Klara Nedergaard
She lives in a yellow house with a wild garden and three friends and she is one of my favorite person on this planet
“Can I have sunscreen for my boobs?”
It is a hot day mid-June and Klara is back in Berlin for a week.
We are indulging in all the things we love. Average kiosk coffee served in a paper cup so thin it burns our fingers, swimming pool fries and soft ice that melts down on our arms. We just enjoyed a ride down on a water slide and there’s no place I’d rather be.
Klara spent only one year in Berlin before taking a ferry back to Denmark. Anyway, in that year she stole my heart and will forever carry a piece of it with her. Klara is a mixture of kind & cool. Wonderfully chaotic yet radiating tranquility. Extremely easy-going and fun with a wisdom and depth of a hundred year old. She lives in a cute yellow house with a wild garden and three friends, scuds around Copenhagen with her bike in crazy colorful sweaters she knits herself, makes beautiful and wild ceramic art and loves eating yellow foods.
With ice-cream all over my hands I pass that sunscreen for this topless ray of sunshine and we begin our chat.
“ORGANISMER” made by Klara
Klara, tell me about you, who are you? I lay down on my blanket, press play on my recorder and I’m ready to enjoy listening her voice.
“I’m a student of gender, migration & social justice and I work with people with psychiatric illnesses. Both bring me lot of joy. After some down-time I’m also starting to have energy for my friends again. I’m passionate about our garden where we have tomatoes, chilies, cucumbers and lots of snails. It made me so happy to see when everything started to sprout and grow. Very proud moment”, she grins and pauses to roll a cigarette.
“Good things to do in life? Being in the water I cannot really be sad. My ultimate go-to-place in any moment of frustration is some water and to just exists with what is. And to feel just bit more afterwards.” Klara and I share the love for water. Together we’ve jumped in the cold Plötzensee in March, followed Audrey Lorde’s (legend tells part of her ashes are sprinkled in there!) footsteps to enjoy the magic of Krumme Lanke and missed living by the sea while watching the sluggish flow of Spree.
Klara and I actually met through teaching in a same studio. But we never spend too much time chattering about yoga. She laughs when I ask her favorite type of movement: “Ohh, do I need to say yoga? Nah, it’s ok… But I really love dancing. Either when you are in the club and you get immersed into the overall vibe and it is just so good or in a private party where it goes into some crazy contemporary exploration. You know sometimes when dancing can also be very unsatisfying, just not hitting the right spot? I love it when it hits the spot.
Karaoke makes me really fucking happy. I think it is healthy to make sounds!
Routines can hold a life together in a beautiful way. Honestly I’m a bit out of them now. My only routines at the moment are to watch TV with my flatmates one hour before going to bed and go outside barefoot to kill snails in the morning. I feel horrible for it but they eat everything!
Hold on, yes. I guess I have some more after all. I always eat breakfast. I will always eat breakfast and I will always have time to eat breakfast. In winter I go to sauna. Also, I journal. Not to spiral my thoughts and just to put them somewhere where I can visit them if I want to. “
We always loved to hunt simple, cheap & rather shabby places to eat in Berlin. What comes to her favorite foods, simplicity is still her guiding principle: “Potatoes. Fries, potato salad. Yellow stuff. My favorite is the yellow dish. Good ol’ Danish fiske fillet. Or all the yummy, fresh & green stuff from the garden made into a simple salad. And then weird artificial stuff. Everything artificial-watermelon-taste.” I always feel almost offended that she loves so much one horrible, poison-green watermelon soda when there are so many better ones.
The yellow dish <“))))><
“Very often the happiest & best times in life are silly or so simple. Last night my partner and I were looking for the plant that smells like sperm but could not find it. What is it? Everyone knows it right? But where is it?? We smelled everything and I laughed so much and it was just simply fun and adorable. Also a good night sleep and some silence in the morning works like magic every time.
Get to know yourself. You can then be anywhere in the world and you never get bored because you’re always in a good company.
You know, there’s this part of your life when you think there are some external stuff to be find and achieved that will make us happy. And then figuring out that it’s probably a lie. It ain’t that one job, or one relationship or materia. It is about creating that everyday life that you freaking love with the most simplest things and to be content inside. It’s not easy and therefore it is a constant learning for us people. To keep learning that over and over again makes me super happy, actually. Understanding that it’s just there or here and nowhere else - of course speaking from privileged point of view of having food and peace around me.
Secondly, being aware that we are complex beings. We can be both extrovert and introvert. And that can change from day to day too. That I can love the company around me yet I can and I shall also love my own company. Going to museum with myself or take myself for a walk. To get to know me. Then you can be anywhere in the world and you are still entertained because you are in a good company - with yourself.
Lastly, picking. Berries, apples, mushrooms! To look at the colors, to feel the textures against your skin and to smell the smells. At the end, all the primal things are the best.
Klara, you are the best! Tak og se dig snart!
✌(ツ)
