Made in Reykjavik: Floodgates

It is weird that people associate spring with rebirth and new beginnings. I guess it isn't that weird, as spring is a time of new buds and fresh growth and baby animals and all that, but at least my impression in Iceland is that each season is the beginning of something new. From the grey and rainy Pacific Northwest, where there are essentially two seasons (rainy and AWESOME!) I am still awestruck and exhilarated when I start to notice the subtle differences that come with life at 60-something degrees North. The light and dark is the most drastic change (it's basically always cold) but the explosions of color in the spring and summer are a deep contrast to the stark barrenness and chill of winter here. Fall has always felt like a time for new beginnings for me, probably because of life on an academic calendar. I think of going back to school, starting a new journey, the opening of a new opportunity. Today feels like that somehow. It's rejuvenating.

Weather is so closely tied to the Icelandic psyche. It is the single most common way to open a conversation with a loved one or a stranger. It's no surprise, really, in a country that throws bizarre and unbelievable weather events at you, that part of the enduring cultural makeup of the people who have been fool-hearty and stubborn enough to survive here for so many centuries is profound shared connection through climate. It used to be in the olden days that our very survival was literally at the whims of the wind. I am sure that every person who has lived here during the winter (foreigners and Icelanders alike) have at one time thought to themselves, "Why the fuck did the Vikings STAY here?!" Weather could determine if you ate, or if you froze. In particularly aggressive winds, I thank fate that I am not a fisherman, rocking and rolling over high dark and terrifying seas not knowing if I would ever reach land or not. And I thank fate that I live here in a time in history in which there is more than wool, the body heat of livestock living indoors, and burning peat to keep me warm.

I was granted Icelandic citizenship on July 4th, takk fyrir. Mostly this makes me happy that I will be able to vote in national elections where I have my work, home, and my kids go to school. I will be able to participate in society and have a voice on this issues I care about. And, also, I am ecstatic that I will never have to talk with anyone from the fecking Directorate of fecking Immigration ever a-fecking-gain! Well, not for me at least. Maybe for work. It's not their fault they are absolutely horrible. I would probably be a sour nasty spiteful person if I had that job, too. Bless their hearts. So, I am Icelandic now. I can avoid making eye contact with people I know when we run into one another in public so that we won't be forced to have an awkward conversation when neither one of us has anything to say to one another. It's ok. I don't see you either. I can stock up on black pants and tops and coats and dresses...all clothing, actually. I can die my eyebrows and get a fake tan and insert an almost-too-loud-and-nasal, "Ha?" after every point I make. Ha. Nah. I love them, my new fellow countrymen. They are often way too serious, though. And it's true about the avoiding eye contact thing. Nobody here knows how to handle friendly smiley American. They must all think I am on drugs or something.

Anyways. Floodgates. In my effort to blog more, because I feel I really do have quite a lot to say. It shouldn't be all that hard to sit down every once in a while and bang out a blog post. If only for posterity, so that when I am old and confused, the internet will have a sliver of information about what life was like so many years ago. What was going on in my messed-up-over-cluttered mind. Why not.

And now for pictures of the two most adorable children on the planet.