outdoor essentials

One of the things that really surprised me about housing in Iceland when I first arrived was that balconies are considered a nearly essential feature of home life. In Boston, I never lived in an apartment with a balcony, and none of my friends had balconies either. What's the point when winter is so long and tedious, when you only get a few months of use out of it? And yet, when I first arrived, the balcony-free apartment was looked upon with a bit of pity despite being in a very charming old house.

The next apartment had a balcony but turned out to not be as useful as one might hope due to its northfacing seafront location. It was possible to do the occasional barbecue, well anchored with heavy stones, but wasn't really a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the day due to brisk breezes off the sea. Furthermore, it only received direct sunlight late on summer evenings when the rays were no longer particularly warming.

I've been through several other apartments since then, some with outdoor space, some frustratingly without, and I have to say that life in Iceland is definitely much better when viewed from a balcony. Where I live now, it may be a rather tiny space, a bit more than a meter square, but the southern exposure and genteel neighborhood views means it's actually almost useable. On sunny days when the breeze isn't too persistent, I tie open the door and let that marvelous Iceland air pour through the house, and on rainy days I press my nose to the windowpane and imagine the days when it'll be possible to sit out there again.

Plus, if you want to do one of the essential Scandinavian weekend chores when housecleaning, a balcony is a must. On dry days, the neighborhood blooms with duvets tossed over railings, and now I can do it too. For a while there was no railing on my tiny outdoor space, which resulted in a few mishaps where my duvet and drying rack ended up in the garden below, but I've mastered the technique now with a few well-placed clothespins. After a few hours in the sun and wind, the duvets take on the most marvelous lava-air scent that puts me to sleep instantly.

And on those winter nights when the darkness pins itself tight to the window, it's a ritual to step out into the frigid air while I brush my teeth, just to scan the sky in hopes of seeing northern lights. Somehow this is far nicer than looking through a window. Iceland's weather is always more interesting when you interact with it, and my tiny balcony is the perfect way to do that, in any season.

spring, but not

today's the day that officially we are all supposed to have removed our winter nail-tires. It's appropriately ironic that today I woke up to a white world, and since then it's been snowing on and off. The view outside my office is one of those classic Icelandic days, the sky aswirl with clouds and pierced by gentle shafts of sunlight. A crowd of seabirds has just taken off and are reeling against a dark portion of the sky. As the sun hits their wings they glint like silver glitter. The sun's warm though, and the days are already light well past 9pm. It's inevitable that the snow will have to capitulate, one of these days.

localized memory loss

Last Thursday night the first real autumnal weather arrived, a howling wind that spattered rain on the bedroom windows and tore leaves from the trees. It roared all day Friday, bringing with it a strange high mist that blurred the edges of the landscape. Along with rain, this wind blew in the memory of Iceland when it's not summer.

Every year as soon as the darkness disappears in late spring, the recollection that most of the time Iceland is a dark and moody place also disappears. Surely it's always this warm and gentle and green and delicious smelling, isn't it? And then June and July and the beginning of August roll along, months of camping without the need for flashlights, sunlit afternoons at the pool, runs along the sea without the need for hats and gloves. Iceland is a great place to live! The only place to be!

When I moved to the new apartment in June, there wasn't even a need to buy lamps. The ones I'd had before worked fine in the only spot they were useful- late night bedtime reading. The living room's southern exposure meant it was plenty light pretty constantly until mid-August. That's when the rather decent night view revealed itself- the glowing mushroom underside appearance of the university science building, the twinkle of lights at Bessastaðir and is that Garðabær over there? It was also time for a lamp or two to create the cozy feeling that makes up the other half of Iceland, time for candles and wool blankets and knitting and books and pots of tea, a time when the feeling of summer's endlessness is what gets forgotten.

This selective memory loss isn't just about the seasons though. I've experienced it in the landscape as well, when travelling through some of the country's more amazing landscapes. I can never pick which is really my favourite waterfall since the one I am currently at seems like it absolutely must be the best. At different times this year I've been certain my favourite must be Gullfoss, no, maybe Aldeyjarfoss, did I mention Háifoss, or perhaps the river above Skógar, and did I forget the secret snack spot in the highlands? They're all so differently amazing that it's impossible to choose just one.

Life should be about enjoying the moments as they happen, not spending it always thinking tomorrow will be better, or yesterday was when it was really good. Iceland certainly strives to remind me of that in so many ways, nearly every day.

gale force arrival

On Friday I was due to fly back to Iceland but had heard from several people that the weather was not supposed to be particularly friendly, so when I landed in Oslo I started checking the airline website. Everything was cancelled going in or out of the domestic airport, but as far as I could determine there was no disruption whatsoever in the international arrivals.

