularly loud but the words were clear. That’s when it hit her.

Swedish!

Hearing it again after two weeks of struggling through Greek made her want to cry. Or perhaps laugh. She felt so light and free, and felt ridiculous for it. Her eyes closed and she let the conversations around her cover her like a warm blanket. Oh, how she adored Swedish.

She didn’t always love it. At first, it sounded kind of funny. Sure, like any other language, it was cool and different, but also odd to her ears in a way that made it difficult to take anything said in it seriously. Maddy, however, had had years to be disappointed in her 19-year-old self who returned from a year in Montreal with hardly any French skills. A carefree girl who could handle simple things like ordering coffee or food, but with an accent that was evidently attrocious based on the snide comments and eye rolls she’d frequently gotten in response.

When a few years later, she got the audition for the ballet company in Stockholm, Maddy had been determined to not make that same mistake. Much of her free time, especially her first year in Sweden’s beautiful capital, was spent studying vocab or making notes with whatever colorful pens, highlighters, and post-its she could find. She enrolled in the Swedish language courses for immigrants, and never missed a single meeting. She listened to Swedish lessons or podcasts while she cooked. She religiously watched TV4 Nyheterna every morning and evening, even though she hardly understood any of it. Eventually, she got a library card and borrowed books, mostly crime novels. She would read each chapter twice before moving to the next. The first, incredibly slowly while looking up words that she didn’t know, and then a second time where she would read it aloud to practice pronounciation.

Somehow, before now, she hadn’t realized how much progress she had made nor the extent to which her life now revolved around the language. She felt pride swell up in herself, a smile graced her lips that she couldn’t seem to control so she brought her book up to her face to hide. She was giddy. She actually did it! She stayed like that, crazy smile and all, for a long time.

She was going home.

…

Winter is my emotional support season.

Munich, Germany. Age 27.

It took less than six months in Germany for Maddy to decide, nope, it was not for her. She never should have moved so far south.

Logically, it made sense that winters in Germany would be less intense than she was used to, but in no way did that translate into her being prepared for either the weather itself or her own reaction to it. She had initially been looking forward to the mild winters. What normal person wouldn’t be?

It started with the birds.

She was up early one morning which wasn’t a common occurance given her night owl tendencies combined with the late working hours of her profession. Hardly ever could she be found out of bed before 11am, but on this particular February day, she was out on her balcony wrapped in the duvet, a cup of coffee clutched in her hands. It wasn’t even 7 o’clock yet. She doesn’t remember what had been bothering her that day to cause her to be up and awake so early. Whatever it was had since been overwhelmed by the realization and subsequent fallout that came after. Sometime while sipping at the coffee, she became aware of the birdsong. Her brow furrowed. Wasn’t it too soon in the year for birds? It was only February, for fuck’s sake. For some reason, it unnerved her.

In the weeks that followed, she was painfully atuned to the birds. It didn’t help that she received various pictures of the snow that was falling back home in Minnesota. Her parents had an adorable husky who loved the snow, and her sisters made sure that Maddy was innundated with pictures of him playing in it. She began to envy him.

She changed the wallpaper on both her phone and laptop to various pictures of snowy landscapes. It hardly helped.

By May, it was genuinely warm outside and now it seemed to her like she was ambushed by all sorts of bugs whenever she was outdoors. It was disgusting and there was no escape. They were everywhere. How many more months of this would there be? Until August? September? That seemed so terribly far away.

Maddy was doing a bit of weekend cleaning of her apartment. She turned on the TV but wasn’t particularly paying attention to it. It was just background noise that she would mostly tune out as she went through the monotonous routine. At some point, the programming had changed to some sort of documentary about the Arctic. She thought somewhere in Norway, but couldn’t be certain of the details. Instead, she was distracted by the scenery. An ice breaker moving through frozen waters. The crew was heavily bundled up. Winds were whipping around them. She could almost feel its sting on her own cheeks.

All of a sudden, she was crying. Not just a few tears, but fierce wails that took her breath and left her gasping and hicuping. She longed for the type of scene that was playing out on the screen in front of her, now blurry through the tears. Her chest ached with it. She sank down to the floor and hugged her kness to her chest.

Here in Munich, she had gone all winter without once even needing her gloves.

…

Warsaw, Poland. Age 29.

Maddy was unpacking her new apartment. One earbud softly played a swedish audiobook. She reached into the box next to her labelled “kitchen”. Grabbing the first item on top, she unwrapped the t-shirt being used as protective padding from around it. She smiled when she realized what it was. A coffee mug. Pale blue with the logo for her favorite coffee place back in Minnesota. She’d bought it over ten years ago, right before she left home for the first time, and has brought it with her every move since.

Maddy was unpacking her new apartment in yet another new city, another new mirror, and she couldn’t wait to see what this one would reveal.