moment of silence

One of the recent news items has had me thinking a lot about this country, the people who live here and the people who visit. Late Wednesday, a young man called the emergency number to say he'd lost his way out on one of the glaciers in the south, and needed help. Teams from the volunteer rescue squads were immediately on the job, despite the call going out in the middle of the night. Over the next few days, hundreds of people volunteered their time to search for this lost visitor. When I called some friends on Saturday, they were all still busy helping out, cleaning the vehicles that came back from search efforts and restocking for the next trip out.

Sadly, they found the young man later that day, his body in a crevice where he'd probably died from exposure. I suppose it's a better ending than the last time such an event happened when two German tourists went hiking and were never found again.

This story made me think again of how powerful the nature is here. It's a country where the wind can blow entire ship containers into the sea from a dock, a country where people can go missing and never be found, where the weather can change instantly, and where you can never be too prepared when you venture out into the wilderness. Most people are smart and sensible but for the thousands who are, there's always the one horrible sad story. There are plenty of sites reminding people of the dangers here but I'd just like to reiterate it because the consequences can be so awful- don't go into the Icelandic highlands alone, tell people where you're going and when you intend to return, and most of all, go prepared. You always need more clothes than expected here, and climbing on glaciers is not something someone should do unless they're experienced and properly equipped, especially this time of year. Glaciers in the autumn have had all summer to melt and are full of crevices that can be hard to see. The nature here is amazing partly because it's so powerful, but it's not the kind of power that's worth toying with lightly.

The other thing this week made me think of was how incredible Icelanders are in emergency situations. It's a nation that knows how to get on the job swiftly and seems to be quickly innovative when the need arises. During the search, local hotels and associations pitched in with food and accommodation for the tired search parties, and all the rescue team people who weren't sufficiently trained for highland search missions were helping to support in dozens of ways. I've seen this kind of quick and flexible response to other unexpected situations here many times over the years, from volcanoes to floods, and even in the case of the Haitian earthquake, when Icelandic search and rescue teams were among the first to respond.

So thank you to all the searchers, and for anyone who goes out to enjoy Iceland at its best (and sometimes at its worst), please come back safely.

saturday morning

eating my yogurt with bananas and toasted pecans, looking at the promise of today from three windows. To the south, the red berries still cling to the trees in the yard, although the chatter of starlings makes me wonder how long that will last. In the north, the rain-striped skylight looks to lowering clouds huddled over Esja. It's that time of year when Iceland spends more time shrouded in rain than anything else, but when I look to the east, the clouds are punctuated with hints of palest blue. Promise for later. It's been months since I wrote since as always I think it's always the same things that I write, of the purity of the lively air here, the simplicity of the tiny town, the coziness of community rituals.

And yet sometimes I still want to remember a certain moment, often the quiet ones when it's just me, my thoughts, and the Icelandic sky. Today's full of plans for holiday shopping, visiting friends, and delicious new dinner recipes to test, but for now I'll sit here, chin in hand, and watch the bird-ballet in the rowan tree beyond the balcony.

daily poetry

Walking home from a cozy evening with an international group of women, Danish jazz from a colleague in my ears, I just looked northwards and caught the first glimpse of the northern lights this year. The air was still balmy and full of the smell of green, and the breeze stirred it gently across my face as I walked.

It got me to thinking about the strings of moments over the past months where I felt like I was exactly where I wanted to be, where nothing else mattered but being in that place right then. The sunny pause on a rock in the east fjords to listen to the awakening spring with A over Easter, singing Icelandic anthems in the total dark of a dripping cave on Snaefellsnes in June, the summer afternoon trekking through the northern pine forest with J & D.

It's those moments abroad, cycling beside the Pegnitz with S on a humid German Sunday, part of the fabric of activity along the river banks- rhythmic gymnasts, families barbecuing, the shouts of joy from the nearby swimming pool, the conviviality of the cafes by the path. Or, late afternoon at Katama, drowsy from the chill of the Atlantic juxtaposed with the still-warm sun. There's a book that could be read but for that moment all that matters is the sound of the surf, the sand between my toes. It's a long lunch beneath the trees in a Bavarian village, just the right amount of town square activity bustling by, the huge ancient trees above shading the tables coolly. It's meeting a friend's new son for the first time, skipping from air conditioned lobby to air conditioned lobby on a sweltering Boston afternoon. It's the run through the wonders of Regents Park in torrential rain.

I'm not sure where this is all headed, but for now I'm stringing these beaded memories together, a year of change and snapshots I hope I never forget.

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.