Pacific Palisades

Sometimes the best thing about winter in Iceland. . . is to escape. The screaming wind, the too-dark days, the waist-high snow drifts, we had to flee – all the way to Southern California, to my city of angels.

Ojai photo from Menupix.com

And there, under the gloriously warm sun, I breathed in ocean air, ripe with honeysuckle and lavender. There, I ran on the soft sand, built sand castles with B & M, and skipped along the shoreline of the Pacific. There, I sat on my parent’s back porch amidst my aunts and cousins, eating California cuisine and showering my sister. From there, I escaped to Ojai, my happy place, with my oldest and dearest girlfriends. And from there, Mr. G and I stole away too, to my favorite hotel in the world.

Four Seasons Santa Barbara from hotel website

And too the kids were pampered: a sleep over at Aunt MeMe’s, an early morn dash to the donut store with grandpa, morning snuggling with Nana. We cruised around town in the Prius, from Hollywood to Malibu, lunches, parks, museums, and more beaches. And all the while, from the car seat in the back, we listened to B belt out every word to Regina Spektor’s hit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wigqKfLWjvM

It may have been a song about heartbreak, but it made our hearts swell. This, our warm weather escape, was the perfect antidote to an Iceland winter.

Santa Barbara

Lots of coffee and time with the happy light needed today–it’s back to howling wind and blizzard-like conditions after yesterday’s beautiful sun.

January 12th at noon in Kopavogur, Iceland

First was the smell of the sea and the snow then a sighting of swans on my midday walk in the land of perpetual twilight.

I spent December talking about trolls: the one with the big nose that sniffs doorways, the peeping tom troll, the one with an unusually long tongue that licks empty bowls, or the sly one that steals Skyr (yogurt). Staying in Iceland for Christmas meant accepting all kinds of wild and wacky traditions, including feigning belief in a group of thirteen trolls, also known as the Yule lads.

Door sniffer Yule lad

I knew it was getting weird when M, our 4 year-old, came home from preschool terrified and obsessed with these thirteen trolls. He knew all their names, stories, and the perfect Icelandic pronunciation for each of them. He loved that if he left his shoe in the window for the thirteen evenings proceeding Christmas, he’d get a gift from them (one each night). But he was terrified that his vanilla Skyr would go missing or the door-slamming troll would spook him while he slept. Imagine the look on his face when he spoke about their mother, Gryla, or their cat, both of whom eat children (the mom if kids misbehave, the cat if kids don’t get new clothing).

all 13 yule lads, courtesy of Boyd Stephan

View from a Christmas Market

View returning from a Christmas market

But this was only the beginning. While the skies stayed dark, with only 4-5 hours of daylight each day, the celebrations grew in number and size. There were parties to celebrate the release of the Christmas ale, Christmas markets in every neighborhood, and even scavenger hunts in downtown Reykjavik to find the projected images of these animated trolls. We ice skated, we drank, and we ventured to Christmas museums and the hinterlands to find a Santa that danced around a campfire and sold Christmas trees.

Christmas festivities at the city museum

Christmas Cat animated image downtown

On the 23^rd, we headed to the main street to sniff out the putrefied skate, a holiday delicacy. Wandering among hundreds of people, we lingered under a light snowfall while the smell of ammonia wafted around us. On the 24^th, the family set out for the Blue Lagoon to soak and steam beneath snow, howling wind, and sleet.

Downtown Reykjavik on the 23rd

Headed into the Blue Lagoon, 10am

Blue Lagoon, Christmas Eve

Light snowfall became a Christmas blizzard that soon turned into tremendous explosions. For the New Year, Icelanders go nuts. Everyone lights fireworks: in their front yard, off balconies, over the sea. No license required, no fire department needed, no age requirement—any size explosion is available to you. Between massive bonfires and big bangs we rang in the New Year among friends.

New Years Eve, image from Icelandtravel.is

Exhausted, we slept through the long black morning of New Years Day before we headed to the President’s home for a diplomatic reception. In our finery, Mr. Green and I toasted a last glass of champagne and stared out at the grey blue sky as it, once again, turned to darkness.

Residence for the President of Iceland

I’d been warned and promised of this phenomenon—a life with little daylight. And now, with winter solstice hours away, I am compelled to share it with you. Following is my day in hourly photographs. Breathtakingly beautiful scenery, grey and pink shades of sky, cozy nooks, nature, and lots of darkness. . .

6 AM

7 AM

Main Road into Reykjavik

8 AM

My favorite summer cafe, closed for winter

9 AM

Kopavogur (Reykjavik suburb)

10 AM

new modern neighborhood, still dark out. . .

