My Life Living Greenland

My name is Katy Joelsen and I’ve been a member of Cotton Cuts for over two years now. I wanted to participate in the #ccstaycation fun to tell you more about who I am and where I currently reside. I’m a Navy brat born in Charleston, SC but I was raised in Florida. I love Florida and I never thought there’d be a day I would leave it. I used to say I would never move away from Florida but things change when a person ages along with unexpected events that happen in life.

I’m a mother of three beautiful children whom I love more than life. They have been the joy of my life even when we all were left with wreckage from the suicide of their father after 21 years of marriage. It was hard during that time having to pick up the pieces along with helping my children get through such a rough patch in their lives. My oldest daughter was just entering adulthood while the other two were in their last year of high school. We all have made it through for the most part but during that time I took the time to reflect on what my life had been and how I wouldn’t ever let another man treat me badly or make me feel I wasn’t good enough ever again. It wasn’t easy growing up hearing my father tell me that I would never be worth anything and have that worthlessness continue into my first marriage. I thought that I would be alone after that and at the time I was okay with that idea. It was strange being responsible for just myself. My youngest daughter went into the Navy and she served four years. I think it was what she needed at the time.

In 2009 something happened I never thought would. I got a second chance to finally feel loved and to find peace and happiness. Up until then, life had always been hard and a struggle. Then the light of my heart came into my life. It was unexpected and neither of us was looking for love at the time but we had an 8-year-long online friendship that ended up bringing us together. Out of the blue in 2009 he told me he was coming to Florida for vacation and wanted to know if I’d like to show him some of my state. He was going to be in Florida for two weeks and I said sure why not. So when I drove two hours south and pulled up to the hotel he came walking out at the same time. When we hugged something happened that both of us didn’t expect. It was like we were meant to meet. We clicked. When he put his arms around me it felt like a warm safe blanket. We sat up all night like two teenagers laughing and talking and asking questions. The two weeks we spent together were fantastic. He is an exceptional human being. Oh, I forgot to mention, He is a Greenlander from the country of Greenland. When he left I felt so sad because he took a piece of my heart with him. Funny how life does things at the right time too. A long-time friend of mine would always quote “It’s all about timing.”

In 2010 he came back and spent another six weeks with me and we had a great time together. During that time he asked me to marry him and I took a leap of faith and said yes! My heart light works for a big fishing company. He works on a factory shrimp trawler that takes him to sea for weeks at a time. Later in 2010, I flew to Greenland. It was my first time flying over the ocean and going to another country. It was scary but I was just so excited that I would get to be with my heart light again. I flew into Greenland in the middle of December and stayed till mid-January 2011. We did this so that we could see how my lungs (asthma) would react to winter. The strangest thing happened. My asthma hardly bothered me. It was truly amazing not having to fight to breathe like I did during the winter months in North Florida.

Instead of waiting till later in the year, we did a thing in January. We got married on January 2nd, 2011! Of course, then we had to make a decision on who was going to do the migrating. I migrated because it was the best fit for us at the time and I have not regretted making this huge life change at all.

So I moved from Florida to Qaqortoq Greenland in the month of August 2011. I had to find homes for my four horses and one dog and I brought the other dog with me.

When I moved here it was like starting all over again from scratch. My heart light (Nikolaj) owned his own house so that made things easier. I had a lot to learn living in Greenland. Learning to read food labels that were in Danish. That was hard to start with. Now it’s no big deal. 🙂 Speaking of food. I had never eaten duck, reindeer, or whale meat, or salmon until I moved here. Reindeer is so tender, and the duck is tasty, and I’ve grown to love salmon too.

It wasn’t easy, to begin with. I was at a disadvantage relating to language. My husband speaks Greenlandic, Danish, and English fluently so most of the time we didn’t have as big of a language barrier struggle. The first couple of years I got beat up quite a bit with struggling to communicate but as time has gone by it has become easier and easier to talk to people here in Qaqortoq. Greenlanders are the nicest group of people you could ever meet. They love their country, they love nature, they love each other and they smile and laugh a lot and have a good sense of humor. I have learned a bit of Greenlandic and I can read quite a bit of Danish and I haven’t had to sacrifice too much of my English in the process. I hope one day that I can speak more Greenlandic than I do though. I have found peace here.

This beautiful place has helped to heal my hurt heart too. I contribute the healing to nature and to my “heart light”. He is the most giving person and he shows affection without ever having to ask for it. I love him so much and the longer we are together the deeper our love grows. When we went to California in 2018 he finally got to meet my youngest daughter. He had already met the other two but Kriston was in Japan when we got married so they hadn’t met until almost 8 years later.

So what I decided to do was pick back up on crocheting along with finding a way to garden inside my house. My skill set for crocheting was minimal but it didn’t take me long to learn new skills and become friends with others in our world who shared the love of crocheting and I have benefited from this skill in so many ways. The photo on the left is Sophie’s Universe. It was a year-long group CAL. I used Redheart worsted soft yarn along with a couple of other companies that had some really soft yarn. The second photo is of my Mandala Madness (Arctic Lights). This was done with 32 colors from DMC #3 cotton yarn along with some from Redheart and Lily. The mandala also took a year to make. I learned several new skills from both CALs.

Mandala Madness was a year-long endeavor by a group of people from all over the world. I stalled out about mid-summer because I was outside growing my first-ever garden in South Greenland. Because of that, I didn’t spend much time crocheting during that time frame. I did take time to take more sunset photographs which contributed to my using more colors especially the warmer colors in my mandala. It has kept me busy during the times my heart light was at sea. I began to accumulate plants over the years too. Gardening is part of me. It comes from deep inside me I think and I couldn’t imagine not ever having green things in my life. It brings me such peace and harmony. I consider it my Super Power. 🙂 Something I was blessed with that no one can take from me. One day I hope to leave some of that legacy to my children.