Prologue ~ Letter To My Daughter

Our First Year at Baggebo Homestead, Prologue

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My dear daughter,

We took a chance and moved us all into a small farmhouse by the woods in the Danish countryside.

You are still too little, only just turned one year old, so you will not be able to remember any of this. You will not remember the move, but will mistakenly think that this has been your life always, and you will not remember where we came from, and why that change had to take place.

So let me tell you.

Before we decided to move into the woods your dad and I lived in a newly built student apartment in the Danish city, Aarhus.

We both grew up in Northern Denmark, one of the most rural areas of Denmark. I grew up myself in a small fishermen town by the sea where the smell of salt would always linger in the brisk winds, and everyone knew everybody.

But I longed to get away.

You see, I had big dreams and high hopes of coming into the city, and making it big. Of getting a higher education and finally being able to escape the mundane life of my working class family and ancestors.

It too had been a dream for a long time, especially of your dads, to live in something completely new, never used, and perfect, and what we moved into was exactly that.

The morning view from our apartment in the city.

The student apartment was a two bedroom apartment, separated by a sliding door.

All the walls were made of concrete, except the one in the middle of the room, where the door would slide into, which was made of plaster. The apartment faced south into a courtyard without any greens in it. They were beginning construction of yet another student housing built just opposite ours. It was to look exactly the same.

When we moved in it was in the middle of summer. It was so awfully hot in the concrete apartment that we had to cover up the windows with heavy curtains for most of the day. The mornings there would smell of concrete dust, that would eventually settle on our balcony during the day. Not a wind or breeze would find its way into that courtyard, surrounded by high and heavy buildings on either side.

We did not have a lot of furniture back then, as we had only just moved away from our childhood homes. But we had bought a small, grey, and frankly uncomfortable couch that filled half of the room. 

I remember how we wanted a TV so badly, and we had talked about it for years prior. We were both raised in households with TV’s and it felt like something you just had to have, and could not live without. It almost felt natural to go out and buy a big screen, as big as we could fit on the plaster wall, as soon as your father had gotten his first prober salary.

We took the bus down to the local hardware store and bought three shelves, some shelf hangers and a drill. Your dad got very frustrated while getting the shelves up on the plaster wall, as no screw nor plug would stay firmly in that wall, but inevitably slide in and out as it pleased.

Finally, the three shelves were up, placed directly in front of the couch. The two upper shelves contained our study books, your father’s computer science books, and my literature ones, but the bottom shelf was to hold our TV. I remember holding my breath as your father put it up there, but luckily the shelf stayed fixed in the wall, and we were happy by the time. 

We had both taken a year off our studies, in between our bachelor’s and master’s degrees to seek out some work experience in our respective fields. Of course your father did not have to look for long, as a Computer Science bachelor, and he found a well paying full-time job as a web-programmer in the city. 

I, however, could not find anything. Being a student of literature I began my job search by applying in book shops and publishing houses, but after rejection upon rejection I started applying for jobs in daycares, cafés and cleaning, but with the same disappointing results.

You see, I was not qualified for more practical jobs, because all I had on my resume was my bachelor degree in Literature and no experience in child care, cooking, waitering or cleaning other than occasionally loading our own dishwasher or putting wet clothes from the washing machine straight into the dryer. A literary student was no good use in any of those jobs, and the job in my own field were far too sparse and often required that you had some form of intel in the industry, which I - being raised in the Northern Denmark by working class parents - did not. 

I spent my days alone in that apartment, watching TV, applying for jobs, I would not get, and developing a strong sense that I was fundamentally a lazy person, not equipped for work. I remember looking to your dad who was away eight hours every day, and sometimes more as he was asked to work extra hours. At some days I couldn’t even bear to write another job application, maybe one hour’s work at most. And I just could not do it.

Not even that could I do.

When winter came I still had not found a job. I remember we slept with the windows open in December, as it was still too hot for us in the concrete apartment during the nights. One night I lay awake, as I often did at that time, with a strong feeling of wanting to scream at the top of my lungs. It felt claustrophobic, like I was being kept somewhere against my will. 

And then, all of a sudden there was a very loud noise, but it was not from me. It was the shelf with the TV on it, that just now had finally cracked through the plaster. There was the sound of broken glass, and I ran to the living room. But it was too late. The TV was on the floor, and I knew, even before your dad came out from the bedroom and lifted it up. It was broken, shattered to pieces. 

It was that night, that I realized I could not go on like this. In our perfect apartment I felt miserable.

I remember visiting my parent’s place, close to the beach, often in that year we lived in that apartment, just to breathe and find strength to carry on. “You are not happy, Anne,” my mother told me once I was home, and that night I realized; She was right. 

I had everything, I thought I would ever want. A new apartment in the big city, a supportive boyfriend who luckily for me earned enough for the both of us, and all the time in the world, but still, I was not happy, not satisfied. 

I felt locked into a path that I had chosen myself, but still did not thrive in. Just walking out my apartment door seemed all of a sudden like a daunting task, even though I previously had loved taking long walks by myself on the beach, looking over the sea and open sky, and feeling that frisk, salty wind on my cheeks.

City life was nothing like I thought it would be, and eventually I had to admit: It was not for me.

So I gave up.

Now, you are probably thinking: Where was I in all this? Was I even thought of back then? And yes, you were. We decided to move into a small cabin in the woods, or rather I decided to, and talked your father into it. I don’t think he was reluctant per say, but he was worried. Worried that I would not be happy in the woods either, and now more isolated than I ever was in the city. 

We lived in that small cabin for three years before we had you. Then the three of us lived there for another year, before we decided: This was the way for us. The small cabin in the woods had made us happy, but it was a temporary place, and we wanted somewhere like it, where we could stay forever. Where we could plant our trees and watch them grow in the years to come. Where we could raise our family. And most of all, a place where we felt like we belonged.

One day, you might too feel the restrictions on living far away, in the Northern tip of Denmark, but just know, that I tried to move us closer to the culture of the city, but in the end I just could not follow through with it. Perhaps you will be stronger than I was.

In the end I had to move back, back into the nature and brisk winds of which I was born, and luckily for me, your father and yourself followed me in my journey.

This is where our story begins.

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