11 AM

(first real light was about 10:35, this followed shortly after)

DAYBREAK

12 PM– HIGH NOON

Reykjavik as seen from the Alftanes Peninsula

1 PM

Sun at its apex from Hafnafjordur

2 PM

Icebergs on the Sea, swans in the distance

3 PM

Reykjavik from the Pearl (Perlan)

4 PM

Return to darkness --Ducks at the Pond

5 PM

Christmas Lights downtown

Geysir

I bounce: between countries, between days, between states of mind. Write. Travel. Parent. Host. Play. Edit. I don’t know stasis, nor routine. My steady state is lost. There is only movement, change, bounce.

Gullfoss Waterfall

If I was a techie, I’d create a color-coded chart showing all the activity I’ve had since July. 10 cities. 4 countries. Weeks of full-time childcare duty or full-time entertaining of house-guests. After we arrived in Reykjavik and I got both kids enrolled in schools and after-school activities, I sketched out a comprehensive calendar that allowed me 25 hours a week to myself. Then miraculously I added another 3 hours to my schedule. 28 hours! With that kind of time, I really could do it all—grow Ever After Studio, revise the novel, exercise in earnest. But that would be too simple. Flat.

http://algonkianconferences.com/ photo thanks to Kathy Weyer

In mid-October, I said goodbye to our houseguest, a dear friend, and immediately packed my own bags. Three days later, I flew to San Francisco. I met with A, my biz partner, to talk about current and future projects for Ever After Studio, our children’s book production company (www.EverAfterStudio.com).  Then I moved over to Fort Mason for the Algonkian Writer’s Conference. For five days, a small group of writers sat in a workshop and revised our pitches, listened to speakers and lectures, and met with agents. It was an impressive group of novelists with some real talent. I left inspired, invigorated, and with clear marching orders for exactly what I need to do next to revise and then find a home for my novel. Evenings were crammed with conference homework and connecting with old friends: my sister flew up for two nights, I met S’s brand new baby, ate and drank with the BOX (Cal friends), the Obrunis (Univ of Ghana friends), and the Craft (Chronicle friends). I even ran into my high school dean at a friend’s book reading in North Beach. Luckily it was an amusing and productive action-packed week and it wasn’t, as I started to fear, my life flashing before my eyes.

my dad and me on Halloween

On my return to Reykjavik, I said hello then goodbye to Mr. Green, as it was his turn for a week-long conference in the US. He left and my mama arrived, then my dad. Their two-week visit was full of touring: introductions to the schools, the sites around town, places to play with kids, museums and group outings, a handful of Halloween celebrations, a magnificent symphony concert in the new Harpa Concert Hall and failed efforts at spotting the northern lights. I’ve really only seen them once or twice.

reykjavik sunset

As soon as my parents left, we paused for a few days before the Green family headed out en masse to London. Mr. Green had use-it-or-lose-it vacation days and with London only a three-hour flight away, and in the same time zone even, it was hard to pass up. Oh, how I love London. Not just the unbelievable homes we stayed in and old friends we saw, but the charming tree-lined streets, the great shopping, the millions of cultures and languages and people wandering the streets. We saw dinosaurs come to life in the Natural History museum, we rode Captain Hook’s ship in the amazing playground in Kensington, we walked through the enchanted palace exhibit in Kensington and the maze in Hampton Court. We donned costumes in the V&A and rode double decker buses, tubes, trains, taxis, and the Eye. We walked for millions of miles. We toured the Tower of London and bought trinkets at Harrods and handfuls at H&M. We watched penguins and jellyfish at the aquarium and then ate fish and chips and pastries, and Asian and American and African and everything-in-between food—there were treats at every turn.

We returned again to Reykjavik a few days ago. But what about my writing? My 28 hours each week to grow the business, work on the novel? With all the jumping, my schedule was scrapped and work happened in evenings, or in stolen hours, in moments between. But only work for Ever After Studio. Happily, for EAS I’m writing two new stories that have a publisher. And two new projects are in the works. The current projects are also moving along, new designs, new interest, new formats, all very promising. But the novel? That sits in a pile on my desk. Almost near the top. Now and again I open the folder, make a note about next steps, leaf through the conference notebook, read a page and close it. Not today. Soon.

Harrods at night

Hampton Court

We hope to go to California in the new year. We’ve promised the family. But that is months away. For now, we have no travel planned. No visitors. Just my precious schedule and my desire to settle. Slow. To relax and really exist in Reykjavik. And write and edit, and live for moments with only a little bit of a bounce.

