on foot in another world

slipping into stockholm's rhythms is easy. falling in step behind the commuters, unimpressed by the centuries old architecture or the illumined merging of sea and skyline, requires a blankness that is aided by white earbuds and a stride that seems purposeful. only, i have no purpose. i slip behind them, mimicking their certainty, conveying a weary resigned air of routine, imagining that this place has lost its luster by either birthright, banality, or schedule. it is easy for me. i, a perpetual chameleon, a studier of people and a collector of characters, need very little costuming or adaptation to disappear amongst this place's shuffle. it is delightful, a real-life flight of fancy feeling so little exterior tweaking necessary to be mistaken so completely for someone else. i am another stockholmer here. a tall blonde creature whose blood is from icerbergs and dark skies, long winters with little light. when they speak to me in swedish, it pulls me back to another continent, my own two-dimensional chamber of habit, when i must shake my head and admit the truth. it is all an act, a study in perception, a practice in possibility. no, i say, i dont speak swedish.