Cirrus-ly Soaking
No what-might-have-beens, no second guessing your itinerary, no comparing this trip to another one. The weather, while still warm by November standards, had turned a bit windy, so I spent most of the afternoon in the hotpots at Vesturbæjarlaug swimming complex. There were a lot of people there with Airwaves armbands, and even a couple of performers (Hi, Pale Moon!) Lolling in the shallow oval hot-pot, laying back with my head on its rim, I gazed at the wispy clouds floating high above me. Allowing my brain to stop, just being one with them, was a moment I will long remember.
I spent a long time in conversation with Lárus Halldór Grimsson, a Icelandic music veteran who had been in the prog-rock band Eik in the seventies. He was full of stories; hanging out with David Bowie, writing music for plays, and had even portraying a young Halldór Laxness in a television production! Lárus seemed to know everybody in Iceland, and was full of arcane references, but I think I surprised him when he mentioned Baggalútur and I said that I not only knew of them that I had seen them perform and I even had one of their CDs. I spoke of the Ákadóttir twins of Pascal Pinon and he knows their father well. We also spoke of the late, great Jóhann Jóhannsson whom he knew back in Jóhann’s days in Ham, which brought out my story about seeing Ham perform the previous night. From Ham and Johann it was just a slight turn in the conversation to Hildur Guðnadóttir, the Academy Award-winning composer. He had given her a stuffed Pink panther doll when she was a small child!
Speaking of children, a young man with a boy came into our pot, the man explained that the boy was autistic, and liked to take water-bottles! I moved my $8 medical-grade water bottle away as the scamp cavorted around the pool as we talked. The man wasn’t his father, he was just a friend of the family (and not even an Icelander!) and had some free time so he took the boy to the pool to give his parents a little time off. No big deal, it takes a village to raise a child. I managed to give the boy a side-eye wink that he caught and answered with a shy smile.
After the pool, I sauntered back to the apartment. It was a bittersweet trip; by this time tomorrow I would be in the Keflavík airport, waiting to return home. Along the way back I took lots of pictures, I know from previous trips that I will revisit them as a way to make the trip come alive again. Some people say that taking pictures doesn’t allow a person to fully experience the moment, but I would disagree. When I take pictures I pause and reflect on my surroundings and take the time to absorb details and vistas that would otherwise be lost.
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