So off we went and just before landing the pilots said that there were "strong easterly winds" so things might be just a bit bumpy. That's how the Icelandic pilots describe the gale force winds that were sweeping over most of the country, strongest in the south (where the airport is so conveniently located). Oddly, the landing was almost totally normal- a bit bumpy but none of the stomach-dropping quick descents, and the only chaos from passengers was the drunken Norwegians in the bag getting squiffy.

All well and good until the drive from the airport. The road is notoriously exposed, winding along the sea through completely treeless moors, at the mercy of both the howling winds from the highlands (in excellent form that day) and the roar from the ocean (also kicking up at times). It's also just winding enough that it's hard to keep a consistent grip on which way you're headed when there's wind.

I've never driven in weather like this- it was a constant calculation to figure out how to compensate for the roar which was hell-bent on sweeping me, the car, and everything else around me directly into the sea. In the few places where a hummock sheltered me, or when passing the many cars stopped alongside the road, the sudden letup of wind caused a momentary swerve in the opposite direction. In spite of all this I did manage to admire the effect of all this exciting weather- the mountains to the right glowered beneath a fresh coat of wet snow and low hanging clouds, and off to the left, the sea was heaped high and frosted with white that sparkled in the sun. At the juncture of the two, a massive rainbow hovered over Bessastaðir. Welcome to Iceland.

summer barbecuing

One of the staples of an Icelandic summer is the single use grill. These are available at every grocery store and discount shop, and often at most gas stations as well. They're an aluminum pan filled with coals, covered with a sheet of paper soaked in some lighter fluid, and topped with a metal mesh. The idea is that you can have all the joys of barbecuing without having to own all the apparatus of grilling, and when you're done you don't have to carefully carry all the ashes back home.

On the covers they depict fat kebabs covering the entire grill surface, sizzling merrily. Of course this is rather far from the truth. The first challenge is to get them lit, which requires a wind-free spot (good luck with that in Iceland!), and a little prayer and a little bit of lighter-action. If you're fortunate enough to for the flames to take hold, the next feature to enjoy is that there is never a full pan of coals, so you maybe have 2/3 of the grill to work with, which always burns inconsistently. Still, it's enough to make a dinner for two with several grilled components. Word to the wise though- avoid the one that is labeled as being "handy, rapid, and sure!". We had a few of these on a trip to the West Fjords last year and discovered that all 3 of the claims were totally false. We got creative with the primus stove in an attempt to ignite the thing but ended up melting the aluminum and getting no reaction whatsoever out of the coals.

Enough of the boring stuff- what to cook on the onesie grills anyway? Well, in addition to selling these made-for-camping grills, the grocery stores sell all kinds of delights that make for the perfect picnic. To start, there are these nice shrink-wrapped packets of lamb, beef, and pork that are already seasoned in a variety of tempting flavors. Want Argentinian-seasoned beef chops, dry-spice lamb ribs? It's all available in an easily packable flava-bag. You can add grillsósa if you like, available in a dazzling selection of flavors- sundried tomato, green peppercorn, blue cheese.

On to the veggie department, pick up a package of the huge mushrooms stuffed in cheese and ready for the grill in their own little aluminum pan. These come with blue cheese (if you go to Hagkaup), cream cheese (if you go to Krónan- but skip these, they don't have enough zip) or my favorite, the industry standard ones filled with a soft cheese that's zipped up on garlic and herbs. Grab some Icelandic-grown red or yellow peppers, and then in the dairy section, grab a triangle of Akureyri blue cheese. When it's grill time, slice the peppers in half and mash some blue cheese inside. When the pepper starts hissing and the cheese has melted, they're ready (and soo mm good).

For dessert if you still have room, pick up a pair of bananas and some chocolate (I prefer the orange Sirius variety). Slice the bananas on one side, stuff with chocolate, and grill until the banana oozes and the chocolate is all melted. Add some screw-top wine or a few beers and that's all you need to have a grand time.

The best part, of course, is finding the perfect spot for this grilling where you can contemplate a great view, soak up some sun, and enjoy the amazing freedom and solitude that is summertime in Iceland. The countryside is chock-full of these staggeringly beautiful locations where the only company might be a few birds wading in the waves or a solitary Arctic fox slinking by, perhaps attracted by the smell of the sizzle.

