welcome, April

Iceland has rewarded our suffering through the soggy autumn with a stretch of lovely days in the past month, so this week I have begun the search for the perfect morning swim-in-the-sun. A few mornings ago I tried the early shift at my new obsession-pool in Seltjarnarnes.

The pool staff was still cleaning the pool, sucking the black sand that had blown in during the winds the night before, so the water reverberated with the rat-a-tat of the vacuum clicking over the tiles in the bottom. At every lap, a little more of the pool bottom was swept clean, leaving behind a faintly iridescent sheen to the tiles.

This pool's the salt water one, which makes the water have a faintly sour taste on the lips, and the corrosion around the metal drains leaves fan-shaped rust trails on the blue tiles below. The smooth velvet texture of the water is as comfortable as being tucked into a warm bed with a book and a cuppa, but the extra buoyancy makes swimming feel like the only motion your body was meant to do. Shoulders rotate smoothly, and even the breathing is not a conscious hold-and-inhale. I always lose count in this pool as the sensations take over, and this morning was no exception.

Wednesday morning I tried Árbær, where again the crowd was almost all at least 40 years older than me, and the angle of the pool proved to be less than optimal for the early riser crowd. Still, the morning people are all about the swimming so the experience is far more serene than the afternoon. Same for this morning in Laugardalslaug where the frigidity combined with sun masked just how many others were swimming. Once again I was the youngest by far, and the only one doing more than a genteel breast stroke.

This crowd wants me to be an old person in Iceland so I can swim in the morning in a flowered bathing cap and then join the crowds of 3 and 5 bobbing about in the shallow end. I almost never see grouchy people in these morning crews, like this morning when I was enjoying the tiny triangle of sun that had splashed across the salt pot. A sprightly pair in their seventies came up, and one said, "nice in there, isn't it", to which I replied, "well, it'd be nice if there were just a liiitle more sun", and he answered, "well, this guy'll help brighten it, since his name's Bjartur" (which means bright). We all had a nice chat about the plans for a hotel next to the pool, the temperature of the salt pot that day (note: this is always an acceptable conversation topic at the pool once the weather's been discussed), and then it was time for showers and work.

No matter what else happens here in Iceland, from the sinking currency to the nearly daily truck driver protests that have created the first real traffic jams I've experienced here, there's always the pool. There's too much to do at the office and your hummus gets mold before you expect it to, but a swim in the peach-colored morning sun plus a nice long soak make it all not important anymore. It's the way to start the day properly.