Six years ago in a study abroad dorm in Copenhagen I held a tub of peanut butter between my hands while Carissa peeled an apple beside me, we giggled like we were back in the fourth grade. Dipping the knife between us, watching a late-night episode of Gilmore Girls. Later that night we get the news that our classmate and beloved acquaintance died while hiking in Mallorca, our bodies clench like ice rolling down our spines. There are too many kind words we have for him, who had so much life pulsing in him.
In the chill of the morning we ride our bikes, like we’ve done our whole lives, to the famous squiggly lines drawn on the concrete of Superkilen. It would not be wrong of us to take a fall here, just to feel something solid beneath us. I get off my bike to pull her by the handlebars down the small hills, we still try to laugh but it’s not the same.
It’s deserted as we take the backstreets to Nyhavn, and we stare more at the colorful townhouses’ reflection on the canal than the buildings themselves. Or the bright open sky. I remember the sweater I’m wearing by more than just the photographs by the glinting red and yellow at the edge of the water. Not until we get to the harbor do I even consider jumping in. With Carissa’s convincing, and her promise to hold my hand, I give in to the Scandinavian tradition of polar plunging. Nobody is watching me, nor would they distinguish the shriek to be mine before the splash of water lands in my outline. We alternate between the wood-fired sauna nearby and the freezing blue depths; I keep thinking to myself this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done and I’m so happy. I’m so happy because Carissa brings this side out of me, the next year she’ll tell me she’s signed up for private singing lessons and I’ll wonder if I should do the same. There in the cafe of La Banchina once we’ve wrapped ourselves in four towels each, do we see the other bathers dive in without a second thought. Over and over again, each time they come up for air I unwind a bit further into my hot tea. The sun’s going down now, and who knows if I’ll ever find myself in Copenhagen again, but the heaviness will not be the only part I remember. We were twenty-two, uncertain about much, but not about each other. We had been in rooms counting the heads of classmates, scared to find who was missing after school officials had reported a suicide. We had lost our favorite teacher together, but we remember the memory of his In-N-Out fries and Mini Cooper more than death itself.
From Copenhagen I keep the image of deep blue waves, quiet still in the harbor, lit up through the window of a golden room. My best friend’s hand that I never have to ask for, with a faint trace of peanut butter, waiting to guide us back home. A place known to her, although new to me, is a new home for me.
Two swimmers sleeping side by side. We talk about this memory often enough that it could not float away. These days my friends and I whisper about the rumblings of new engagements and couples moving-in together in a different state, fearful an era of friendship is coming to a close. I wonder what it would be like to create more space for these relationships that sustain us instead of throwing our hands up in the shrinkage we’re told is natural in settling down. I hope I still go to D.C. every year for Katie’s birthday and that we spend our first dinner discussing the latest book we’ve read together. Who knows the shows they’ll make in each decade of life, how we might learn from each other from a couch or a pond even if from the outside it appears someone has pressed ‘shuffle’ on each of our life stages. And when we reach standstills as we’re likely to do, the secret ingredient to the best memories lie in bodies of water.
Leili Najmabadi (she/her) is an Iranian-American writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing mainly centers around the bittersweet of life and how joy and grief can exist side by side. She publishes weekly writings on her Substack Between Two Years. Her work has previously appeared in Gems Zine and Kindergarten Mag.