Packing for Iceland

Dear Reader:

I know I have long been absent. If you have been here in the past I am surprised by you; that my distance has not created an un-passable abyss. I apologize. I thank you. I will try to be better, as many of us try.

Today I woke up in the US again, back in Somerville.
On Sunday, The 4th of this month, I was here as well, packing.
Things I forgot to pack: cold medication, camera battery charger, a warm hat, gloves.
Things I did not forget: all the camping gear, sweaters and warm socks, a camera with low battery.

And so, Matt and I caught a ride to the airport, checked our bags (19.5kg for the heavier one, perfect) and got in line.  Matt's carry-on getting slowly examined on the side for unknown reasons and we sprinted through Logan and were the last ones onto the flight.

Things we knew to expect: white nights, gravel roads, sheep, hotsprings
Things we did not know to expect: the wind, getting sick, endless volcano fields

And so starts our trip to Iceland

persimmon pudding

Four shots of gin on a Tuesday night. Later he said he doesn’t like it when people act drunk. Too bad.  We parked at a spot and needed three quarters before it became free at eight and I asked people on the street as they passed. The guy who parked behind us had enough for himself and for us too; so simple, tipsy and able to ask strangers time and time again “do you have a quarter? I have two dimes and a nickel”. Walk until we find sushi and tempura and miso soup.

The night before and the night after we go see apartments but I have yet to tell my parents. My mother called and I told my family “I am in Waltham but I can’t come by”. The laundry was too far away in one, the walls too slanted in the other. No rush, we were looking for November, looking for December now. Rain-wet streets and wind and girls not ready to let go of their summer-dress-and-warm-tights combination. 
until next time 


Me and three of my roommates completing a crossword puzzle: we go all out on a Friday night. Alex made persimmon pudding and I helped Raj turn his phone into a walkman for his Halloween costume. Curtis pleased with himself for having gotten: someone who works a lot - a car salesman. Long discussion about housing prices with Adrian. 

This morning is another dreary one, Saturday before Halloween become Halloween, Mama is coming by. I finally picked up a roll of film I shot in the beginning of the summer, so maybe I'll have photos again soon, dear reader.

stapler

I recently started working at a the front desk of a neurology office in Mt. Auburn hospital. I make packets to give to patients when they come in, call them to remind them of appointments coming up in a week, take vitals, call other offices for notes on new patients, scan some papers and fax others, check if insurance is active. I staple things a lot. It's dull but I won't get another concussion. As my former boss and family friend said "they pay you more for easier work, right?" - which is exactly the case. Do the paper shuffle till you drop.

In all this route work, I had this moment of child-like surprise when my stapler ran out. A second later I wanted to laugh out loud at the fact that I somehow expected the stapler to never cease stapling.

It really did feel like being a child: I suppose as you grow older there are fewer genuine surprises in store. I certainly didn't expect my surprise to be sourced in a stapler.

I remembered that in kindergarten we had a project were we had to bring in 100 of something (jelly beans, crayons, stickers...) I, inevitably doing it the night before, panicking in a way that seems almost humorously familiar now, having procrastinated on the project which we were likely given at least a month to do, stapled a piece of cardboard 100 times and brought that in. Not very aesthetically pleasing, but it did the job. It was for the 100th day of school. Now everything is counted in months, years, pages written, books read, places lived. 100 days. How quaint. How kindergarten.


(I had one of those flying dreams last night: put on warm clothes but couldn't track down warm socks for the high autumnal air. Was brought into the air by air sweeping up a kite which was held by a string which held me and carried me up until my arms spread out could hold me, along with magical powers, sand I was swept up by the current for hundreds of miles. Landed somewhere and something like a spy movie, or like His Dark Materials not quite clear. I love flying...)

sticky mango

my mother told me my last post was like this:
"my. mother. says. I. am. not. writing. enough. I am typing. I am not dead"
I burst out laughing.