In some ways this summer is becoming the swan song for the community I know here. At the last party I attended I talked to so many people who were planning to stay until the end of the summer and then move on to jobs elsewhere in continental Europe. As long as the weather's nice we can all ignore the situation a bit and get to our grilling and admiring of sunsets but sooner than I'd like to think, the great weather will be all over and then what?

shifting

Somewhere along the way since my last post, it became winter here, with well-below-freezing temperatures, several snowstorms last week, and the glorious chaos that is the Icelandic approach to winterizing the roads (basically it seems to be "it'll melt eventually so why worry?" resulting in some interesting skating effects on the way to work). It's a bit harder to love Iceland now compared to the golden and seemingly endless summer, but there is a certain majesty to the sprawl of Esja all covered in white, the clear blackness of these Arctic nights.

In the past weeks it's become clear that the worst of what's happening here is yet to come, the unemployment, the inflation, the wariness of Iceland on the world markets. So far it really doesn't seem like much is different in the small corner of the country that I occupy. My friends are still all working and doing most of the things they always did, the choir goes on, the shelves in the grocery stores still stocked with a few spot exceptions reported, the plans for Christmas parties and annual dinners are in progress. Life as usual.

There have been the occasional story from this person or that of being unable to find Cheerios, or green onions, or my trip to Krónan last week that yielded not a single lemon. These stories of shortages usually are followed up by walking into a competing store and being confronted with a literal wall of Cheerios, or six boxes of lemons, so it seems to me that it's more the typical shopping experience here rather than a sign that the shortages are upon us. To further test the stories on the international wires against the experience here, I asked my hair goddess N (seriously, if anyone is looking for that perfect person to cut your hair in rvk, she's the one) if she was having trouble acquiring supplies for her salon, she said that she'd been worried about running short on hair color during the holiday season when everyone's wanting to look their best, but she'd had no trouble at all. It was even a British company providing her products, and they'd been very agreeable to working with them however and whenever they could pay.

So life goes on here, admittedly more frigid outdoors than before, but it remains cozy inside as I've turned to a more domestic style of life- it's all about baking and cooking and movie nights with friends lately, which has not felt like any sort of compromise in fun at all. It's the time of year that is more about those kinds of activities naturally anyway, and when you throw in a bit of musical practice and some concerts, it's hard to argue that the quality of life is suffering.

The one thing I've thought about a lot recently is how as an Icelandic tax payer I will be paying for the failures of these banks, but then I realize that as a resident of America my taxes there were going to things I didn't personally agree with, and that people worldwide are having their taxes siphoned off to pay for their country's banks collapsing. I guess that's how it goes in any modern society- you pay for things you don't agree with, things you never will use, but you also pay for things that you get to enjoy and take advantage of every day. Somehow it all feels more immediate here since we're all so much closer to the people who're deciding things, exposed to the winds of international forces much more than I ever felt I was in America.

æfingabúðir

After a week of work in Norway, I returned to Iceland for the annual pre-season training trip for the choir, the vocal equivalent of the early spring rowing training in college, where we'd go south and row ourselves silly for a few days.

The choir trips are a bit shorter, a bit less strenuous, and for some reason always seems to take place on weekends of exceptionally bad weather, like the first time when I spent an entire weekend enshrouded in fog. This year it was that special kind of rainy weather that comes after lots of snow and results in skating rink parking lots everywhere, and lots of mysterious fog wisps. Our destination this time was the complex at Sólheimar, a place that's made a name for itself by creating a safe space for people with mental disabilities to live together. The complex is situated in a valley about an hour's drive from Reykjavík, and contains houses for the people, craft studios where they have woodworking, weaving, candle making, and other activities, a small store where they sell these items, a hotel, several guesthouses, a pool and a church. Most of the food is both organic and vegetarian there, and the buildings have been built with an eye toward recycling, renewable resources, and maximum efficiency.

The choir has grown so large that we occupied two houses, each with a large kitchen/living area and wings of double guestrooms spreading outward along the ridges above the central valley. Rather than singing in the living room as we did before, we got use of the lovely church at the highest point of the little community. The low walls of the building were snug in turf, and the vaulted ceiling of pale wood adorned with a chandelier of winged lightbulbs. With the trapezoidal windows looking over the foggy landscape it was a serene and perfectly isolated place for a day and a half of musical focus.

We sang all Friday evening, and most of Saturday in the church, then stuffed ourselves into cars and drove through the swirled mist to practice some more at Skálholt, the seat of the Icelandic bishops. Like most places in Iceland, this place is steeped in fierce history and has been significant in the story of Iceland since the 11th century, but little human-generated evidence still remains of all this activity. The church built over ruins of previous constructions is only from the middle of the 20th century, and while quite large by Icelandic standards, is still a rather cozy and non-awe-inspiring scale. Despite the size, the acoustics, so sorely lacking in many Icelandic churches, are superb there. The songs that sounded decent elsewhere sounded exceptional in this special place, ringing against the dark stone floors and spreading around us.