Blue Lagoon

With cold air on my neck and a drizzle of rain on my cheeks, I spent the end of September tooling around Reykjavik with a visitor, a dear old friend. One of our first outings, of course, was to the famed Blue Lagoon where we soaked in the hot, steamy water . Bliss.

In town we climbed to the top of the highest church, drank too much delicious coffee, and admired eccentric Iceland.

From atop the church

Mokka Coffee House

knitted trees

Then we headed to the southwest, past the famous Eyjafjallajokul volcano (a name I can finally pronounce!) On the black sand beach of Vik we climbed among the basalt columns and snuck into a gloomy cave while the fierce waves crashed at our feet.

basalt columns at vik

my favorite cave

Turning inland, we drove to our first glacier. As we hiked onto the icy surface, we laughed as we slipped every which way. What kind of a crazy place was this? A glacier!

Glacier!

glacier up close

On our return to Reykjavik, we stopped at two waterfalls. Hiking behind the second fall, we were drenched from the mist and charmed by the ancient turf homes beside it.

behind the falls

Oh Iceland, you are charming in autumn.

First I notice the earth—black boulders and small rough pebbles, volcanoes, a conical mountain, and the enormous expanse of tall, brown barren land that lays slumbering across the bay. In Iceland, the land rises and falls sharply, exposing tectonic plates, deep fissures. Here, unabashed, the continental plates ripple then bunch into piles, disrupting the long panoramic view. A craggy peninsula riddled with lava rocks transforms into a mountain of silt before quickly turning into a bluff full of caves. Mountains grow into obscure shapes, sleek strong cliffs and white snowy glaciers, before falling into fields of tall brown grass that breathe thermal steam. The landscape of Iceland carves a deep impression.

And then there is the sea. Peninsulas, bays, lakes, fjords. From so many vistas, there is the ever-present view of the Atlantic. Some mornings, I stumble out of our house and onto the bike path out front. Stretching for hundreds of miles, the path winds along the noiseless and sinuous peninsulas. Ducks and gulls swim in flocks beside me, gliding seamlessly along the still water or ducking their heads to avoid the windy whitecaps. Last week, two swans floated in front of our home and at the end of my run, a family of geese waddled by over the craggy coastline.

Tucked away in a quiet and peaceful suburb of Reykjavik, our A-framed home is spacious and lovely. Out front, our yard, like many on our block, is a lava rock garden. From certain angles, mostly on tiptoe, there are views of the bay. Our street, like most, is a cul-du-sac, ending with a small path for walkers and bicyclists to cut through, but minimizing traffic. Everything here is clean and well-designed, minimalistic.

In Reykjavik, things get more quirky and interesting. The tiny capital is quaint and hip, full of walk-streets and tiny boutiques selling outrageous modern one-off dresses or artsy knickknacks. There are dozens of coffee shops and bars. Buildings constructed of tin siding with colorful roofs and A-frame houses are tucked between older concrete estates. A large pond full of ducks and swans anchors the city on one end and the famous modern tower of the modernist church stands as a beacon for the entire peninsula. Small gardens offer quiet rests alongside the sometimes busy main street and at the harbor, a brand-new, glass-fronted concert hall, the Harpa, reflects light in opaque and opalescent hues, at times looking like part of the sea, at other times, standing on its own right as a symbol of new growth for the city.

Harpa

Asleep in a stroller outside of a new trendy café a tiny infant stirs. Inside, sipping coffee is his mother, wearing bright purple tights with a green vintage dress and a shockingly bright orange sweater. Set against the textured retro wallpaper of the café the mother looks like she is part of a modern art painting. Many of the locals dress like this, eclectic, curated, and in something wonderfully trendy that echoes of a Scandinavian-like theme. Long draping wraps in brilliant colors and of course, the famous Icelandic sweater, worn with black leggings or multi-colored tights or bold, patterned socks.

Even without brightly colored garb, the tourists are impossible to miss. Having come for outdoor adventures they dress as if they are ready to scale Everest. Strolling along the main avenue, perusing the adorable boutiques or tucking into a nouveau wine bar, these outsiders look outlandish in their bulky hiking boots and head-to-toe North Face gear. Many carry backpacks or fanny-packs filled with what I imagine are camping stoves, tarp, and headlamps. It’s hard not to giggle as they clumsily maneuver through the delicate design stores.

