A Love Letter To Adolescence: HP & the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1

I spent a huge part of late childhood and all of adolescence comforted by the world of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. I know there were adult fans back in the ’90s and early ’00s, and I know the series is introduced to uncountable children with every passing year.

But for my generation— for the kids who grew up with the specter of terrorism and the total powerlessness we felt as a President embroiled the world in a series of wars and the internet changed every facet of our lives— Harry Potter has always been a constant, a spiritual salve for the lost, the frightened, the kids who went through a decade unlike any other. And even now, though we’ve entered an uncomfortable adulthood, it often feels like just another costume.

On nights like last— when the penultimate midnight showing of a Harry Potter film erupts theaters across the country and across the world with squeals of delight from people my age, saddled with the reputation of apathy and social awkwardness and fair accusations of political ennui— something falls into place. We are, for one of a dozen times that is drawing to an irrevocable close, again a community. We clap at the same places. We trill knowing laughs at all the right parts. We let our personal opinions be known, loud and clear, and share the crazy joys of returning to a place we all feel like was partially invented by us.

I made the joke in passing to a friend this morning that I grew up in a place called the Internet of Crazy, and for me and a lot of others my age, that place was filled with Harry Potter. We discussed its obscurest points, debated its most mysterious corners, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the books that scared our parents.

But time marches on. Later and later, we come to understand that Harry Potter, though it was unique, though it remains a remarkable phenomenon, though it felt like it was a wonder that would never cease, must necessarily become a relic of our past. I tutor fourteen-year-olds who have only seen the movies, and tell me they don’t really “get it.” Some of us who were 10 and 11 when the first book came out have children of our own now.

I maintain that there was nothing comparable to the Harry Potter series, and what it was for us. That’s partially due to the inconceivable stresses and undupliacatable tensions of when these books were coming out, and partially due to the unquestionable talent, grace, skill, and gentleness that J.K. Rowling had. Creating a world so complete and so richly tapestried with metaphors of our own that we wanted to live there before we knew that we did required a tenderness and an understanding missing from most books, and even some parents. She taught acceptance, mercy, bravery, logic, and most importantly, she taught us— as the greatest teachers do— how to cope with the twin mysteries of love and death.

Rowling deserves all the praise she has ever received, and more, and better. But beyond her and her legacy, its moving chronicle of loss and longing, are us, the children for which it was written. I will always have a soft place in my heart for the people born between roughly 1986 and 1993 for this. Born in 1989, I was 10 the first time I picked up Harry Potter, and twelve when the Twin Towers fell down. Can adults of the age understand this? Can posterity?

Everyone has a history. For me, and for the other millions of us who dressed our no-longer-childlike bodies in the faded robes and silly slogan shirts that claimed our identity as “fans” (how unfair, the smallness of that word for such richness of experience!), flying our freak flags high enough to be seen from space, proud and unashamed, we were calling to that shared history, hoping to see a glimmer of it reflected back at us onscreen. Maybe we did. But more important than the movie was the experience of the movie, our story, the one we will have for the rest of our lives to look back on. We will try to make sense of how we felt and what we did, and to a large degree might be unable to satisfy our older selves with recollection. That’s why it’s necessary to celebrate now, in all ways and every way, and while we can, what this culture was and is for us.

And when it ends next summer, it will be a small death. We will grow up. Those of us who’ve kept the warm glow of the series close by for more than half our lives will shed it, like a cloak that got too small. We know this. At the theater last night, there were cries of, “Only one more movie until my childhood is over!”

We are aware of the loss. Thankfully, Rowling taught us, before we had to learn, how to live with losses. The profound quality of the losses she described is not absent from this one. That’s why nights like last are so important: so beautiful, so precious, so ephemeral. They are the few and far between moments of our lives when we are sharply aware of all that we have and all that we were. The passion and excitement is an elegy to itself. Celebrate while you can.

Forgot my journals...

Well, in the hassle of moving back to Oberland from a near-perfect summer in Chicago, I accidentally left my poor journals at home. It's been a little disastrous, because I use journals as cheap therapy, art class, and scrapbook-like documentary all in one. And the first two weeks of senior year have been rife with madness to deconstruct.

One thing I will say--that I wish I had my journals for to ruminate on, though this blog will do in the meantime--is that I've become totally preoccupied with mountains and glaciers and Antarctica recently. I often think like this, getting really involved with an idea or image before knowing quite what it means. A little like dreaming, or like thinking in metaphors come up with by someone else.

The background on my computer is of some fjords and mountains in Norway, and my 2011 wall calendar is images from Antarctica. I don't know what this means. But I'd be willing to hear guesses...

Almost a week and merry Christmas!

Well, a week ago this time I was keeping myself awake all night to catch the 5:45am train out of Copenhagen to the airport on Saturday morning. After a bitter and miserable 21 hours of travel, I arrived at the international terminal of O'Hare to my wonderful parents and sister holding a Welcome Home sign (aww).

Since then, I've basically been hibernating.

I cut off all my hair (almost).

Saw some mediocre improv on Christmas Eve Eve with lovely old friends.

Caught a cold and slept for three days.

And woke up Christmas morning to basically everything I wanted. (Two books of poetry, the novel People of Paper, cute dresses, chocolate, House Season 5 on DVD, and an email that I got into a Creative Writing workshop at Oberlin for the spring-- one I'd been applying to and rejected from for two years-- AND into a single room in my old dorm. WIN.) The year is ending on a high note. I feel pretty lucky, as always.

Haven't missed Copenhagen too much, at least not consciously, but the last few nights have found myself dreaming about it. It's like my brain's way of getting used to the familiarity of home, to dream about the old. The glamorous, sparkling four months I spent away.