Humidity had shackled me to my bed, wrapped its heavy arms around me and murmured into my ear until my brain became a homogeneous goop. Heat so close to body temperature my insides merged with the outside. Molasses spilled onto the crevasses: slow thoughts and sticky fingers.

But I try and persevere! Today I met Sar'ka at Haymarket. I bought: blackberries, lemons, radishes, broccoli.
She bought: a box of mangoes, ten count, for four dollars. We went to the water and ate them, slicing the skin with our nails, devouring them with greedy lips, juice running down our arms right to the elbow. Seven mangoes gone as she told me about her semester in India, decadence making our heads spin and bellies yearn in summer heat.

Last weekend on the way to the park I thought about how my past is not my destiny, and by the time I met up with Matt I was almost crying. Kelsey said: yes, those are good thoughts! but also terrifying. He watched as I picked purple wild flowers.

A thunderstorm is coming.

white border

My mother asked me why I haven't been writing lately.
And here's why:
Every attempt in my head of cobbling together words and thoughts about my everyday existence cascades out like a white boarder around an honest black square. The white mundanity simply a frame for everything that needs to be said but I am not yet ready to say; all of my time at the hospital, year and a half, the river that I keep dammed up. Black square white frame, one simply a complement to the other how funny that things can be so simple when there are so many complex horrors in the world. 

But I will try, I will try to take that white border and make it it's own gray world. For no day-to-day is truly banal when taken on its own terms.

This weekend was a long one, fourth of july, fireworks and patriotism. My family usually goes up to the north of Maine to escape it, camping with leeches and moose, mosquitoes and gnats. This time we left too, but not quite so barbarically far away - up to a friends vacation house in Vermont, just us five (both my parents wrote to me: K's house! But they won't be there. Join us?) We walked paths in the woods and I noticed how we always pair up: two people talking and one person wandering in their own thoughts, but switching off. In the morning, my brother - startlingly - in my mother's hat - dutifully washing the dishes. Bickering and wine and hopping on rocks along a river. On the ride back: the sky - a pink so delicate, like sooted paper after a bonfire, print legible, it falls apart at the touch of a finger.

Montréal

I chased the cold up north to Montreal. And it bit, hard, right into my ears and numbing my forehead and placing tears in my eyes. During the coldest night, it dipped down to -28C.

There was snow there and it sounded like rubber cows mooing when stepped on. There was hot chocolate and crepes and wine. There was some street art and underground tunnels too cold to explore properly. There were very few people outside.

After watching steam coming off the water by Old Port, and people ice skate on a rink, Matt lost feeling in his left toe and I left feeling in many more toes so we made our way over to the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.

There was an exhibit there by Ragnar Kjartansson called The Visitors - projector screens, maybe ten of them, set up around a room, each containing a scene. One holds a man with a guitar in a bathtub. Another is a couple in stout bed. A third a pianist in a large room. The porch with people lounging. The man in the bathtub begins to sing, the woman on the harp joins him and it builds. In the end they all stumbled in front of the porch and onto an open field, frolicking as they receded towards the mountains. Viewers walked from screen to screen as focus shifted. Filmed in upstate New York it made me nostalgic for Bard and the landscape there. But Montreal is nice too, Old Montreal was charming in exactly the way it sounds it would be.

I did find some winter there.

The funniest grocery purchase of my life. The most awkward hotel tipping experience. Maybe I'll come back when it's possible to stay outside past sunset.

Burlington

This winter has been weak, so I have tried to travel to track it down.
The first trip was the first week of February; found winter curled up in Vermont.

I stayed with Hannah and Will and got to peak into Adrienne's work life at the co-op.
I walked on a frozen lake. Saw the same vast lake break against the shore and stretch into the mountains at sunset.
I slept in perfect darkness heated by a wood stove, a little cabin on a bed with Sorrel.
I drank hot cider with Luisa.

I wanted to escape the hectic expectations of my own life and stumbled into those of traveling to a place with so many familiar faces. I wish miles apart didn't foster the fear of other types of distance. I wish I could slow down a bit, and sense more of their warmth.

Instead, I kept chasing the cold biting air.