My grandfather called me in the afternoon when it first began, Varstu nokkuð hrædd? Were you afraid? Ha? Ó, nei nei… Huh? Oh, no… This spring semester, I have been taking my online courses alone in my house in Iceland, a peaceful study spot near the ocean. I live in a tiny town called Njárðvík,
TagNature
Monet’s Summer
I stand before a summer day. Softer, warmer, brighter than the day I’m in. Monet’s vertical canvas, the object of my looking, dissolves, and I am left in space itself. Nature can be this for the mind, a tabula rasa. Hm… I’m not frightened by the vastness, the entrance is not a jolt or a
Knead & Other Selections
Knead… the earth with rain, and let it fain the glaring lips of the sun. Knead the earth. Pour your mortar among molded bricks and molten sand. Knead the earth, and erect your dwellings high. For like the shrub pierces the womb and sprouts from the face of Mother, you, too, shall wreak ruin. Reign
Memories on the Train
On the train I move at birdish speeds. I see buildings blur into living embers, points stretched into foreign conversation and foreign frames and the infinity of presence upon my sight. And the train too is looking, spawns a second set of eyes, mirrors me in its glass. My doppelgänger in the window glides in
The Last Forest
Except for the light breeze everything is different from all she had ever known. The temperature, the humidity, that she cannot see the horizon, the colors and the way the light dances over the ground. She has never smelled anything like this before, but it is not unpleasant. It comes closest to a combination of heavy wet mud and the youngest grasses. Behind her she could still have seen the familiar blue sky, green water and yellow sand through the trees, in case she had looked back.
Windows
A window is a frame for seeing beyond the container of one’s physical and immediate space. It is a peephole that propels the gaze outward. Through it, without really moving, you can confront the same two trees, always there and ever-changing, appreciate the paces of birds and bicycles, recognize time in warmth and photons. The window is uniquely suited for daydreaming as it literally displays another place you could be, without requiring the action that would allow for a physical transference, as a door does…
Empathritis
Naomi did not want a man: she wanted a child for herself, a child raised in the city – running around in the dark alleys and playing in the lush courtyards of her own childhood, munching on sweet, warm challah from the baker on the corner and living on the fifth story…
Pankow: Symphony of the Great Suburb
“Are we still in Berlin?” My wide-eyed, black-clad friend, Neuköllner to the bone, certainly feels out of place on Am Iderfenngraben. On her face, I read: What is this land that the M1 tram drops people off at, where cashiers speak German and only German, Altbauten lack a fifth floor, and stickers on lamp posts