Iceland, Redux.

There is still something to utterly indescribable about Iceland.

Something tied to beauty and nature and power- and sparsity.

This is the second time that I've traveled to Iceland; the second time that I've spend many quiet moments staring out windows and absorbing, thinking, feeling- but somehow not really processing.  It is the same exact phenomenon I experienced the first time I was here:

I watched, I witnessed, but I couldn't testify.  I can't testify.

The thing about Iceland is that until you've been, until you've driven through the empty, achingly foreign countryside, or walked on a glacier or under a waterfall, or sat noticing your feeling of diminishment in the face of such wonder... it's just another stop.

A cool one, pardon the pun, but ultimately just another small island in a big world.  And on my word, it is so much more than that.

These words.

Or these.

If you don't trust my current word, trust those words of a vibrant, ancient, wild 28 year old, running through a vibrant, ancient, wild place.  I spent much longer in Iceland when I was last there, but it's no less flooring and absorbing when you only have a weekend.  It is more frenetic, a frantic pace set by frantic people looking to do as much as humanly possible.  But still no less profound.  If anything, the brief visitor feels Iceland with an intensity unknown to the slower, more careful traveler.

What I take away from Iceland, all the time, over time, is the almost unbearable bittersweetness of a land that has is so different, unique unto itself.  The bitter tang of frigid cold mixed with the sweet mythology of history.  It's the landscape of time and magic.

Time and magic.

Minor Super Heroes.

When I first dated my ex, I spent a lot of time with his friends.  This was an interesting collection of personalities.  I tended to gravitate toward his male friends rather than the female ones- for probably obvious reasons.  Girl's are hard work.  Boys are easy.  

Anyway, one day overheard a conversation had by the lot of them.  (Also the boys had more interesting, and slightly more entertaining conversations). The topic of this particular one was: major and minor superpowers.  The basic rule is that 'major superpowers' were the big things- flight, teleportation, controlling the weather; 'minor superpowers', on the other hand, are silly small things- being able to open a refrigerator and get anything you want to eat, etc.  If you could have one of each, what would it be?

That absurd discussion/debate/show of one-up-manship has stayed with me- one of the stranger lasting legacies of that relationship.  

So this past weekend, in Dublin, imagine my surprise when a bartender told me that my innate sense of direction (albeit, terribly challenged for some reason this trip) was basically the 'worst superpower ever.'  (His words, not mine).  I had a giggle about it, went back to chit chatting with my friends, and then proceeded to get us slightly lost later that day.  (Hang on, though... I knew exactly where I was going, I just couldn't find the right alley to get us to the right pub.)

But I kept on considering the bartender's accusation of 'worst superpower' throughout the day.  And I started to consider all the little things that we do that are actually 'minor superpowers.'  Despite my getting lost once or twice (I blame the pints), I do think that my ability to navigate spaces and places relatively foreign to me is something special.  Superpower, I think not, but certainly an asset to my lifestyle.  

For minor superpowers, I have two that make the cut every time.  One might get me killed one day, but with minor power comes minor danger.  The first is my ability to move through crowds.  I do it seamlessly (*brushes shoulder off*), and much to the chagrin of my companions, uniquely.  I can get around, ahead of, and through a mass of people like a... like a... okay well I don't know a good metaphor to complete the image but you get the point.  I move through crowds like a crowd ninja.  Minor Superpower 1. 

My second minor superpower is that I never run a fever.  I'm not kidding.  The last fever I ever ran was when I was 16, in high school, with a delightful simultaneous case of the stomach flu and strep throat.  Since then I've had mono... without a fever.  I've had sinus infections... without fevers.  I've had bronchitis... with a temperature of 93F.  That means I had bronchitis at the same time as being hypothermic.  Now, as above mentioned, this might ultimately lead to my eternal demise in that many of the illnesses who have a hallmark trait of high fever will not present in me... with a high fever.  They might present with a 98.4 degree body temp- which is technically feverish for me- but won't be identifiable specifically by super high fever.  Minor Superpower 2.  (Could also count as freak body trait). 

Here's the point.  Everyone should be having this absurd conversation.  Everyone should discuss how their own odd traits are, actually, minor superpowers.  

Because the more confident we all are in our minor superpowers, the more likely we all are to act on them, to act like minor superheroes.  And god knows we need some superheroes these days.  Minor or major.  

The When and Where of It All.

Lately I've been ruminating on being basically an imprint.  Not exactly a lasting effect, but an impression.  I've also been thinking about the past; about what it means to be a ghost.

I've done it before, you see.  I've been a ghost in my own life. I've been forgotten, forgiven, lost.  I've been the one hidden against the wall, the one carefully tucked into herself, the one contrived.  The one who hides behind an armor forged of intellect, sarcasm, and bravado.

Ultimately, I'm the one who pretends.

And it's been hard, here, to not retreat.  I'm struggling.  I have been struggling.

I can't pull the happy out, I can't pretend.  I can't fake it, I can't triumph, I can't make believe that I am at all.  Here, I can't find it in me to be a person I'm not.  Some days, I can barely find it in me to be a person that I am...  I find that I tip-toe around openness and dance around honesty.  I descend into the person that I once was in favor of the person that I could be.

It's like being back in high school... but worse.

Because I'm old enough now, and wise enough, to know that it's all on me.

It is no secret that I've had my fair share of struggles over time.  But time 'is always time and place is always and only place'... it goes on, naturally.  My great fear in life is to not live, to not be engaged in the time and place when and where I am; it is a fear that constantly sneaks up on me, rattles me, jolts me into aggression.  It's circling me now, this fear, this panic that I'm sitting way too many out.  That I'm fading.

And so of course, I retreat to the page, to the letters and language that make the most sense to me.  I retreat to the comfort of a clean white background, and a bristling black cursor.

So much for when and where.