flavors of everyday

It's the scent of dish soap when mixed with the sulphur-hot smell of the water here, the keening of the wind that howls in the vent somewhere in the bathroom. It's how I know that the ferocity of the weather by the pattern of raindrops on my windows. A storm's really exciting if both kitchen and living room are spattered with wet, and the wind makes the shade pull in my bedroom clack restlessly on the pane.

It's the smell of air-dried linens and duvet, forcibly infused with Outdoor after an afternoon snapping on the line, and the green taste of a crisp hothouse cucumber grown just across the mountain pass.

It's the color of the tomatoes that squat on the folding Swiss trivet and ripen in morning sun, the taste of local potatoes roasted with plaice from the fish market near work- the one where they're impossibly jolly and pleasant, even just before closing and the store's full. It's the scratch of Icelandic wool on my arms from my lopapeysa, the color snippet of a tea towel that steams gently dry on the radiator in the kitchen. It's the red glow reflected off the sheds outside that glosses the ceilings on the north side.

Sure, Iceland's all about grand vistas for many people, but I suspect that these everydaynesses are the ones I'm going to remember again someday, triggered by ripening tomatoes, the smell of outside in the blanket fibers, or the swish of a dishcloth on yet another dirty dish.