LOGBOOK, ENTRY 2
SUMMER 2022
SUMMER 2022
field notes from elsewhere
The bus stopped where pavement gave way to gravel and dirt. The driver offered no words, nor could we have answered if he had. Our destination was a retrofitted shed in Mosfellsbær. The kind of space made and remade with care. Amenities included a concerning number of spiders, a fold-out bed, an IKEA hotplate, and the most compact shower we'd ever seen.
The sun never set. It only tilted.
I was turning 30. It was the first birthday I spent somewhere that wasn’t hot. We bought skyr, dark bread, and boxed coffee at Bónus—the supermarket with the pig mascot that grins like it knows something. Maybe it does. The graffiti by the local school certainly seemed to. A round skeleton in a blue jacket was scrawled across the concrete wall: wide-eyed, smirking. Yes, it was Sans. From Undertale. Maybe he’s still there.
A day in Reykjavík wasn’t enough. We walked among glass cases and whispered stories, half-heard and still alive. The rest of our week was spent outside. We hiked and rode horses for hours along wet rock, muscles aching. The land didn’t yield easily. It wasn’t made to. The moss does not bloom for beauty. It grows because it must. We drank from water that had pushed its way through cooled fire. We stood in silence before a glacier as it wept into its own reflection.
You do not conquer this world. You meet it where it stands.
And still, I felt held. Not by comfort, but by recognition. It reminded me of home. Another edge of the Atlantic, shaped by salt and severity. Where the wind is more bone than breeze. Where hollow beaches erode into the ocean as seals watch from the rocks. The water there is just as cold, just as clear. Maybe that’s why I trust it. Warm waters lie.
Nature is not here to welcome us. It doesn’t care if we understand. But if you listen, truly listen, you might remember something that was never yours to forget.