downtown Reykjavik on Culture Night

But my settling into a life in Iceland means more than just walking these gorgeous streets, people watching, or staring at the sea. Despite the number of times I’ve done this, moving is always hard. After the busy bustle of Moscow, adjusting to the silent suburbs means really downshifting, adjusting to a new norm.  Luckily, this first month, I’ve been too busy getting the kids settled into school and extra-curricular activities, to notice the silence and figure out how to exist within it. Both kids are at creative wonderful institutions that seem to have the perfect balance of structure and freedom to develop organically. I’m hoping the picturesque locations inspire their pedagogy. Both children will have to learn Icelandic (M’s school is only in Icelandic.) Located right on the sea, going outside to explore everyday is an integral part of both curriculums. On the second day of kindergarten, B’s entire student body took a field trip to a lava field to pick blueberries. And that simple act seemed to tell me so much about this new home. For this common activity, like so many of the things I’m introduced to in Iceland, at first appears so familiar but quickly reveals itself as kooky, original and particular to this unique place. (Who knew you could find blueberries in a lava field!?)

Adjusting too means dealing with the mundane. It took a few weeks for our car and household things to arrive and for school to start. I was on round-the-clock childcare for three weeks after our arrival. It was particularly hard to unpack and find my way around town when two toddlers were in need of constant attention. On the tails of a five-week home leave without regular childcare, these extra weeks were particularly trying. Spending time with my babes is precious, yet I don’t know how people do this. I’m a much better mama when I have a few hours a day to myself and can focus on writing or my work-projects or exercise and grownup time in a café. Last week, when I finally got M to go alone to preschool, I was totally fed up with cooking and cleaning and playing full-time house-mom. But despite getting the babes into school, there’s still more to do to help M adjust to the all-Icelandic school and turn our house into our real home. And before I can truly dive into my work-projects, I know I have to get us set up. I’ve learned that if I let the unpacking drag on, I never feel truly here. Present.  I’m hoping to get our pictures and shelves hung this week. To get more bookshelves from the embassy warehouse so I can find a place for all the piles of things that tease me from a corner of each room.

Maybe because I loudly voiced my fears on this blog, or maybe just because it is that kind of place, we’ve been welcomed warmly by the community. The embassy team quickly invited us to a handful of events, including a fancy welcome lunch for me (very cool) and I immediately set up play dates and accepted offers to join a book club. Expats abound and I’ve already met some fun ladies that look like they will be great for girl’s night (fingers crossed) and other moms that I look forward to playing with while our kids frolic at our feet.

Hofsos pool

In our first month, we’ve even managed to sight-see. Arriving during the glistening sun of August was a spectacular idea. Reykjavik has never looked more beautiful then it did on Culture Night, the day of the marathon and a major city-wide festival. Under the warm sun we raced with our kids in a fun-run, went to puppet shows, listened to the bands set up on every corner, danced with the old accordion players, and schmoozed with local politicians. The following week, Mr. G had a speaking engagement in the north and so we accompanied him to the emigration museum in Hofsos. Driving across the rugged and wild landscape, we stopped to watch seals in the Vatnses peninsula, we ambled aside the Icelandic horses and sheep grazing on the plane, we climbed on the fishing boats inside the herring museum of Siglufjordur, and then we soaked in the hot pot in a pool steps from the Arctic Circle. Another weekend, we got up early to head out on a whale watching boat in the Reykjavik harbor. Bouncing over the rolling waves, the kids grinned while gannet birds with black-tipped wings dove vertical into the sea and minke whales breached the surface. Yesterday, we took a Sunday drive out toward Keflavik and found a troll house built beside the sea, complete with a loud snoring papier-mâché troll that thrilled and spooked the kids.

Keflavik troll

Today, exactly a month after our arrival, a cold front moved in, sweeping across the bays. Clouds covered the sky, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. To my left they filled with black, full of rain and hovering high over the tall mountain. To my right they shone white, wispy and graceful hanging low over the road. The season is changing. Northern lights will come. Now, only a few blueberries remain, leaving the strong wind to blow alone across the fields of lava.

Zack

From inside the lake house I hear small waves crash against the shore and the soft patter of a light rain. My sister-in-law’s donkey, Zack, is tucked into his stable and on the counter behind me sits an over-sized bucket of blueberries, the result of our morning picking beside Lake Superior. As much as I want to sit back and read, sinking into a new novel and becoming absorbed in a fantastical world, all I can think about is Iceland. We move there tomorrow.