50th post!

This will probably be my last blog entry, since I'm leaving for the airport in approximately 8 hours and, hopefully, after 18 hours of travel, will be back in my homeland safe and sound. If I can avoid delays, storms, strikes, and swine flus, this will have been a completely successful journey.

I can't believe I'm leaving Denmark, though! As I remarked to my mother via the wonders of Skype, I was looking forward to going home so much the past couple of weeks that I kind of forgot it also meant I was leaving this beautiful city behind. I can be short-sighted like that.

Which is absolutely not to say that I wasted my time here or took my last days for granted! Quite the opposite. I enjoyed my last Danish today (the pastry) with the requisite gusto and went to all the DIS-sponsored goodbye events. (A blog award was given, which I did not win. It probably wasn't even close. You can read the winner's blog here: http://www.katebikeanddenmark.blogspot.com/ if you're interested in how "Christmassy" Copenhagen is right now.)

Saying goodbye to the group of friends I'd made was hard, especially because I have difficulty letting go and always assume everyone will stay in contact until that assumption is proven horribly wrong, usually with accompanying bouts of sadness and regret. What can I say? It's how I roll. Knowing this doesn't really enable me to prevent it, but I think it helps to say your goodbyes well, a talent I have yet to master but at which I get better every time. This is probably a life skill in development.

Tonight is all about throwing away the detritus of my life and trying to cram every material evidence of the last four months into two suitcases, a messenger bag, and a camera case. I'm bringing loads of Danish food and a few souvenirs home, too. I could spend all night and all eighteen hours of travel tomorrow imagining the happy reunions waiting for me at the end of the day Saturday. For now, though, I ought to finish packing and cleaning.


Tak for reading!

http://music.todaysbigthing.com/2009/11/03

It was a good week, all around. A little too much work, a few too many finals, but altogether a nice week. A good last week.

On Tuesday night, I went to the free Gogol Bordello concert out in the middle of the town hall square (Radhuspladsen). There are already a bunch of videos from the evening on the internet. Here's a good one, if you're interested:

Yes, Copenhagen has been "Hopenhagen" for going on ten or eleven days now, due to COP15 optimism.

I had finals on Monday and Wednesday, and on Wednesday night was double-booked: a movie night with friends in Osterbro (East Bridge Borough) and a viewing of the BBC's "Bleak House" with my Literary London class out in the suburb of Gentofte.

At some point in the evening, it started snowing, hard, and by the time I arrived in the unfamiliar Hellerup, the buses had stopped running and the beautiful, big houses were covered. My teacher suggested I take a cab, which of course I tried to avoid doing, but ultimately had no choice other than to hail one. The driver spoke Danish and English but was pretty clearly not a native. He asked me where I was from first. "The States, actually," I said, which for some reason is the way I've been responding to that question recently, as though it ought to surprise everyone. He replied, when I asked, that he was from Afghanistan. I quickly and awkwardly apologized for the EIGHT YEAR WAR our country has needlessly, illegally waged there. He shrugged. "Everywhere. You know. It is messed up everywhere. I lost my family in the Soviet regime there. Then the Taliban. The whole world. Now the world is different. Still all problems."

Today, I've been packing and finishing up little bits of work yet to do. I met a friend who's here for the KlimaForum (alternative conference) from Uppsala, Sweden, but who normally goes to Oberlin with me back in The Old Country. Went to choir rehearsal, where we practiced "Don't Stop Believin'"-- which we're singing at the DIS closing ceremony tomorrow. What is there left to say? I can't think of much at the moment. Everything is going by in a very fast blur.

Let's have the Weepies say what I can't.


Left behind everything I knew
All the colors but bone-white and sky-blue
Hit the continent running
Engines were humming just to break through

Antarctica, my only living relative
Antarctica, I can't wait anymore
I can't wait anymore

And then there's morning
Each one feels like the first one
Ah, morning, so clean, so pure
Nothing so clear, now that I'm here

When I get back to the city
Everything's cluttered and pretty
I won't regret my return
I'll just remember the wind and the snow
And the howling so loud
That it alone drowns out the inside of me

Antarctica, my only living relative
Antarctica, I can't wait anymore
I can't wait anymore
I can't wait anymore

I went to the COP15 global demonstration on Saturday. It was a little intense. I was very close to being arrested, due only to my proximity to a group of rowdy (but, in my firsthand experience, completely nonviolent) anarchists. I heard later that perhaps one of them had tossed a rock through a window, but in all honesty, it was an extremely peaceful walk from Christianborg to the Bella Center until seven or eight police vans drove up with dogs and riot gear and sectioned off a huge number of protesters right behind my friend Caitlin and I. As a fairly seasoned protester, I was a little disturbed by the number of callous people (none of whom were Danish) who showed a remarkable disrespect to the streets of Copenhagen and Danish law, which in my experience heretofore had been an extremely non-invasive presence. In all honesty, I think the Danish police were terrified and caught a bit off guard by the vastness of the protest.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

I'm making five playlists for next weekend: "Leaving Copenhagen in the Morning," Take Off," "In Flight," "Landing," "Going Home."

Here are some songs from each:

(Something to Sing About - the Buffy musical)


(Transatlantique - Beirut)


(Move On - Sunday in the Park With George)


(Cathedrals - Jump Little Children)


(Leaves That Are Green - Simon & Garfunkel)


(Chasing Pavements - Adele)


(The Book of Love - Peter Gabriel)


(Auld Lang Syne - The "When Harry Met Sally" version gets me)


(Chicago - Sufjan Stevens)


(Canadian Railroad Trilogy - Gordon Lightfoot)


(Both Sides Now - Judy Collins)