LETTERS HOME
A PUBLIC SPACE, ISSUE 6
BRIGHT: how I'd describe the sky over Reykjavik at 11: 36 PM.
LINDARGATA: name of the street I live. (Names of streets I am glad not to live on: Skolavodstugur, Gnodarvogur, Braedraborgarstigur).
BUGS: not indigenous. Meaning: 1. permission to eat cookies in bed. 2. leniency on trash removal; 3. no Charlotte, no web.
BRIGHT AND PINK: how I'd describe the sky at 12:30, when I brush my teeth, look out at the sky, and wonder if Mother Nature will now fly by on a broomstick.
"THE VIKING PLATTER": Fermented shark, dried herring, pickled cod, blood sausage. Never a good sign when you're sampling local fare and a local takes out a camera phone.
PRICE OF VIKING DINNER/NAUSEA: $91
FJORD: a word heard constantly in Iceland. A word, when heard that constantly, warrants a glance in the dictionary. Fjord: a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes.
FJORDY: Iceland's coastline.
BJORK: sponsor/singer of a free concert last weekend, attended by roughly one tenth of the country.
BRIGHT AND WHITE: the light that fools me out of bed, daily, at 4 a.m.
STYLE: leggings, aviator sunglasses, scarves, leather boots, earrings infrequently, eye-shadow in gobs, capes.
PHONE BOOK: listed by first names.
WHY: The surname here is only a father's tag. For example, Molly Kinder Drewsdottir (Drew's daughter). Bush = Georg Georgsson.
RECOMMENDED READING: the phone book. Particularly if you are looking, say, for Americans living in Iceland. Amid columns of Injibjorgs/Gudmundurs, a Frank leaps right out.
FRANK: a 96-year-old American living in Iceland. Though when he boarded his military ship in 1941, Frank was told only the code name of his destination : "Blue Indigo."
BLUE INDIGO: A color I could more easily fall asleep under.
NYQUIL: What I distinctly remember purchasing at the CVS on Park Avenue and 28th.
NYQUIL: What I can find nowhere in my luggage.
"BED IN SUMMER": the Robert Luis Stevenson poem I committed to memory in the third grade, and have been waiting almost twenty years to use.
NYQUIL: What I recently dreamed about swallowing--two emerald-green tablets, without water.
MEANING OF NYQUIL DREAM: I fell asleep.