Filled with dread, I start obsessing about the move and about that horrible period upon arrival. My brain works overtime as I craft the worse case scenario:

We arrive late at night and early the next morning Mr. G goes off to work. Awoken before dawn by the toddlers, I’m groggy and jet-lagged. The kids stare at me, wondering how on earth we ended up here. I look around in horror because there we are, in an empty house, save for that awful government issued Drexel Heritage furniture that is supplied to us at every post. It’s cold and rainy outside, we have no car yet, no stroller, and nowhere to be. In a panic, I try to come up with something to do. The kids are hungry. Getting them to the store or to explore the city feels impossible. So we walk around the block in the freezing rain. Then we unpack our suitcases and we wait for Mr. G. to help us explore or to help us exchange currency or to help us take a bus or to help us find a grocery store. I need another adult, another pair of hands, to navigate childcare and a whole new country. And it is only Monday. We have to wait five more days before I get another adult to help me figure it all out. This reduces me to a half-person, lost and waiting for my husband. Suddenly I am nothing but an incompetent trailing spouse. And it takes weeks before we settle into a routine, or find a babysitter or I have a chance to meet someone or even try to do my own work. And then the kids eventually get off to school only to realize that no one speaks English and it sucks when no one can understand you, and you can’t understand them.

Pinecrest Lake @ Lair of the Bear

If I let my mind wander, I can make this nightmare scenario get worse. Luckily I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve had little time to imagine all the horrors of an awful beginning. Punctuated by time spent on the soft sands of southern California and sitting with friends over long meals, we’ve spent the last five weeks racing between families and favorite vacation spots, trying to cram all of “our” America into HOME LEAVE, the time allotted to us between overseas assignments. Like every Foreign Service family I’ve met, after each home leave we too vow that we will never make so many stops again, that we will pick one place and tell everyone to meet us there, that we will not jump between cities and states. And then, of course, two or three years passes and, sure enough, we plan a home leave that has us in six locations in four weeks. But how can I complain.

My new dress from Anthropologie

In Los Angeles, I took almost daily runs along the beach, watching dolphins play in the Pacific and waiting for the moment of each day where the very specific LA glow illuminates the world to an incandescent perfectness. Play dates with old friends had B and M swimming their way through friends’ pools in Santa Monica and jumping from play structures in perfectly coiffed parks, reacquainting themselves with the offspring of my oldest dearies. After so many months of exorbitant Moscow prices and not buying anything, I was swollen with consumerism, splurging on too many new things at Anthropology and Target, Borders and Sephora, boosting the economy in whatever way possible. Family time meant gatherings at my parent’s house and dinners on the beach, seeing cousins and in-laws and everyone in between and then retreating to the Sierras to reconnect with the Lair of the Bear, a family camp that is my special place in the woods. Dozens of treasured old friends and family congregated for a whole week in the tall pines to play with our kids, swim, drink too much beer and even dress in costume for a night of Disco Bingo. Introducing my brood to the magic of the Lair, a place I’ve been going since I was five, had me teary more than once during the week.

downtown in the UP

For only five days we dipped into DC, moving from my parent’s living room to a 5-star hotel. Nana came along to help me take care of the kids while Mr. G worked. We had so little time, but we managed to squeeze in the Natural History museum and visits with a few old friends as we sweat out the 100 degree days, dragging the two babes all over town and stopping to find a fountain or pool to splash in or an ice cream to eat every few hours. And then in a flash we traveled to the Upper Peninsula to visit Mr. G’s family. Five quick days of swimming in Lake Superior, dawdling in the hot copper mining towns and hiking in the woods. This home leave has been busy and blissful. But now that our departure for Iceland is imminent, all I can think about is the move.

So in these last hours of home leave, while I take care of the wee ones in this picturesque place, I force myself to stop imagining the worse case scenario and snap back to a better reality. Yes, the first days and weeks of a new post are hard, but maybe they will be perfect. I decide instead to daydream about being greeted by warm sponsors and other embassy or expat folks who welcome us with open arms. The first week is filled with tours of our new city, which turns out to be hip and euro and arty and fabulous. The weather cooperates and within days we have play dates scheduled, a fridge full of familiar foods, a really cool neighbor that seems like she could be my new best friend, I’ve found a trendy gym with yoga and spin classes and a gorgeous spa, and a new babysitter that the kids like right away. Oh and I feel safe here and there’s a writing group and a book group and, oh yeah, my husband is thrilled about his new job. This scenario sits much better.

photo of Iceland by Sarah Edmond from Reuters

On one of our eight airplane rides during this home leave, I read two articles. The first was the New Yorker’s article about Astana, Kazakhstan’s new capital. The second was Michael Lewis’s Vanity Fair article from 2009 about Iceland. When I finished both articles, I thought: 1. My life is so insane and 2. Thank god we are going to Iceland (for readers of the blog you may remember that Astana was at the top of our bid list).  And really, I think Reykjavik will be a terrific post. So for now I’m going to enjoy the last bit of family time in the UP, try to spot another bald eagle (saw one this morning) and day dream about our idyllic Icelandic life that starts tomorrow.