We sang until evensong, when a few people filtered in the door of the church, and we then all lined up on opposite sides of the church for a short call-and-response service. At the end we shared a moment of silence that was remarkable in its perfect quiet. 40 people ranged along the walls of this stone building in the middle of the open countryside, so perfectly still that the only sound was the rushing of the geothermally heated water through the radiators. No cars, no horns or city hum, just the exhalation of the earth through the pipes and the breathing of the people standing beside me.

After that, it was time for some noise at dinnertime and afterwards. We ate at the restaurant in Sólheimar at two large tables, and by the end of the dinner everyone was swapping chairs, and the conversation volume rose as the wine glasses emptied. We finished by singing a favorite song, then headed back up the hill for more singing, more conversation, and more eating. Unlike last time when my Icelandic comprehension abilities shut down as the trip progressed, this time they blossomed. Although the choir now does have several other non-Icelandic members, none of them were actually on the trip, so I was alone in the sea of pre-aspiration and lilting cadence, hearing of my choir director's California exchange student experience, talking of the deliciousness of Boston beer.

This group has been a constant over my years here, and it's nice to see how things have changed over the course of these group getaways. We've been to a bunch of places in Iceland and outside of Iceland and each time there' s a new word learned, a new person I talk to, the feeling for a new song.

concentrated sunrise

After hearing about them about 3 years ago for the first time, I finally saw glitský this morning. These peculiar high atmosphere clouds are a rare phenomenon in far northern places, and are one of the other rewards of the extended sunrise period in the wintertime.

My commute this morning had me heading straight towards them, so for once I wanted the stop lights to last for as long as they liked, since at every look the clouds contained different colors. First palest cobalt was surrounded by feathers of pink, then the center morphed into electric lavender with swirls of green as the edges deepened to red.

Like a concentrated sunrise, these veil-thin clouds eventually manifested all the colors of the rainbow in muted shades on my 15-minute drive, swirling and pulsating like the pre-dawn cousin of northern lights. I apparently got the best of the show, since now they've dissolved like a figment of my imagination, and the space they just occupied is now being consumed by the clouds of steam from Nesjavellir that rise from the horizon to the east.

how to get through January

I know that many people who consider moving north fear the darkest months, when it can seem like you never see day, so here's a list of the things that have made this January manageable and even entertaining.

• the car. Sad to say that this has made the biggest difference, but when you're talking snow being blown into interestingly sculptural drifts by hurricane force winds, it matters to not be waiting for a bus in it.
• Just like my mama said, you have to get outside and do something active. It's why we grew up skiing and why I've been swimming regularly. Lying in a hot tub while the snow flails around you is grand, not to mention that perfection of warmth. Plus, the sting of cold snowflakes on your arms will make you swim faster. The perfect training motivation!
  
• Dinner parties. Candles, cabernet, and conversation help make those hours and hours of darkness rather cozy.
• Lots of coffee. My most recent round of place-to-live negotiations have involved more socializing over coffee than actual details-of-apartments discussions. When the weather's neither ski-able nor hike-able, nor mow-the-lawn-able, everyone's much more willing to while away the hours of a gray afternoon over pots and pots of coffee.
• Big windows. My new office has a vast view across Esja and the mountains to the northeast, so the scraps of daylight are captured and appreciated to their maximum.
• Escape. Sure, it was only Norway where it gets darker earlier in the day (and lighter earlier) but at least it's a change and a new perspective.

Really though, I think it's just having spent more time here and being used to the rhythm. Plus, by January the sun's on the upswing, so you know that brighter days are ahead.

snowland

while I was away, Iceland got busy covering things up more than they'd already been covered, so K and I landed in a mini-blizzard yesterday and had to shove the car out of the drift it had gotten nicely tucked into while we were away. It's a rather sporty thing with open wheels so the packed snow caused peculiar effects on the vehicular balance, so we tried to pull over to do something about it but ended up more in a snowdrift than we'd been in the parking lot.

Within seconds, a youngun with a highland-worthy diesel truck had pulled over, followed by a minivan full of enthusiastic kids and a father. The youngun looked hopefully at the car for a place he could hook a winch but when that proved unlikely, he pulled out a sizeable shovel and went about flinging snow energetically while K and I looked on. Then, with a synchronized push, the two guys popped us out of the snowbank and disappeared into the fading day with a cheery wave.

This encounter was so very Icelandic to me in several ways. First of all, when I saw the truck and the type of fellow in it, I knew he'd want to try some kind of winch action. The guys with cars like that seem to always want to make the most use of their equipment, and revel in being The Guys Who Fix Things. Second, he didn't just hand the shovel to me or K, but dug us out completely by himself, and third, in spite of the youngun there, the minivan guy stopped to help too.

