Sitting by a lake in Reykjavik 9/08/22
Its been a few days since i wrote here. On the 4th, The day after my last entry, Ian fell into a boiling pool of sulfuric mud.
He had second-degree burns on both his legs from the ankle to the knee. The 12 hours after this incident were a level of chaos and stress ive never experienced before.
I am still processing it. Unsure exactly where to begin or end with it. Ian is staying at the hospital until our flight. Ive been on my own in Reykjavik for the last few days… today is my last night here.
The whole experience and reality of being here on my own seems so… foreign to me. No pun intended. Its the idea of me wandering the city streets of this new country on my own, washing clothes, buying groceries, taking care of myself in this context is so out of the ordinary.
It is an amazing, exciting, lonely and truly contemplative experience. This isnt a dangerous country so i a able to keep my guard down more than i am used to, but i still find my defense on high when it shouldn't be.
The people are very kind and helpful. Their medical care, social aptitude and structure feels more advanced than ours. I still find my American survival instincts kicking in. Yet in the eyes of locals I dont see prejudice the way i do in the eyes of my own neighbors.
And so in that space i get a glimpse on what it is to be a person without all the identities and intersections that make me the “other” of my own home. To be just another body floating through the mountainous peaks and valleys of another land.
Many of the people here are aryan. Like pure blue-eyed blonde-haired pale skin aryan. Somehow in a room of people looking nothing like me here i still manage fo let my guard mostly down. I am even acknowledged with smiles and hellos. Its confusing to my American brain.
I came to write in here because despite the trauma and injury at the back end of the trip i didnt want it to overshadow all the beautiful moments ian and i had.
I saw clouds form in front of my eyes on a mountain peak. High winds from the sea lifted water up into the sky as waves crashed at the base of the ridge. The clouds would begin to materialize right above our heads, seemingly and literally out of thin air. And then as the heavy winds pushed them west they grew larger and larger until they would fold over the other end of the peninsula like bedroom blankets in the early morning.
We climbed mountains, saw the edge of the earth, blasted by Guðlegur winds, lived off gas station groceries, drank straight from waterfalls, ran with sheep, pet horses, bathed in geothermal pools and nearly drove around the whole country.
The ending curve and burn of the trip put the rest of it into a more astounding perspective on the fragility of learning as living and living as learning. You get burned in the wilderness of that process…
10/23/22
Nearly two months later…
Just returned from spreading grandpas ashes in arizona.
Feels like its been awhile since iceland. Not too long but, long enough to reflect on it well enough.
I think that the sense of loneliness i experinced in my last few days in Reykavik hasnt shaken off in the months since. As if i had ingested something while i was there and i am still waiting for my body to flush it out.
Were those few days on my own really all that critical? Am i blowing my loneliness out of proportion? Was this feeling already there and my experience in reykjavik only tuned into it?
Its not as if my short batch of air bnb hoping life there was ultimately loathsome, terrible or bad. In a sense i was doing things how i always wanted. Exploring a completely foreign city with all my belongings on me, washing my own clothes, buying my own groceries, cooking all my meals. Things i had yet to fully do at home. In some ways through misfortune there was a conduit to travel candidly.
Though there was something there, some unimaginable melancholia i had not distinguished before in other shades and indigos.
A gift of loneliness from Iceland to me.
What i will do with it i dont know.
Despite this ive actually felt more focused, present, and fulfilled since my return for the most part. A sense of stillness with all things unchangeable and tangible around me. The gifts of love and distance
Onto the next notebook to take me through the next journey.
Aftermath, the carry on.
Unraveling and tangled up.