Last week, we were given the assignment of finding an hour to sit outdoors and have time to reflect and ponder on the experiences we’ve had here so far and what we’ve learned. As I walked out the door of our house at around 7:30 pm the evening before our reflective writing was due, I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t perhaps choose to go out on the day where the snow was melted. Iceland was living up to its name that evening, and didn’t show signs of stopping.
While walking up a hill the windblown icy snow stung my eyes and they watered, tears rolling all across my face. With snow blown across the landscape, the normally clear path I intended to take became more of a suggestion, and soon I had found myself trudging through mostly shin-deep drifts.. As I was walking by the church, a particularly heavy gust blew my hood down and my hat off my head. I cursed some curses that I shouldn’t repeat on a blog that represents a larger entity as I collected it and kept walking.
Before long I reached a section of pine trees and their welcoming respite from the gusty wind. There was a pair of carved wooden totems, around waist height. They appeared to be carved with troll faces, whose gap-toothed smiles raised my spirits a little. I scooped the snow away from the base of one and sat down. The trees around me swayed but the wind wasn’t harsh, and the snow fell softly on my jacket. Looking out, I saw wind continue to whip the flakes violently in the lights outside of the church across the valley.
While I was sitting out there I thought a lot about my attitude toward my situation in life, where I’m headed, and where the world is headed. Often, it felt like life was whipping icy snow in my face. As effectively as I’ve been able to ignore it, pessimism has been a somewhat large part of my outlook on life and has made it difficult for me to look about the worlds passionately. Sometimes it feels as if I come to even expect the bad news in the good news, which makes getting excited about things seem less worthwhile. But my time spent at Sólheimar could be like this totem and stand of trees: a place in which those winds aren’t blowing quite as hard, and where I can find better peace and invigoration through the new people and environment I am surrounded with, while better understanding the world outside of it. And with all of that, it made the time that I have left to spend here seem sweeter.
Bless bless,
T. Jones