As I've said before, there's this way that people go about helping each other here that make me glad to be here. I do think it's not uniquely Icelandic, but more the shape of life in any rural place that is prey to the elements. Growing up in Vermont usually meant helping people in the same way, although I remember more mud-related rescues on the spring pre-season crew team jogs than winter dig-outs. We'd be out for a run together on the narrow dirt roads that wound through the area, and would come upon someone mired in a fresh patch of springtime. Nothing's quite so nice to someone like that than 10 or 15 high-school athletes, ready to push and dirty enough as it is that a little more mud doesn't matter.

a nice sort of holiday

Shopping in Nice is an adventure if it's done properly, which has to include the Saleya street market. It's the kind of place where a smile will bring a special discount on your onions, where the barrel-chested North Africans selling celery sing songs as they stack their wares, where the bread ladies kiss half their clients in holiday greeting. It's where going to the furthest end of the market yields the best discounts, a whole aluminum pail of sweet, bright carrots for one euro fifty.

Stacks of radishes fan out like a modern art sculpture, and stalls selling nothing but dried fruits are a bonanza of slicked colors. Pass the spice stall and pause to allow the harissa, the coriander, and the dozens of different pepper varieties soak through your nostrils. It's like all the markets I love so much in Paris, but here the people speak with the similarly squashed a's of French Canadians. They're happy to offer advice on how to cook the locally produced handmade ravioli, which kind of stinky cheese is the best, and pass your bag of baby spinach to you with a flourish.

The wine shop is another adventure altogether, with a whole wall lined in vats. Bring your own bottle and they'll fill it from the spout with local wine for less than three euros. Sounds like a recipe for a headache but it goes down smooth and leaves just enough mellowness to really feel like you're on holiday.

My family's been staying in a flat in an ancient building in the center of the oldest part of town for the past week. It's got massively high ceilings and is in transition out of a series of unfortunate modifications, one of which involved fuzzy hallway wallpaper. Our flat is cozy and loft-y, making it difficult at times to decide whether the delights are greater inside or outside.

Outside the door though, is a whole medieval neighborhood full of wind-y streets, frigid and beautiful churches, and the sweeping Baie Des Anges (bay of angels) a few blocks over, so appropriately named. I climbed to the top of the bluff near the sea yesterday, marveling at how exactly right everything there looked- the scrubby pine trees arcing gracefully towards the water, the hillsides encrusted with sorbet-colored buildings, the impossible blue of the Mediterranean stretching south towards Africa. Even the light here is how it should be, saturated with gold and as warm as a wood stove. It's a pleasant change from the darkness of Iceland.

In a dim light: neither daylight

December darkness is something that I once feared and that may seem like a terrifying thing to people from brighter places. Most Icelanders I've talked with find it to be something that one simply deals with, or in some cases, embraces.

On still days and nights when not a single branch twitches nor dead leaf rustles, it's a time full of witching hours, these hours that stretch from black to sunup- the blueness of the pre-dawn that makes white blankets look aquatic, the white simplicity of light on cloudy winter days, the rich and magical navy of dusk, the purest black of nighttime. Even a clear full-day sky is deep glacial cobalt, and then the snowed mountains across the bay emanate the most perfect kind of frigidity I can imagine. Whenever I want to think of the coldest temperature imaginable, I am sure my mind will go to the black mountains to the north, etched with glowing snow and edged by Arctic sea waters.

Offsetting this chill is the delirium of lights that cover the city- every tree that can hold a bulb is draped, stores staple entire illuminated evergreens over the doors, and windows are festooned with candles. A Saturday stroll becomes a festivity of greetings, street caroling, pepper cookies and cocoa. It's a tiny glowing oasis in the midst of the miles of darkness beyond, where one single car light over on Kjalarnes can be followed on its entire outbound journey around Esja, a dot of bright in deepest black.

super sundays

I've written plenty about the crappy, miserable, sorry, soggy weeks we've been having here lately, but what I haven't mentioned is those few Sundays of glorious respite there have been interspersed. I took photos a few weeks ago of one of those days, and last Sunday was another. Just at freezing, perfectly still, and crisply sunny, the perfect day for the 45 minute walk to Laugardalslaug from my house. Although I have sunglasses, I wanted to let the brightness burn my eyes. Must save up the glory of light for the dark times later!

I started off along Snorrabraut where the berries on the trees (anyone know what those trees are?) had mixed with the moss along the wall-tops, and then continued straight out to the wide-open bay. When I was in Boston, I got a cashmere sweater as a Christmas gift, and the teal-blue color was called "Arctic ocean". At the time I thought it was pretty cheesy a name, but it really is the color of the sea on a bright winter day.

