Can't get to sleep again. Last night I managed to sneak in a few hours, but tonight's it's just not coming. The room here is fine, there's a slight draft but plenty of blankets which is the way I prefer it anyway. I can't seem to shake an awakeness and there's not too many hours left in the evening before morning.
I've been staring at a photograph I bought today. Impulsively, after acting as frugally as to cook lunch here in the kitchen of the hostel, I bought several items at the Schanzenviertel, none of which I really needed and will only contribute to a heavier load, not that it matters since I'll be home by the end of this weekend. There was a box of photographs in the section where the books were, and I found a picture in the box that I didn't want to leave without. The subject of the photograph, a woman, was undeniably un-German and most likely American, or if not American, Canadian or English. It looks like it was taken about thirty years ago, maybe more, in the photograph a young woman with short hair looks to be cleaning a rack in a kitchen. She's wearing an apron and behind her is a 1950's looking wall with flower pot patterns on it. She's beautiful and she has this big, real smile that actually makes her sadness come through even stronger. I like the way her shirt fits her in the picture, it's kind of snug on her and it brings out the fullness of her back and her upper arms. The way she looks makes me just want to hold her, I think I bought it because I wanted to keep looking at her.
I'm still looking at her. Sleep is what I'd prefer to have right now. Some good things have happened, I met some people today, from Los Angeles actually, who said they could help me with a ride back up to Copenhagen. They're headed that way by car. A ride back up would be so much better...the train down was slow and expensive.
I've kind of locked up I guess. A few days ago I put down my book and since then haven't been able to read a page, or listen to any of the music I brought for headphones. During the day I can occupy myself, here and when I was up there in Denmark, but most nights I go inside and have trouble getting out, and sometimes, this whole thing feels stupid, coming here, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but I feel out of place, I wonder why I shot out of New York to rush here where my presence seems to affect almost no one.
Then something happens like I find this photograph. And the photograph and I stay up for hours together looking at each other, and I'm supposed to wonder whether I was meant to find her or something, or whether I'm just imagining there's some meaning behind me finding it on this particular day. The photograph must have been taken by the woman's husband, or her sister, maybe. People don't smile like that for strangers or people they're not intimate with, I have this picture of this woman, and I can pretend she's smiling at me like that. It's a smile that says, I will look at you and try to understand how I can love you better. Maybe I'll take a long walk until the sun rises and I can call Fanny and her boyfriend. I feel like I might collapse during the walk. I think I'll just lay across my bed, my head against this cement wall, and keep my feet stretched out over the side of the bed, when sleep comes it'll come, maybe it won't.
