Cities: Pieces of Time Caught
The aurora over Gullkistan in Laugarvatn, Iceland.
By Jennifer Christgau-Aquino
(published in Panorama)
We cross the arctic as it tips toward 6 a.m. There are two colours: Shell and shadow.
Daylight lands in steps of light. Onyx, galaxy, radio, valiant, mediterranean, plum, pale pink, marigold, baby, faded blanket. I note the edges of earth and the arch of her.
It’s not nearly as dark as I think in winter. Or as cold in Iceland, which is the ccolourof crystal sticking on my tongue.
When day turns inside out at 3:30, the houses broadcast brilliant snowflakes, many-layered likenesses of arctic snow.
*****
The night wakes me. Birds tell the time, their call alarming on barren limbs, snowy sidewalks, pockets of sulfur that pass through me like ghosts.
Everything climbs to the surface here.
Through simple streets, dads tug sled trains of children in bubble gum, daffodil, celery snowsuits.
Canoes of ice face the mostly frozen lake shore. In the shallows, the water peeks around a floating ice rink. Rows of ducks bob. I think of meringue in creme anglaise as the sky waffles.
*****
Online, all eyes flip on a fissure line drawn past craters, pointed at the tiny town of Grindavik, slipping between the airport and sea.
In the distance of every newscast, bulldozers push meters of rock to protect, blinking hazard and yearning. The news outlets whisper about the town, until it feels like a dead person. I don’t see a soul from there interviewed. I wonder if it’s too hard to talk when another mouth swallows your life.
A crevasse steals a worker trying to repair a road. They drop down drones to find him, but discover dark water instead.
A Facebook page erupts in war. People want a once-in-a-lifetime. Posts inquire about hikes to lava, the distance to lava, what time does the lava open. When the fissure stops spewing suddenly, the colour of comments reminds me of tonsils.
The ground continues to swell.
*****
On a bus to the Golden Circle, the driver, Inga, has a raging head cold. She skates a coachliner through Thingvellir Park to Gulfoss Falls pointing to the summer homes giving space to Grindavik.
A man says Iceland is no Ibiza. He smokes at stops and films footage from the window. A group of kids overpower Inga with Imagine Dragons, and YouTube stunts. It’s a blur.
The day is the skin of a rhino. Inga coughs and says Iceland needs a break.
*****
At night, I hold my curtains wide open and look up.
A flat-topped mountain, speckled in thin snow, is somewhere out there. This is a place where it’s hard to divide the land from the sky.
My Northern Lights app reports solar flares, geomagnetic substorms, storms in recovery, solar winds and coronal holes. It’s all beyond me.
A solar storm will reach the gap in the mountain at 21:36. I can’t sleep.
I drag my blanket to the kitchen door and hang outside in socks. The sky is Medieval, an arc of arrows, quivers in shades of green. Peter Pan, Demeter, Harlequin. They braid, bank to the east, combine.
The spaces in between are the most interesting. There, the night deepens. I attempt photography, but I’m missing minutes trying to fight the cold in my hands. I wonder how many steps it takes to walk into the Milky Way and then further. I guess four.
*****
On the verge, we travel to an ice tunnel. Most of the year it’s a high half-pipe. But in winter, it’s cold enough to form a bridge between the edges. A man gets down on his knee with a cardinal box and proposes to a girl.
The glacier is a suspended volcano of bird’s egg blue, crow, Tiffany, porpoise, graphite, clarity. And again. Inside the ice it’s bubbles and ashes, pieces of time caught.
I stand at the entrance to the cave while someone takes my photo.
But the colour is not right.
My phone makes
it all seem
simple.