This walk is one of the great features of Reykjavík, allowing a nice stretch of time to appreciate the majesty of Esja all covered in snow at this time of year, and in the summer, it's the path where I rollerbladed. Going to the pool, I turned in at the bus yard, where this listing baby blue car awaits something around the corner from all the slumbering busses. Further down the street is a cluster of oddly vintage businesses- a shoe fix-it place, a shop with every shape of mirrors you'd ever want.

Then to the pool. Sunday swimming in this kind of weather is quite possibly one of the best things to do on a lazy weekend afternoon. The water seems clearer, each intake of breath is fresh and bright, the water smooth against my limbs. Afterwards, tired from laps and lying in the heated salt-water pool, I watch the rhythmic rotation of arms across the pool lanes, listening to the slightly distant echoes of the kids splashing in their pool, and the murmur of old-man gossip in the next hot tub.

Last time I left while the sun was still fully up, at the same time as the Royal Arctic Line steamed out of the harbor. Three weeks at approximately the same time, it was the just-post-sunset witching hour, when Esja looks its most imposing and frigid, and the pink after-glow of sunset fades into deepening blue skies.

Along with the sun's disappearance, the last moments of warmth in the day left as well, so by the time I got home, I was fully frigid. It took some spicy Indian food and the magic of an Icelandic wool blanket to warm up again, but it was worth it for the views and the sense of peace that always comes from the Sunday pool trip.

forgotten fall

September and October are my favorite months usually- crisp air, bright leaves, a chance for scarves, coats, and wool. This year though, it seems like it has almost never happened, with the nearly endless rainstorms, and the high winds of last week that ripped off most of the leaves before they had a chance to go colorful. Last year it was a proper fall here, and the trip to Vermont would take care of anyone's yen for foliage.

This year it's been Norway where I have watched the season unfold properly, over the course of four trips there since mid-August. It starts with the train ride into Oslo from the airport that displays all the right markers- alarmingly bright orange punctuating misty hills, stands of trees clustering against deep red-painted barns. In the town outside Oslo where I go for work, it's the smell of fall rain hastening the leaf decay, the fog-hazed fields all trimmed of their August hay crop and lying golden and stubbled. Days that start with finger-chill and mist in the river valley, then warm up to almost short-sleeve temperature, and then close around you cool enough to cause the puff of white in your exhale and make the stars twinkle crisply.

If only it were like that sometimes, just sometimes, here in Iceland this year. Like others, I've been remembering the views of other autumns, when there were chances to appreciate the size of the landscape here and how marvelous the light is when it chooses to be. I know that weather will come again someday, but after what feels like two months of non-stop rain, I'm starting to plan delicious non-Iceland escapes to visit foreign friends with glee. It's a tough love sometimes, this Iceland.

wail

This morning I woke to the clatter of rain on the window, and gusts pulsating through the open window that made the shade squeak and the door bang fiercely. Snug in feathers I enjoyed this special breed of Icelandic storm, noisy and insistent. It drowns out all sounds of modernity, so for that moment it could be 100 years ago, even if you are in the middle of a city.

Those warm-up exercises I mentioned a week ago must have been effective, since I returned from Norway to find that the door on the landing had apparently been ripped off its hinges by another enthusiastic storm last week, leaving a spray of splinters across the carpet, and bending the curtain rod into uselessness. The door's now boarded into place with sturdy blocks of wood, and seems to be impervious to these newer blasts today.

Although it is hard to walk in sometimes, wind and storms like this are invigorating to me. High at my sixth floor desk, I watch the sheets of rain swirl across the nearly empty parking lot, listen to the whistling through the slight crack in the window, and observe the smoky clouds in their majestic course out to sea. I'm sure that, like most Icelandic storms, this one too will be a memory by afternoon, but for now I am relishing the insanity of it, and the odd calm that comes from everyone scurrying about so quickly to stay inside, tucked away from the fury of the sea's weather systems.

swampy times

It's no coincidence that the word for mushroom in Icelandic, sveppir, resembles the word "swamp". They know a thing or two about wet weather and the fungi who love it! The past two weeks of almost non-stop rain has created the perfect breeding ground for the most luxurious mushrooms I've seen in quite a while. Their variety looks like the kind of thing that a mushroom gourmand would get all rhapsodical about- long cylinder ones, tiny sprinklings of black ones, fairy parasols, seats for the toads that don't live in Iceland, and everything. They're creeping across the lawn of my house, inching towards the door, they're in the swath of land on the far side of Tjörnin, they're cropping up in the shrubbery around laugardalslaug. A few weeks ago in Heiðmörk, the woods were rustley with people collecting them. I'm no shroom expert so I quake at picking the wrong kind, so I celebrated in my own way on Saturday with a homemade mushroom soup, using store varieties, of course. It's just the kind of weather for it what with all the rain, after all.

evaporated

In the last two weeks, the darkness at night has disappeared like a puddle of water on hot asphalt. Today is the first day totally without civil twilight, so the "night" hours are spent in a sunset glow of mystery. The below-the-horizon portion of the sun's circle is completed behind the mountains to the north of Reykjavík, making for heartbreakingly beautiful light in the wee hours.

This excess of light makes sleeping suddenly seem like it should be more optional. I don't want to miss one minute of this peachy lavender sky, the navy silhouette of Esja, the witching-hour spook that settles over the city. Of course, the usual indicators of hour that I grew up with are so hard-wired that the fact that it's still light out means I feel like it's not bedtime yet, and then I suddenly look at the clock and realize it's past midnight. In the mornings, I get a similar effect, waking up with a start of "I'm late" guilt after noting the blazing yellow glow in the room. A peek at the clock shows that it's 6am, not noon.

I would love to know the average amount of sleep the Icelandic nation gets in the summer versus the winter. Just like it's easy to sleep until 11 every weekend morning in December, in May and June, 6 seems like a sensible hour to wake up. Mornings actually spent sleeping in have the feeling of an afternoon nap, since by 10 the sun is already noon-high.

However, in spite of the light indicating all systems go for Summer in Iceland, the weather has its own plans. We spent the morning in a haze of blizzard-level snow squalls passing over us. As I think I mentioned before, the seasons in Iceland are reliably only light and dark. Don't expect the weather to comply with those crazy notions about summer being warmer and snow free here! The silly thing is that people still dress as if it's summer, working open-toed sandals on a weekend night out, leaving the big winter coats at home, forgetting the hats. I thought about this yesterday as I walked home in a spirited snowstorm, hatless, wearing my thin sneakers and cotton blazer. I'm as bad as the rest of them now, but somehow, the light does make you feel warmer, as does the sure-to-be-proven expectation that the storm will surely pass us over as quickly as it arrived.

EIR*

On Monday evening I went for a rollerblade by the sea, one of my favoritest things to do. I've been doing it since those summers in college out on Martha's Vineyard but it's a rare day here when the weather looks like it'll hold long enough to let me take a round-trip. Although it was cloudyish on Monday, it was the "right" kind of cloudy that didn't look too soggy, so I headed out at about 9:15 to the sea path that runs along the southern side of the bay here. The water had that magical springtime silverblue sheen, and the mountains hulked behind a veil of moisture opposite as I headed along the curve towards the outskirts of town.

I'd bladed a few times on the Seltjarnarnes side of things, but that's a different story with its direct ocean exposure. The full force of the sea and ripping Atlantic winds often sends the waves leaping meters over the sea wall where they happily take sections of pavement away and leave gravel and necklaces of kelp behind. On the bay side, the only evidence of sea-fury is the polished stones on one inlet, but everywhere else the path was perfect- smooth, kelp-free, and uncrowded.

Past Höfði, past the Strætó breeding grounds (the bus yard), past the weird seaward cluster of houses at Laugarnes, I found a new piece of Reykjavík. First I went the familiar route up past the Why-Kings graffiti wall, and when it became video-store gas-station land, I turned around, and followed the other fork in the path that went snaking through the lava.

I scared a gaggle of geese there who'd left behind a turd-slalom, and sailed down the dipping path and round the corner. This little area was silent enough to hear the tiny lapping waves and instead of city I was surrounded by the stuff of the wilds here- lava, moss, and sea, with all the islands of the harbor lying under their greening mist of spring. The stretch was short though, and I soon came out in the midst of Industrial Quarter Reykjavík, where the shipping companies have their offices, and stacks of building materials compete with parking lots.

Still, there's another dock down there that even has a tiny yellow sand beach next to it (this is rare and interesting here in this place of black lava sand) sheltered by an impressively craggy rock. I think this is where many of the larger cruise ships end up depositing their merry-makers, and in spite of the lovely view of Viðey opposite, I bet they're a bit disappointed when they step off into office-park superland, edged by parking lots and construction fences.

At that time of evening the parking lot was barren, so I sailed around it, doing double-pole stretches and sinuous swirls in the huge open space, and then headed home, back towards Hallgrímskirkja that dominates the short skyline here. The experience was enchanting enough that I went again yesterday in spite of the sure-to-dump-rain clouds. The wind had picked up since the day before, but I thanked my previous Atlantic seashore training and considered it an added cardio boost as I inhaled the leafy smells of springtime it brought. Thankfully, the wind was to my back as I went homewards, so the final stretch in the smattered rain was quick and I was soon home, tired, exhilarated, and loving the landscape here.

*Experiments in International Rollerblading

bare knees

Today was the first day I dared venture forward in a skirt without my wool tights on. It's a special feeling when the weather hits a temperature that also makes it possible to leave the gloves at home. Of course here at this time of year, a spring skirt still has to be paired with a sensible top like a cashmere turtleneck and high boots, but the frisky feeling of wind on those millimeters of knee-skin makes it finally feel like spring. The lawn outside the door has put on the palest of green hues in spots, and in the gardens all along the street, clusters of crocuses and tiny blue star-shaped flowers are making their way forth among the mossy rocks in the gardens. It's always like this- I forget that growing things ever existed and then all at once they're everywhere- fattening buds on trees, grass growing in the sidewalk cracks, and green shoots everywhere.

The season's still very tentative though- I was the only one baring knees on Laugavegur, and the visitors are all still be-hatted and hooded (of course, they often are in July too). It's not so cold though, really. I think almost 50 degrees f is splendid skirt weather, even if there is no sun. It's really almost as good as it gets here. Today the temperature was moderated by a zippy wind, keeping it from being too tropically balmyy. 35mph doesn't seem like much but it's enough to make wearing a gauzy skirt a bit thrilling. It was worth it though for that
feeling that maybe, just maybe there will be a few moments of bare-arm weather sometime in a few months.

midweek music

Yesterday, thanks to a guy I know at the French Embassy, I ended up at yet another event that was put on as part of the Franskt Vor (French spring) festival. It was held in the same venue as the music video recording last fall, only this time we weren't squashed into the tiny room at the side. The crowd was mostly foreign and heavy on the French, with the local population attending appropriately Ice-hipster cool. I spotted all the cool-people varieties last night that come out in droves on the weekend and for concerts like this. One girl with loud-colored tights, check (last night's representative was in scorching red). One ironic lopapeysa, check (he had skulls craftily knit into the yoke pattern), one girl clad in Rokk og Rósir wares (the local hipstervintage shop), and of course, plenty of guys with That Hairdo. It's the one that looks like hipster #1 hops into a car and sticks his head out the window hound-style, but facing backwards. Hipster #2 takes a few spins down Hringbraut, and with a little gel,voila, the perfect brushed-forward-and-stir style with no dryer time required! There was also one exceptional fellow wearing blue tiedye sweatpants and an orange lopapeysa. I think there's extra points for a guy like that.

Anyway, we'd all turned out to hear a combination of groups. Starting off we had Monade, two girls with guitars plus a guy on keyboards and another on percussion, accompanied by Jóhann Jóhannsson and his trombonists. Their sound was Belle & Sebastian without the crazy lyrics, Múm without the wandering percussion and surreal voices, Benni Hemm Hemm without the tight orchestral quality to the performance, AMPOP without that Icelandic melancholoy. In short, it was pleasant, listenable, and with decent movement but didn't feel really WOW. The lyrics might have been interesting, sometimes French, sometimes English, but it was difficult to hear them so I only could pick out the occasional phrase here and there.

The crowd kind of added to the feeling that it hadn't all come together. Maybe it's because it was a Wednesday, or maybe it's because I didn't realize that clapping and enthusiasm is not cool these days, but I actually spotted a guy sleeping in the corner midway through the set. The rest of the audience seemed kind of dull-eyed, with the exception of one American girl in the corner who was in full head-bopping mode. Don't get me wrong, the music was pleasant enough but just not really blowing my hair back...er.. forward.

Next came Angil, who educated us on a French literary movement called Oulipo that was fond of writing with interesting constraints. For example these Angil guys like to write their lyrics without using the letter E. Sounds a bit pretentious but their sound was much more interesting than the first group, with a hypnotic base drone and a tighter performance in general than the first band. One of the guys in the group was also a staff member at the French Embassy here and achieved some fame and press coverage last fall in a well-received play. He was playing a clarinet which was a bit difficult to hear but it was interesting to see him rocking out on an instrument I don't associate with that kind of band.

Since it was a school night I didn't stay to hear the whole set, so I hit the silent streets soon after that. On my way home it started to snow, tactile evidence of how winter's still hanging on to us a bit up here. There were hints of spring on my quiet walk through the neighborhood though- tightly folded buds on the low bushes behind Hallgrímskirkja, and near my front gate, flower shoots are almost six inches tall there. When this French spring festival started a few weeks ago, it certainly felt like the wrong season, but Iceland is catching up.